cha cha boom

Some outtakes from the Sgt. Pepper shoot.

OFFTOPIC: Candids from 1969.

“Pepper was probably the one Beatle album I can say was my idea,” McCartney says. “It was my idea to say to the guys, ‘Hey, how about disguising ourselves and getting an alter ego, because we’re the Beatles and we’re fed up. Every time you approach a song, John, you gotta sing it like John would. Every time I approach a ballad, it’s gotta be like Paul would. Why don’t we just make up some incredible alter egos and think, “Now how would he sing it? How would he approach this track?”’ And it freed us. It was a very liberating thing to do.“ [x]

Strawberry Fields Forever

The Beatles - What You’re Doing

George Harrison and Paul McCartney.

January 25th, 1969 (Apple Studios, London): Uninterested in discussing the technical vagaries of the Get Back/Let It Be production with Paul and Michael-Lindsay Hogg any longer, John starts to riff on Paul’s very first composition, ‘I Lost My Little Girl’. Everyone else in the group eventually joins in to jam. (Note: John actually starts singing the song about three minutes prior to the start of this clip, when Paul is still in discussion with Michael Lindsay-Hogg. So, he’s been going on for a while.)

In 1963, the Beatles were exploding in England. Their debut LP, Please Please Me, came out in March, followed by their mega hit single “She Loves You” in August. Their second album, With the Beatles, and another hit single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” followed in the fall. Screaming girls, throngs of fans, bushels of albums being sold—this was when it all started. (x)

“Hamburg totally wrecked us. I remember getting home to England and my dad thought I was half-dead. I looked like a skeleton, I hadn’t noticed the change, I’d been having such a ball!” - Paul McCartney

Photo: Mike McCartney

The Beatles performing “Help!” in Shea stadium 15th August 1965.

Norwegian Wood - The Beatles (Rubber Soul, 1965)

“I felt naked without my guitar, you know. George couldn’t sing because he was laughing so much” - John Lennon