Beatles Anecdotes

This comes from page 296 of Chet Flippo’s 1988 unauthorized biography:

“And Abbey Road, which was recorded over the course of the last Beatle summer, the summer of 1969, remains in many ways the purest expression of Beatles music. John didn’t much like it, mainly because it was really Paul’s album. John would later dismiss it as “folk songs for grannies”. His own contributions, however, were minimal compared to Paul’s. John was more interested in the work he was doing with Yoko. Paul, though, poured his heart into it and turned side two, most of which he wrote, into an elegant little pop symphony, each exquisite song flowing into the next jewel-like song with no break in between: “Here Comes the Sun” (which George wrote on a brilliant sunny afternoon in Eric Clapton’s garden, the same Eric Clapton to whom George was best friend and “husband-in-law”), “Because” (another of John’s songs about Yoko), “You Never Give Me Your Money” (Paul’s lament about Allen Klein and the situation at Apple), John’s “Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard” (by John and left over from the White Album sessions), “Polythene Pam” (also by John and written in India, it is about a Liverpool “scrubber”), “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” (by Paul, about an Apple Scruff who got into his house via that method), “Golden Slumbers” (by Paul, inspired by a traditional song of the same name), and Paul finishes the album with his songs “Carry That Weight”, “The End” and “Her Majesty”. The album went immediately to number one on the British charts and sold four million copies in the first two months it was out.

“Paul McCartney” has never had a post-Beatles solo number one hit in the U.S. However, Paul McCartney has had nine number one hits in the U.S. The difference is that none of these nine chart-toppers have been released solely under the name “Paul McCartney”. Take a look for yourself………

1. “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” was credited to Paul & Linda McCartney

2. “My Love” was credited to Paul McCartney & Wings

3. “Band On The Run” was also Paul McCartney & Wings

4. “Listen To What The Man Said” was credited simply to Wings

5. “Silly Love Songs” was credited to Wings

6. “With a Little Luck” was also Wings

7. “Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)” was credited to Paul McCartney & Wings

8. “Ebony & Ivory” was credited to “Paul McCartney (with Stevie Wonder)”

9. “Say Say Say” was credited to Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson

I guess this proves that Paul gets by with a little help from his friends?

I vividly remember in the summer of 1982 when MTV first came to my hometown. One song that was in heavy rotation on MTV at that time was the video of McCartney’s “Take It Away”. It came during a time when the video revolution had not quite yet erupted to change the worldwide music scene.

Paul was apparently working on the song at the time of the news of John Lennon’s murder in December 1980, and ended up putting the song on the shelf for a year.

The song reached # 10 on the charts in in the U.S. in August 1982.

The song still remains my favorite (and guilty pleasure) post-Beatle effort by Paul. George Martin produced the album Tug of War and played piano on “Take It Away”, while Ringo pounded the skins; both appear in the video. Take a look……….

As is well known, many songs during the Beatle years mentioned the Fab Four. However, I only can think of one song that mentions an ex-Beatle. “Garden Party” , a 1972 hit by Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band, mentions John Lennon, though not by name.

Rick Nelson was still riding high to some degree in 1964 when Beatlemania robbed him and other top American artists of the limelight. Prior to 1965, Nelson had 34 Top 40 hits, including two number one hits and fifteen additional top ten hits. “Ricky” Nelson used his fame from his family’s weekly television series, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”, as a springboard to a career as a rock performer, beginning in 1957.

“Garden Party” was written about a famous concert at Madison Square Garden on 15 October 1971, which featured top artists from the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. In addition to Nelson, other artists included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Bobby Rydell. Nelson looked much different, sporting long hair, bell-bottoms and a purple velvet shirt.

Nelson sang a few of his old hit songs, such as “Hello Mary Lou” and “Traveling Man”, but when he began to sing the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman”, the crowd booed. Nelson immediately left the stage and did not return, not even to take his final bow. This scenario is immortalized in the song with the lyric “When I sang a song about a honky-tonk, it was time to leave.”

In the song, Nelson mentions some of the notable people who were at the concert, such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He sang, “Yoko brought her walrus/There was magic in the air”.

“Garden Party” reached number six in 1972 and was Nelson’s last song in the Top 40. Ironically, the same week that Nelson’s song peaked on the charts, two other artists from the 1950’s dominated the chart’s top positions and prevented “Garden Party” from going higher. Chuck Berry scored his first number one hit of his career with “My Ding-a-Ling”, while Elvis Presley held the number two position on the charts with “Burning Love”. “Garden Party” was the only hit record Nelson had that he wrote himself as all of his previous hits had been written by other people.

Nelson’s bass player at the infamous 1971 concert was Tim Cetera, the younger brother of Peter Cetera, the bassist/vocalist of the band Chicago. By all accounts, Tim Cetera was a great bass player but he never was able to achieve anything even close to the level of success of his famous older brother. Tim Cetera was not the original bass player in Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band Band, however. Cetera replaced original bassist Randy Meisner, who within a couple of years would achieve international fame as a founding member and bassist/vocalist for The Eagles. In fact, Randy Meisner and Rick Nelson remained good friends, to the point that before The Eagles had a record contract, Nelson allowed the newly formed band to practice in his garage. Mesiner really liked Rick Nelson’s house and a couple of years later, after The Eagles became wildly successful, Nelson put his house on the market and Meisner purchased it.

On New Year’s Eve 1985, Nelson tragically died in a plane crash, along with six band members, while on a tour of the U.S.

Years ago when I used to listen to a cassette tape of a “bootleg” of the Decca sessions, “The Sheik of Araby” was one of my favorite songs on those audition tapes. Naturally, I was glad that the song was included on Anthology 1 in 1995.

Before 1995, though, I went back to read my favorite novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, after not having read it for many years. I was shocked to read that Fitzgerald included lyrics from the song in his famed novel. This sparked my curiosity in the song.

The novel was published in 1925, but set in the summer of 1922 both on Long Island and in New York City. On page 78 of the novel, Fizgerald wrote, “The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of the little girls, already gathered like critics on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:

I’m the Sheik of Araby
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you’re asleep
Into your tent I’ll creep”

The song was composed in 1921 by Harry Smith, Francis Wheeler and Ted Snyder. It was written to capitalize on the furor created by Rudolph Valentino’s role in the hit movie The Sheik.

The song became a jazz favorite as well as a staple of pop culture of that time period. While it became a New Orleans jazz standard, “Araby” did not refer to the small town of Arabi, Louisiana, but rather the Arabian Peninsula.

The song has been recorded by countless artists. It was part of The Beatles’ stage act prior to their ill-fated audition for Decca records on New Year’s Day in 1962. It is probable that the band was influenced to cover “The Sheik of Araby” by Fats Domino’s 1961 rendition of the tune.

Kudos to George Harrison for brilliant lead vocals. Pete Best provides interesting drumming.

Here is the song on YouTube:

There has been widespread speculation in the press that Sir Paul may marry Nancy Shevell, his American girlfriend. If he were to marry Ms. Shevell, he would have some very compelling statistics that would dictate a happy marriage.

All four Beatles married British women but the marriages would not last. The four boys all seemed to find their true loves with foreign women. Please note that no media outlet on either side of the Atlantic has covered this irony.

George Harrison married Pattie Boyd in 1966 and was officially divorced from her in 1977.

Ringo married the former Maureen Cox in 1965 and was divorced in 1975.

John Lennon was married to the former Cynthia Powell from 1962-1968.

Paul married Heather Mills in 2002 and received a prelimnary divorce decree ten weeks ago. The divorce should be finalized by November 2008.

As is well known, George was married to Olivia Arias, a native of Mexico raised in the U.S., from 1978 until his tragic death in 2001.

John was married to Yoko Ono, who was born and raised in Tokyo, from 1969 until his 1980 murder.

Ringo has been happily married to American actress Barbara Bach since 1981.

Of course, Paul was married to the former Linda Eastman, a New York native, from 1969 until her tragic death from breast cancer in 1998; it is said that Paul and Linda spent only twelve nights apart during their marriage.

Wings had two lead guitarists with similar names: Henry McCullough and Jimmy McCulloch.

Henry McCullough is a native of County Derry in Northern Ireland, and had been the only Irishman to play at Woodstock, having backed Joe Cocker there. The first Wings single, “Give Ireland back to the Irish” was banned by the BBC but hit # 1 on the charts in the Republic of Ireland. As a result, McCullough’s brother was jumped by a gang of thugs one night when leaving a bar in Derry. Some people think that McCullough’s solo on the international hit “My Love” is among the best guitar solos in rock history. Joining Wings at the beginning, McCullough left within two years because of artistic differences.

Jimmy McCullouch (1953-1979) was with Wings from 1974-1977. A Glasgow native, he was the “boy wonder” guitarist of the band Thunderclap Newman which had the hit “Something in the Air”, which was produced by McCulloch’s friend Pete Townsend.

In 1976, prior to a rehearsal for the Wings Over America tour, McCulloch broke his wrist backstage in the dressing room while wrestling with David Cassidy. His broken wrist held up the start of the tour for a couple of weeks. Two years after leaving Wings in 1977, McCulloch was found dead in his London flat from a heroin overdose.

Here is Henry McCullough performing “My Love” with Wings:

This is Jimmy McCulloch performing his guitar wizardry with his band Thunderclap Newman and their classic hit “Something in the Air” (Please note that McCulloch is not the lead vocalist, but the boyish looking guitarist without a shirt):

Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, running on a conservative platform. After less than two years in office, he surprisingly won 162 delegates at the 1968 Republican presidential convention despite being an undeclared candidate.

Dr. Timothy Leary, the psychedelic guru, decided in 1969 that he would run against Reagan in the election the following year when Reagan would be seeking his second term. Needless to say, Leary was not in tune with Reagan’s politics!

Leary asked John Lennon to write a campaign song for his race for governor. Leary’s slogan was “Come together, join the party”. In his 1988 book The Lives of John Lennon, Albert Goldman wrote:

“The obvious puns, sexual, convival, and political, concealed an occult meaning derived from the I Ching, one of whose hexagrams is titled “Come Together.” John couldn’t write the song, but he liked the title so much he employed it as the refrain of a radically different kind of song…………”

Many pop songs over the years have borrowed snippets of guitar riffs from Beatles songs, but to my knowledge only one has given them credit in the song. “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You”, a song by Sugarloaf which reached # 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975, does just that.

Just prior to showcasing the guitar riff from “I Feel Fine”, the lyrics go, “And it sounds like John, Paul and George”.

This song contained a practical joke as well. There are two phone numbers that are touch-toned during the song. One of the numbers was an unlisted number at CBS Records, which had recently turned the band down for a record contract. The other number is a public number at The White House.

Sugarloaf was a Denver-based band which featured Jerry Corbetta on lead vocals. Their other top ten hit was “Green-Eyed Lady”, which reached # 3 in 1970.

Have a listen to “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You”……………………..

In his international hit song “Imagine”, John Lennon sang, “….. and no religion, too.”

Well, the four boys from Liverpool all had religion (not that it matters!). Let’s have a look.

Ringo Starr – was raised as an Anglican (Church of England). He attended St. Silas Church of England Primary School.

John Lennon – was raised in the Church of England, while his estranged father came from an Irish Catholic background. His Aunt Mimi sent him to Anglican Sunday school and he sang in the parish choir. However, at age 11 he was permanently barred from Sunday services because he “repeatedly improvised obscene and impious lyrics to the hymns.” That was the beginning of the end of John’s churchgoing. In the post-Beatle years, though, John would become intensely interested in his Irish heritage, to the point that he would refer to himself as being Irish, rather than English or Welsh. The world famous entertainer would become an activist on the behalf of the rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland, though he never embraced Catholicism himself.

Paul McCartney – was raised a Catholic because of his mother’s devout faith; his father was Anglican. It is reported that after the death of his mother to breast cancer when he was 14 that Paul soured on religion, saying years later that he prayed for his mother’s recovery and that “the prayers didn’t work, when I really needed them to…” During the Beatle years, Paul routinely classified himself as an agnostic. However, a few hours after his 12 March 1969 marriage to Linda Eastman, the couple went to the Anglican church in St. John’s Wood to have their marriage blessed by a priest. In the post-Beatle years, Paul and Linda, who was raised in the Jewish faith, would list their religious affiliation as being with the Church of England.

George Harrison – was raised in a staunchly Catholic household. Let’s just say that even a 10,000 word post could not do justice to the subject of his conversion to the Hindu faith shortly after the Beatlemania craze. Two great books shed light on the subject, The Love There That’s Sleeping: The Art and Spirituality of George Harrison by Dale C. Allison, Jr. and Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison by Joshua M. Greene.