A text about The Beatles, edited by Oralia Vera, Marianne Castañón, Laura González and Maricarmen Mayorga.

1. Influence of the Beatles in the world.
What the Beatles have meant for people all around
the world has been partly discussed so far. And as it
would be absolutely impossible to cover
everything, I would like to present at least a few
concrete examples of their influence.

2. was the strongest during their
active career, in the sixties. During
Beatlemania (approximately 1963-
1966), when their fame reached a
high, they had an unbelievable
impact on the young and a strong
influence on everyone else. They
very much influenced men’s
fashion. In the chapter
‚Beatlemania‛ from the Beatles’
authorized biography by Hunter
DAVIES we can read:
Manufactures all over the
country were by [December 1963]
competing to get a concession to
use the word Beatle on their
products. collarless ones,
usually in corduroy, first worn
by Stu in Hamburg- were on sale
very where as early as
September 1963. Beatle wigs
started appearing[...]Most
teenage boys were growing their
own Beatle-length hair, from
November on there was a
continuous stream of newspaper
stories about schoolboys being
sent home from school because

3. Beatles’ image of rebels. In the first
half of the sixties, however, their
‘rebellion’ was fairly moderate. It
was very rock’n’roll-like: cheeky
guys who wanted to provoke and
annoy their parents’ generation by
wearing hairstyles and clothes that
generation did not approve of,
listening to and playing loud and
noisy music, talking back etc.
On the one hand, it seems nearly
ridiculous to consider these
youngsters ‘rebels’ and then use the
same word in connection with the punk
movement, which was at its peak some
fifteen years later (according to
MACDONALD, it was in 1976-8).
On the other hand, society had
changed in the twenty years, and rock
and rollers in the fifties and early
sixties were regarded as rebels as
much as punks were in the seventies. In
the case of rock and roll it was more
the form than the content – the
loudness of the music,
rather than lyrics – that mattered;

4. Night (1964). The movie shows the Beatles’
disrespect to authorities (there is a chase with
the police towards the end of the film etc) and
naughtiness. This film also presents a new
approach to music films in Britain: ‚British rock
was never fully integrated into a plot until the
Beatles made A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help!
(1965)‛ (GAMMOND 497). Several movies have been
made according to this model since; a quite
recent example is the 1997 film Spice World
starring the girl band Spice Girls.
However, the Beatles’ influence was also more
spiritual. When Paul McCartney had a concert in
Red Square in Moscow in 2003, a documentary
was shot, in which several Russian personalities
recall what the Beatles have meant to them,
even though they were not allowed to perform
in the Soviet Union and their records were
extremely hard to obtain. Sociologist Artemy
Troitsky said:
[...] the Beatles have started the whole huge
movement in the Soviet Union. Movement, which
involved not thousands or even hundreds of
thousands, which involved millions of young
people who became, as communist publicists
have said, inner immigrants. They still lived in
the Soviet Union with their body but mentally

5. What the Beatles did [...] they gave us the
opportunity to look each other in the eye
and to say ´Look, we are the same. We are
the same. And the terms like capitalism,
socialism, communism, they mean nothing
because we´re human beings. Do you want
me to prove it? [...] listen to the Beatles.
("Paul McCartney in the Red Square").
The popularity of the Beatles in the sixties
was really fantastic. And they were
awfully rich too. The article ‚How Does a
Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This‛ by
Maureen Cleave, published in the Evening
Standard on 4th March 1966, describes John
Lennon’s house in Weybridge and sketches
out what his hobbies and interests are and
what he does in his free time. The article is,
however, famous for something else. It is
this article in which Lennon said the
Beatles were bigger than Jesus:
Christianity will go [...]. It will vanish and
shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I´m right
and I will be proved right. We´re more
popular than Jesus now; I don´t know which
will go first- rock´n´roll or Christianity.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were

7. This started a wave of protests all over
the world. Shortly after the article had
been published, the Beatles went on tour
to the United States, where the outrage
was the strongest, especially in the ‘Bible
Belt’ (the South and Midwest of the USA),
where their records and everything
connected with them were boycotted and
burnt at the stake. Lennon apologized in
Chicago, but the tour was unsuccessful
anyway. It was not only due to the
article, but the article largely
contributed to it. The bigger-than-Jesus
affair, however, hardly shook the
Beatles’ popularity. Nevertheless, it
clearly shows how the Fab Four were
influential: had someone unimportant
said something like that nobody would
have minded. It was the fact that the
Beatles were inconceivably famous and
maybe indeed more popular than Jesus
and thus threatening his position that
enraged Christian fundamentalists.

8. The Beatles were probably the most
important trendsetters of the 1960s
(definitely the most important
trendsetters in Britain). They largely
contributed to the popularization of
the hippie movement outside the United
States. They were against the war in
Vietnam. According to KUREISHI they
were ‚popularizers of esoteric ideas –
about mysticism, about different
forms of political involvement and
about drugs‛. For many people the
sixties mean the Beatles and vice
versa.
Their career stretched over the era
and ended with the end of the decade.
Composer Aaron Copland once said:
‚When people ask to re-create the
mood of the ‘60s, they will play
Beatles music‛ (gtd. in MATZNER 5,
MACDONALD 7)10. Both the music and the
lyrics capture the spirit of the sixties.
New ideas, new approach, sexual
revolution, generation gap and drugs –
we can find it all in the lyrics of the
Beatles’ songs, as well as in the
stories of their lives.

9. The evolution of the band from
carefree and cheeky boys
screaming She loves you to hairy
hippies searching for the meaning of
life and singing Strawberry Fields
Forever reflect the increasing
influence of hippie and oriental
cultures and the overall shift in
people’s interest from earning
one’s living to other more
philosophical issues too.
After the breakup of the band in
1970, every Beatle pursued his own
career as a musician; they, however,
remained very influential in other
fields too. John Lennon was an anti-
war activist. George Harrison
organized the ‚Concert for Bangla
Desh‛ in 1971 to help the starving
people in that country.
Nevertheless, they usually
benefited from the fame of the
Beatles.

10. Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 25, 26, 31 January; 30
April 1969; 4 January 1970
Let it be Producers: George Martin,
Chris Thomas
Engineers: Glyn Johns, Jeff
Jarratt, Phil McDonald
Released: 6 March 1970 (UK), 11
March 1970 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals,
backing vocals, piano, bass
guitar, maracas
John Lennon: backing vocals
George Harrison: backing
vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Billy Preston: organ, electric
piano
Linda McCartney: backing
vocals
Uncredited: two trumpets, two
trombones, tenor saxophone,
cellos

11. It Be was also the title track of
the last album of their career.
The song was written during the
sessions for the White Album, at a
time when Paul McCartney felt
isolated as the only member of
The Beatles still keen to keep the
group together. His enthusiasm and
belief had kept them going after
the death of Brian Epstein, but
increasingly he found the others at
odds with his attempts to motivate
them.
Although his public persona
remained upbeat, privately
McCartney was feeling in secure
and wounded by the gradual
disintegration of the group. During
this period, his mother Mary - who
had passed away in 1956 when
McCartney was 14 - appeared to
him in a dream.

12. about dreams: you actually are reunited with that
person for a second; there they are and you
appear to both be physically together again. It was
so wonderful for me and she was very reassuring.
In the dream she said, 'It'll be all right.' I'm not
sure if she used the words 'Let it be' but that was
the gist of her advice, it was, 'Don't worry too
much, it will turn out OK.' It was such a sweet
dream I woke up thinking, Oh, it was really great
to visit with her again. I felt very blessed to have
that dream. So that got me writing the song Let It
Be. I literally started off 'Mother Mary', which
was her name, 'When I find myself in times of
trouble', which I certainly found myself in. The
song was based on that dream.
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
It was perhaps inevitable - even fortuitous for the
group - that Let It Be took on religious overtones,
with many listeners interpreting it as referring to
the Virgin Mary.
Mother Mary makes it a quasi-religious thing, so
you can take it that way. I don't mind. I'm quite
happy if people want to use it to shore up their
faith. I have no problem with that. I think it's a
great thing to have faith of any sort, particularly

13. John Lennon felt little affection for the
song, and was partly responsible for
sandwiching it between the throwaway
Dig It and Maggie Mae on the Let It Be
album, which effectively sent up any
perceived portentousness.
That's Paul. What can you say? Nothing to
do with The Beatles. It could've been
Wings. I don't know what he's thinking
when he writes Let It Be. I think it was
inspired by Bridge Over Troubled
Waters. That's my feeling, although I have
nothing to go on. I know he wanted to
write a Bridge Over Troubled Waters.
Chart success John Lennon
Let It Be was We Are Saying, David Sheff
All the last single to be released by The Beatles before their split
was announced to the press. A final US single, The Long And Winding Road, was
issued two months later, and a month after Paul McCartney revealed to the
press that the band were no more.
Let It Be was released in the UK on 6 March, billed as "an intimate bioscopic
experience with THE BEATLES". Its b-side was You Know My Name (Look Up The
Number).
The single reached number two in the charts. It fared better elsewhere,
charting at number one in the US, Australia, Italy, Norway and Switzerland.

14. Something
Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 16 April; 2, 5 May; 11, 16
July; 15 August 1969
Producers: George Martin, Chris
Thomas
Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Glyn
Johns, Geoff Emerick, Phil
McDonald
Released: 26 September 1969 (UK),
1 October 1969 (US)
George Harrison: vocals, lead
guitar, handclaps
John Lennon: guitar, piano
Paul McCartney: backing vocals,
bass, handclaps
Ringo Starr: drums, handclaps
Billy Preston: Hammond organ
Unknown: 12 violins, 4 violas, 4
cellos, double bass

15. showed him finally leaving the
songwriting shadow of Lennon and
McCartney.
Something was written during the 1968
sessions for The Beatles (White Album),
though it wasn't finished until the
following year.
I had written Something on the piano
during the recording of the White Album.
There was a period during that album
when we were all in different studios
doing different things trying to get it
finished, and I used to take some time out.
So I went into an empty studio and wrote
Something.
George Harrison
Anthology
The song took its first line from the
James Taylor song Something In The Way
She Moves.
I could never think of words for it. And
also because there was a James Taylor
song called Something In The Way She
Moves which is the first line of that. And
so then I thought of trying to change the
words, but they were the words that
came when I first wrote it, so in the end I

16. Lomax, the guitar-and-vocals demo was
given to Joe Cocker. Cocker's version was
recorded before The Beatles', but not
released until November 1969.
In her autobiography Wonderful Tonight,
Harrison's former wife Pattie Boyd
claimed the song was written about her.
Harrison downplayed the sentiment,
saying it was, in fact, written with Ray
Charles in mind.
It has probably got a range of five notes,
which fits most singers' needs best. When I
wrote it, in my mind I heard Ray Charles
singing it, and he did do it some years
later. At the time I wasn't particularly
thrilled that Frank Sinatra did
Something. I'm more thrilled now than I
was then. I wasn't really into Frank - he
was the generation before me. I was
more interested when Smokey Robinson
did it and when James Brown did it. But
I'm very pleased now, whoever's done it. I
realise that the sign of a good song is
when it has lots of cover versions.
I met Michael Jackson somewhere at the
BBC. The fellow interviewing us made a
comment about Something, and Michael
said: 'Oh, you wrote that? I thought it was

17. George had a smugness on his face when he
came in with this one, and rightly so - he knew
it was absolutely brilliant. And for the first
time, John and Paul knew that George had
risen to their level.
Geoff Emerick
Music Radar
Something has been recorded by a range of
performers, including Elvis Presley, Shirley
Bassey, Frank Sinatra, James Brown and
Smokey Robinson. It has become the second-
most covered Beatles song after Yesterday.
Sinatra called it "the greatest love song
ever written," and made it a fixture of his
live set.
I thought it was George's greatest track - with
Here Comes The Sun and While My Guitar
Gently Weeps. They were possibly his best
three. Until then he had only done one or two
songs per album. I don't think he thought of
himself very much as a songwriter, and John
and I obviously would dominate - again, not
really meaning to, but we were 'Lennon and
McCartney'. So when an album comes up,
Lennon and McCartney go and write some
stuff - and maybe it wasn't easy for him to
get into that wedge. But he finally came up

18. Yellow Submar
Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 26 May, 1 June 1966
Producer: 5 AugustMartin
Released: George 1966 (UK), 8 August 1966
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
(US)
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums
John Lennon: backing vocals, acoustic
guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals,
tambourine
Mal Evans: backing vocals, bass drum
Neil Aspinall, George Martin, Geoff
Emerick, Pattie Harrison, Brian Jones,
Marianne Faithfull, Alf Bicknell: backing
vocals

19. moments, and an unnecessary bout of whimsy
on the otherwise flawless Revolver.
I don't actually know where they got the
idea for it; I just felt it was a really
interesting track for me to do. I'd been doing
a lot of covers. At that time I did either
covers or something they wrote specifically
for me.
Ringo Starr
Anthology
Written by Paul McCartney, Yellow
Submarine was always intended to be a
children's song. It chimed perfectly with the
carefree, nostalgic and childlike attitudes
that dominated the burgeoning psychedelic
era.
I remember lying in bed one night, in that
moment before you're falling asleep - that
little twilight moment when a silly idea
comes into your head - and thinking of
Yellow Submarine: 'We all live in a yellow
submarine...‘
I quite like children's things; I like children's
minds and imagination. So it didn't seem
uncool to me to have a pretty surreal idea
that was also a children's idea. I thought
also, with Ringo being so good with children
- a knockabout uncle type - it might not be a

20. Since The Beatles had stopped recording cover
versions by 1966, Yellow Submarine was given to
Ringo Starr as his vocal contribution to Revolver.
It became his first lead vocal on a Beatles single.
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 and how there'd been a place
where he had a yellow submarine. It's pretty much
my song as I recall, written for Ringo in that
little twilight moment. I think John helped out;
the lyrics get more and more obscure as it goes on
but the chorus, melody and verses are mine. There
were funny little grammatical jokes we used to
play. It should have been 'Everyone of us has all he
needs' but Ringo turned it into 'everyone of us has
all we need.' So that became the lyric. It's wrong,
but it's great. We used to love that.
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

21. One couplet in the song was suggested by
Donovan, whose single Mellow Yellow
was released in October 1966. McCartney
visited Donovan's apartment in London
on 26 May, prior to the recording session
for Yellow Submarine.
He played one about a yellow
submarine. He said he was missing a line
and would I fill it in. I left the room and
returned with this: 'Sky of blue and sea
of green/In our yellow submarine.' It
was nothing really, but he liked it and it
stayed in.
Donovan
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Yellow Submarine was the inspiration and basis for
The Beatles' fourth film, released in 1968, as well
as its accompanying soundtrack album.

22. Yesterday
Written by: Lennon-
McCartney
Recorded: 14, 17 June 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 6 August 1965
(UK), 13 September 1965 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals,
guitar
Tony Gilbert: violin
Sidney Sax: violin
Kenneth Essex: viola
Francisco Gabarro: cello

23. Guinness Book of Records.
Well, we all know about Yesterday. I
have had so much accoladde for
Yesterday. That's Paul's song and
Paul's baby. Well done. Beautiful - and
I never wished I'd written it.
John Lennon, 1980
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Street, London.
The melody came to McCartney fully-
formed, although he was initially
unsure of its originality.
I was living in a little flat at the top
of a house and i had a piano by my bed.
I woke up one morning with a tune in
my head and I thought, 'Hey, I don't
know this tune - or do I?' It was like a
jazz melody. My dad used to know a
lot of old jazz tunes; I thought maybe
I'd just remembered it from the past. I
went to the piano and found the
chords to it, made sure I remembered
it and then hawked it round to all my
friends, asking what it was: 'Do you
know this? It's a good little tune, but I
couldn't have written it because I
dreamt it.'

24. love your legs. George Martin claims to
have first heard the song at the George V
hotel in Paris in January 1964.
Paul said he wanted a one-word title and
was considering Yesterday, except that he
thought it was perhaps too corny. I
persuaded him that it was all right.
George Martin
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions,
Mark Lewisohn
McCartney's authorised biographer Barry
Miles put the date of composition at May
1965, during the filming of Help!, when he
was known to have been experimenting
with the song's lyrics
We were shooting Help! in the studio for
about four weeks. At some point during
that period, we had a piano on one of the
stages and he was playing this 'Scrambled
Eggs' all the time. It got to the point where
I said to him, 'If you play that bloody song
any longer have the piano taken off stage.
Either finish it or give up!'
Richard Lester
A Hard Day's Write, Steve Turner

25. in June 1965. McCartney took a holiday at
Welch's Portuguese villa, where he is said
to have settled on the title Yesterday.
I was packing to leave and Paul asked me if
I had a guitar. He'd apparently been working
on the lyrics as he drove to Albufeira from
the airport at Lisbon. He borrowed my
guitar and started playing the song we all
now know as Yesterday.
Bruce Welch
A Hard Day's Write, Steve Turner
Although famously arranged for guitar and
string quartet, McCartney considered
having the BBC Radiophonic Workshop do a
futuristic electronic version of Yesterday.
It occurred to me to have the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop do the backing track
to it and me just sing over an electronic
quartet. I went down to see them... The
woman who ran it was very nice and they
had a little shed at the bottom of the
garden where most of the work was done. I
said, 'I'm into this sort of stuff.' I'd heard a
lot about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop,
we'd all heard a lot about it. It would have
been very interesting to do, but I never
followed it up.