As you'll surely recall from Part 1, I've had a tremendous amount to say about Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan. Same deal with the Beatles, so they get their own post.
Naturally, all four Beatles are on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Blog Posts:
September 1, 2022: Walden and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
May 1, 2023: Unfortunate (Mostly Literary) Happenings of Past Mays
December 1, 2023: Unfortunate (Mostly Literary) Happenings of Past Decembers
July 1, 2024: More Unfortunate Happenings of Past Julys
November 2, 2024: More Unfortunate Happenings of Past Novembers
December 11, 2024: My Top 100 Songs of 2024: Top 20
April 2, 2025: Bummer April
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| A 1964 photo of Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon in the Netherlands. Public domain. |
Almanac Entries:
January 9
January 9, 1968: Look Magazine publishes Richard Avedon’s photographs of The Beatles.
January 12
January 12, 1963: The Beatles release their second single, “Please Please Me,” which goes on to be their first #1 single in the U.K. My Baby Boomer parents are each 10 years old on this date.
January 19
January 19, 1971: During Charles Manson’s murder trial, Manson’s defense attorneys introduce the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter” into evidence. According to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, one of Manson’s delusion beliefs was that the song, written by Paul McCartney, referred to a coming race war. In reality, the lyrics refer to the literal meaning of a helter skelter, an English amusement ride consisting of a tower with a slide curling around it.
January 21
Friday, January 21, 1966: George Harrison and Pattie Boyd get married.
January 30
January 30, 1969: The Beatles perform a 42-minute concert on the roof of their Apple Corporation record company building in London, as documented in the concert film Let It Be. It will be their last public performance together.
January 31
January 31, 1967: On Johnny Rotten’s 11th birthday, John Lennon is shopping at an antiques store in Sevenoaks in the English county of Kent. He finds and purchases a vintage circus poster, the text of which becomes the basis for the Beatles song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”
February 1
February 1, 1964: The #1 single in the U.S. is The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
February 9
February 9, 1964: The Beatles play five songs on The Ed Sullivan Show.
February 12
February 12, 1964: The Beatles perform a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
February 18
February 18, 1933: Yoko Ono is born.
“I saw nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.” - Yoko Ono
February 18, 1971: For her 38th birthday, John Lennon Ono gifts his wife a snow-white Steinway piano.
February 20
February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs.
February 26
Sunday, February 26, 1995, South Bend: I went to the Morris Performing Arts Center and saw 1964: The Tribute, a Beatles tribute band. I recognized three people in the audience: a pair of sisters who went to the same grade school as me, and Mr. Thomas Gerencher.
February 26, 1997: At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, The Beatles won a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Grammy for “Free As a Bird.” Other winners included Tony Bennett, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Smashing Pumpkins.
February 29
February 29, 1968: At the 10th annual Grammy Awards, the Beatles win Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles are not in attendance in Los Angeles that evening, as they are in India learning at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, along with Mia Farrow, her sister Prudence, Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch, and Mike Love of The Beach Boys.
March 5
March 5, 1963: The Beatles record “From Me to You” at Abbey Road.
Sunday, March 5, 1995, South Bend: Having read The Plague, I turned to a library book titled The Worst Rock and Roll Records Ever Made: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell [ISBN 0806512318 9780806512310].
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| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1019658 |
Here’s a list of some of the songs and bands Guterman and O’Donnell love to hate:
1. “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie
2. “Eve of Destruction”
3. “American Pie”
4. The Doors
5. Mick Jagger’s brother Chris
6. The U2 album The Unforgettable Fire (which includes “Pride (In the Name of Love);” see April 4)
7. Ringo Starr’s albums Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave
8. Really anything done by Ringo Starr and (especially) Paul McCartney after the Beatles
9. The 1981 live Rolling Stones album Still Life
10. Duran Duran
March 11
March 11, 1997: Paul McCartney becomes Sir Paul McCartney when he is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
March 13
March 13, 1965: “Eight Days A Week” by The Beatles hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
March 20
March 20, 1969: As chronicled in “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in the then-British territory of Gibraltar, near Spain.
March 29
March 29, 1994, South Bend: I drove my neighbors Jay and Ryan to school this morning. We heard Aerosmith’s “Come Together” on the radio. They knew the Beatles original but had never heard the Aerosmith cover before.
March 30
March 30, 1967: The Beatles photograph the album cover photo of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Artists Jann Haworth and Peter Blake have designed the image, which portrays the group in colorful pseudo-military uniforms, surrounded by wax sculptures of themselves and numerous cardboard cutouts of famous people. Among those depicted by the cutouts are Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, Stephen Crane, Bob Dylan, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Carl Jung, Marilyn Monroe, Edgar Allan Poe, Dylan Thomas, H.G. Wells, Mae West, and Oscar Wilde.
April 2
April 2, 1974: Barbra Streisand wins an Oscar for her song “The Way We Were,” beating out Paul McCartney’s James Bond theme “Live and Let Die.”
April 8
April 8, 1963: John and Cynthia Lennon’s son John Charles Julian Lennon is born in Liverpool, U.K.
April 9
April 9, 1965: The Beatles release “Ticket to Ride” as a single.
April 9, 1969: Bob Dylan releases his Nashville Skyline album, featuring Johnny Cash on “Girl From the North Country.” On the same day, Bruce McBroom photographs the Beatles in their second-to-last photo shoot as a group.
April 11
April 11, 1964: The Beatles have 14 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart hits, including “Can’t Buy Me Love” at #1 and “Twist & Shout” at #2.
April 14
April 14, 1963: The Beatles and the Rolling Stones meet for the first time. The Beatles are in Richmond, England, to film a TV appearance. The Rolling Stones are performing at a Richmond club; the two groups meet backstage.
April 16
April 16, 1971: Ringo Starr releases his single “It Don’t Come Easy.”
April 16, 1973: ABC broadcasts the tv special James Paul McCartney, on which McCartney debuts “Live and Let Die.”
April 19
April 19, 1998, South Bend: Mom, Stephanie, and I saw City of Angels at University Park Mall. I liked it because it was a celebration of why it’s good to be human. Afterward we went to Denny’s and had pie and coffee. Later, sitting in my room reading a People magazine with Tammy Wynette on the cover, I heard on the radio that Linda McCartney had died. She and Paul had been together for the past 30 years.
April 26
Sunday, April 26, 1998, St. Mary’s College: I spent most of the day writing papers and working on a Sculpture project. In the evening I saw the 200th Simpsons episode, “Trash of the Titans” (production code 5F09). Bart and Homer crashed a U2 concert; best guest voices ever. The episode was dedicated to another previous guest voice, Linda McCartney.
May 9
May 9, 1964: Louis Armstrong’s “Hello, Dolly” becomes the #1 song on the U.S. popular music charts, ending the Beatles’ 14-week streak of having the #1 single. Three Beatles songs (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “She Loves You”) contributed to the streak.
May 13
May 13, 1970: The Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, premieres in New York.
May 14, 1968: John Lennon and Paul McCartney appear on The Tonight Show to talk about the newly-formed Apple business venture. While Johnny Carson is on vacation, the show is co-hosted by Tallulah Bankhead and pro baseball catcher-turned-tv personality Joe Garagiola. (Neat guy, Joe Garagiola. He was an honorary member of the Akimel O’otham tribal community because he helped bring badly-needed resources to the deeply impoverished Gila River Indian Reservation.)
May 22, 1965: The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” hits #1 on the singles chart.
May 27, 1967: Tit Elingtin is born in Pontiac, Michigan, one day after the Beatles had released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (in the U.K.; its U.S. release date was June 2nd).
June 4, 1969: The Beatles release “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in the U.S. In the U.K. it came out on May 30th.
June 17
June 17, 1974: John Lennon is in a New York recording studio working on his album Walls and Bridges when Elton John pays him a visit. Elton John hears the potential in the track “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and agrees to play piano on the song.
June 18, 1942: Paul McCartney and Roger Ebert are born.
June 18, 1973: John Lennon-Ono and Yoko Ono-Lennon attend the Watergate court hearings and hear John Dean testify. They sit beside Nixon adviser Elvin Bell in the second row, behind Dean’s wife Maureen.
July 1, 1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s collaborative art exhibit You Are Here (To Yoko from John Lennon, With Love) opens in London.
July 18, 1995, South Bend: I dropped Mom off at work. When I came home, I turned on the tv to see Yoko Ono and beautiful, 19-year-old Sean Lennon on the Today show.
July 25
August 15
August 15, 1965: The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium, home field of the New York Mets, in front of a crowd of 56,000.
August 26, 1968: The Beatles release their single “Hey Jude” in the United States. The B-side track is “Revolution.” Between September and November 1968, it will be the #1 single in the U.S. for nine straight weeks.
August 29, 1966: The Beatles play their last public performance together at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
August 30, 1968: The Beatles single with “Hey Jude” on one side and “Revolution” on the reverse is released in the U.K.
September 9
September 9, 1971: John Lennon releases the single “Imagine” in the U.S.
September 20
September 20, 1974: David Bowie and John Lennon meet for the first time at Dean Martin’s 21st birthday party for Martin’s son Ricci. Ringo Starr, Elton John, and Elizabeth Taylor are also there.
September 24, 1941: Linda McCartney is born, as Linda Eastman, in Scarsdale, New York. Her Jewish family’s name is Epstein before her father Anglicizes it to Eastman, but she’s not related to Beatles manager Brian Epstein. It’s entirely coincidental that the eventual Sir Paul marries this beautiful, talented photographer who happens to be an Epstein. She was the first woman to shoot the cover photograph for Rolling Stone magazine.
September 26, 1969: The Beatles release Abbey Road.
September 27, 1967: George Martin oversees the recording of the orchestral score of The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus.” The Mike Sammes Singers record their backing vocals for the track.
October 9, 1940: John Winston Lennon is born in Liverpool, England, U.K. at Liverpool Maternity Hospital.
October 9, 1971: On her husband’s 31st birthday, Yoko Ono Lennon’s solo art exhibition This Is Not Here opens in New York City. Among the guests who attend opening night is Allen Ginsberg.
October 24
October 24, 1975: Apple Records releases Shaved Fish, a compilation album by John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band, in the U.S.
October 31, 1994, South Bend: I went to school dressed all in black. In the hall before classes, Kristen gave me a lemon Pez from a witch Pez dispenser. In Media we began learning about the Beatles. After school, I watched a lot of TV, including the Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode (7F04), with “The Raven” read by James Earl Jones.
November 1, 1968: George Harrison releases Wonderwall Music, the first solo album by any of the Beatles.
November 2, 1994, South Bend: In our continuing exploration of the Beatles in Media, I learned that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is not about LSD at all, but rather about a drawing that Julian Lennon drew when he was quite small.
November 2, 1987: George Harrison releases his final album, Cloud Nine.
November 16, 1974: The #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart is “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” from John Lennon’s fifth solo album, Walls and Bridges.
November 24, 1993, South Bend: American Literature class began with one of classmates (Jessica or Nicole) asking Mr. Gerencher “Who is the other Beatle in this picture with John Lennon?” It was Yoko Ono. We then got around to discussing Edgar Allan Poe.
December 20, 1980: Twelve days after the artist’s death, “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon becomes the first #1 hit for Lennon as a solo artist.
December 26, 1963: The first Beatles singles to be released in the U.S., “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” are...released...in the U.S. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a more clever way to word this clearly.
December 31, 2010: Tit and I celebrated the New Year at Tom and Melissa’s house again. We ate, drank some mixed drinks, and hung out, talking. Melissa’s brother Andrew and I played Beatles Rock Band together. After midnight, I switched to drinking soda so I could be our designated driver.
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