| Love
Me Do |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| In
Britain, Love Me Do was the Beatles's first
hit and, like the group's image, it was all pretty
strange to a generation which had spent the last
two or three years listening to fairly insipid
pop |
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| From
Me to You |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| From Me To You, the Beatles's
third single was written on February 28, 1963,
while travelling by coach from York to Shrewsbury
on the Helen Shapiro tour |
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| She
Loves You |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Although the Beatles had already taken
Britain's Number 1 spot twice in 1963, it was
She Loves You which took them to the
"toppermost of the poppermost" |
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| I
Want to Hold Your Hand |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| There
was a piano in the basement den of the Ashers'
home in Wimpole Street ... It was here that they
came up with I Want To Hold Your Hand, the
song that was to finally break them in
America |
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| Can't
Buy me Love |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| In
January 1964, the Beatles went to Paris for 18
days of concerts at the Olympia Theatre ... It was
here that John and Paul wrote One And One Is
Two for fellow Liverpool group The Strangers
and Paul came up with Can't Buy me
Love |
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| A
Hard Day's Night |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| In
the early Sixties it was customary for pop stars
to make a movie after a decent string of hits,
just as Elvis Presley had done in the
Fifties |
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| I
Feel Fine |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| On
October 6, while recording Eight Days a
Week, John was working out the guitar riff
that would become the basis of I Feel Fine,
a song they recorded only 12 days
later |
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| Eight
Days a Week |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| John
always claimed that Eight Days A Week was
written by Paul as a potential title track for the
Beatles's follow-up film to A Hard Day's
Night. Director Dick Lester denied this,
pointing out that Eight Days A Week was
recorded in October 1964, whereas filming on
Help! didn't begin until late February
1965. It's unlikely that they were considering
film music this far in advance |
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| Ticket to Ride |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Ticket To Ride was written by
John and Paul as a single and was described by
John as "one of the earliest heavy metal records
made" |
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| Yesterday |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Paul
woke up one morning in his top floor bedroom at
the Ashers' home in Wimpole Street with the tune
for Yesterday in his head. There was a
piano by the bed and he went straight to it and
started playing. "It was just all there," he said.
"A complete thing. I couldn't believe
it" |
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| Day
Tripper |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Day Tripper was written under
pressure when the Beatles needed a new single for
the Christmas market |
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| We
Can Work it Out |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| In
October 1965, Jane Asher decided to join the
Bristol Old Vic Company. Her departure upset Paul
and caused the first major rift in their
relationship |
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| Paperback Writer |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| The
Beatles's first single to depart from the theme of
love (Nowhere Man had been the first song),
Paperback Writer was the story of a
novelist begging a publisher to take on his
thousand page book |
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| Yellow Submarine |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Lying
in bed late one night at Wimpole Street, the idea
of writing a children's song about different
coloured submarines came into Paul's head. This
was to develop into Yellow
Submarine |
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| Eleanor Rigby |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| As in
so many of his songs, the melody and first line of
Eleanor Rigby came to Paul as he sat
playing his piano |
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| Penny
Lane |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Although Penny Lane is a Liverpool
street, it is also the name given to the area that
surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road. None
of the places mentioned in Penny Lane
exists in the lane itself |
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| All
you Need is Love |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Early
in 1967, the Beatles were approached by the BBC to
take part in what would be the first ever live
global television link ... To mark the occasion,
they were asked to write a simple song that would
be understood by viewers of all
nationalities |
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| Hello, Goodbye |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Alistair Taylor, who worked for Brian
Epstein, remembered once asking Paul how he wrote
his songs, and Paul taking him into his dining
room to give a demonstration on a hand carved
harmonium. He told Taylor to shout out the
opposite of whatever he sang as he struck the
keys. And so it went — black and white, yes and
no, stop and go, hello and
goodbye |
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| Lady
Madonna |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Lady Madonna was the first single
to show that the way forward for the Beatles now
lay in going back to basic rock'
n'roll |
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| Hey
Jude |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| As
John and Yoko started living together, not
surprisingly divorce proceedings began between
John and Cynthia and Julian were allowed to stay
at Kenwood while the two respondents took up
residence in a Montagu Square flat in central
London |
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| Get
Back |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Paul
said that he'd originally written Get Back
"as a political song" and surviving demos show
that he was planning a satire on the attitudes of
those who felt that immigrants to Britain should
be repatriated |
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| The
Ballad of John and Yoko |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| The Ballad of John and Yoko — in
which John related the details of his marriage to
Yoko in Gibraltar and their subsequent "honeymoon"
— was recorded in mid-April and released before
the end of May |
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| Something |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Something was the first Beatles A
side to be written by George. Its twin sources of
inspiration were Ray Charles, who George imagined
singing it, and a 1968 album track by James Taylor
titled Something in the Way She
Moves |
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| Come
Together |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
|
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| Come Together started life as a
campaign song for the Timothy Leary roadshow, when
he decided in 1969 that he was going to run for
governor of California against America's future
president Ronald Reagan |
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| Let
It Be |
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| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Released as a single in March 1970,
Let It Be sounded as if it had been
deliberately recorded as the Beatles's swansong.
However, the fact is it was recorded in January
1969. No-one had any idea that it was going to be
the last single |
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| The
Long and Winding Road |
|
| STEVE
TURNER |
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| Like
Yesterday, The Long And Winding Road
evokes loss without describing any specific
situation. The images of wind and rain suggest
feelings of being abandoned in the wilderness,
while the long and winding road leading to "her
door" is the sign of hope |
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