Title Page

101 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT

THE BEATLES

by

Jack Goldstein
 Publisher Information

Published in 2012 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

The right of Jack Goldstein to be identified as the Author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright © 2012 Jack Goldstein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Disclaimer: All facts presented in this title were gained from common and
reputable sources in print and on the internet. If any detail within this title is
found to be incorrect, the author will be happy to publish a corrected version.
 Introduction

Are you the world’s biggest Beatles fan? Do you know everything there is to
know about the Fab Four? Then this is the book for you! In this easy-to-digest
eBook are 101 facts about your favourite band – do you know all of them?

Test yourself and your friends with these handily-packaged facts easily
organised into categories for maximum enjoyment. Sections include their music,
individual members, and some crazy facts about the band! Whether you’d like to
stroll down Penny Lane, walk across Abbey Road, or visit Strawberry Fields,
this fantastic eBook is full of great fun facts for you.
 The Band
1. The Beatles as we know them consisted of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr,
George Harrison and John Lennon.

2. They were formed in 1957 by John Lennon, with members gradually

joining until the line-up we know was completed in 1962 with the arrival of
Ringo.

3. Until 1960, the band had been known as The Blackjacks, The Quarrymen,
Johnny and the Moondogs, the Beatals and the Silver Beetles.

4. Stuart Sutcliffe was the bassist in the band before he left to study art. At
that point Paul moved from rhythm guitar to bass.

5. Pete Best was drafted in as the band’s drummer in 1960, however he was
ejected from the band in 1962 for poor drumming and was replaced by
Ringo, who the lads had better hopes for.

6. The band released thirteen studio albums in the UK, however some were re-
titled for foreign markets, and more have been released from previously lost
recordings in recent years.

7. There were five Beatles films - A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical
Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let it Be.

8. Paul was the only Beatle to leave school with qualifications - he got five O
levels and one A level.

9. The Beatles played in the Cavern Club 292 times.

10. John, Paul and George were all the same height - Ringo was 3 inches
shorter.
 Ringo
th
1. Ringo was born on the 7 July 1940.

2. His real name is Richard Starkey.

3. He wasn’t the healthiest child - he spent months in hospital, even falling

into a coma at one point. Because of this, he could barely read or write at
the age of fifteen.

4. He is left-handed - which some see as an explanation for his unusual

drumming style.

5. At the height of Beatlemania, some fans actually ate grass that Ringo had
walked on.

6. Before joining the Beatles, Ringo was in a band called Rory Storm and the
Hurricanes.

7. Ringo was worried he would be permanently replaced by drummer Jimmie

Nicol who filled in for him for a week in 1964 - Ringo had been rushed to
hospital due to tonsillitis.

8. Ringo is also well-known for narrating Thomas the Tank Engine.

9. When he was a child, Ringo said that he wanted to be a hairdresser when he

grew up.

10. Before she was famous, Cher - then known as Bonnie Jo Mason - sang a
song about him called I Love You Ringo.
 General - Part 1
1. None of the Beatles had taken any music lessons when they released their
first single - although Paul and George did have piano and sitar lessons
respectively after they got famous.

2. Worried that the Americans wouldn’t understand their accents, film bosses
nearly overdubbed the lads’ voices for the US release of their movie A Hard
Day’s Night.

3. In 2009, the Vatican actually forgave John for his infamous ‘Bigger than
Jesus’ comment.

4. It is said that the other members of the Beatles weren’t too keen on John’s
relationship with Yoko Ono. There were many arguments between them
and her, and many commentators blame her for the eventual break-up of the
band.

5. One of the worst arguments started when Yoko stole George Harrison’s last
chocolate digestive biscuit.

6. Although John Lennon claims Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was an
innocent song inspired by a drawing his son had brought home for him,
Paul has since admitted it is inspired by LSD, saying it is pretty obvious the
song is about an acid trip.

7. Additionally, Paul has said that Day Tripper was also about LSD, and Got
To Get You Into My Life was about Cannabis.

8. However, despite some people claiming Fixing a Hole was also about
drugs, Paul has confirmed it was actually about extensive DIY work that
was being performed on his Scottish Farmhouse.

9. The Beatles were sued by Chuck Berry’s publishers who felt they had
stolen one of his lyrics for the song ‘Come Together’. The Beatles sang
“Here comes ol’ flat-top. He come groovin’ up slowly”, whereas Chuck had
 sung “Here come up flat top. He was groovin’ up with me”. They settled
out of court.

10. George’s favourite sweets were Jelly Babies. However, after announcing
this, fans would throw them at him at gigs. But in America, Jelly Babies
weren’t available, so fans through Jelly Beans instead, which were much
harder and tended to hurt!
 Paul
th
1. Paul was born on the 18 June 1942.

2. His full real name is James Paul McCartney.

3. After leaving the Beatles, Paul formed the group Wings.

4. He is considered by many (including the Guinness Book of Records) to be

the most successful composer and music artist of all time.

5. When Paul was writing hit song Yesterday, he wrote the music before he
wrote the words. The lyrics he used as a working template were amazingly
“Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs”!

6. Yesterday has been covered by more than 2000 artists.

7. Paul was deported from Germany in 1962 after setting fire to a tapestry.

8. Paul was introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan, who gave him some in a
hotel room in 1964.

9. Paul has been a vegetarian for around 40 years.

10. He once wrote a letter to the Dalai Lama criticising him for not being a
vegetarian.
 Top 10 Selling Singles
1. She Loves You

2. I Want to Hold Your Hand

3. Can’t Buy Me Love

4. I Feel Fine

5. We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper

6. Help!

7. Hey Jude

8. A Hard Day’s Night

9. From Me to You

10. Hello Goodbye

 George
th
1. George was born on the 25 February 1943.
th
2. He sadly died on the 29 November 2001.

3. George had embraced Hare Krishna in 1969.

4. When he died, his ashes were scattered in the river Ganges in line with
Hindu tradition.

5. After the Beatles, George founded supergroup The Travelling Wilburys.

6. In December of 1999, a man broke into George’s home and stabbed him
seven times - including through one of his lungs.

7. George married twice - first in 1966 to Pattie Boyd, then in 1978 to Olivia
Trinidad Arias.

8. He loved gardening, and fabulously restored the gardens of his English

manor house called Friar Park.

9. In 1978, George changed career direction and became a film producer. His
production company was called HandMade Films.

10. When he was 16, George tried (and failed) to convince his family to
emigrate to Canada, Malta or Australia.
 Awards & Achievements
1. The first major awards won by the band were their two Grammys in 1964 -
Best New Artist and Best Performance by a Vocal Group.

2. They won 7 Grammy awards in total...

3. ...along with a massive 15 Ivor Novello awards.

4. The Beatles are the only band to have ever held all of the top five positions
on the Billboard chart.

5. The Fab Four even won an Oscar in 1970 for Best Music for their film Let
It Be.

6. The Beatles are supposedly the best-selling musical group of all time.
According to EMI, they have sold over one billion units.

7. In the US, The lads hold the record for the most weeks at number one - 132
in total.

8. When the boys appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, it received the highest
ratings for any TV broadcast ever made until that point.

9. IN the list of the 100 best-selling singles of all time in the UK, the Beatles
appear five times. Behind them, the most any other group appears is twice.

10. In 1965, the Fab Four were each awarded the MBE by the Queen. John sent
his back a few years later however, in protest against the UK’s support of
America in the Vietnam war.
 John
th
1. John was born on the 9 October 1940.

2. His full name was John Winston Lennon.

3. In 1969, John married performance artist Yoko Ono and changed his name
to John Ono Lennon.

4. In his work with Paul, John is credited as being a member of the greatest
songwriting partnership of all time.

5. In 1971, Richard Nixon’s government tried to get John deported from

America due to his anti-Vietnam war stance.

6. John first took LSD in 1965 when he attended a dinner party hosted by a
dentist. Unbeknownst to John, the dentist spiked his drink with the drug.

7. He experimented further with the drug however, and some of his best work
was done during the year he was almost constantly under the influence of
it!

8. The other Beatles looked up to John as their leader, saying he was the
smartest and had the quickest wit.

9. John once infuriated many Christians by controversially claiming that the

Beatles were ‘Bigger than Jesus’.
th
10. On the 8 December 1980, John was shot dead by obsessed ‘fan’ Mark
David Chapman.
 General - Part 2
1. The Fab Four had been asked to be in Disney’s The Jungle Book - sadly
though, due to other commitments they had to drop out.

2. When the boys auditioned for Decca records in 1962, they were turned
down. The executive who made this decision - possibly one of the worst in
music history - did so because he thought that guitar groups were on the
way out.

3. There has been a crazy conspiracy (fuelled even more after the invention of
the world-wide web) that Paul died in a car accident and was replaced by a
lookalike.

4. John was obsessed by Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale, and played it
non-stop in his Rolls Royce all the way to the launch party for Sgt. Pepper.

5. According to John, the band got its eventual name from a dream he had
where a man appeared to him on a flaming pie and said “You will be The
Beatles, with an ‘a’”.

6. The animal noises at the end of Good Morning Good Morning are in the
order in which the beasts would eat each other.

7. The Beatles were all huge supporters of equality. They said they would only
play in America’s Deep South (which in 1964 was still a hotbed of
inequality) if black fans were allowed to sit anywhere they liked.

8. Ringo’s inspiration for the song Octopus’s Garden came from a boat captain
who explained to Ringo that Octopuses collect shiny things from the
bottom of the sea and put them in a pile.

9. The French title of A Hard Day’s Night actually translates as Four Boys in
the Wind.

10. George Harrison reminisced about the height of Beatlemania in his 1987
song When We Was Fab.
 The Most Amazing Facts
1. Around three minutes into Hey Jude, you can just about hear Paul swearing
(using the ‘f’ word) because he made a mistake!

2. The street sign for Penny Lane in Liverpool got stolen so often after the
song that the council ended up just painting the name of the street on the
buildings instead.

3. Let it Be was the last album released before the group split up - however, it
wasn’t the last album recorded - most of it was down on tape before Abbey
Road, which had been released the year before.

4. They unintentionally caused a riot in the Philippines when they politely

declined a breakfast invitation from president’s wife Imelda Marcos - the
snub caused violent street protests, and the boys had to rapidly escape the
country.

5. In 1967, the Fab Four bought the Greek island of Leslo - and the four
surrounding ones - but sold them a few months later after getting bored
with the idea.

6. John and Paul once started writing a play about a man who thought he was
God. The play was called ‘Pilchard’. It was never finished.

7. John once took the mickey out of Bob Dylan by writing a song called Stuck
Inside of Lexicon with the Roget’s Thesaurus Blues.

8. The Beatles were working on an album called Everest (actually named after
a brand of cigarettes). When it was suggested the boys should get the photo
for the record cover taken at the place the album was named after - and
being too lazy to travel to the Himalayas - they renamed it to Abbey Road,
which was the street on which their recording studio was.

9. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was inspired by the process by which it is

confirmed a pope is dead - In the Vatican, a Cardinal bangs the head of the
 alleged deceased five times with a silver hammer!

10. When Paul was told of John’s tragic murder, all he could say was “It’s a
drag, isn’t it?”.
 And Finally...
1. It is rumoured that the Beatles were going to buy the movie rights to Lord
of the Rings, and make a film of it starring themselves.
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