The incredible legacy of the Beatles
The story of the four 'mushroom heads', who would later conquer the world, begins with a teenager who is bored at school. John Lennon quickly realized that he thought differently. He grew up with his aunt and uncle because his mother was unable to cope with raising the boy. John soon became interested in art, drawing and writing little poems. But he quickly realized that his environment had little sympathy for his career aspirations as a painter or journalist.
“In the social environment in which I grew up, you read about artists or admired their works in museums, but you didn't want one of them to live with you,” John later explained. But he already knew then that a life as a doctor or lawyer was out of the question for him, ”it would be like hell freezing over.” As a teenager, he discovered his love of music, or more precisely of rock 'n' roll. His mother taught him to play the banjo, and he taught himself to play the guitar.
At first, he borrowed the instrument from a friend, but later his mother bought him his own guitar. His aunt was less enthusiastic about John's new passion and said, “The guitar is a nice hobby, John, but you'll never be able to make a living from it.” But he is undeterred and founds a band, the formation of which changes again and again until they appear in 1957 as The Quarry Men, named after John's school, Quarry Bank. On July 6 of that year, they play at a garden party of the parish of Liverpool-Woolton, and there John meets Paul McCartney for the first time.
Growing up in a shelter
Unlike the rebellious Lennon, Paul grew up in a sheltered middle-class family. His mother worked as a nurse and midwife, and his father as a cotton salesman. Like John, Paul was interested in art and literature, but could also see himself becoming a teacher later in life. It was only after his mother's death that he turned to music. His father gave him a trumpet, and later he taught himself to play the guitar, but at first he had to play it upside down because he was left-handed. On that day in July, his buddy Ivan Vaughan took him to the garden party.
Paul already knew the eccentric singer of the Quarry Men from hearsay, as John Lennon was known throughout the city as a warhorse who was better not to be messed with. Paul watched the band's performance and later went backstage with Ivan, where the guys were sipping a few beers. A little shyly, he grabbed the piano and played a few songs, John, already drunk, was thrilled. But what finally convinces the singer of Paul's talent: McCartney not only knows all the chords of “Twenty Flight Rock” on the guitar, and upside down at that, no, he also knows the lyrics by heart. That, as Paul likes to tell again and again later, is how he makes it into the Beatles.
About a year later, McCartney asks his classmate George Harrison if he wouldn't like to join The Quarry Men. The two know each other from the bus, because they live in the same neighborhood. At some point George learns that Paul is also enthusiastic about music, and the two jam together a little. In March 1958, George shows up to play, but John has doubts because he thinks Harrison is still too young at 15. Paul gets his way in the end and George takes over the part of lead guitarist from then on.
Once a bunch of shy guys
The shy boy, who always preferred to keep to himself at school, quickly became a heartthrob. Alongside Paul, of course, who was already the cute boy next door even back then. In 1960, the band consisted of John and Paul on rhythm guitar and George on lead guitar, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass and a succession of drummers. When the boys, now known as the Silver Beetles, were touring Scotland in May 1960 as a back-up for the singer Johnny Gentle, Tommy Moore took over the drums. Shortly afterwards, however, he left the band again, and the next drummer was Norman Chapman, who was called up for military service shortly afterwards.
Not only the drummers are constantly changing, but also the name. The band is known as Johnny And The Moondogs, Long John And The Beatles or The Silver Beetles, among others. There are several versions of how and why the name The Beatles was ultimately chosen. John says: “We had several names and changed them before every performance. Finally, we agreed on The Beatles because it has two meanings. I wanted a name like The Crickets with two meanings, and that's how I came up with Beetles. With the change to BEA, the name also has two meanings. One is 'beetle' (Beetle = Käfer) and when you read it, it's about beat music.”
Years later, he quipped in an interview with Mersey Beat magazine: “It came to me as a vision – a man appeared before me on a burning cake and said: ‘From this day on, you shall be known as the Beatles with an A’”. George, on the other hand, believes that Stuart came up with the idea for the name. “Stuart was a big fan of Marlon Brando and there is a line in the movie 'The Wild One' in which Lee Marvin says: 'Johnny we've been looking for you, the Beetles have missed you, the Beetles have missed you'. But maybe they both just had the same idea at the same time.” After they finally agreed on The Beatles, the band faces a much bigger problem.
Allan Williams, their unofficial manager, booked some young English bands for Bruno Koschmider in Hamburg. Since the groups were quite well received in his clubs, Koschmider asked Williams if he had more bands in store. The manager decided to send the Beatles, although he initially had concerns about the young age of the band members. The only problem is that the Beatles still need a drummer, and Koschmider wants a five-piece band. So the boys think back to Pete Best, whom they know from performing at the Casbah Coffee Club, which is owned by Pete's mother.
Setting in the foundation in Germany
When asked if he wants to join, the drummer immediately replies, “Yes,” and just four days later they are on their way to Hamburg. Williams later said of the boy, “He didn't play very cleverly, but quite passably.” The five inexperienced musicians arrive in Hamburg in April 1960 and first perform at the Indra Club, a strip joint. After the place closes, they move to the Kaiserkeller four months later. Koschmider demands a lot from the boys, hours of performances and the constant reminder: “Deliver a good show.”
The five take it literally, especially John, who is the biggest daredevil in the band anyway. He calls the German audience “fucking Nazis,” walks around dressed only in a toilet seat or wears women's clothing. But the others also get drunk, start fights, eat on stage or just lie down. During one of the performances, Stuart meets photographer Astrid Kirchherr, and the two fall in love. The first professional photos are taken by Astrid later on. The relationship between Koschmider and the Beatles, on the other hand, is less positive – the band decides that they have had enough of the Kaiserkeller and want to move to the Top Ten Club.
But in November, 17-year-old George Harrison is arrested by police on the Reeperbahn, which leads to his immediate expulsion. The rest of the Beatles decide to try it without him for the time being, but less than a week later, the law enforcers also arrest Paul and Pete, who are collecting their belongings from the accommodation that Koschmider had assigned to them. They went to prison for arson, and when John and Stuart wanted to pay the bail, they also went to jail because they didn't have a work permit. So in the end, all the Beatles had to leave the country.
But the boys have no desire to remain in Liverpool. They want to return to Hamburg, and as soon as George turns 18, they return to the Reeperbahn. The Top Ten Club never canceled the band's booking, and so they thrive in their role as stars of the scene for a while. But the long performances and the drugs slowly but surely take their toll. Soon, life on the Reeperbahn no longer seems so great to the boys. They decide to go back to England. Only Stuart stays behind, meanwhile engaged to Astrid and with a scholarship to the art school in Hamburg in the bag.
He explains to John that he is leaving, Paul could now take over the bass. There is some tension between him and McCartney before that, because Stuart doesn't want to be told by the younger one how to play his instrument. Unfortunately, Stuart dies of a brain haemorrhage a few months later. During their second stay, the Beatles recorded the song “My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur)” with singer Tony Sheridan as Tony Sheridan And The Beat Brothers. About the time in Hamburg, Lennon later said: “I didn't grow up in Liverpool, I grew up in Hamburg.” When the band returned home, they were much better received than the first time.
They got better paid gigs because they were presented as “the next big thing from Hamburg”. Pete is particularly popular with the girls. Another small sensation is their haircuts, which later earn them the name “the moptops”. It is at this point that they meet Brian Epstein, who has taken over a record shop from his father. When a customer requests a record by the Beatles and Brian can't find it anywhere, he becomes curious. When he learned that the Beatles were regular performers at the Cavern Club, he decided to go and see them.
Finding the right management
Completely blown away by their music, he suggested that he manage them. The band agreed, on condition that they didn't have to change their music. The boys parted company with Allan Williams after an argument between him and Lennon. But when Epstein took over the management in January 1962, changes were inevitable. He told the boys they had to stop eating, smoking and drinking on stage and bought them suits to make them look more professional on stage. George and John were not so keen on the idea, but Paul and Pete finally persuaded them.
In April 1962, the Beatles returned to the Reeperbahn for a third time, this time to open for the Star Club. During this time, Epstein tried feverishly to find a label for the boys. He used all of his connections and contacts, the boys auditioned for several record companies, but none of them were good enough for them. It takes eight months before he finally manages to convince Parlophone, an offshoot of EMI, of the band. Producer George Martin agrees to listen to the boys.
In an interview in the early 70s, Martin recalls: “When Brian Epstein brought these guys to me in 1962, I couldn't see any signs of outstanding songwriting qualities. 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You' were the best, the rest was terrible. In the end, it was the group's charisma and the resulting sympathy that moved me to sign them.” But there is one thing that really bothers the producer: the shy drummer Pete Best.
So he explains to Brian after the first studio session: “Listen, what you do with the guys is your business. But for the single, the band needs a solid drummer who can support them better.” The Beatles themselves see it similarly and leave it to Epstein to find a suitable replacement. He remembers a drummer in Hamburg who plays for Rory Storm And The Hurricanes. Already going by the stage name Ringo Starr and already a minor star in music circles himself, Richard Starkey is the perfect fit for the rest of the band.
What the boys don't know is that Martin has also found a drummer and now wants Andy White in the band instead of Ringo. In the end, he is persuaded to give the boy a chance and so he plays the tambourine on the first single “Love Me Do/PS I Love You”. The song reaches number 17 in the UK charts. The next single “Please Please Me”, this time with Ringo on drums from the album of the same name, makes it to the top. In October 1962, they make their first television appearance in “People And Places”. Screaming girls become a trademark of their performances, and so-called Beatlemania takes hold.
But it wasn't just fans who were enthusiastic about the four boys from Liverpool; critics also appreciated the music of the Beatles. On December 23, 1963, William Mann, a music critic at The Times, wrote a laudatory review of the band's compositions, praising their “fresh, melodious guitars” on “Till There Was You” and their “rising octaves” on “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. The Beatles themselves react somewhat perplexed to the critic's analysis, and John quips in a 1980 interview: “He wrote something about ‘Aeolian Cadences’; I still have no idea what he meant by that, to me it sounds like exotic birds.”
The second Album
The band's second album, “With The Beatles”, made history by reaching silver status even before its actual release. But what followed in the next few years changed music history forever anyway. Within a year, the Fab Four, as they were now known, had become absolute superstars in their home country, with several tours, numerous television appearances and a permanent place in the charts. It was also the year that they met a band that was still relatively unknown but about to release its first single: the Rolling Stones. Later, John and Paul would give their friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards the song “I Wanna Be Your Man”, which entered the UK charts at number 12.
On November 4, 1963, the Beatles perform in front of the Queen herself, along with Marlene Dietrich and Harry Secombe, at the annual “Royal Command Performance”. John announces the last piece with the words: “For our last piece, I ask for your support: Could the people in the cheap seats please clap their hands? The rest of them just clap along with the jewels”. The following year, the boys ventured across the pond. Even before that, their manager tried to get the US interested in the band, but their singles “Please Please Me”, “From Me To You” and “She Loves You” did not attract the attention of Capitol.
As a result, the Beatles refused to perform there until they had a number one hit in America. On January 17, 1964, they got their shot: “I Want To Hold Your Hand” went to the top of the charts. A month later, the Beatles landed at New York's JFK airport and gave an interview that revealed the band's now-famous humor. When asked, “Will you sing for us?” John replies, “No, not without advance payment.” When asked how they like America, John deliberately misunderstands the questioner and says, “We flew to Greenland and then turned left.”
On February 9, during their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, they allegedly set another record: no one in the country commits a crime at the time. The following year, the Beatles dominated the charts with an unprecedented dominance: in the US, they held the first five places in the single charts, and in Australia as many as six of the top ten. They were represented in the US top 100 with seven other songs. What could be more natural than to switch to film as well? So “A Hard Days Night” is released in the same year and, like the accompanying soundtrack, becomes a box office hit.
One month later, the boys embark on their first world tour, during which Ringo Starr contracts a severe tonsillitis, so Jimmy Nicol takes his place for the performances in Europe and Hong Kong. After that, the first major US tour followed, which turned out to be a real triumph. During the performance in New York, Bob Dylan visited the guys in their hotel room and they smoked their first joint. After their return in the fall, they immediately went on another month-long tour of Great Britain. The following year, the guys also spent touring and one of the most famous Beatles songs was created: “Yesterday”.
Breakfast table and scrambled eggs
Paul McCartney writes the song at the breakfast table, originally under the title “Scrambled Eggs”. Another European tour later, they perform in front of 55,600 spectators at the sold-out Shea Stadium in New York on August 15, 1965. However, neither the band nor the audience get much out of it, with the female fans drowning out everything with their screaming. This phenomenon would dog the Beatles throughout their career. When they landed at Munich Airport in 1966, fans trampled each other and even ate the grass their idols walked on. Another highlight for the band was meeting their idol, Elvis Presley, at his home in Bel Air.
In 1966, the Fab Four decided to stop touring, giving their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29. In an interview, Martin, who died in 2016, said about the reasons for the end of the tours: “There was incredible pressure on the boys. During the Philippine tour, George Harrison received several death threats. The band experienced the same hysteria everywhere they went; they couldn't escape it. You're always with the same three guys, and at some point you think to yourself, 'Hey, wait a minute! Where's my girlfriend? Where are my kids? What kind of life is this?' It just doesn't exist."
It wasn't just the Philippines that criticized the band. After John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, the band's records sold like hot cakes in the United States. 1967 was a year of change for the band, but it was above all the year that marked the beginning of the end of the band's harmony. First of all, the boys broke away from their clean-cut image. During a TV interview, Paul explains that he has already taken LSD four times. On “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” you can also find “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” with lines like: “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes”.
The album is widely regarded as the Fab Four's masterpiece. When asked about the degree to which the Beach Boys album “Pet Sounds” influenced the work on 'Sergeant Pepper', Martin had a lot to say: “Oh, we all loved ‘Pet Sounds’. Everything Brian Wilson did seemed untouchable. Paul and John also wanted to write brilliant pieces, 'Pet Sounds' was the benchmark. The way the vocal harmonies were worked with there, especially on “Good Vibrations”, was undoubtedly an inspiration."
Love also blossomed that year. Paul fell in love with photographer Linda Eastman, while John met Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono. She is long considered the catalyst for the band's split. Although they no longer tour, they continue to appear on television. They perform John Lennon's peace anthem “All You Need Is Love” in the BBC program Our World Live, which is broadcast worldwide via satellite, with 400 million viewers glued to their screens. The release of the song as a single brings the group back to the top of the charts everywhere.
In August, the Beatles attend a lecture by Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London. He invites them to a weekend's introductory course in transcendental meditation in Bangor. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull are also there. During the course, they receive the news that their manager and discoverer Brian Epstein has been found dead in his apartment. Completely shocked, the boys rush into shooting their third film, “Magical Mystery Tour”, in September. Without a script, Paul takes over most of the directing, which John and George are not particularly enthusiastic about. The film turns out to be the first Beatles flop ever.
The following year, the band and their wives set off for Rishikesh in India to attend a guru's meditation course lasting several weeks. Among the other participants are Mia Farrow, Mike Love and Donovan. Ringo drops out after just one month, Paul three weeks later. John and George, on the other hand, stay for over two months. In the same year, Paul and John also found the company Apple, a corporation with departments for music, film and art, which is supposed to be mainly dedicated to discovering and promoting talent. But thanks to a lack of business acumen on the part of the founders and employees, the company is developing into a money pit.
After the fiasco with the “Magical Mystery Tour”, the four of them try again with a film, this time with the Beatles as cartoon characters: “Yellow Submarine”. George later recalled: “‘Yellow Submarine’ came out in July. I remember meeting with Heinz Edelmann and the animators. They outlined a few ideas and we talked about the characters in the cartoon. But it was just one or two meetings with them and the producer – basically, we weren't really involved.” John and Yoko's increasingly intense relationship ultimately leads to the end of his marriage to Cynthia Lennon.
John has a son with his first wife, Julian, who Paul feels so sorry for that he inspires him to write the greatest Beatles hit of all time: ‘Hey Jude’. “I just wanted to tell him: Come on, son, your parents got divorced and I know you're not happy, but it'll be all right,” he later said about the song. The tensions between John and Paul, on the other hand, are increasing. Especially because Yoko insists on being present at all studio recordings. During the work on ‘The White Album’ there are repeated friction.
In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon explained: “When Brian died, we all collapsed and Paul took on the role of bandleader. But the rest of us didn't want to be led anymore. It's the same everywhere: when you meet your first wife, you leave the guys at the bar. You stop playing soccer or pool, the gang breaks up. It was a hard time. Whenever I hear Paul's 'Get Back', I see him in the studio looking at Yoko on the line 'Get back to where you once belonged'. He'll think I'm paranoid, but that's how it was. George even insulted Yoko to her face, but we got through that too. Ringo was ok, but the others really got to us.” In 1969, both Paul and John married their girlfriends, with John finally deciding against the Beatles in the eyes of the band.
At the beginning of the year, however, the band tried to make another album despite all the difficulties. Under the working title “Get Back”, a music documentary was to be created in which cameras would observe the boys during the production of the album and the development of a live show. But after a few days, there are serious arguments. This is mainly because, apart from Paul, no one really feels like doing the whole thing anymore. As John says afterwards: “I didn't make any conscious decisions anymore. Paul or whoever said, ‘It's time for an album’ and I just went, recorded an album and that was it. It just became a job.”
As John withdraws more and more, Paul takes on the role of production manager again. But it's not only the former dream team of Lennon/McCartney that is experiencing tension. George angrily leaves the studio after only eight days because Paul criticizes his guitar playing. After a clarifying discussion, the guys continue their work, but the planned live show has to be stopped after 42 minutes due to traffic chaos. In retrospect, all those involved agree: “Let It Be”, as the finished work is finally called, marks the end of the Beatles.
Even Paul later admits: “In fact, what happened was this: when we sat down for this production, we basically showed how the band's breakup would happen. At the time, we didn't realize it, but afterwards we did.” Nevertheless, the boys pulled themselves together again in April and recorded “Abbey Road”. The album was released in the fall of the same year, while “Let It Be” was not released until May 1970. By that time, the Fab Four no longer existed. Paul McCartney sent an advance copy of his first solo LP, “Paul McCartney”, to the British press.
Included is an interview in which he announces the break-up of the Beatles. In response to the question, “Is your departure from the Beatles temporary or permanent, and are the reasons personal or musical differences?” Paul replies, “It's personal, business, and musical differences, but mainly I just have more time for my family. Temporary or permanent? I don't know.”
The same day also sees the release of the last official statement from the Beatles: “Spring is here, Leeds are playing against Chelsea tomorrow, and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive, well and hopeful. The world is still turning, and we and you are in it. Only when it stops should we start to worry. Not before. Until then, the Beatles are doing well and the beat goes on, the beat goes on...”
After several arguments about “Let It Be” and Paul's solo effort in announcing the separation, a real mudslinging match ensues, especially with John. None of the band members appears at the world premiere of the film on May 20, 1970. Since Apple is increasingly becoming a liability, Paul sues the remaining Beatles and the company in the London High Court for termination of business relations between them.
The process ends in his favor, and on December 27, 1974, the Beatles business partnership finally ends. John retires with Yoko and works on his solo records. When asked in 1971 if he had a vision of “When I'm Sixty-Four,” Lennon replied, “I think Yoko and I are a kindly old couple in a house on the Irish coast, occasionally browsing through the scrapbook of madness together.”
Ringo, George and Paul also concentrated on their solo projects, but were always happy to help each other out. John, for example, contributed to Ringo's solo albums and vice versa. However, the four of them never got together again. On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman, a mentally disturbed fan, shot and killed John Lennon in New York.
With his death, any hope of a reunion of the band died. George explained years later: “There will be no reunion of the Beatles as long as John stays dead.” Paul, who was in London at the time, George in Henley-on-Thames and Ringo in the Bahamas, received the news of the death of their former colleague and friend by telephone. A week later, they met with Yoko at the Plaza Hotel.
In one of the last interviews before his death, John Lennon was asked by Playboy about his feelings about the Beatles' achievements: “When I was a Beatle, I thought, ‘Hey, I'm in the best rock band on the damn planet.’ But today? I'm dissatisfied with every single one of our songs. Last night I heard ‘Lucy in the sky...’ on the radio, and it was terrible. I mean, the song is good, but it was recorded wrong. What bothers me most is that my songs were subconsciously destroyed. 'Strawberry Fields' and 'Across The Universe' are such terrible recordings. With Paul's songs, we spent hours fine-tuning every little detail, but when it came to my songs, the others always seemed to lose interest...”
Seven years later, all of the Beatles' albums were re-released on CD. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, “Sgt. Pepper” entered the UK charts at number three. In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but only Ringo and George attended the ceremony in New York. Paul did not attend due to ongoing business differences. In the same year, the records “Past Master Vol. 1 & Vol. 2” were released, which included compilations of all Beatles singles and EPs.
In 1994, the “Beatles Anthology” project begins, during which Paul, George and Ringo record a new Beatles title for the first time in 24 years. “Free As A Bird” appears on “Beatles Anthology I”, which is followed by two more records and a five-hour documentary.
In 2000, the greatest hits album “One” is released at the same time as a biography in book form in which the Beatles tell their story for the first time in their own words.
A year later, George dies of cancer. Paul and Ringo perform together at a memorial concert for him in 2002, while Liverpool officially renames its airport “John Lennon Airport”.
In the following years, more Beatles releases appeared, such as the remix album “Love” or “Let It Be... Naked”, the raw version of the 1970 album. Ringo summarizes the most important message of the Beatles as follows: “We were honest with each other and honest in our music. The music was positive. Positive and full of love. They wrote – we all wrote about other things, but the basic message of the Beatles was love.”
