Category: Uncategorized
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The Beatles have three songs that contain an exclamation point in the title. Can you name them? The answers appear at the end of this post. But the exclamation point isn’t the punctuation mark that concerns us today. Instead, we’re looking at the six (or seven) titles that contain parentheses (singular: parenthesis). Specifically, I’m curious…
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How many Beatles were there? I don’t mean to trick you; if you answered “Duh, four,” you’ve passed the test. But is that the most accurate answer? Yes. Yes it is. So if you’d like to share your thoughts about the four Beatles, email me– Kidding! There were definitely more than four Beatles. But how…
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When I worked in corporate America, among our favorite time-wasters was to try to solve problems by asking 5 “what” or “why” questions. I thought I’d use that method as a way to explore what I consider to be the big Beatles question: What made The Beatles great? Question 1: Why should we consider The…
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Here’s the second in the series naming an MVB (Most Valuable Beatle) for each album. First up was Please Please Me. This time, we’ll tackle: With The Beatles (1963) Songwriting: Among the album’s 14 tracks are 8 originals (including the first song written by George, Don’t Bother Me) and 6 covers. John primarily wrote 4…
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We’re all familiar with Brian Epstein’s boast, reported in Michael Braun’s excellent Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress (Graymalkin Media, 1964), that when he first heard The Beatles, “‘I knew they would be bigger than Elvis.’” Mark Lewisohn, in the Extended Special Edition of Tune In (Little, Brown, 2013), writes, “It’s an interesting thought that…
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The Beatles recorded many great album tracks that could have been–actually, absolutely would have been–singles for other bands. I’ll kick off this sub-series by examining their four 1963-64 albums to find a song that they could have released as a single. For this exercise, I’m only choosing singles from (and excluding singles that have already…
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I recently came in possession of a quickie 1964 American paperback titled The Beatle Book (Lancer Books, Inc.). No author’s name appears on the cover or title page, but the many photographs are attributed to Dezo Hoffman. The photos seem to end roughly around their visit to Miami, the last stop of their February Ed…
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A mini trend in Paul’s lyrics, both with The Beatles and later, involves references to being “right” (usually Paul) and/or “wrong” (usually the person to whom Paul’s singing)*. I’ll take a look at some of Paul’s songs that contain those references (and not, for example, John’s Anytime at All or A Hard Day’s Night, even…
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In The Beatles Anthology book, Paul tells this story about writing She Loves You in June 1963: John and I wrote ‘She Loves You’ together. There was a Bobby Rydell song out at the time and, as often happens, you think of one song when you write another. John also chimes in: It was Paul’s…
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I’m kicking off an occasional series looking at each of The Beatles’ 13 albums and deciding who’s the album’s Most Valuable Beatle (MVB). I’ll start off by examining the songwriting, singing, and playing on each album, but not in any real depth or with any actual “expertise.” (I’m just a fan with no musical background…
Off The Beatle Track 