Fantastic The Beatles Facts

The Beatles formed in Liverpool in 1960, and their most famous lineup consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Their music is rooted in skiffle, 1950s popular music influenced by folk, jazz, and blues music. It also appropriated several genres, including pop ballads and psychedelic rock

In 2004, Rolling Stone crowned the Beatles as the best artists of all time

Some researchers note that several songs by the Beatles may help children with autism and other disabilities. Specifically, they cite the songs “Here Comes the Sun,” “Octopus’ Garden,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Hello Goodbye,” “Blackbird,” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“Yesterday” by the Beatles has been covered over 1,600 times. It has been covered by Elvis, Boyz II Men, Frank Sinatra, Gladys Knight, and James Brown, among many others. The group’s original title for this song was actually “Scrambled Eggs.”

The Beatles have spent a record 1,278 weeks on the Billboard chart

The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player.

 

Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership, and as the band’s success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison’s opportunities as a lead vocalist.

 

Among the food and drink mentioned in Beatles’ songs are eggs, onion, cornflakes, honey, coffee, marshmallows, cherry, truffles, ginger, pineapple, honey, octopus, turkey, marmalade, coconut fudge, tangerine, strawberries, mustard and pies. But there are no ‘scrambled eggs’, Paul’s original working title as he was composing, ‘Yesterday’.

 

The Beatles received fifteen Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

George Martin played keyboards on almost every Beatles album.

The Beatles’ first-ever album to debut at number one was Help!

The Beatles’ longest single, at 7 minutes and 15 seconds, is “Hey Jude.” It was also their first to be issued on the Apple label.

The Beatles have been awarded 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, and 15 Ivor Novello Awards

The Beatles have appeared in five movies: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let it Be.

 

During the week of April 4, 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top 5. No one has ever beaten this record

John Lennon started a band in 1957 called the Quarry Men and later asked Paul McCartney to join. Paul brought in George Harrison, and later Ringo Starr would replace Peter Best as drummer. The band changed its name a few times, which included the names Johnny and the Moondogs, The Rainbows, and British Everly Brothers.

The Beatles song “Dear Prudence” was written for Mia Farrow’s sister, Prudence Farrow. John Lennon thought she spent too much time meditating and encouraged her through the song to “come out and play

From Me To You is the shortest Beatles single clocking in at one minute and 57 seconds.

Eric Clapton plays lead guitar on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. George and Eric first met in December 1964 during the Beatles’ Christmas Show in London on which the Yardbirds, including Clapton, also appeared.

All The Beatles were scared of flying, especially George Harrison.

 

The Beatles are the most famous group in music history, and Elvis Presley is the most famous solo singer

John Lennon loved cats. He had 10 while living in Weybridge with first wife Cynthia. His mum once had a cat called Elvis, because she was a big Presley fan.

 John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman in December 1980 while returning to his New York home with his wife, Yoko Ono.
 

The last time that all four Beatles recorded together was 20th of August 1969 where they finished ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy’).

 

As of 2012, the Beatles have sold over 2 billion albums.

The Beatles album with the longest consecutive time spent at number one is their debut album Please Please Me at 30 weeks

Julia” was the only Beatles song John Lennon performed without assistance from the other band members. “Blackbird” was the only song sung alone by Paul when he was part of the Beatles

Countries in which the Beatles have had the most No.1s include Australia, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Canada and Norway.

John Lennon said that the song “Good Morning, Good Morning” was inspired by a cornflake advertisement.

Starr, Harrisson and Lennon left school with no qualifications (although John wangled his way into art school), while a relatively swotty Paul scooped five O levels and one A level.

 

An off-the-cuff remark by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was the inspiration of the album title song “A Hard Day’s Night.” Both the single and the album held the top position in their respective charts for a couple weeks in August 1964 on both sides of the Atlantic, which was the first time any artist had done this._[

The first time the term “Beatlemania” appeared in print was in a 1963 review by theDaily Mirror.

The Beatles wanted to star in a film version of The Lord of the Rings and wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct it.

The most photographed subject of the 1960s was the Beatles

At one point, Ringo seriously considered emigrating to Texas to become a country musician.
 

As of 2013, the Beatles hold the record for the most number one hits on the Hot 100 charts.

The Beatles’ last single, “The Long and Winding Road,” was released on June 13, 1970, in the U.S. but not in Britain. It was the group’s twentieth and last number one song in the U.S. It ended six years of Beatle domination in America that had started with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.

Before writing ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, George Harrison randomly picked a book on a shelf, opened it and read the first word he saw. The word was ‘gently’.
 

Lennon and McCartney met on 6 July, 1957 at a Saturday evening fete in St Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool, where 16-year-old Lennon¹s group, The Quarrymen, were playing.
 

The most played track at The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ press launch was Procul Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Lennon was obsessed by it, and played the song non-stop on his white Rolls Royce’s record player all the way to the party.
 

After the Beatles broke up, Eric Clapton was one of the few musicians who appeared on solo recordings by each of the four

The Imperial Wizard of the Klan denounced the Beatles as atheistic, and members of the KKK picketed Beatles concerts during their 1966 U.S. tour._[

The last time McCartney and Lennon ever jammed together was at a bit of a boozy studio session, playing with Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson. A bootleg, ‘A Toot And A Snore’, appeared in 1974.
 

A burst appendix and a bout of pleurisy kept Ringo in hospital for three years as a child.
 

The Beatles are the only band to twice knock itself off the top of the chart

The Beatles are the only band in history to have a “double whammy” when they knocked the Rolling Stones off the top spot in both the singles and album charts on July 23, 1964

The Beatles’ first single in 1962 was “Love Me Do.” In 2012, the song became Public Domain in Europe.

After a 2008 topiary tribute to the Beatles was unveiled in Liverpool, Ringo’s leafy head was cut off after he said he missed nothing about his hometown

When Bob Dylan first heard ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, he decided The Beatles must be groovy drug-inspired folk and mistook the line ‘I can’t hide’ for ‘I get high’.
 

Lennon once wrote a Dylan parody called ‘Stuck Inside Of Lexicon With The Roget’s Thesaurus Blues’.
 

The Beatles’ last live performance was in 1966 at Candlestick Park, San Francisco

The only George Harrison song to be played live by the Beatles was “If I Needed Someone,” which they played on their 1966 tour

The first Beatle to become a grandfather was Ringo, with the birth of his granddaughter Tatia Jayne in 1985

The very first British rock album to have lyrics to every song printed on the album was the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

John Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono after marrying Yoko Ono in 1969

The last album recorded by the Beatles was Abbey Road. The last album released was Let It Be

In 1968, the Beatles began studying with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his Himalayan retreat. They would later grow disillusioned after accusations of sexual improprieties by the Maharishi, an avowed celibate.

According to gossiping tabloids, Brian Wilson was so knocked out when McCartney played him ‘A Day In The Life’, the Beach Boy decided to “retire and live in a sauna bath”.
 

The closest the Beatles came to reuniting after their 1970 split was at Eric Clapton’s wedding when he married Patti Boyd in 1979. McCartney, Harrison, and Starr played, but Lennon did not attend.

None of the Beatles could read music. They could play the guitar, piano, and drums and write lyrics, but they never learned to read music.

Frank Sinatra described the Beatles song “Something” as the greatest love song ever written.

In “Hey Jude,” Paul McCartney can be faintly heard saying “Oh f***ing hell” after he made a mistake during the recording of the song

John Lennon said the only true songs he ever wrote were “Help!” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.” He says they were the only songs he wrote from experience and not by projecting himself into a situation and “writing a nice little story about it

George Harrison’s song “Blue Jay Way” has led to the repeated theft of that street sign in Los Angeles. The song was written at a house on Blue Jay Way in the Hollywood Hills

John Lennon was dyslexic and legally blind

After George Harrison mentioned during an interview that he liked Jelly Babies, fans began to throw the sweets at the Beatles on stage.

The Beatles had seven consecutive number one hit albums, just behind Abba and Led Zeppelin, who each had eight

At the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” John Lennon appears to mumble something that sounds like “ I buried Paul,” which fueled a “Paul is Dead” rumor. He is actually saying “cranberry sauce.

The Beatles once bought a private island in Greece with the hopes of living there together, away from screaming fans. They later sold the island when they were breaking up

Charles Manson claimed that there were hidden meanings in the Beatles hit “Helter Skelter.” He believed the group was imparting a secret message heralding Armageddon.

A 16-year-old Harrison failed to convince his family to emigrate to Canada, Australia or Malta.
 

Flying” and “Dig It” are the only two album tracks to be credited to all four Beatles.

John Lennon was murdered in December 1980, and George Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still alive and musically active

The term ‘Beatlemania’ was invented by Canadian hack Sandy Gardiner, first appearing in the Ottawa Journal, November 1963, to describe “a new disease” sweeping the globe.
 

The Beatles share the record for the most consecutive Christmas Number Ones with the Spice Girls: three.
 

John, Paul and George were all, spookily enough, 5ft 11in tall; Ringo was the shortarse of the group, at 5ft 8in.
 

The statue of Eleanor Rigby sitting on a bench in Liverpool’s Stanley Street was made by ’60s singer Tommy Steele.
 

Ringo wrote the 1969 song ‘Octopus’s Garden’ after taking a boat trip on holiday in Sardinia. The boat’s captain told him about how octopuses collect shiny objects from the seabed to build gardens. He declined to eat the octopus lunch offered.
 

The Beatles as a group were active from 1960 to 1970. Paul McCartney publicly acknowledged their breakup in a 1969 interview. He later released a press release on April 10, 1970

The first British performance of the Beatles as a group was on December 17, 1960, at the Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool.

When Paul McCartney was asked why the Beatles broke up, he said, “Personal differences, business differences, musical differences—but most of all, because I have a better time with my family.”

A Hard Day’s Night’ was so called after Ringo wittily moaned that was a ‘hard day’s night’ after a knackering day’s filming on 19 March, 1964.
 

Looking back in 1980, Lennon decided ‘Help!’ was an actual cry for help from the depths of what he referred to as his ‘fat Elvis’ period (dysfunctional marriage, lonely in his suburban mansion).
 

Eric Clapton was the man George was waiting for at a garden one morning when he started writing ‘Here Comes The Sun’.
 

Before performing in Japan, the Beatles received an anonymous message: “Do not go to Tokyo. Your life is in danger”. 35,000 police officers were tasked to protect the group. The Japanese audience was so polite and quiet, they were able to hear how bad their live performance really was.

The Beatles literally stopped touring because their music could not be amplified loud enough to compete with screaming crowd noise, even with custom, purpose-built amplifiers.

Jimi Hendrix covered “Sgt. Pepper” in front of The Beatles only 2 days after it was released.

The popular “Paul is dead” rumours first appeared after he had a moped accident on 9 November, 1966. It was luridly reported, with some claiming he’d been decapitated. Actually he’d merely cut his lip (he then grew a moustache to cover the scar).

There is a small town in Australia which has a decommissioned submarine on display in a park, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ visit to the country, community members knitted yellow wool squares to cover the entire submarine.

The cartoon version of McCartney on 1968’s ‘Yellow Submarine’ is voiced by actor Geoffrey Hughes ­ Eddie Yeats from ‘Corrie’/Twiggy off ‘The Royle Family’.
 

Most “takes” on a Beatles song.
The Beatles were known as perfectionists in the studio, often recording dozens of takes on a specific song. The Beatle song with the most attempted takes was actually never released by the Beatles.

John Lennon never said “Ringo isn’t the best drummer in the world. He isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles”. It was uttered by British comedian Jasper Carrott in 1983, three years after Lennon’s death.

“Something” by the Beatles and “Layla” by Eric Clapton are both about the same woman.

Paul McCartney intended “Let It Be” as an Aretha Franklin song. She took so long to release it that The Beatles recorded it themselves.

 The Canadian rock band Rush stands third after the Beatles and Rolling Stones for the most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums by a rock band.

“Across the Universe”, by The Beatles, is the first song aliens will hear (it was beamed into deep space by NASA).

The Beatles trip to India ended badly because the Maharishi wanted the band to deposit up to 25% of their next album’s profits in his Swiss bank account as a tithe, to which Lennon replied, “Over my dead body”

The biggest crowds ever to welcome the Beatles were in Australia. But Ringo wasn’t there.
When the Beatles arrived in Australia in June of 1964, they were welcomed by a frenzied crowd of 300,000 people, who lined the streets as the Beatles drove past them and waved. Ringo, however, was stuck in the hospital, sick with tonsillitis, and was replaced by a stand-in drummer named Jimmie Nicol. 

In 1968, the Beatles formed Apple Corps Ltd (informally known as Apple). In 1981, a lawsuit was settled with Apple Computer with the payment of $80,000 to Apple Corps. As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business.

Michael Jackson purchased the publishing rights to The Beatles song catalog for $47.5 million, against the advice of his counsel. 30 years later it was resold to Sony for $750 million, nearly a 1500% increase in value

When the Beatles recorded “Hey Jude” Ringo was on the toilet and came back just in time to play the drums on the song.

Due to the popularity of the Beatles song, “Penny Lane” street signs in Liverpool were so often stolen, local authorities got tired of replacing them and began painting the street’s name onto the sides of buildings.

The Beatles asked Stanley Kubrick to direct Lord of the Rings film starring George Harrison as Gandalf, Paul McCartney as Frodo, Ringo Starr as Sam, and John Lennon as Gollum but J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn’t let them do it.

Beatle’s George Harrison survived a brutal stabbing when his wife fended off an intruder with a fireplace poker and lamp. Harrison suffered a punctured lung and over 40 stab wounds.

Mad Men paid $250,000 for the master recording of “Tomorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles, played for just two minutes during a season 5 episode.

The Beatles were considering to name their 1969 album Everest and even flying to the Himalayas to shoot the cover photo. Instead, they named it Abbey Road and shot the cover photo in front of the studio

The only time Elvis and the Beatles met, they were so star struck that Elvis threatened to go to bed unless one of the band members spoke to him.

Emma Stone celebrated her mom being 2 years cancer free in 2010 by writing a letter to Paul McCartney asking him to sketch two birds’ feet because The Beatles’ song “Blackbird” was her mother’s favorite. Paul sketched the birds which Emma and her mom took and used to get matching wrist tattoos.

The Beatles have sold more records than Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Nirvana, the Beach Boys and Kanye West combined by over 30 million units.

Carl Sagan, an astronomer working on the Voyager project in the 1970s, had wanted to include the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” on the Voyager Golden Records to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. While the Beatles favored the idea, their recording company, EMI refused to release the rights, and it was not included.

• Cher’s first single, released under the name of Bonnie Jo Mason, was Ringo, I Love You; it was produced by Phil Spector. Ella Fitzgerald also recorded Ringo Beat the same year she covered Can’t Buy Me Love.

Legend has it George Martin signed The Beatles for Parlophone apparently without hearing them, because he was so impressed by their humour.
 

The Beatles had to dodge jelly beans thrown at them on stage because fans heard George Harrison liked them

Before changing the lyrics in Yesterday by The Beatles, they were originally “scrambled eggs, oh baby how I love your legs, but not as much as I love scrambled eggs.”

• Ringo Starr orginally wanted to be a hairdresser.
   

Strawberry Fields was a real place – it was ­ a children’s home run by the Salvation Army in Liverpool. It’s since been demolished.
 

The band played their last ever live performance on a grey lunchtime, 30 January, 1969, in a 42-minute set atop the Apple HQ, Savile Row, central London. Ringo dourly observed: “London’s garment district finally got to see The Beatles’ last concert.”