The Beatles are easily the most well-known band of all time. The Liverpudlian band – consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr – took over the world in the 1960s and is still immensely popular to this very day. Nevertheless, there are still rare Beatles facts many fans do not know. In this article, we will go over 10 rare facts about The Beatles that only true fans know.
1. John Lennon and Paul McCartney Met on July 6, 1957
The day John Lennon and Paul McCartney met is arguably the most important day in modern music history. And surprisingly enough, it is pretty well-documented. The two met on July 6, 1957, before a performance of The Quarrymen (featuring John Lennon) at the Chruch Hall’s Grand Dance in Woolton, Liverpool.
There, Ivan Vaughan – Quarrymen’s tea-chest bass player – introduced his classmate Paul McCartney to John Lennon. After chatting for a while, McCartney impressed Lennon by tuning his guitar and playing songs by Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
Oddly enough, the set The Quarrymen played later that night was recorded by attendee Bob Molyneux (sadly of poor quality, but listen to it below). After the band’s performance, The Quarrymen and McCartney spent some time at a local pub. 2 weeks later, the band invited McCartney to join.
“To this very day, it still is a complete mystery to me that it happened at all,” McCartney reflected in The Lyrics. “Would John and I have met some other way, if Ivan and I hadn’t gone to that fête? I’d actually gone along to try and pick up a girl.”
“And then I also happened to share a bus journey with George to school. All these small coincidences had to happen to make The Beatles happen, and it does feel like some kind of magic.”
2. The Beatles Recorded Their Debut Album In A Single Day
Most of it, at least. The Beatles had already recorded 4 songs for single releases in 1962, but recorded the other 10 songs from Please Please Me on 11 February, 1963. The iconic session featured original songs like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “There’s a Place”, as well as The Beatles’ iconic cover of “Twist and Shout”.
3. A Fan Once Mailed Herself to The Beatles In An Attempt to Meet Them
Beatlemania was wild, and some fans were willing to do anything in order to get a glimpse of The Beatles. But few went further than the girl who decided to mail herself to The Beatles. On June 14, 1966, the 12-year-old fan – with help from a friend – mailed herself from Sunderland train station to London in an attempt to meet The Beatles. The attempt failed, however, as the fan forgot to put air holes in the box and was subsequently caught by a porter.
4. Ringo’s Ways With Words Inspired Songs
Ringo Starr only contributed two compositions to The Beatles: “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Octopus’s Garden”. But his unique way with words, nicknamed Ringo-isms, inspired some well-known compositions by Lennon and McCartney.
Ringo coined the terms “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which became song titles. He would also occasionally contribute a line, such as “darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there” in “Eleanor Rigby”. “Eight Days a Week” has also been cited as a Ringo-ism, although Ringo himself stated he didn’t come up with the phrase.
5. The Idea for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Originated During A Flight
In some ways, The Beatles’ quintessential concept album is pretty weird. I mean, the concept is a band being a band… But McCartney’s reasoning – especially in relation to Beatlemania – made sense. “We were fed up with being The Beatles”, he wrote in his biography Many Years From Now.
The idea for the band pretending to be another band arose to McCartney during a flight home from a holiday in Kenya. “Suddenly on the plane, I got this idea,” he reflected. “I thought, Let’s not be ourselves. Let’s develop alter egos so we’re not having to project an image which we know. It would be much more free.”
All McCartney needed was a name for the fictional band. Road manager Mal Evans, who accompanied McCartney on the holiday, provided the inspiration. “We were having our meal and they had those little packets marked ‘S’ and ‘P’. Mal said, ‘What’s that mean? Oh, salt and pepper.’ We had a joke about that. So I said, ‘Sergeant Pepper,’ just to vary it, ‘Sergeant Pepper, salt and pepper,’ an aural pun, not mishearing him but just playing with the words.”
McCartney then added Lonely Hearts Club Band to Sgt. Pepper because it wouldn’t make any sense for a Lonely Hearts Club to have a band. “The idea was to be a little more funky, that’s what everybody was doing,” he stated.
Read more: Ranking The Beatles Albums From Worst To Best
6. George Harrison Wrote Sequels to His Most Famous Compositions
The story of George Harrison’s rise as a songwriter within The Beatles is well-known. Harrison was initially deemed inferior to Lennon and McCartney, but during the final years of the band, the quiet Beatle proved he had exceptional songwriting chops too. Among Harrison’s most famous compositions with The Beatles are “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Here Comes The Sun”. But did you know Harrison wrote sequels to the masterpieces?
In 1975 Harrison released “This Guitar (Can’t Keep from Crying)”, the sequel to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. 4 years later, in 1979, he released “Here Comes the Moon”, the sequel to “Here Comes The Sun”. Harrison’s reasoning for the sequel was pretty simple. “[Songwriters had] ten years to write ‘Here Comes the Moon’ after ‘Here Comes the Sun’, but nobody else wrote it, [so] I might as well do it meself.”
Read more: The Story Behind “Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles
7. In My Life Was Originally A ‘Boring’ Road Trip Song
“In My Life” is easily one of Lennon’s most celebrated compositions. The nostalgic song is often cited as one of Lennon’s greatest lyrical feats and Lennon himself even called the song as ‘first real major piece of work’. But did you know the song was originally a road trip song about Lennon’s childhood in Liverpool?
“In My Life’ started out as a bus journey from my house on 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place I could remember,” Lennon stated. “And it was ridiculous. This is before even ‘Penny Lane’ was written and I had Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Tram Sheds – Tram Sheds are the depot just outside of Penny Lane – and it was the most boring sort of ‘What I Did On My Holidays Bus Trip’ song and it wasn’t working at all.”
Lennon eventually dismissed the original draft and replaced it with the lyrics we know so well today.
8. She’s Leaving Home Has A Strange Coincidence
Paul McCartney wrote “She’s Leaving Home” after reading a newspaper story about runaway Melanie Coe. Bizarrely enough, the two had met a few years before the incident. During an episode of the dance contest Ready Steady Go! in 1963, McCartney was a guest judge and picked Melanie Coe as the winner.
In the video below, Paul McCartney and Melanie Coe shake hands at 2:48
9. Abbey Road Was The Last Album The Beatles Recorded
Although Let It Be was the last Beatles album completed and released, Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded. The album, often considered the band’s magnum opus, functioned as the climactic end to the most exciting group in music history. Fittingly enough, the last recording session all Beatles were present was during the recording of “The End”, which closes the Abbey Road Medley on side two of the album.
10. The 4 Beatles Were Never In The Same Room Again After Breaking Up
There were several occasions when 3 Beatles reunited, both for professional and personal reasons, but the 4 Beatles were never together again simultaneously. The closest The Beatles got to a full reunion was during Eric Clapton’s wedding in 1979. McCartney, Harrison, and Ringo attended the wedding – and even played a few Beatles songs together – but Clapton didn’t invite Lennon because he believed he wouldn’t show up. Lennon later reportedly stated he would’ve attended the wedding had he been invited.
So, that wraps up my list of rare Beatles facts. Did you know them all? Do you know any other Beatles facts that may surprise fans? Please let me know in the comments below.
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