Paul McCartney: The Lyrics
According to commenter @HologramSam and Rolling Stone: Continuing the unbroken string of 58 straight Christmases with more Beatle-crap to buy, it's just been announced that Paul's dropping a new book this November. Called, Paul McCartney: The Lyrics, it's meant to stand in for an autobiography (which I think we already got with Many Years From Now). Sez Paul, “More often than I [...]
Sgt Pepper Unmasked!
Who's Who (not shown: The Who) Longtime readers of this blog know that I maintain it simply as an excuse to avoid grown-up work. And also, that I love Sgt. Pepper. It is my single desert island disc, as pedestrian as that choice is, because to me, Pepper contains so much more time than any other Beatles record. What do [...]
The Beatles and the Krays
Reggie (left) and Ronnie Kray, photographed by David Bailey For those (mostly American?) readers who haven't run across Ronnie and Reggie Kray, they were a pair of murderous twin brother gangsters who ruled the London underworld in the 1960s. Probably the most notorious British criminals since Jack the Ripper (sorry, Crippen). Before settling down to serious lawbreaking, the Krays were [...]
Beatles on Ed Sullivan, 57 years ago
It's been almost six decades since The Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. As a Gen X-era fan, I found watching the four Ed Sullivan Beatles shows in their entirety (on a DVD) a revelation. [The other shows were on February 16 and 23, and September 12, 1965.] I highly, highly recommend watching the [...]
The Merseybeat gang, circa 1962
Frequent commenter LeighAnn pointed me to this great photo which Ringo put up on his Instagram (@ringostarrmusic) in remembrance of the late, great Gerry Marsden. "3..2..1..JUMP!"
Bernie and the Beatles
After Senator Bernie Sanders showed up at yesterday's inauguration looking a bit, shall we say, casual, the photo spawned a thousand memes, with the Progressive octogenarian popping up in every famous shot imaginable. Of course the Beatles were part of this, so Michael Bleicher and I assembled some of the best examples. Add more in the comments.
Speaking ill of the dead: Phil Spector
I want to say right at the start that I've never really gotten the cult of Phil Spector. With all apologies to our beloved @Hologram Sam, rock and roll before The Beatles leaves me cold—and trust me, I've tried. All that Ronettes stuff sounds like a pompous, immature version of something Motown did so much better. I've also tried to like, or [...]
A few thoughts on conspiracy theories.
Given the political impacts we're seeing here in the U.S. from internet-driven conspiracy theories, and the prevalence of a (I mean this in the nicest way) Beatles-related conspiracy theory on this blog for the past several years, I wanted to speak a bit about this topic. I paddled for many years in the shallows of conspiracy theories, most notably ones around the [...]
A sneak preview of Peter Jackson’s Get Back
This morning the following video was dropped on Twitter, and it's been lighting up our comments, so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UocEGvQ10OE So, basically, "A Hard Day's Night," circa 1969—which is what lots of Beatles fans wanted in 1970, and maybe even more want in 2020. It's really striking to see them doing the same kinds of cuts and capers they did in [...]