{"id":1133,"date":"2009-09-08T12:41:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T17:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/2009\/09\/08\/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beatles\/"},"modified":"2009-09-08T12:41:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-08T17:41:59","slug":"20-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beatles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/08\/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beatles\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Things You Didn’t Know About the Beatles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Subhajit Banerjee<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

1.<\/strong> Impossible as it may sound there are still Beatles<\/a><\/strong> songs unreleased – the most notable ones being Carnival of Light<\/i> (an experimental piece recorded on 5 January 1967 for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave) and a 27-minute jam of Helter Skelter<\/i>. A John Lennon composition the three surviving Beatles worked on in the early ’90s prior to the Anthology<\/i> release called Grow Old with Me<\/i> also remains unreleased. <\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> The Beatles (or at least half of it) sang for the Rolling Stones: Lennon and Paul McCartney provided backing vocals to the 1967 single We Love You<\/i>. <\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Besides writing hundreds of songs for the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney also wrote dozens of songs for other artistes such as From A Window<\/i> (Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas), One and One Is Two<\/i> (The Strangers with Mike Shannon), Step Inside Love<\/i> and It’s For You<\/i> (Cilla Black), Come and Get It<\/i> (Badfinger) and Woman<\/i> (Peter and Gordon). <\/p>\n

4.<\/strong> The Beatles’ third studio album A Hard Day’s Night<\/i> is the only one to exclusively contain Lennon-McCartney compositions. <\/p>\n

5.<\/strong> Paul is not McCartney’s first name, James is. Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono after marrying Yoko Ono in 1969. <\/p>\n

6.<\/strong> At the end of Strawberry Fields Forever<\/i>, Lennon is heard mumbling what sounds like "I buried Paul", which helped fuel the ‘Paul is Dead’ rumours. He’s actually saying "cranberry sauce". <\/p>\n

7.<\/strong> The only Beatles single to ever feature another musician on the credit is Get Back<\/i>\/Don’t Let Me Down<\/i> (credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston). Preston, recruited by George Harrison to ease the growing tensions in the band, played the Hammond organ on both songs. <\/p>\n

8.<\/strong> Two days after Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i> released, Jimi Hendrix opened his set at London’s Saville Theatre with the title track, something McCartney considers his "single biggest tribute". <\/p>\n

9.<\/strong> The final version of Strawberry Fields Forever<\/i> was created combining two takes of the song in two different keys and speeds – a remarkable achievement considering the equipment and technology of the time – but still failed to fully satisfy Lennon. <\/p>\n

10.<\/strong> The only Beatles track to be credited to Lennon and Harrison is an early instrumental called Cry for a Shadow<\/i> recorded in 1961 when the band was backing Tony Sheridan. Flying<\/i> and Dig It<\/i> are the only two tracks to be credited to all four Beatles. <\/p>\n

11.<\/strong> The BBC banned several Beatles songs – I Am the Walrus<\/i> (for the use of the word ‘knickers’) and Fixing a Hole<\/i>, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds<\/i> and A Day in the Life<\/i> (all for alleged drug reference). <\/p>\n

12.<\/strong> The working title for the film Help!<\/i> was Eight Arms to Hold You.<\/i><\/p>\n

13.<\/strong> For the Sgt Pepper<\/i> album cover, cutouts of Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ were requested by Lennon, but ultimately they were left out, though a cutout of Hitler was made for use. <\/p>\n

14.<\/strong> Ringo Starr was the first to actually leave the group, walking out in 1968 during the acrimonious White Album sessions. As a result, the remaining Beatles all took turns on the drums for some of the tracks. When Starr finally returned he found his drum kit covered in flowers. <\/p>\n

15.<\/strong> The closest the Beatles came to reuniting was at Eric Clapton’s wedding to Patti Boyd in 1979, where McCartney, Harrison and Starr played. Lennon did not attend. <\/p>\n

16.<\/strong> The last time Lennon and McCartney played together was at the Los Angeles Hit Factory studio in 1974. The abysmal (and possibly drug-fuelled) session, which also featured Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson, was of such bad quality that the bootleg recording was released as A Toot And A Snore In 74.<\/i><\/p>\n

17.<\/strong> Lennon and McCartney each recorded demos called India<\/i> which remain unreleased. Each of them also recorded a version of Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame<\/i> for their rock and roll albums (called Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/i> and ????? ? ????<\/i> respectively). <\/p>\n

18.<\/strong> The first song ever written by Lennon was called Hello Little Girl<\/i>. McCartney’s first was I Lost My Little Girl.<\/i><\/p>\n

19.<\/strong> Lennon was charged with plagiarism by Chuck Berry’s publisher over Come Together<\/i> which resembled Berry’s 1956 song You Can’t Catch Me<\/i>. The case was settled out of court. George Harrison faced and lost a similar lawsuit over his solo hit My Sweet Lord<\/i> which resembled the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine<\/i>. <\/p>\n

20.<\/strong> Lennon’s number 9 connection: Lennon was born on 9 October 1940, his son Sean was also born 9 October, 1975. He wrote the songs #9 Dream<\/i> (part of Lennon’s ninth solo album Walls and Bridges<\/i> which was released in the ninth month of 1974 and peaked at number 9 in the US charts) and with the Beatles – One After 909<\/i> and Revolution 9<\/i>. He lived in apartment number 72 on 72nd Street in New York and was killed in the evening of December 8 when it was already early morning of December 9 in his birthplace of Liverpool. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Subhajit Banerjee 1. Impossible as it may sound there are still Beatles songs unreleased – the most notable ones being Carnival of Light (an experimental piece recorded on 5 January 1967 for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave) and a 27-minute jam of Helter Skelter. A John Lennon composition the three surviving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}