Flash forward two years later, 1963, when the Beatles were recording their second album With the Beatles. As with Please Please Me, the group chose a mixture of original compositions and selections from their live repertoire for the track lineup. Paul McCartney claimed in a 1984 interview that the Beatles were attracted to “Please Mister…
All four Beatles have a solo in “The End”, including a Ringo drum solo. Ringo disliked solos; he preferred to cater drumwork to whoever sang in a particular performance. The take in which he performed the solo originally had guitar and tambourine accompaniment, but other instruments were muted during mixing giving the effect of a…
“She Said She Said” stands as a classic example of the Beatles’ musical and lyrical experimentation.The idea for the track originates from an Aug. 24, 1965 party which occurred during the Beatles’ U.S. tour. Held at the Beatles’ rented house in Los Angeles, the party saw the group hosting such luminaries as Roger McGuinn, David…
While not a folk song on its face, “I’m Looking Through You” possesses some folk-rock qualities beyond the acoustic guitar. As Richie Unterberger writes in Jingle Jangle Morning: Folk Rock in the 1960s, the track remains “as thoroughbred folk-rock as anything recorded by anyone in 1965.” The lyrics may have been partially inspired by “I…
On February 23, 1964, the Beatles were picked up from a river launch to be taken to Teddington Studios for an appearance on the ABC show, “Big Night Out” in a 1912 Rolls Royce. 16-year-old Susan Sims, wearing a jacket with the words “I Love George” and other signs celebrating the Beatles’ return from America,…
Great American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal overdub experiments, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds. A tenor with a 3+1⁄2 octave range, Nilsson was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists to achieve significant…
John’s romantic insecurities are beginning to become a recurring theme in his lyrics as of mid 1964, as evidenced in “I’ll Cry Instead” and “If I Fell.” These insecurities remained evident in his work throughout the Beatle years, sometimes in a less descriptive way as in “Don’t Let Me Down” and “I Want You (She’s…
On March 25, 1969, John Lennon and his new wife Yoko Ono moved into the suite at the Hilton in Amsterdam to start what would become known as the “Bed-in”, a peace protest, in which the couple received journalists from 9 am to 9 pm to spread their message of peace to the world –…
OTD in ‘64, the Beatles walked down the Champs-Élysées with members of the British press before their evening show at Cyrano Theatre. Beatles publicist Derek Taylor explained that this was to supply the London dailies with the “ohh, là, là’ their readers were presumed to expect from Frenchness.”“However, the French were withdrawn in their response….
Working on the “Get Back” sessions (later changed to “Let it Be”) at Studio Two of EMI Studios in London, three of the Beatles (Paul, George, and Ringo as John was vacationing in Denmark) recorded 16 takes of the George Harrison song “I Me Mine.”Three months later, on April 1st, Phil Spector’s controversial orchestral overdubs…