Category Archives: Beatles

Anniversary, Beatles, Music et al

Beatles Get Back

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Beatles Get Back

Billboard #1 single May 24, 1969

George Harrison’s “Sour Milk Sea”

Beatles Get Back

Beatles Get Back

 Beatles step back

We’d heard and feared the grumblings and the rumblings of the Beatles’ internal dissent. Though we’d only known them for 5 years, it felt like we’d been together far longer. And we wanted them to stay together.

Perhaps that’s what we thought when we heard the title “Get Back.” They were telling us, “Don’t worry. We are here for you.”

Beatles Get Back

Sour Milk Sea

The melody grew out of a George Harrison tune, “Sour Milk Sea.” It didn’t make it onto the so-called White Album and was actually recorded by Jackie Lomax.

Beatles Get Back

Jo Jo & Loretta

With the Beatles, what we think and what was often differ. The larger story wider. And with “Get Back” it may sound like it’s about Jo Jo…

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner

But he knew it wouldn’t last

Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona

For some California grass

  …and his desire for some grass (hee hee).

…or Loretta…

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman

But she was another man

All the girls around her say she’s got it coming

But she gets it while she can

Rivers of Blood

 …but it started out, like many songs, in a completely different direction.

In 1968, Enoch Powell, a British politician, had given a speech that became known as the ‘Rivers of blood’ speech. In it, although the the phrase “rivers of blood” does not appear, Powell bemoaned what he saw as the dissolution of the traditional white British people by immigrants.

Thus Paul’s satirical “Get Back to where you once belonged.”

17th #1

Of course, the end product became something else. Something else but something successful. “Get Back” was the Beatles’s 17th #1 song in the US, surpassing Elvis Presley’s previous record of 16 #1s.

Alan W Pollack dissected the song (as a song) as no one else does at his site. Using the link is well worth your time.

The only other point I’ll mention is that Billy Preston, the fifth Beatle if George Martin were not already that (so Preston is the sixth Beatle) plays organ on the song.

Beatles Get Back
Beatles, John Lennon, Music et al, Today in history

John Yoko Tittenhurst Park

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John Yoko Tittenhurst ParkJohn Yoko Tittenhurst ParkPeter Cadbury

On May 4, 1969 John and Yoko closed on the purchase of Tittenhurst Park. The cost was £145,000 ($2,543,039 in 2022 dollars).

They did not move in until August because of renovations that included a lake. The renovations reportedly cost twice the price paid for the 72-acre estate.

John and Yoko bought it from Peter Cadbury, the same Cadbury family famous for Cadbury chocolates, though Peter was not involved in the business.

By late 1969, the Beatles were a band nearly in name only. On the cusp of a final break-up, what turned out to be the last pictures taken of the four together were taken at Tittenhurst Park on on 22 August 1969. The photos, by Ethan Russell and Monte Fresco, were used for the front and back covers of their Hey Jude album.

John Yoko Tittenhurst Park

Ascot Sound Studios

John and Yoko built a recording studio in Tittenhurst called Ascot Sound Studios. Lennon and Ono recorded their next several albums in it. The cover of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album was taken at Tittenhurst Park.

John Yoko Tittenhurst Park
photo by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

And the famous video recording of Lennon’s Imagine was done at Tittenhurst Park.

Homeless intrusion

And it was on the 22 May 1971 that John and Yoko spoke to a homeless man who had been hiding on the estate. After speaking with him, they invited him in for something to eat.

John Yoko Tittenhurst Park

Left never to return

John and Yoko moved to New York City in  August 1971. Lennon never returned to England.

On 18 September 1973 John and Yoko sold Tittenhurst Park to Ringo , who renamed the recording facilities Startling Studios.

According to the  Beatles Bible site, “He [Ringo] made it [Startling Studios] available to other musicians, including T.Rex who filmed Born To Boogie there. Starr sold Tittenhurst in 1988…to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi.

Tittenhurst Park may not be the best known words, even among Beatles fans, but one can see from the above that it played an important part in the Beatles’ final days as a group John Lennon’s final days in his native land, and Ringo recording life.

John Yoko Tittenhurst Park
Anniversary, Beatles, Music et al, Today in history

Beatles Shakespeare

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Beatles Shakespeare

April 28, 1963
Excerpt of Paul and John speaking parts of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from the Around the Beatles TV special.

The many roads musicians travel are not necessarily the weed, whites,  and wine-filled ones that fans imagine. The key to breaking through is exposure. Performances night after night can fine tune a group’s show and songs, but small venues provide small audiences.

True in the 60s as it is today, electronic media can reach far more ears and eyes than those nightly gigs. Given the chance, a group will jump, however reluctantly, onto whatever opportunity presents itself.

So it was for the Beatles.

Being able to perform songs was the obvious and key part. John, Paul, George, and Ringo did not realize that dressing up and performing Shakespeare was also part of deal.

Beatles Shakespeare

Around the Beatles

The morning of  April 28, 1963 the soon-to-be-Fab Four showed up at Rediffusion’s Wembley Studios, London.  They rehearsed and did a radio interview before the show’s taping.

The “story” was supposed to be set in the Globe Theatre in the round, thus the show’s name.

Jack Good was the director. He would later give us the TV show Shindig!.

From the Beatles Bible site: The Beatles took part in two segments in the show: a musical set and a spoof of Act V Scene I of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison also mimed a trumpet fanfare at the start of the show, before Ringo Starr appeared with a flag to set off a cannon ball. The group also introduced PJ Proby’s performance.

For the Shakespeare spoof, Lennon took the female role of Thisbe, McCartney played Pyramus, Harrison was Moonshine and Starr played Lion. Incidentally, McCartney later owned a cat he named Thisbe.

Beatles Shakespeare
Ringo setting off the cannon at the show’s start

The Beatles lip-synced Twist And Shout, Roll Over Beethoven, I Wanna Be Your Man, Long Tall Sally, Can’t Buy Me Love, and did a medley that included: Love Me Do, Please Please Me, From Me To You, She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand. They closed with their cover of the The Isley Brothers’ Shout, the only time their performance  of the song was recorded.

The show aired on May 6, 1964.

Beatles Shakespeare

PJ Proby

Ironically, the person who got the biggest immediate media bump was American singer PJ Proby who performed “Walking the Dog” and “Cumberland Gap.”