Imagine you’re walking through the central London business district. You believe it to be just another ordinary day. You pass unfamiliar faces on the street and go about your business as usual. But today is no ordinary day. All of a sudden music begins to play out of nowhere. The sound is familiar. Something that you never thought you would hear again in person. Excitement overcomes you and you run as fast as you can to the Apple headquarters building, the source of the sound. You look up and see on the roof of the building, the band that revolutionized music forever. You look up and see The Beatles.
On January 30th, 1969, The Beatles played an impromptu concert from the roof of Apple headquarters. When the band started playing, there was some confusion from the spectators on their lunch break five stories below. News of the event spread quickly and crowds of onlookers began to congregate in the streets and on the roofs of local buildings. At the end of the performance, John Lennon said, “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.” This 42-minute set was the final public performance of the English rock group. Just ten months later, the band would unofficially call it quits for good and never play together again.
The Beatles are widely regarded as the greatest and most influential rock band in history. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr became household names. The Beatles formed in 1960 in Liverpool. They built their reputation by playing in local clubs over a three year period. The “Fab Four” as they came to be known, transformed themselves into international superstars. Their enormous popularity first emerged in the early 1960’s. As their songwriting grew in sophistication they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era’s sociocultural revolutions.
The Beatles are the best selling band in the United States according to the Recording Industry Association of America. They have sold approximately 177 million certified units as a band. Their experimentation with pop ballads, psychedelic sounds, and hard rock with classical elements augmented their base 1950’s rock and roll sound. Vocal duties were mainly split between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Guitarist George Harrison would also lend his voice to a few songs, the most popular being his song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Ringo Starr was the drummer for all of the bands songs. These four masterful musicians make up what is essentially the biggest band of all time.
One interesting piece of information about The Beatles that is worth mentioning is the theory that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look alike. Having some fun with the theory, The Beatles dropped hints in their songs and album artwork to Paul’s supposed death. These clues range from anything to Paul McCartney being the only member not wearing shoes on the cover of the album Abbey Road to the words “Turn me on, dead man” being heard when The Beatles “Revolution 9” is played backwards. Although Paul McCartney never truly died, the clues are fun to search for in The Beatles songs. I highly encourage you to look them up and seek them out.
During their time as a band, The Beatles released twelve studio albums. My favorite albums of the bunch are Abbey Road and Revolver. Abbey Road was the final album recorded by The Beatles. The album includes songs that were never truly finished. The second half of the album is a musical compilation of these songs. The Beatles were one of the first bands in history to do something like this on one of their albums. The album couldn’t be a better farewell message by the band. My personal favorite song by the band is the song “For No One” off of the album Revolver.
Since the time of their breakup, Paul, John, George, and Ringo have all found success in their own personal music endeavors outside of The Beatles. John Lennon was tragically killed on December 8th, 1980 in New York City and George Harrison passed away from lung cancer on November 29, 2001. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr continue to play music to this day.
I could talk about the Beatles forever. Their legacy will never be forgotten. They seemed like a fitting band to choose for what very well might be my final Band of the Week blog post. I love The Beatles, and much of what I love about music relates to The Beatles. You will find links to a sampling of The Beatles music below. And as always, remember to keep listening and keep rocking out.
Get Back Live on the Roof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcRElS3voaw
The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It3Cctk6BRs
Come Together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmn4eMusZk
Revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrkwgTBrW78
SGT Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj2bmQ4P4cM
For No One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6iAykoKLog
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The Beatles really have a great story, and it seems like I am always learning something new about them. This time, it happens to be the tidbit about their final public performance. That is actually awesome, and I wish something like that would happen around here. The Beatles have some songs I really like, and others that I really do not enjoy. I guess this comes with the territory of producing a ridiculous amount of songs like Ryan mentioned earlier.
I am not a huge fan of the Beatles, but it was cool to read about a brief history of how they came about and little interesting tidbits about them.
Favorite Beatles song: “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the closing track from Revolver. After half a century, it still sounds like nothing else.
I would have to agree that the Beatles are the greatest band of all time with the Rolling Stones being a very close second. Favorite song would be Come Together? I think it is too difficult to pick a favorite from a band that has enough hits to have their own Top 100.