Favorite Fab Four Facts

Beatles facts and ancedotes from Rockument's Beatles history, by Tony Bove

Paul McCartney on iTunes

Ringo Starr on iTunes

As a boy, John Lennon had to choose between mom and dad

This heartbreaking story has been repeated in various biographies and books about the Beatles. John's father, Alfred "Freddy" Lennon, worked as a seaman and was not home in the first five years of his life. When he came back, he took 5-year-old John with him on a short holiday, and then wouldn't return him to his home in Liverpool (in an area known as Merseyside). When his mother, Julia, came to get John, Freddy asked John if he wanted to sail away to seek his fortune with his father. Of course John said yes. Fighting back tears, Julia said goodbye and left John with Freddy. In a few minutes it dawned on John that Julia was leaving forever, and he raced out of the holiday cottage and ran down the street to catch his mother! He stayed for a while with Julia, but eventually Julia left him with her sister Mimi and her husband George, who raised him. John lived with Aunt Mimi until his late teens, when he went off to Hamburg with the other Beatles.

Paul knows "20 Flight Rock" and shows John how to tune a guitar

When Paul McCartney first met John, John was the leader of the Quarrymen on one of his first gigs. The Quarrymen were a skiffle group, inspired by skiffle tunes such as "Rock Island Line" by Lonnie Donnegan (see Lonnie Donnegan: King of Skiffle). Paul met John after the gig and showed him how to tune his guitar, then played Eddie Cochran's "20 Flight Rock" flawlessly (see Eddie Cochran: Eddie Cochran - Greatest Hits or Paul McCartney: CHOBA B CCCP (Back in the USSR)). This impressed John. For a while John agonized over whether to ask someone so much more musically competent than he was to join his band, but realized eventually that the band itself mattered more. John and Paul would eventually form one of the most famous songwriting partnerships in popular music, and become the most influential composers in rock and roll.

Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe, Astrid's haircuts, and the Hamburg gigs

The Beatles hired Pete Best as their first drummer because they were leaving for Hamburg the next morning and needed a drummer for the gig. But Pete Best never did fit in, really. He was always the "quiet one" and when the Beatles started changing haircuts and styles, Best remained the same. They eventually dropped Best for Ringo Starr, the drummer with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (another Liverpool band), before starting to record as the Beatles. The Hamburg experience also brought the three original Beatles together with Tony Sheridan for a studio session, covering songs such as "Ain't She Sweet" and "My Bonnie" (which became the group's first hit in Liverpool). Also during the Hamburg gigs, the bass player was Stu Sutcliffe, John's friend from art school, who's first love was painting. Sutcliffe never learned how to play the bass properly, and he eventually dropped out to stay in Hamburg with Astrid, the avant garde German photographer who first styled the Beatles' haircuts into the infamous moptops. Sutcliffe was literally the first moptop -- the first to use the hairstyle in the band. The story of Sutcliffe and his untimely death due to a brain hemmorhage is the subject of the movie Backbeat.

For some music from that period, check out Beatles/Tony Sheridan: In the Beginning.

How they got the name "Beatles"

So how did they get the name? An article that appeared in Mersey Beat and penned by John from July of 1961 might help to clear it up:

BEING A SHORT DIVERSION ON THE DUBIOUS ORIGINS OF BEATLES Translated from the John Lennon

Excerpt: "Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision -- a man appeared in a flaming pie and said unto them 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'. Thank you, Mister Man, they said, thanking him."

Brian Epstein, NEMS, and the Cavern Club

Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles, wrote in his autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise, that he was attracted to the Beatles' physical stage presence as well as to their talent. Brian was gay, but most certainly in the closet. A lot of undue attention has been given to the notion that John Lennon may have had a fling with him. Brian was certainly very close to his boys, but the Beatles books are very clear on the point that he kept his private life private, even from the individual Beatles. Brian overdosed on sleeping pills and died while the Beatles were attending a seminar with the Maharaji Mahesh Yogi. The books say he was despondent over the Beatles' decision to quit touring, as it left him little to do. Brian's death rocked the Beatles so severely that the group never fully recovered.

Performance for the Queen, John's "rattle your jewelry" remark

On November 4, 1963, the Beatles played in front of the Queen at the Royal Command Variety Performance. The scene is immortalized in the Anthology video (The Beatles Anthology Collector's Set). Before playing their final number, John asked the audience for their help in the next number, and said, with a hesitant smirk: "The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands... and if the rest of you would just rattle your jewelry." The camera pans to the Queen, who seems confused more than anything. The Beatles then launched into the raucous "Shout!". You can hear it on the Anthology CDs.

Bob Dylan turns Beatles on to pot for the first time

This event with Bob Dylan is supposed to have occurred sometime during the Beatles' 1964 tour of America in a hotel room in New York City, although I have read reports of it occuring during Bob Dylan's 1966 tour in a hotel room in London! I believe this story from The Blacklisted Journalist, who tells of the 1964 meeting, because the Beatles were already smoking pot in large quantities during the filming of Help! (1965).

Apparently Dylan and his entourage wound up in the Beatles suite at the whatever hotel, and they decided to hang out for a while, and they put towels against the doors and pulled down the shades, and Bob rolled some joints and they all smoked them. Bob had thought they already knew about pot, because, he said, "don't you guys sing 'I get high, I get high, I get high' in that song?" John replied, sheepishly, "That was 'I can't hide'." (The song? " I Want To Hold Your Hand".)

Help! British humor in Beatle films

"I thought she was a sandwich, till she went spare on me hand": Ringo explains to John. What did he mean by that? If you want to know what jam butties are, or what "dead grotty" means, check out British humor and Britishisms in Beatles films to find the meaning of some of the jokes in the Help and Hard Day's Night films.

Smoking pot in the Queen's bathroom

This event, which occurred while the Beatles were receiving their MBEs from the Queen, appears in many Beatles unauthorized biographies. The Beatles were asked the question, did you really nip into the bathroom at Buckingham Palace to share a joint? in the Anthology documentary. George Harrison commented that it wasn't true, that they were just sharing a normal cigarette because they were trying to get away from the crowds and they were nervous. It was something they always did back then -- nip into the bathroom and share ciggies.

Ringo had a different answer: "I don't remember, I was too stoned at the time."

The "Butcher Cover" and its real meaning

From the interview with Bob Whitaker, photographer: The "butcher" photo was configured as part of a tripartite photo arrangement, suggested by John Lennon and photographed by Bob Whitaker, illustrating several surrealistic images of the Fabs... The Beatles used the "butcher" photo to illustrate an advertising campaign for the single release of "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" in England, though it's unclear how the photo was meant to sell the fine points of the song...

Capitol Records planned to issue an LP called "Yesterday...and Today"... For its cover, EMI sent (at whose request no one knows) the photo now known as the butcher cover... Those receiving advance copies were surprised and aghast, suggesting that someone at Capitol had lost their sense of propriety, and Capitol recalled the LPs. To save the sleeves that had already been printed, Capitol substituted a photo of the Beatles sitting and standing around an open packing trunk, which was pasted over existing butcher covers.

John's "We're more popular than Jesus" apology

Do you remember when Beatle records were thrown into bonfires across the Bible Belt? John had been quoted out of context in a British magazine interview.

"We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary..."

His apology was widely televised and has been enshrined in the Anthology documentary.

What is interesting is what he said afterwards: "I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done."

Did "Yesterday" really start as "Scrambled Eggs"?

Of course it did. We wouldn't make up stuff like this, we couldn't! Paul started the most well-known and covered song in the Beatles canon with these lyrics and changed them later. "Scrambled eggs, Oh you've got such lovely legs!" The song startled pop fans at the time because it featured a string quartet with Paul as the only Beatle at the session.

Here's Paul performing "Yesterday" acoustically in the middle of a Beatles set.

Here's a live version of "Yesterday" by the Beatles in Tokyo.

The dentist who turned them on to LSD

Open wide... All the Beatle books talk about this event, when John and Cynthia, and George and Patti, visited a dentist friend who slipped LSD into their coffee without their knowledge. They wandered off to the clubs of London and had a great time. This occurred in the Spring of 1965, before they released Rubber Soul. The effect of the psychedelic experience would not be obvious in their music until Revolver [UK], specifically "Tomorrow Never Knows" (the first song recorded for that album), and would of course bear fruit in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, considered to be the epitome of acid rock.

John wanders off, stoned, to the unprotected rooftop of Abbey Road

One evening John wasn't feeling too good. George Martin, producer and "fifth Beatle" advised him to go up on the roof to get some fresh air. When George heard, he ran up to the roof, because he knew John was high on LSD. Paul also ran up to the roof, where they found John near the edge, looking at the stars. There was no railing! Paul talked to him for a while, and they agreed to go back to Paul's house (a short walk from Abbey Road), where Paul decided to join John on his trip. It was Paul's first trip.

Is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" about LSD?

This notion is finally laid to rest. John's lyrics for this song are based on his son Julian's drawing he made for school, which he had titled "Lucy in the sky, with diamonds." There is no mention of what John was on when he wrote it.

Was George the first to use the sitar in pop music?

How did George come to learn the sitar? He wasn't the first to use it in pop music -- that honor goes to the Yardbirds first (who may have heard a Kinks song, "See My Friends" which has a droning, Indian style, but with Western guitars), and to Brian Jones, who used it in the Rolling Stone's "Paint It, Black" and other songs. But George went to India in 1966 to learn at the feet of one of the greatest sitar masters, Ravi Shanker (see Monterey Pop and Woodstock for Shankar performances). Note -- this was after he already used the instrument on "Norwegian Wood". And unlike the other pop and rock stars, George was serious enough about his Indian experiment to produce an album of Indian music, which turned out to be the true first "solo" record by a Beatle, and one of the first Apple labeled releases: Wonderwall Music.

Paul is dead? clues

OK, you all want to know if Paul was dead, and what the clues were. Paul may have been dead musically, according to some, but he was (and still is) very much alive. Here is one place with all the clues, indicating that Paul is indeed still dead. Check out this pictorial essay on the subject. While I have heard John sing "I bury Paul" during the drum ending of "Strawberry Fields" (actually "Cranberry sauce" if you listen to the Anthology version, followed by "Calm down, Ringo"), and I've been thrilled by playing "Revolution #9" in reverse to hear "Turn me on, dead man," one of my favorite visual clues is from the back cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, where George's thumb is pointing to the lyrics "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock," the time of Paul's death.

Magical Mystery Tour anecdotes

How true is it that "I am a Walrus" lyrics were written by John while high on acid? Where did those lyrics come from, anyway? What about the King Lear stuff? Who was the "serviceable villain" and is he dead? And what about that Blue Jay Way? Is there really a street in Los Angeles by that name, and was George waiting for someone (Derek Taylor)? These songs are from Magical Mystery Tour.

Paul and George visit Haight-Ashbury

In April 1967, Paul McCartney was visiting California and his first stop was Los Angeles, where he helped Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys' Santa Monica studio by contributing some "chomping-sound" vocals on the song "Vegetables" for the ill-fated Smile album. (At that time, and still today, Paul considers Brian's "God Only Knows" to be the best pop song of all time.) Paul then borrowed Frank Sinatra's Lear jet to visit the Jefferson Airplane in San Francisco. A few months later, George Harrison flew in to check out the suddenly famous Haight-Ashbury.

Did John have a gay experience?

Thanks to a really inaccurate, badly written book about John, Beatlemaniacs continue to refute this myth, even though it really doesn't matter one way or another. It is based on the idea that John and Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager (and a closet gay), had an affair when they went on holiday in Spain. We won't mention the book.

What about all those backward-playing sounds?

Yes, the Beatles did some of these on purpose. For these and other sonic anomalies in Beatles recordings, check out Beatles Anomalies in Song. You can try this at home if you have a backwards-playing turntable or a digital sound editing system.

"John Lennon at Cow Palace" used by permission from Lisa Law. Copyright © 1995 Lisa Law (to contact her by email: pachamama@cybermesa.com). (Image appeared in Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties! CD-ROM by Rockument.)