Great Beatles Website

[Trigfunctions]

I just found this great Beatles website, for you fans out there (not you Steve I.)
It's got Beatles quotes about each song (all footnoted) and lots of other nifty trivia.

http://www.geocities.com/~beatleboy1/dbsongs.html

Like this, for instance

NORWEGIAN WOOD
(Lennon/McCartney)

JOHN 1972: "Me. But Paul helped me on the lyric."

GEORGE 1980: "I had bought, earlier, a crummy sitar in London... and played the 'Norwegian Wood' bit."

JOHN 1980: "'Norwegian Wood' is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair... but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn't tell. But I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with."

PAUL 1985: "It was me who decided in 'Norwegian Wood' that the house should burn down... not that it's any big deal."

[Trigfunctions]

Wow - no Beatles fans here?

How's this for inflammatory - Paul was the best Beatle.

[kaiser]

Originally posted by Trigfunctions@Mar 30 2004, 11:10 AM
Wow - no Beatles fans here?

How's this for inflammatory - Paul was the best Beatle.

I liked Tino better.

[dv6y]

That is awesome. Here's my favorite Beatles song and comments - I had NO IDEA that's what this was about.

Dear Prudence:

JOHN 1980: "'Dear Prudence' is me. Written in India. A song about Mia Farrow's sister, who seemed to go slightly balmy, meditating too long, and couldn't come out of the little hut we were livin' in. They selected me and George to try and bring her out because she would trust us. If she'd been in the West, they would have put her away... We got her out of the house. She'd been locked in for three weeks and was trying to reach God quicker than anybody else. That was the competition in Maharishi's camp-- who was going to get cosmic first. What I didn't know was I was 'already' cosmic." (laughs)


PAUL circa-1994: "He (John) wrote 'Dear Prudence, won't you come out and play...' and went in and sang it to her, and I think that actually did help."

[007]

OCTOPUS'S GARDEN
(Starkey)

GEORGE 1969: "'Octopus's Garden' is Ringo's song. It's only the second song Ringo has ever written, mind you, and it's lovely. Ringo gets bored with just playing drums all the time, so at home he sometimes plays a bit of piano, but unfortunately he only knows about three chords. He knows about the same on guitar too. This song gets very deep into your consciousness, though because it's so peaceful. I suppose Ringo is writing cosmic songs these days without even realizing it."


RINGO 1981: "He (a ship captain) told me all about octopuses-- how they go 'round the sea bed and pick up stones and shiny objects and build gardens. I thought, 'How fabulous!' because at the time I just wanted to be under the sea, too. I wanted to get out of it for a while."

[Dr.Gonzo]

Trig already did one of my favs. Here is another:

WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS
(Harrison)

GEORGE 1980: "I had a copy of the I Ching-- the Book of Changes, which seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental. The idea was in my head when I visited my parents' home in the North of England. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book-- as it would be relative to that moment, at that time. I picked up a book at random, opened it-- saw 'gently weeps' --than laid the book down again and started the song. Some of the words to the song were changed before I finally recorded it."


GEORGE 1987: "I worked on that song with John, Paul, and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all. And I knew inside of me that it was a nice song. The next day I was with Eric Clapton, and I was going into the session, and I said, 'We're going to do this song. Come and play on it.' He said, 'Oh no. I can't do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.' I said, 'Look, it's my song, and I want you to play on it.' So Eric came in, and the other guys were as good as gold-- because he was there. Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal. So Eric played that, and I thought it was really good. Then we listened to it back, and he said, 'Ah, there's a problem though; it's not Beatley enough.' So we put it through the ADT (automatic double-track) to wobble it up a bit."

[dv6y]

YELLOW SUBMARINE
(Lennon/McCartney)
PAUL 1966: "It's a happy place, that's all. You know, it was just... We were trying to write a children's song. That was the basic idea. And there's nothing more to be read into it than there is in the lyrics of any children's song."


JOHN 1972: "Paul wrote the catchy chorus. I helped with the blunderbuss bit."


JOHN 1980: "'Yellow Submarine' is Paul's baby. Donovan helped with the lyrics. I helped with the lyrics too. We virtually made the track come alive in the studio, but based on Paul's inspiration. Paul's idea. Paul's title... written for Ringo."


PAUL 1984: "I wrote that in bed one night. As a kid's story. And then we thought it would be good for Ringo to do."


PAUL circa-1994: "I was laying in bed in the Asher's garret, and there's a nice twilight zone just as you're drifting into sleep and as you wake from it-- I always find it quite a comfortable zone. I remember thinking that a children's song would be quite a good idea... I was thinking of it as a song for Ringo, which it eventually turned out to be, so I wrote it as not too rangey in the vocal. I just made up a little tune in my head, then started making a story-- sort of an ancient mariner, telling the young kids where he'd lived. It was pretty much my song as I recall... I think John helped out. The lyrics got more and more obscure as it goes on, but the chorus, melody and verses are mine."


GEORGE 1999: "Paul came up with the concept of 'Yellow Submarine.' All I know is just that every time we'd all get around the piano with guitars and start listening to it and arranging it into a record, we'd all fool about. As I said, John's doing the voice that sounds like someone talking down a tube or ship's funnel as they do in the merchant marine. (laughs) And on the final track there's actually that very small party happening! As I seem to remember, there's a few screams and what sounds like small crowd noises in the background."

The talent of these guys is/was amazing.

[Turd Ferguson]

Don't know how I missed this, but what an awesome site.

[Dr.Gonzo]

YESTERDAY
(Lennon/McCartney)

PAUL 1968: "I just started playing it and this tune came, 'cuz that's what happens. They just, sort of-- they COME, you know. It just came and I couldn't think of any words to it, so originally it was just, 'Scrambled Egg.' It was called 'Scrambled Egg' for a couple of months, until I thought of 'Yesterday.' And that's it. True story."


JOHN 1980: "Paul wrote the lyrics to 'Yesterday.' Although the lyrics don't reslove into any sense, they're good lines. They certainly work, you know what I mean? They're good-- but if you read the whole song, it doesn't say anything; you don't know what happened. She left and he wishes it were yesterday-- that much you get-- but it doesn't really resolve. So, mine didn't used to either. I have had so much accolade for 'Yesterday.' That's Paul's song, and Paul's baby. Well done. Beautiful-- and I never wished I'd written it."


PAUL 1984: "It fell out of bed. I had a piano by my bedside and I... must have dreamed it, because I tumbled out of bed and put my hands on the piano keys and I had a tune in my head. It was just all there, a complete thing. I couldn't believe it. It came too easy. In fact, I didn't believe I'd written it. I thought maybe I'd heard it before, it was some other tune, and I went around for weeks playing the chords of the song for people, asking them, 'Is this like something? I think I've written it.' And people would say, 'No, it's not like anything else, but it's good.'"


PAUL 1986: "The hits are always the ones you thought wouldn't be hits, like 'Yesterday' or 'Mull Of Kintyre.' I didn't want to put them out. We didn't put 'Yesterday' out in England, it was only here (America) that it was a single. We didn't think it was going to be a good idea... so it's crazy how it goes."


PAUL 1988: "We didn't think it fitted our image. In fact, it was one of our most successful songs."

[dv6y]

How about this for a classic website - this same thing, only for Tenacious D?

Can you imagine Jack Black having a field day with what his inspiration was for "Fukk her gently" ???

[Trigfunctions]

Originally posted by Dr.Gonzo@Mar 30 2004, 11:30 AM

YESTERDAY
(Lennon/McCartney)

The Lennon quotes are pretty funny. He always seemed more jealous of Paul than Paul was of John, as his lyrics to How do you Sleep show.

On one of the Anthology CDs, there's some great chatter where Paul is showing the guitar chords for Yesterday to George and they sound like any other garage band showing songs to each other, except they're the Beatles. Just awesome.

How Do You Sleep?
John Lennon
So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?