The Beatles

Link to Spotify playlist: Mus115 - 04. The Beatles

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Early Beatles

The Beatles were essentially started by John Lennon. He was heavily influenced by Elvis, and tried to look the part of the rebellious teenager. However, when Lonnie Donegan had a smash hit with a skiffle style song called Rock Island Line, he founded the Quarrymen, which eventually evolved into the Beatles. Skiffle is a mix between C&W, folk, ballad style stories, rockabilly, rock vocals, and, well, pretty much everything else from the early 50s. Hopefully you can hear those influences.

Of note: Rock Island Line is an American Folk song, written in 1929, and sung a bit slower.

• The first recorded version was recorded in Cummins State Prison farm, Gould, Arkansas in 1934. It was re-arranged to sound more like a spiritual. Rock Island Line 1934
• Pete Seeger did his own version, probably closer to the original written version. Rock Island Line - Pete Seeger This version may have come after the Beatles had already been a thing.

So without this song written in 1929, reshaped and reworked by countless other artists, and then taken up tempo by British singer Lonnie Donegan, we would not have the Beatles.

In any event, John Lennon did hear Lonnie, and started the skiffle band Quarrymen in 1956. In 1957, John was introduced to Paul McCartney, who also took after Elvis, but also Carl Perkins, Little Richard, and the Everly Brothers. At this point, skiffle had kind of run its course, and the Quarrymen and the other groups in Liverpool switched over to rock. Also in 1957, a friend of Paul's, George Harrison (then 14 years old) started hanging around the band as well. Stu Sutcliffe started hanging around the band trying to join, pretending to be a bass player. When a tour manager suggested that they needed a name change, Stu suggested the name "The Beetles", in homage to Buddy Holly's Crickets. They went with it, eventually becoming "Long John and the Silver Beetles". Eventually John suggested altering the name and spelling to "The Beatles", to make a pun on the musical term "beat".

The very very short summary of the Beatles evolution was that they had a couple of tours in Germany between 1960 and 1962, got better as a group, and got new management with Brian Epstein in 1962. In January 1962, they bombed their first attempts to record in the Decca record label studios failed miserably, and Decca, EMI, and Phillips all passed on the Beatles. Their bassist, Stu Sutcliffe, died of a brain hemorrhage in April of 1962. But in June, they got another audition with Parlophone Records, managed by George Martin. He was impressed enough to offer the minimum contract at the time - one year, four songs, 1 penny in royalties for every record sold. In August, they as a group decided that Pete Best, their current drummer, wasn't fitting in and wasn't good enough, and needed to be replaced. Their manager, Brian Epstein, was the one who actually fired Pete, and replaced him with Ringo Starr, one of Liverpool's best known drummers. And now, the legendary group known as The Beatles, managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin, was finally put into place.

Ringo Starr

A quick aside about Ringo - a few things that made him unique as a drummer. In his Liverpool drumming days, he didn't have a car, so he would cart around a minimalist drum kit around on the bus. Thus he got fairly good at being good at getting the most out of each of the parts of the kit. He was also left-handed, but playing a kit setup for a right-hander, so many of his fills are actually devilishly hard for right-handed drummers to play, even as basic as some of the fills sounded. Ringo's ability to keep time as precisely as a metronome allowed George Martin to do some edits that would not have been possible with other drummers.

First Hits

The first song they released as a single did pretty well, up to #17 on the UK charts

• Love Me Do

But soon after, their third single (linked below), reached number 1 on the UK charts.

• Please Please Me

With this early success, they quickly recorded a full album Please Please Me which included the above hits, as well as other originals. They also recorded a cover an Isley Brothers hit from the Dance Craze:

• Twist and Shout

With this one, George Martin wanted the rawest vocals he could get. He also knew that it was vocally very challenging for John Lennon, so he purposefully waited until the end of the day's recording session. John already didn't have much voice left, and could only manage two takes. You can hear where his voice is almost failing. It almost hurts to listen to, but it turned out to be one of their most popular early songs.

When Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr did record the song in 1963, the song’s growling vocal performance nearly put John Lennon’s vocal cords out of action for good. “The last song nearly killed me,” Lennon confirmed in 1976. “My voice wasn’t the same for a long time after— every time I swallowed it was like sandpaper.”

But their biggest breakthrough was their fourth hit (linked below), recorded as a single only, not part of an album, which shot straight to number 1 on the UK charts, and started the UK version of Beatlemania.

• She Loves You - the all-time best selling Beatles single in the UK charts.

They quickly moved on to a new album, With The Beatles, and had a huge hit with:

• I Want to Hold Your Hand

While some of their previous songs had been released in the US on minor labels to almost no success, this was the hit the broke open the American Market. Well, the song plus persistent badgering from Brian Epstein to Capitol Records to release I Want to Hold Your Hand in the American market. By the time The Beatles made their way to New York in December 1963, the song had been number 1 in the US for a week, and overcapacity crowds welcomed them at the airport. Applications for the Ed Sullivan live show topped 50,000 - the theatre only held 700. US DJs started playing Beatle records non-stop. Beatlemania had begun. More of The Beatles

Beatles Grow

The Beatles were not the first band to start experimenting with new sounds, new chord progressions, and new song forms, but they were certainly the most popular. Even during the rise of Beatlemania with their more straight forward hits, they were including things like "borrowed" chords. The shortest possible explanation I can give for this: If you are playing in a particular key, there is a set of 7 different chords you can use that sound like they belong in that key. "Borrowed" chords is borrowing a chord temporarily from another key to add some spice to the harmonic structure of the song, while still keeping the rest of the song grounded in the original key. One of their favorite tricks was to play the major IV(4) chord of a key, and follow it by a borrowed minor iv(4) chord, and then resolve it to the I(1) chord of the key. You can hear this in "She Loves You" at around the 30 second mark. They also used this "borrowed" minor iv chord elsewhere, you can read about it in this beatles songwriting blog here. This was likely influenced from some of the more sophisticated do-wop chord progressions.

This was not the only unusual chord they used (although they thought it was the "natural" or "normal" thing to do), it was just one of the more common ones in their early works. They also used things like secondary dominants, mixed major and minor modes together, and a few other things that were pretty unique in the rock and roll world of three and four chord songs. A lot of these "unusual" chords were inspired by Paul's upbringing, listening to classical music and "society band" music that made a lot of use of these harmonic sophistications. Further, the group often thought that they needed to have at least one special chord in a song.

Back to the Beatles timeline - they had their first Number one hit in the US, “I Want to Hold your Hand” in late 1963, about 1.5 years after they added Ringo and did their first recordings with George Martin.

They then had hit after hit and basically dominated the US pop charts. Back in 1956, Elvis had place nine singles in the top 100 in a week. In 1964, The Beatles broke this record several times. In March of 1964, they had 10 in the top 100, and in mid-April, they had 14 in the top 100. Also in that month, all of the top 5 pop hits were Beatles tunes.

• Can’t Buy Me Love

And, like other successful rock stars, they jumped into making their own movies. “A Hard Day’s Night” released in summer 1964, was huge. They went on a world tour and were mobbed at every venue. They often had to leave in armored cars.

In 1965, they were now living the multi-millionaire rock star lifestyle, with all of the drugs and other activities that came with it. They were introduced to LSD, and George and John in particular were introduced to LSD, a mind altering drug that changed the course of their music.

At this point, even though most of their hits were their original tunes, they all were fairly consistent in style, pleasant and upbeat. They did continue to use “interesting chords” or "unusual chords" as discussed above.

Help! (album)

The first inkling of a change was with their second movie in 1965 “Help!” and the accompanying audio album. While most of the tracks were delightful, distinctively Beatles, but still clearly evolutionary, one song was a bit more revolutionary: "Yesterday".

Paul brought the song to George Martin. Already unusual, with a sophisticated chord progression, soft, melancholy melody, very pop like, George added the idea of a string quartet. The result was a song that shot straight to number 1, and has since become their most covered hit, officially covered by more than 3000 other artists and recordings, and unofficially covered by a million other singer/songwriter hopefuls at your nearest open mic venue.

Listen and compare these tracks, both on the Help! album:

• Help!
• Yesterday

Rubber Soul (Album)

With this success, their next album in late 1965, “Rubber Soul” was quite a bit more experimental. George Harrison was introduced to the Sitar, and added it to Norwegian Wood.

John Lennon was influenced by the lyrics of Bob Dylan, and wrote songs "The Word" and "Nowhere Man". There were the first real big (popular) Beatles tunes not about boy-girl relationships, and starting on social-commentary styles.

• Nowhere Man

George Harrison contributed “Think for Yourself” with a bit of an unusual sound, Paul wrote "Michelle" with verses in English and French, and John Lennon also wrote "In My Life". By itself is a good song, but features a piano solo played by George Martin at half speed. When sped up to song tempo, the pitch came up an octave as well, and it sounded more like a harpsichord.

• In My Life

The point is - very few songs on this album were of the "usual" types - this was the Beatles mixing the familiar with pushes further and further into the unusual. This increasing creativity is what set The Beatles apart from other rock bands, and inspired The Beach Boys to do Pet Sounds.

Revolver (Album)

The second “creative” album was 1966's Revolver, with another set of experimental songs, some with drug referencing double-entendres. But before we get to those, we have to get the “John mocks Christianity” issue.

In February of 1966, John had said:

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink, I needn’t argue with that: I’m right and will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now: I don’t know which will go first - rock ’n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

Whatever your feelings on the matter, John did not say “We’re better than Jesus”, but that’s how American newspapers took it. Completely out of context (reminds you of our current political climate), they often only referenced the “We’re more popular than Jesus” line, and ran with it. There were campaigns to ban the Beatles, and record burning events, the usual over-reactionary furor. It was enough that John had to do some sort of apology, and some sort it was:

“I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then—okay, I’m sorry.”

John obviously didn’t think he had done anything wrong (and looking at the full quote above, can you blame him?), and thus didn't really try to censor himself in the future. He made several remarks about the Vietnam War which could have been taken the wrong way, but at that point the reporters and the public pretty much ignored them.

In August of 1966, after all that controversy died down, Revolver was released in the US, in coordination with another tour.

Some other experimental tunes:

• Eleanor Rigby - Paul McCartney - with strings and evocative lyrical imagery.
• Love You Too - George Harrison - Indian influenced.
• Got to Get You Into My Life - Paul McCartney Rocker with horns, an "ode to pot."
• Yellow Submarine - Ringo singing, with drug fueled imagery, this song was likely a reference to “yellow subs”, a type of pentobarbitone taken in pill form. The main melody was written using only 5 notes to accommodate Ringo's limited vocal range.
• Tomorrow Never Knows - John Lennon - ethereal, with tapes mixed backwards and other weird sound effects.

Of course, the Beatles denied the drug references, especially in Yellow Submarine, and called it a children's song or some such. They eventually made an animated film titled Yellow Submarine.

The release of this album was coordinated with another US tour to support it, also in August of 1966.

However, at this point in 1966, the Beatles were getting tired of the constant hustle, pressure, press, controversies, and grueling concert schedule.

The incredible pace of evolution in the Beatles is amazing when you take a far look at it. From the years 1960-1966, the Beatles started as the resident artists in a club in Hamberg, Germany, and The Cavern Club in Liverpool, then had their first singles and hits in the UK, then US hits and tours, full blown world wide Beatlemania, tours of Europe, US, and other world wide destinations. In this six-ish year period, they released about 15-17 albums (some full of new material, some covers, some compilation), wrote and recorded hundreds of original songs, starred in two movies, ignited a controversy in the US, and basically never had a break! Making music, touring, dealing with loud fans that drowned out the recording equipment, etc... There was a *lot* packed into those 6 years, especially in the last 2.

So, unbeknownst to anybody at the time, the Beatles concert on August 29, 1966 would be their last live show.

In addition to fatigue from the relentless grind, the increasingly experimental nature of the Beatles new songs made them technically impossible to perform live.

Some of the things that caused these technical issues:

• reverse tape loops
• varying speeds of tape loops throughout the song
• advanced mixing and editing in the sudio like taking two disparate parts of songs and putting them together my modifying the original speeds and keys (tonal centers)
• older songs with crucial orchestral elements or larger backing band stuff

Because of all of this, they took the rest of 1966 off, and regrouped in December. They released two singles in February, "Penny Lane" with a piccolo trumpet solo, and "Strawberry Fields Forever" - a nostalgic yet trippy surrealistic tune made up of two very different recordings in different keys - one with strings, and one with heavy guitar. George Martin took those two recordings and adjusted the tape speed until they matched and made a cohesive whole. Every time I realize how basic the editing tools were back then, I am astounded at how good George was at taking fragments that weren't meant to go together and making the edit work.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Album)

This album was released in June 1967, and began its 168 week (3 years and 2 months) stay on the charts.

It was their first concept album, where the listener could interpret the songs as being about a sort of a "many moods and thoughts" of a member in the "Sgt. Pepper's" band. In later interviews, John Lennon pours some ice-water on this idea, saying:

“It doesn't go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt Pepper and his band; but it works, because we said it worked, and that's how the album appeared. But it was not put together as it sounds, except for Sgt Pepper introducing Billy Shears, and the so-called reprise. Every other song could have been on any other album”.

However, most critics, and the majority of popular opinion, heard this album as a concept album. Partially because many of the tracks lead into the next track without a clean break. As a listener, you can hear the connection between most of the songs, as they flow together on the album. Maybe they weren't composed together as part of a concept and aren't part of a linear story like Pet Sounds was, but because of how most of the songs in the album were book ended with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Harts Club Band" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)", and how the songs in between were ordered, the listener is lead to believe these song are all connected, even if they are a bit more scattered in concept.

Possibly, the songs are more connected as topical and sonic experiments - they had drug references with Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, Indian influences in Within You Without You, soft pop sounding She's Leaving Home, 1930s style with When I'm Sixty-Four, the abstract and esoteric Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, experimental instrument sounds, the Ringo song With A Little Help from My Friends (with a little drug reference as well), and the more commercially viable Getting Better.

But the closer track, A Day in the Life was the "summation" if you will, of the entire album and The Beatles experience at that point. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney had composed incomplete song fragments, that George Martin stitched together with his studio magic. John Lennon's opening recitation of newspaper stories uses a non-sequitur epic orchestral break to morph into Paul McCartney's new section about rolling out of bed, smoothly transitions with a George Harrison/George Martin penned bridge back into John Lennon's opening section. Unbelievable music genius to reconcile those two very different sections.

"A Day in the Life" acted as a sort of an encore or bonus track. They wanted to avoid the normal album's abrupt "song's over, let's move on" ending.

Instead, they sort of forced a bit of reflection with a final chord, which was held over 45 seconds. Technically, this a low E1 plus a G#2, making it a Major 10th interval (if you're interested in the musical trivia). This "chord" (which is not really a chord as it only has two notes) is followed by a 15kHz tone designed to mess with people's dogs, followed by a "never could be any other way" stuck on the inner grove of the record. If you had a record player that didn't automatically lift the needle arm at the end of a record, you'd be stuck in an endless loop of that last little section. This is something that cannot be replicated with modern equipment - it was kind of an experiment into

We can't forget about the album art either - this was the era of records, and the Sgt. Peppers album cover was an elaborate affair that opened up like a book. It had over 60 faces on it, and had the complete lyrics (another new idea for rock albums) printed, along with other elaborate artwork. All of a sudden, elaborate album packaging became the norm, and concept albums were all the rage. Fascinating reading about the design of the album packaging can be found here: https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/1967/03/designing-the-packaging-for-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band/

Magical Mystery Tour (Album)

The Beatles decided to do another film, and this was their first flop. Paul had an idea for the film and tried to make it happen, but without the help and guidance of manager Brian Epstien (who had committed suicide in 1967 just before Sgt. Pepper's), the film had no direction (with no script!). Fans and media interrupted every shoot, and the film was just savaged by critics. Luckily, the musical album, which contained the six songs from the film plus several more singles (including the previously released Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever), was a commercial success, and it looked like the Beatles just avoided a possible mis-step.

Yoko Ono

Just before recording Sgt. Pepper's, John met Yoko Ono at an art exhibit. She was an eccentric yet intellectual artist in the visual medium, and kept in contact with John throughout 1967 and 1968. John was married to a woman named Cynthia, who was the mother of his son Julian, and who had to endure his verbal abuse, alcoholism, drug trips, constant touring, and constant infidelity. When John finally hooked up with Yoko, he sued Cynthia for divorce on grounds of infidelity, which shocked and hurt Cynthia, who counter-sued on the same grounds. The fact that Yoko was pregnant with John's child somewhat weakened John's case, and Cynthia was granted a divorce and custody of Julian. For all who lionize John as a magnificent songwriter and conceptual artist (deservedly so), we must also realize that he was terrible in his personal life.

As this was all going on, John also started bringing Yoko to all the band recording sessions, business lunches, etc...  The rest of the Beatles were not amused. The fans were even less amused, and they started getting hate mail, catcalls and racial slurs any time John and Yoko were out.

She's often credited by fans with breaking up The Beatles, but none of the band members give that any credence. They were already breaking up by the time Ono came along — Paul McCartney told Howard Stern that as early as 1968, Lennon was talking about leaving the group. As Biography quotes the conversation, "But looking back on it you think, 'The guy was totally in love with her and you've got to respect that.' So, we did. And I do."

As a side note, she definitely had some eccentric ideas. Here's a video of John Lennon and Chuck Berry performing some of Chuck's songs in 1972. John idolized Chuck, and it was his lifelong dream to play live with him. During the performance, Yoko takes a mic and starts yowling? yodelling? You can see near the end she was doing so again, but the producers had cut her mic. Originally, I had the whole video linked, but that was cut due to copyright, so here is a condensed video just showing some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSGm0RUDxo

The Beatles (aka "The White Album")

The fact that John allowed Yoko into the sessions and invited her along drove a wedge into the Beatles. Despite their later protestations that "we were already breaking up", the addition of an opinionated outsider sitting in on the sessions and offering advice must have been divisive. The sessions for the next album, simply titled The Beatles but known as The White Album were filled with acrimony, bickering, resentment, and the like across the whole group. Paul was frustrated with the rest of the group, as he would show up to the studio early to start working, and would have to cajole and drag the rest of the group to the studio. The biggest conflict was between John and Paul, of course. John's songs were harsh, avant-garde, non-commercial, even more experimental, and he viewed Paul's songs as bland and sentimental. George contributed 4 songs. Due to the bickering, Ringo even quit the band for a while.

Despite all of this, this album (which is known as "The White Album" simply because the cover was all white) became a 30 track double album that received some mixed reviews. Concept album this was not! Often, in a band with multiple strong-willed songwriters, the lack of editing and cohesion reflects a tension that leads to a band breakup. This album was pretty much the opposite of Sgt. Pepper's - no album art at all, just a white cover (hence the nickname "The White Album"), no unifying concept, songs completely unrelated to each other, no time or sonic constraints on the songs. What the album did contain was essentially a history and synthesis of Western Pop music.

The opening track "Back in the U.S.S.R" derived from Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA", but the bridge had a tribute to the Beach Boys, similar to "Surfin' U.S.A."

• Back in the U.S.S.R.

While they had mostly stayed away from 12-bar blues format, on this album there are three tunes featuring that form.

• Yer Blues

There was 1930's band music, 50's doo-wop, rockers, sentimental songs, tributes to the Maharishi, and pretty much every style in western rock up to that point. The avant-garde "Revolution 9" was a bit of a shocker - this was composed of many sampled sounds, reversed and modified in many ways, with no real "song" behind it. George Martin and the rest of the Beatles begged him not to include it on the album, but he was stubborn enough to add it.

It even had what could be considered the first "Metal" song with heavy guitars and riffs, vocal screaming, and the like:

• Helter Skelter

Paul, in an interview, said:

"Umm, that came about just 'cuz I'd read a review of a record which said, 'And this group really got us wild, there's echo on everything, they're screaming their heads off.' And I just remember thinking, 'Oh, it'd be great to do one. Pity they've done it. Must be great-- really screaming record.' And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn't rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, 'Oh well, we'll do one like that, then.' And I had this song called 'Helter Skelter' which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise."

George Harrison had one of his biggest successes with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", with guest guitar soloist Eric Clapton:

• While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The album ends with a lush and pop-y Ringo song:

• Good Night

Even with it's completely random collection of songs, this album was considered a commercial success, reaching #1 for nine weeks, and spent 144 weeks on the Top 200 chart. Apple Records

Apple Records

During this time, the Beatles also formed a company called Apple Corps, Ltd, so they could dabble in other musical and film ventures without having to ask the record label for funding. The first release by this company was the White Album, and the first singles released by this company were the Beatles biggest sellers ever: "Hey Jude" with "Revolution" as the B-side.

• Hey Jude

New Management

After Brian Epstein's passing, the band was in need of a new manager. John wanted one manager, Paul wanted a different one (the father of his new bride, Linda). The Beatles eventually went with John's guy, but the dissolution of the band was inevitable, as they all grew weary of each other, and their own differing musical directions.

Abbey Road (Album)

In early 1969, the band tried to do a film of their studio sessions, but that failed (although some of the tracks recorded ended up on Let it Be). Instead, they shelved that project and actually worked together to produce Abbey Road. Note - spotify doesn't do great with album tracks and the "I Want You" track on this one just abruptly cuts off. So that kind of ruins the album listening experience.

Back to the album songs - George Harrison wrote two outstanding tracks - "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" with sophisticated harmonic progressions and time signature changes. This became their biggest-selling album ever, with the iconic album cover of them crossing the street near Abbey Road studios. This was also their last gathering for recording an album, which suitably, ends with a song called "The End".

• Something
• Here Comes the Sun
• The End
  

Let it Be (Album)

At this point in 1970, the Beatles were going their separate ways, and nothing could bring them back together. Ringo released a solo album, George joined Eric Clapton on tour, John and Yoko were traveling for spiritual enlightenment and producing their own music with "The Plastic Ono Band", and Paul was starting to work with Linda on new musical ventures (which eventually lead to "Wings", another band with a lot of commercial hits).

None of them were interested in recording and producing a new Beatles album, but there were enough tracks recorded and archived that producer Phil Spector assembled an album's worth of music from all of these tapes, resulting in Let it Be. The album opens with a sentimental "Two of Us", and produced the singles "Get Back" and "Let it Be". "Let it Be" in particular was sort of a solace to all the Beatles fans who were distraught about the group breaking up.

• Two of Us
• Let it Be

And thus ends the story of the most influential rock band in the history of rock, all in a period of approximately 10 years (1960-1970). Almost every modern group can trace some of their influence back to The Beatles in some way. The Beatles themselves were an amalgamation of influences, from Little Richard and Chuck Berry, to the Beach Boys, to Elvis, to local skiffle bands, classical music, 1930s pop, and everything in between. They basically redefined what it meant to be a rock band.

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...or does the story really end?

The Beatles have released The Anthology in 1995 (video and three album's worth of material) which shot to #1.

They released a CD with remastered number 1 hits (called "1") in 2000, and it sold 31 million copies.

And then, there is the new Beatles song released in 2023.

In 1995, the Beatles put together their Anthology collection, which included some new recordings. The three remaining Beatles (at the time) worked on some of John Lennon's unfinished demos from the 1970s, and produced a few new songs. However, one of the tunes on the tape recording had piano that was too heavy and vocals that were too soft to be used.

Using AI technology, Peter Jackson (of "Lord of the Rings" fame) had a team extract John Lennon's vocals from the demo tape. I should add an explainer that AI did NOT reconstruct John Lennon's voice. It just removed the piano and other background noise. You can see more technical info here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PAkVIFUZPQ

Adding George Harrison's guitar from the 1995 sessions, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were able to add their parts to the song. Giles Martin (son of George Martin, who orchestrated all of the Beatles original works) added a strings arrangement and, all together, they produced a *new* Beatles song, 50 plus years after they broke up (1970), they have a final, chart topping (still!) single that is essentially a time machine.

With the magic of video and audio editing, all four Beatles are back together again in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opxhh9Oh3rg

P.S. - here is a chord analysis I did of the song - if you have any corrections or feedback, please let me know: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NqYQ4Uv1P8qkIt_e55MqFX72rU2lDtBIAZCNh5fv4_s

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Bands influenced by the Beatles, or with Beatle-esq sounds.

<put your class edits here>

Stone Temple Pilots - Glide - the jangly guitars at the beginning and the bridge section around 3:00 sounds very Beatle-esq.

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Beatles Studio Albums in order (from https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/)

• Please Please Me (1963)
• With The Beatles (1963)
• A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
• Beatles For Sale (1964)
• Help! (1965)
• Rubber Soul (1965)
• Revolver (1966)
• Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
• The Beatles (White Album) (1968)
• Yellow Submarine (1969)
• Abbey Road (1969)
• Let It Be (1970)

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