‘#9 Dream’ is the one song that stands above the rest on John Lennon’s scattergun fifth studio album, Walls and Bridges, comparing favourably with the very best of his solo compositions. The entire record was the product of Lennon’s infamous ‘Lost Weekend’ in Los Angeles during the summer of 1974, a time when he shacked […]
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There are plenty of stories of songs John Lennon hated, but others usually write them. Especially at the end of The Beatles, he was more than happy to dish out critiques when it came to Paul McCartney’s songwriting efforts. But in this instance, his criticism was turned inwards when talking about one largely unknown cut. […]
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I once interviewed a band who defiantly told me, “It’s hard not to sound like The Beatles, because they invented everything!” It was a fair remark to make when I asked about the Beatles-inspired piano reprise in one of their songs. It was nothing more than a progression of piano chords, designed to sound like […]
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The room does not feel like a room at all. It feels suspended, as if the walls have learned to listen. Light gathers where sound should end, and for a long moment nothing moves. Then it begins — a guitar weeping softly, not for effect, but with the quiet familiarity of something that remembers hands […]
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The impact of The Beatles’ music on popular culture is something that really needs to be studied to be understood. No one quite knew what they were listening to when the Fab Four first started making their pop masterpieces, and there are subtle hints of what they did scattered throughout every generation that came afterwards. […]
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Home / The Beatles / RISK TURNED INTO REVOLUTION THAT NIGHT — How a Quiet Insult Pushed The Beatles to Rewrite the Rules of Music London, 1965, was thick with confidence. The city hummed with new sounds, new faces, new certainty about who mattered and why. Inside a crowded studio party, laughter bounced off the […]
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In the second half of 1962, The Beatles became one of the first British bands to release a debut single they had written themselves from scratch. The song ‘Love Me Do’ was one of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s earliest joint songwriting efforts, worked out together by the two of them from a song idea […]
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The room felt suspended, as if the air itself had chosen to pause and listen. When Sean Ono Lennon and Julian Lennonbegan to sing together, it was clear this was not a performance shaped for spectacle. It was something rarer and quieter — a reunion written into sound, unfolding with the care of a memory […]
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By the time The Beatles broke up, John Lennon seemed content with paving a way forward on his own. It was his band, after all, and while it took him a long time to come to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be together anymore, the fact that he could still carry on and […]
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On the night of July 15, 1966, the roar outside Shea Stadium felt endless. More than 55,000 voices pressed against the concrete, waiting for The Beatles to step into history once again. But backstage, history nearly stopped. Ten minutes before showtime, John Lennon folded inward. He sat with his head in his hands, breath breaking, […]
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