1968 Archives - Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

The Beatles and India documentary

By Michael Gerber|2021-10-25T11:32:01-07:00October 25, 2021|1968|

Folks, I just got a press release for something very interesting: The Beatles and India is a new documentary about, well, just what it says. Those of you in the UK (and India?) can stream it now; the rest of us will have to wait a bit. There is also an album of covers. Two things come immediately when the topic of the Beatles and India heaves into view. The first is how strange it was for something like this to happen. The world's most famous pop group decamping from the West—in the middle of the Cold War—to go sit at the [...]

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Peter Jackson’s “Get Back”: Now Thanksgiving on Disney Plus

By Nancy Carr|2021-06-21T07:11:00-07:00June 21, 2021|1968, 1969, Breakup, Documentaries, Get Back, Let It Be, Movies, Uncategorized|

Peter Jackson's "Get Back," which was expected to be released in theaters this September, is now going to be a six-hour documentary on Disney Plus, premiering during Thanksgiving weekend. Variety reports that "each episode is approximately two hours in length, rolling out over three days, November 25, 26 and 27, 2021, exclusively on Disney Plus." So, more footage, but to watch it you'll need a Disney Plus subscription. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.

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Beatle Cars

By Nancy Carr|2022-04-11T09:46:06-07:00April 14, 2021|1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, Magical Mystery Tour, Psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper|

One of the perks of the mega-fame and fortune the Beatles enjoyed in the 1960s was buying cool automobiles. I think that a look at one of the cars owned by each Beatle in the mid-1960s reveals something about the personality of each. On to the cars: Ringo owned this 1964 Facel Vega Facel II, which autoblog.com describes as "a brutally powerful, but supremely comfortable four-place coupe that didn't skimp on style. Power came from a thumping 6.3-liter Chrysler Typhoon V8 that turned out up to 390 horsepower and could scoot the Facel II to a reported top speed of 150 miles [...]

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Charles Manson Is Dead

By Nancy Carr|2020-09-10T11:21:32-07:00November 20, 2017|1968, Obituaries, Paul Is Dead (PID), The White Album|

Manson, wannabe musician. Charles Manson, who used a paranoid reading of the Beatles' "White Album" to spur his followers to murder, is dead at 83. Alas, the kind of fear-mongering false narrative that he helped pioneer is very much alive. Like the mixers of the toxic social media soup we're all swimming in today, Manson specialized in us-vs-them stories, especially racist ones. He didn't really care if they were true; he cared that they were effective. He was one of the origin points of the "alternative facts" conspiracy theory. Manson was also relentlessly narcissistic, convinced that the Beatles were sending [...]

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Beatles mystery: “She’s Leaving Home”

By Nancy Carr|2016-09-22T07:33:20-07:00September 20, 2016|1968, Beatle-inspired, Beatles fiction, books, fans, Uncategorized|

William Shaw's She's Leaving Home is a Beatles-linked police procedural mystery. It's also a deep dive into the turmoil of late-60's London. And an examination of two detectives struggling with their identities and social roles. If that makes the book sound overstuffed, it's because it is. But overall it's an enjoyable read for Beatles or mystery fans who are prepared to skim a bit. Beatles novels are as various as the songs on the White Album, ranging from the simply parodic (Alan Goldsher's Paul is Undead) to the thriller (Phil Rickman's December) to the realistic slice-of-life (Philip Gillam's Here Comes the Sun). But alternative history leads the field, with [...]

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Starostin on the White Album

By Nancy Carr|2016-06-20T07:18:13-07:00June 20, 2016|1968, Beatles Criticism, George Starostin, The White Album|

The tireless George Starostin, still working his way through Rate Your Music's list of "Top Albums of All Time," has just published a new review of the White Album (currently #25 on the list). As usual, there's plenty of substance in Starostin's review, and I highly recommend it. These lines particularly stood out to me (ellipses mine): "A typical 'complaint' against The Beatles is that this is the first album where the band, much too often, reads like the sum of its parts rather than a collective whole: The Lennon songs are Lennon, the McCartney songs are McCartney, the Harrison songs mark [...]

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Lennon and McCartney On The Tonight Show, 1968

By Karen Hooper|2016-04-21T06:57:16-07:00April 20, 2016|1968, Apple, Lennon, McCartney|

Speaking of his appearance with Paul McCartney on the Tonight Show to announce Apple Corp., John Lennon said it “was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever been on.” And if you listen to the audio portion (the video portion is no longer available), it IS truly cringe-worthy. Sitting with a slightly inebriated Tallulah Bankhead and a polite but clueless Joe Garagiola (who was subbing for Johnny Carson), John and Paul endured 22 minutes of embarrassingly vacuous questions (“Will you ever be able to top Sgt. Pepper?”, asked Garagiola) which made ME want to put a fork in my ear. An interesting backstory [...]

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Beatles Ashram is Now Open!

By Michael Gerber|2015-12-09T11:11:43-08:00December 9, 2015|1968, India|

By law, this photo must accompany any article regarding the Beatles in India. It's always sorta been open to the public -- if you wanted to give a local five rupees and sneak over the wall -- but now the Indian government has made the Maharishi's old compound in Rishikesh a tourist attraction. In 1968, the Fab Four wrote most of the White Album while staying at the ashram located in the Rajaji national park, besides the river Ganges. Since the Maharishi left in the 1970s it has been overtaken by forest, but on Tuesday, 35 years to the day [...]

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Mick Jagger as Alex? The Beatles said yes

By Michael Gerber|2015-10-22T09:57:35-07:00October 21, 2015|1968, Movies, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones|

"Go for it, Mick" Mere days after revealing that John Lennon was (theoretically) into dudes, Auntie NME has revealed that all four Beatles signed a petition trying to get Mick Jagger the lead in "A Clockwork Orange." Picture this: it's February 1968. You're probably high. Mick as Alex; The Stones as his droogs; music by The Beatles; screenplay by Terry Southern... this movie would've been either the greatest thing ever, or totally unwatchable. Without a firm hand to guide him (Stanley Kubrick) Terry Southern tended to write stuff like The Magic Christian, films much less fun than the parties surrounding [...]

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Happy birthday, Ringo!

By Devin McKinney|2014-07-07T15:50:39-07:00July 7, 2014|1967, 1968, A Day in the Life, birthdays, Levon Helm, Ringo, Ringo Starr, Sgt. Pepper|

DEVIN McKINNEY • Hey! Let’s all wish Ringo the best on his 74th birthday. He’s still on tour, still looking great, still showing those peace fingers and giving a plug for love wherever he goes. I wrote a little birthday tribute to Ringo over at HiLobrow, a pop-culture site where I often contribute (edited by the great Josh Glenn, a guest contributor of ours). I hope you’ll pop over and check it out. Here’s something else I’ve wanted to say for a long time about Ringo, and it’s exclusive to Hey Dullblog. Once, not more than a year or two ago, a vision [...]

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