Trying to write an article about the Fab Four is a lost cause. There is enough material for a multi-volume book, and it is extremely difficult to remove words from a song. But still, we decided to collect a few facts from the history of British “beetles” that you may not have known.

1. John Lennon's father worked on a merchant ship, Paul McCartney's father was a clerk, George Harrison's father was a sailor, and Ringo Starr's father was a baker.

2. The founder of The Beatles, John Lennon, formed his first group called The Quarrymen in 1956. The team included his friends from QuarryBank school.

3. The name The Beatles was invented when new members joined Lennon's group - Paul McCartney, and then George Harrison. They had no connection with Quarry School.

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4. The Beatles is a play on words, a mixture of the words “beetle” and “beat”.

5. George Harrison was only 16 years old when he joined the group.

6. John Lennon and Paul McCartney became close not only because of their love of music, but also because of a common tragedy: in 1956, Paul’s mother died of cancer, and two years later Lennon lost his mother in a car accident.

7. The composition of the legendary four changed five times. In January 1960, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison were joined by John's art college classmate Stuart Sutcliffe as bassist. Later that year, The Beatles were invited to play their first overseas concert in Hamburg. According to the contract, the group needed a drummer, who urgently became Pete Best, the son of the owner of a Liverpool nightclub where The Beatles often performed.

8. In 1961, during the group's second tour in Hamburg, Stuart Sutcliffe fell in love with a young artist and photographer Astrid Kirchherr. It was she who came up with the legendary Beatles' haircuts and suggested that the guys wear jackets in Pierre Cardin's cut - without collars - instead of worn biker jackets. She also held the first professional photo shoot of The Beatles in their new image. Sutcliffe decided to leave the group and stay in Hamburg with Astrid.

9. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best - with this lineup The Beatles achieved their first success.

10. Stuart Sutcliffe died in Hamburg from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1962. Despite the fact that Stewart was only a member of the group for a short time, he influenced all members of The Beatles. He was posthumously given the nickname Fifth of the Four. The 1994 film The Beatles: 4+1 (5th of the Four) chronicles this period in the group's history.

11. Curt Raymond Jones is the first Beatlemaniac in history who influenced the development of the group. On October 28, 1961, in a music store, he asked for a record of the song My Bonnie by the little-known group The Beatles. The seller knew nothing about the team, but on the advice of the buyer, he inquired.
This seller was the legendary Brian Epstein, the group’s permanent manager, who obtained the first professional recordings for the guys and organized concert activities for them.
Epstein died on August 27, 1967, and his duties were partially taken over by Paul McCartney.

12. In 1962, before his first contract, Epstein replaced drummer Pete Best, who did not live up to the general level, with Ringo Starr, a longtime friend of the musicians. This established the final line-up of The Beatles, but in 1964, before a tour of Scandinavia, Starr came down with a cold and was replaced by Jimmy Nichol.

13. Ringo Starr's real name is Richard Starkey.

14. Love Me Do and Please, Please Me became the Fab Four's first hits.

15. The Beatles' first album was called Please, Please Me (1963), their last was Let It Be (1970). In total, the group released 13 albums.

16. In 1965, The Beatles were awarded the Order of the British Empire, but in 1969 John Lennon returned his order in protest against British support for US aggression in Vietnam.

17. On June 25, 1967, The Beatles became the first group whose performance was broadcast worldwide by the BBC via satellite.

18. The Beatles released three comedies: Hard Day's Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour. Soundtracks have been released for all three films as separate albums.

19. The future star and leader of the group Genesis Phil Collins starred in the film Hard Day’s Night at the age of 13 - he plays one of the fans. The film was twice nominated for an Oscar, a Grammy and a BAFTA award.

20. Steven Spielberg learned editing on the film Magical Mystery Tour. This film was made by The Beatles themselves and was completely destroyed by critics.

21. The Beatles created some of the first music videos in the history of television. This was done because the guys did not have time to participate in the show and filming due to their busy schedule.

22. Long before the birth of Steve Jobs' brainchild, Paul McCartney and John Lennon founded Apple to produce music and films.

23. John Lennon met artist Yoko Ono at an exhibition in 1966. John was married, and Yoko, wanting to attract attention, sat for hours on his porch, sending threatening letters.

24. In September 1969, several American students claimed to have solved the Beatles' clues leading to Paul McCartney's death in a car accident in 1966 and his replacement by a double. The Beatles provided secret clues in their songs, but the most famous clues are the album covers of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

The cover of the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" seems to depict a funeral procession over a fresh grave, where the Beatles are lined with flowers, the guitar below reads "Paul?", and behind the band are famous dead people: Marilyn Monroe, Edgar Allan Poe, former band member Stewart Sutcliffe, and writer Stephen Crane holds his hand above McCartney's head. On the cover of the Magical Mystery Tour album, McCartney is the only one depicted in black. The photo on the cover of Abbey Road symbolizes a funeral procession: McCartney walks barefoot, with his eyes closed, out of step with the others. Lennon, in a white suit, symbolizes God, Starr, in black and white, represents the priest, and Harrison, who brings up the rear, in denim, represents the undertaker. The Let It Be album cover features Paul against a red background with the rest of the band facing away from him. These and many other signs in the group's images and texts became the "Paul is Dead" hoax, one of the most famous legends of the 20th century. Many fans think that this is just a series of coincidences, although some are sure that the idea of ​​​​creating the legend belonged to Brian Epstein or the musicians themselves.

Fact No. 5037

In 1966, in Texas, religious groups staged a public burning of Beatles records in response to a phrase that John Lennon said in an interview: Lennon said that “Christianity is in decline, and the Beatles have become more popular than Jesus Christ.”

On Saturday, August 13, 1966, one of the first record bonfires was held in Longview, Texas, hosted by local radio station KLUE.

The next day, August 14, the tower of this radio station was struck by lightning. The lightning strike damaged much of the equipment and sent the news director to the hospital.

Fact No. 5096

In 2009, a specialization called "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society" was opened at Liverpool's Hope University. The curriculum states the history of the group in the context of world history. The training consists of four 12-week semesters, and upon completion the student defends a thesis and receives a master's degree. "Thousands of books have been written about The Beatles, but there is not a single serious scientific study among them. Now that forty years have passed since the breakup of the group and passions on this matter have subsided, it’s time to start studying The Beatles. Liverpool is the best place for this, because all the musicians were born and raised here,” comments Michael Broken, senior lecturer in the Popular Music course at Hope.

Source: article by Pavel Filippov, Rolling Stone magazine, April 2009

Fact No. 5514

British scientists have proven: the British loved the Beatles because they sang about... the weather. This is what The Telegraph claims, citing the findings of experts from Oxford and Southampton universities. Scientists examined 308 Beatles compositions and found that weather was mentioned in 48 works; Thus, the share of songs about weather in their work was 16%.

People in the UK love to talk about the weather, and the Beatles were no exception: they wrote the most songs on the topic among more than 900 authors and performers whose work was studied in this scientific work.

The study was published by Weather magazine. Experts analyzed texts, musical genres, tonality and connections with certain weather phenomena. It turned out that out of the 500 greatest songs of all time (according to Rolling Stone magazine), 7% of the songs are about the weather. Of the 190 songs, 86 are sung about the sun, in 74 cases about rain. The Beatles' “Here Comes The Sun” is also mentioned there: the authors were inspired by the first sunny spring day after a long, cold winter.

The Beatles are a symbol of modern pop culture and the music industry, perhaps even more significant than such musical “monsters” as Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Michael Jackson. And The Beatles - the best-selling music brand in history (more than 1 billion records sold worldwide) - changed the music world forever.

1. John Lennon originally named the band differently

John Lennon founded the group in 1957 and called it Quarry Men. Later he invited Paul McCartney to the group, who brought George Harrison. Ringo Starr became the last of the "Fab Four" after he replaced Peter Best as drummer.

2. Quarry Men, Johnny and the Moondogs...

The group changed its name many times before settling on the name
The Beatles. In addition to the Quarry Men, the group also went by the names Johnny and the Moondogs, Rainbows and the British Everly Brothers.

3. “Beetles” (beetlles) and “Rhythm” (beat)

Although no one can say for sure where the band's final name came from, most fans believe that John Lennon suggested the name in honor of the American band Buddy Holly's Crickets. Other sources emphasize that the name deliberately combined two words - “beetles” and “rhythm” (beat).

4. "From Me To You"

The Beatles called their first British single "From Me To You", getting the idea from the letters section of the British magazine NME, which was then called "From You to Us". They wrote this song on a bus while touring for Helen Shapiro.

5. There was nothing before Elvis

John Lennon loved cats very much. He had ten pets while living in Weybridge with his first wife Cynthia. His mother had a cat named Elvis because the woman was a big fan of Elvis Presley. Not surprisingly, Lennon later claimed that “there was nothing before Elvis.”

6. "Abbey Road"

The band originally wanted to call the song "Abbey Road" "Everest". But when their record company invited the group to visit the Himalayas to film a video there, the Beatles decided to rename the song after the name of the street where the recording studio was located.

7. A hit for your main competitors

Very few people know the fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the first hit song for their main rivals, the Rolling Stones. "I Wanna Be Your Man" was released in 1963 and reached number twelve in the UK charts.

8. "Good Morning Good Morning"

John Lennon wrote: "Good Morning Good Morning" after being enraged by a Kellogg cereal ad.

9. Billboard Hot Record Breakers

During the week of April 4, 1964, as many as twelve Beatles songs were among the top 100 Billboard Hot singles, including the group's top five singles. This record has not yet been broken for fifty-two years.

10. The Beatles sold 178 million records

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Beatles sold 178 million records in the United States. This is more than any other artist in US music history.

11. "Got to Get You into My Life"

1966 The song "Got to Get You into My Life" appeared. It was initially thought to be about a girl, but McCartney later claimed in interviews that the song was actually written about marijuana.

12. "Hey Jude"

If you listen closely to the words of the legendary song "Hey Jude", you can hear Paul swearing dirty after making a mistake while recording the song.

13. "New Disease"

Many people mistakenly believe that the term "Beatlemania" first appeared in 1963 after a review in the Daily Mirror. However, the term was actually invented by Canadian Sandy Gardiner and first appeared in the Ottawa Journal in November 1963, where the word was used to describe a “new disease” sweeping the globe.

14. ...well, if they ask

Mae West initially turned down an offer to have her image featured on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, but she changed her mind after receiving a personal letter from the band. Other famous women on the cover include Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Temple.

15. "Something" - the greatest love song

Frank Sinatra often publicly expressed his admiration for the group, and once said that "Something" was the greatest love song ever written.

16. "Help!" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"

John Lennon said that the only real songs he ever wrote were "Help!" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". He claimed that these were the only songs he wrote based on his own experiences, rather than simply imagining himself in certain situations.

17. Beatles records were publicly burned in the South

In March 1966, John Lennon noted that Christianity was in decline and that the Beatles were becoming more popular than Jesus. His remarks led to protests in the American South, where the band's records began to be publicly burned. The protests even spread to other countries such as Mexico, South Africa and Spain.

18. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. All four of its members were also inducted into the hall of fame individually from 1994 to 2015.

19. The Beatles hold the record for hits...

As of 2016, the Beatles still hold the record for the most hits (20) to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Elvis Presley and Mariah Carey are tied for second place with 18 songs each. The Beatles also hold the record for the most number one albums in the US and UK charts.

20. Unfulfilled dream

The Beatles were so passionate about Tolkien's work that they wanted to star in the film The Lord of the Rings, which was to be directed by Stanley Kubrick. Fortunately, Kubrick and his record company did not find this idea attractive, and several decades later Peter Jackson created his famous cinematic masterpieces.

21. The Beatles broke up because...

Nobody is 100 percent sure why the Beatles broke up. When Paul McCartney was asked why the band split up, he stated that it was due to "personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all, the fact that he enjoyed spending time with his family much more."

22. Missed opportunity

The closest the band came to a reunion since their 1970 breakup was at Eric Clapton's wedding when he married Pattie Boyd in 1979. George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr played together at the wedding, but John Lennon did not attend.

23. Bands with guitars are out of fashion.

The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records on January 1, 1962, but were turned down because "guitar bands were going out of style" and because "the band members lacked talent." The Decca label instead chose a group called the Tremeloes, who no one remembers today. This is widely considered the biggest mistake in twentieth-century music history.

24. The Beatles bought the island...

In 1967, when the Beatles were at the height of their drug addiction, they decided to buy their own island. After throwing in some money, the band members bought a beautiful private island in Greece where they wanted to live together, away from the screaming fans. Unfortunately, when the group broke up, the island was also sold.

25. Beatles songs heal

Some scientists have suggested that some Beatles songs may help children with autism and other disabilities. In particular, they reference the songs "Here Comes The Sun", "Octopus's Garden", "Yellow Submarine", "Hello Goodbye", "Blackbird" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

Not long ago it appeared on the Internet, which will certainly be of interest to all fans of this group.

Today marks International Beatles Day.

So let's start with the quantitative facts. None of the band members knew musical notation.

At one time, all four, being British, married American women.

Exactly half of the quartet members are left-handed: Paul and Ringo.

John's aunt, Mimi, always repeated the phrase: “The guitar is a good instrument. However, it is not suitable for making money." Having become rich, John bought his aunt a villa, which had a marble wall with the above quote.

The first professional musical instrument that Paul McCartney purchased was a violin-shaped bass guitar from Hofner.

During concerts in Hamburg, the musicians had to use strings from club pianos due to the lack of money to purchase normal strings.

The Beatles were the first band to place a drum kit at the front of the stage. The debut took place in his native Liverpool. After Pete Best was nearly trampled by female fans rushing onto the stage, the move was scrapped.

The group became the first in history to print the lyrics of all songs on the back of the album cover. Album “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

John Lennon was five times more likely to be the lead vocal on a group song than Paul McCartney (102 vs. 97).

The harmonica featured in the song “Love Me Do” was stolen by John in the summer of 1960 from a music store in the Dutch town of Arnhem.

The album “Please Please Me” was the only one in which the authorship of the songs was designated as “McCartney/Lennon”. All subsequent ones were designated by the standard "Lennon/Mccartney".

For their first album, each band member received £29.

The song “Girl” was the first in the work of The Beatles, which was released in the USSR. This happened in 1967.

The French national anthem is used in the intro of the song "All You Need Is Love".

After the release of the track "Penny Lane" in 1967, the authorities of Liverpool suffered serious losses due to the theft of signs on houses. As a result, it was decided to write the street name and house number directly on the walls of the buildings.

Before the band's first major tour, Baskin-Robbins produced a special Beatle Nut ice cream.

George Harrison became the founder of charity concerts. On August 1, 1971, the musician organized two charity concerts in support of Bangladesh.

In the song "Hey, Jude" Paul can be heard exclaiming: "Oh, fucking hell!" It was a reaction to the wrong chord. At John's insistence, the phrase was left in the original recording and only slightly muted. Listen from 2:56 to 2:58.

Paul McCartney wrote the song "Hey, Jude" to John's son, Julian, on the eve of his parents' divorce. Julian Lennon bought the song's sheet music at auction in 1995 for £25,000.

The song “Can`t Buy Me Love” was recorded in just 4 takes!

Elton John is not only Sean Lennon's godfather. He is also the author of one of John Lennon’s most beloved cover versions of the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Moreover, it is so beloved that John’s backing vocals and guitar are heard on the track.

In the song "She Said, She Said" the line is: "She said, she said, 'I know what it's like to be dead.'" This knowledge was shared by the dead Peter Fonda with John Lennon in his LSD hallucination.

The Beatles made their first recording in 1958. It was a record recorded at a local studio for five pounds. 23 years later, Paul bought this record from one of the participants in the recording, Duff Lowe.

To sit at Ringo Star's school desk, you need to pay five pounds sterling.

Initially, the composition “Yesterday” was called “Scrambled Eggs”. This is what the first line sounded like: “Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs.”

The last joint photo shoot of all group members took place in 1969. On August 22, the quartet of musicians, along with Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, Martha the shepherd and two donkeys posed in Tittenhurst Park.

All group members have a named asteroid.

Listen only to high quality music!
P.S. Special respect for the idea of ​​​​creating material to a person named Slap ;)

Today, January 16, is World Beatles Day. To remember the work of the cult Liverpool group, Realist collected interesting facts about its members - John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

When John Lennon was 16 years old, he formed a band in which he played with his friends. Soon one of his friends introduced Lennon to Paul McCartney. Having found a common language on the basis of music, the guys soon became friends, and Lennon decided to invite McCartney to his group.

At that time, Paul knew the chords, knew the words and knew how to pick out the latest rock and roll by ear. And John played the guitar like a banjo - he played chords on only four strings.

Almost a year after Lennon and McCartney began their friendship, they were joined by a friend of Paul's named George Harrison.

Ringo Starr joined the group four years later. Before this, The Beatles had temporary musicians playing drums.

The group, whose name has not been forgotten for decades, experienced difficulties with its designation at the start of its creative journey.

At first the guys performed under the name Johnny and the Moondogs, later they called themselves Rainbows. Neither option appealed to the promoters, who believed that no one would remember them that way.

In 1960, the musicians began calling themselves The Beatles. Everyone who heard the name for the first time thought of “bugs,” but the emphasis was on the root of the word beat (“beat music”).

Watching the performances of the Fab Four, one gets the impression that popularity came to them almost in the first days of their existence. But the reality was completely different.

The musicians went on their first tour as a backing band for singer Johnny Gentle. And in the early 60s, The Beatles went to Germany, where they regularly played in a Hamburg club. At the same time, The Beatles performed the blues, hits of other musicians, old pop and jazz numbers, and folk songs.

During that period, The Beatles practically did not play their compositions, since the audience for which they performed demanded a completely different repertoire.

During The Beatles' "German" period, they were joined by a drummer named Pete Best. But after being with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison for only two years, he was kicked out of the group, allegedly for poor drumming.

Pete stood out very much from the other participants - he wore a different hairstyle, dressed in his own style, and did not spend time with the musicians in his free time from performing.

“The Beatles came out and I saw them in person for the first time. Very unkempt and not very clean. While performing songs, the guys smoked, ate, talked and jokingly exchanged punches. They turned their backs to the public, quarreled with clubgoers and laughed at their own jokes. But they obviously caused enormous excitement. Some kind of magnetism seemed to emanate from them. I was captivated,” recalls The Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

When The Beatles got a manager in Brian Epstein, he tried to bring discipline to their creative schedule. Brian also monitored the behavior of the musicians and was able to persuade them to stop wearing leather jackets and even jeans, replacing them with identical stage costumes.

Brian Epstein was often called the “fifth Beatle” - all thanks to the fact that he was always with the group and dealt with all organizational issues that were associated with The Beatles.

After a long time filled with attempts to become popular, The Beatles finally made it to TV. The band's concert in Manchester was broadcast on People and Places.

A few months later, their song "Please Please Me" was released, which reached number one in the British charts in 1963. In the same year, the Fab Four, who recorded their debut album, had to say goodbye to their former life. From that moment on, The Beatles' every day was scheduled by the hour. The press paid close attention to them, and Britain finally learned about a phenomenon called “Beatlemania.”

The appearance of The Beatles in public caused unprecedented excitement in any place where the musicians appeared. One day, during a popular show broadcast from the London Palladium concert hall, crowds of fans besieged the building. There were so many of them that Beatles fans filled the nearby streets, blocking public transport.

Since 1963, The Beatles' performances have been accompanied by screams, often turning into prolonged squeals, emitted by female fans. Many of them cried, rushed onto the stage, and fainted.

It got to the point where the musicians were practically inaudible behind the deafening screams.

The Beatles released three feature films and two documentaries. The musicians also participated in the creation of the animation “Yellow Submarine”. Its plot showed a journey on a submarine and the victory of the Beatles over fairy-tale villains - the blue evil ones. At the end of the cartoon, the musicians no longer appeared in the frame as cartoon characters.

“The noise made by people at concerts completely overwhelmed us. All this destroyed our art. I ended up playing only the downbeat instead of a constant beat. I still couldn’t hear myself, despite any amplifiers. In the halls we kept standing too far from each other. We performed our stuff live much faster than on record, mainly because we couldn't hear ourselves. Sometimes I entered at the wrong time because I often had no idea what place we were playing,” Ringo Starr.

Before the group disbanded, each member had their own musical projects and families. This influenced how Lennon, Starr, McCartney and Harrison grew apart. Their views on music changed, everyone wanted to spend more time outside the group.

Rumors persist to this day that Yoko Ono, whom John Lennon brought to the band's rehearsals, was an irritant to the other members of The Beatles, and her relationship with Lennon was bad for the atmosphere within the group.

Officially, The Beatles existed for only 10 years (1960-1970). During this time, the musicians managed to release 13 studio albums, including film soundtracks.

Why was this day dedicated to The Beatles?

The Cavern Club opened in Liverpool on January 16, 1957. This is where The Beatles performed when they were not yet popular. In honor of this event, fans organized World Beatles Day.

Interestingly, another date is considered The Beatles Day, which falls on July 10th. It is celebrated much more often by fans of the British band, since on this day in 1964 the musicians triumphantly returned to Britain from a tour of the United States, which brought them recognition on a large scale.

But that's not all. There is another holiday, also called the next International Beatles Day. It's June 25th - a day reminiscent of the time that the song "All You Need Is Love" was first performed at this time in 1967. It was specially written for the Our World program, so it was broadcast to an audience of 400 million viewers.