Be in the British Invasion (The started it).
Play a stadium concert.
Ever record a music video.
Do a worldwide satellite broadcast.
Use feedback in a recording.
Use electric keyboard and synthesizers in songs.
Use sampling in their songs.
Use a sitar in popular music.
Have ALL members sing lead vocals.
Have a radio single go over the standard 2-3 minutes in length.
Have their drummer sit on a higher platform than the rest in concerts.
Have one song dissolve into another.
Make a concept album.
Hold the #1 spot on American and British charts simultaneously.
Debut in the top 10 on U.S charts.
Release an album with more than 10 songs.
Write more than half the songs in an album.
Use a harmonica in a rock single.
Star in a feature film.
Record sound in their song only a dog can hear.
Have their lyrics printed in the jacket of the record.
Release an album with a completely blank cover.
Use headphone monitors in the recording studio.
Use backwards vocals in recordings.
Use a full orchestra in popular music.
Use the guiro and claves in rock.
Do an album of all original songs.
Create experimental sounds in the studio.
Utilize psychedelic rock.
And the list goes on…
Look at these children.
But he fades out after “one…two” because THERE’S TWO OF THEM LEFT
I've been slowly reading Paul McCartney's Lyrics and came up short at the image he doodled in his notebook after the words for one of the last songs the Beatles recorded:
Four hearts linked by the same arrow.
Question: Is there anything about one of your photographs that make you smile because you know what is going on behind the camera?
Pattie: There was a photograph I took in India and the Beatles where writing music for the white album. It was a very creative time. But I got one shot of Paul and John sitting together. John is just looking at Paul and Paul is making some sort of face. And I just wish I knew what they would have been saying. But something...there's something going on.
Interestingly, Pattie tweeted this on Paul's birthday:
GEORGE: I remember saying, “Well, one of us has gotta be the bass player, and it’s not me. I’m not doing it.” And John said, “I’m not doing it, either.” Paul just went for it. (1995) JOHN: Paul’s bass playing is underrated. Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He’s an egomaniac about everything else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about. He’s a great musician who plays the bass like few other people could play it. (1980) RINGO: Paul is still, to this day for me, one of the most incredible melodic bass players around. He’s just incredible. (2016) PAUL: As time went on, I realized that I didn’t have to just play the root notes. At first if it was C, F, G, then it was normally C, F, G that I played. But then I started to realize that you could be pulling on that G, or just staying on the C when it went into F. And then I took it beyond that. I thought, well, if you can do that, what else could you do? You might even be able to play notes that aren’t in the chord. I just started to experiment. What could you do? Well, maybe you can use different notes. Sevenths instead of the regular notes, or maybe even a little tune through the chords that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Maybe I can have an independent melody. (2018)
I wanted to know what Paul's looking so lovingly at on the back of their cover so I recreated his hand placement and this is approximately where his left hand is pointing at.
Here is a clean copy for my John girlies:
1963.02.19 – Liverpool. The Cavern club
(Photos by Michael Ward/Getty Images)