It was an experience being on a Beatles tour. They weren’t very good. The singing was great, but the playing was a bit weak.
Both the Beatles and The Rolling Stones broke on the music scene the summer I was in England. I can vividly remember hearing ‘She Loves You’ in August 1963.
I was so aware of the stage clothes versus the everyday-life clothes, and the extremeness of the stage clothes that my parents had designed. Even coming across my dad’s old Beatles suits from Savile Row and the history attached to them – the masculinity and simplicity compared to the ’70s glitz and glamour of Wings.
Food culture is like listening to the Beatles – it’s international, it’s very positive, it’s inventive and creative.
The Beatles, ‘Revolver.’ It’s pop. It’s classic. It’s experimental. It’s revolutionary.
I’m touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that. Here I am. I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that. Here I am. I’m touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you’re going to hear it.
I remember, when I was a kid, listening to the radio and hearing ‘Big Bad John’ by Jimmy Dean – and it just blew me away. I used to sit there and call the radio stations and request that song. And then the Beatles were obviously out already, but I really didn’t know about the Beatles.
You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.
I knew all this Beatles music. I knew the songs phonetically. It was like my whole experience of that music was out of focus, and somebody put the perfect glasses on me, and all of a sudden I could see everything.
‘Helter-Skelter’ was the motive for the murders. Manson borrowed that term from a Beatles song on the ‘White Album.’ In England, helter-skelter is a playground ride. To Manson, helter-skelter meant a war between whites and blacks that the Beatles were in favor of.
England was always very special. It was so important because the reason Benny and I started writing was the Beatles. During the Sixties, England was everything. To be number one in England was more important than being number one in America because England set the tone.
One of my favorite albums is Bob Gibson and Bob Camp, ‘At the Gate of Horn.’ It was a really dynamic album, almost like The Beatles, and way before its time… around 1960 or so.
Well, the first time I met The Beatles was through my former boyfriend, Klaus Voormann, who saw them one night when he was wandering around Hamburg and then he heard this beautiful sound of rock ‘n’ roll music.
I’ve always loved music. I grew up with older brothers and sisters who were into music, played The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin.
For us… you know, we’re not The Beatles.
You know how the Beatles broke off – they all did their solo projects and they came back together and they were even stronger!
Joe Sample was one of my heroes. I met him at the Curacao Jazz festival, and I fanned out like he was the Beatles!
You look back at people like Elvis and The Beatles and still get their music because it’s timeless. That’s what I want.
Depth on different levels is so important to me. You look at a band like The Beatles, all their material has so much depth to it. And I want people to be able to run away with my melodies and get lost in them and take the lyrics and be able to relate to them.
Music as a whole industry is growing exponentially, but in terms of the actual music file, when you look at the actual value there, to me, ‘The Beatles’ catalog should be worth more than Spotify.
People say the Beatles were John Lennon. What is Paul McCartney? Chopped liver? But everyone has their own favourite members whose creativity they gravitate to. That’s normal.
Maybe ‘Can’t Stop Feeling’ and ‘Turn It On’ we’ll just release as singles. It’s a thing The Beatles used to do which I really loved, the idea of releasing something as a single completely on its own.
I grew up on oldies like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and The Who.
Some genres of rock ‘n’ roll attract more of the party animals. I guess the Stones partied a bit. I think The Doors were more like The Beatles backstage – friends hanging out and whatever. It wasn’t crazy. Everything was pretty subdued.
The Beatles are the most credible band in the history of music.
All you could do was to see them. We were backstage when the Beatles were on and you could just about hear a noise. It was just literally screaming.
Many people say some of their best ideas come from dreams. Arguably the greatest Beatles song, ‘Yesterday,’ came to Paul McCartney in a dream.
I don’t think the Beatles were that good. I think they’re fine, you know. Ringo’s got the best backbeat I’ve ever heard… Paul is a fine bass player… but he’s a bit overpowering at times.
I wanted to have a band that could rock as hard as the Who and sing like the Beatles and the Beach Boys; a band that could play concise, three-and-a-half minute songs with power and elegance.
We were pretty good mates until the Beatles started to split up and Yoko came into it. It was more like old army buddies splitting up on account of wedding bells.
Woody Allen movies are like Beatles songs. I can’t name my favorite without you immediately naming a better one.
My favorite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are!
When I heard The Beatles, that was my turning point. They were like my mentors. You know, the funny thing about that, when I heard ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand,’ at first I said these guys are like a flash in the pan. But the second album, I had to take all that back. John Lennon – one of the greatest writers in the world.
Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that’s actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.
I loved ‘Rain’ and its take on the Beatles. The way they used a timeline and news reel to create a mood, and crafted set changes throughout, it was stunning.
I never thought that I would share a hit parade with the Beatles.
I got the idea of meditation from The Beatles. It was a fad, but I’ve found it beneficial in my crazy life.
I loved the Beatles when they turned up, and the Stones when they turned up, and never really stopped liking them.
Stevie Wonder doing ‘We Can Work It Out’ by the Beatles is one of my favorite records of all time.
I noticed that when I touched the ball on the field, you could hear this shrill noise in the crowd with all the birds screaming like at a Beatles concert.
I would love to say I grew up on 2Pac and The Beatles, but I didn’t.
I was a huge Beatles fan. The Stones, Dylan. Later on, I got into Stevie Wonder, and Bill Withers – he’s one of my heroes. Al Green, too.
My parents raised me on Spooky Tooth and The Band, Derek and the Dominoes, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, all that stuff. Rock n’ roll was just in my subconscious.
I was a kid that grew up listening to The Beatles and The Stones and Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and I wanted all of that in there. But at the same time, a large part of my playing is Tony Iommi and Billy Gibbons. I’m just a sum total of all of the guitar players that I think were really cool.
I’d always wanted to work in the studio and experiment with sounds. Things that I’m really influenced by and that I love are like The Beatles and Radiohead, and all those records by bands whose music is really involved.
Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn’t their parents’. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.
Danny and I wrote 10 songs in seven days, which I thought might be close to the record until you probably look at some of the Beatles statistics.
Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn’t like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn’t have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.
Although the Beatles were big to the world, within the business, we’re all very, very equal.
The first songs I learned was ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline and ‘At Last’ by Etta James. I had been growing up with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, great bands.
Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That’s one of those ‘Wow!’ moments, you know?
My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others’ negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.
The women in Europe think I’m the Beatles, they throw me flowers.
Prior to ‘Insidious Chapter 3,’ I was happy to write movies for James Wan to direct as I felt very much that I was one half of a duo. I looked at us as a team who works together and I was happy to be part of that, I was happy to effectively be the bass player in The Beatles.
You’re not a baby boomer if you don’t have a visceral recollection of a Kennedy and a King assassination, a Beatles breakup, a U.S. defeat in Vietnam, and a Watergate.
