The Beatles (band): Difference between revisions

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The love you make''|"[[Grand Finale|The End]]"}}

 

 

 

 

The band broke up in 1970 under [[Creative Differences|circumstances painful to think about]]. Everyone went on to solo careers. The dissolution was finalized in 1974, but Apple Corps (the Beatles' management company) was left intact. For perhaps fifteen years, few people saw any purpose for that...

* ''Rubber Soul'' (1965)

* ''Revolver'' (1966)

* ''Magical Mystery Tour'' (1967)

* ''Yellow Submarine'' (1969) Although only four of the songs ("Only a Northern Song", "Hey Bulldog", "All Together Now", "It's All Too Much") are not preexisting material from previous albums, the existence of this new material, as well as the flip-side original instrumental orchestral soundtrack by producer and "fifth Beatle" George Martin, makes the soundtrack officially a Beatles album instead of a compilation.

* ''Abbey Road'' (1969)

* ''Live at the BBC'' (1994) (The first new compilation after Apple got its act together)

* ''The Beatles Anthology, Volumes 1, 2 and 3'' (1995-1996) (Each volume is a two-CD set containing previously unreleased material from the archives, much of it having appeared on the ''Ultra Rare Trax'' bootleg CD series in the late 1980s. An earlier collection, ''Sessions'', would have brought some of the recordings to the public in 1984, but the surviving Beatles vetoed the album at the last minute.)

* ''1'' (2000) (Greatest Hits album that compiled virtually every #1 single from the UK and US from '62 to '70)

* ''Let It Be... Naked'' (2004) (remix of ''Let it Be'' closer to the original, abortive ''Get Back'' album, and shorn of Phil Spector's production changes)

 

Numerous tribute, soundtracks, and cover albums:

* ''[[I Am Sam]]'', a [[Sean Penn]] movie whose mentally disabled protagonist loves the Beatles

 

 

* [[Abbey Road Crossing]] (The album cover from ''Abbey Road'')

* [[Kaleidoscope Eyes]] ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds")

* [[Magical Mystery Doors]] ("Magical Mystery Tour")

* [[The Pete Best]] (Mr. Best himself)

* [[The Walrus Was Paul]] ("Glass Onion")

 

----

** "''W''hisper ''w''ords of ''w''isdom, let it be..."

* [[Aerith and Bob]]: John, Paul, George, and...[[Stage Name|Ringo?]]

* [[Age Progression Song]]: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da".

* [[Album Filler]]: McCartney admitted that "Hold Me Tight" off ''With the Beatles'' was this.

** From ''Rubber Soul'', "Wait" was a song that remained from the ''Help!'' sessions.

** Sometimes John composed songs just because he didn't have enough in the record (such as "Run for Your Life" in ''Rubber Soul'', "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" in ''Sgt. Pepper's'').

** The inclusion of "Across the Universe" and "One After 909" on ''Let It Be'' couldn't be anything but filler. The former was released as a single long before ''Let It Be'' was released, and the latter was one of the first songs Lennon and McCartney had ever written (it was never included on an album because they were never satisfied with it).

*** "Dig It" from the same album was certainly that. When the album was remixed as ''Let It Be... Naked'' in 2002, it was even dropped from the track list.

* [[Alternate Reality Episode]]: "We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band..."

* [[And Starring]]: Billy Preston's work on keyboards with the band during the ''Get Back'' sessions earned him a special credit; the "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single was attributed to "The Beatles with Billy Preston". This was the only time the band shared billing with another artist.

* [[Disney Owns This Trope|Apple Corps Owns This Trope]]: Apple Corps and Apple (Computer) Inc. had an argument dating back to the 1980s over the use of the name "Apple". The two companies finally came to an agreement, however, and as of November 16, 2010, you can buy the Beatles' music on iTunes.

* [[Antiquated Linguistics]]: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", its lyrics being drawn from a Victorian circus poster.

** Recordings of their late live performances indicate just how sick they were of touring, with many of their songs being played at near-double speed, in order to get the concert over and done with as quickly as possible.

** George Harrison in particular was vocal about how, for him at least, the appeal of being a Beatle had worn off around 1966-1967, because of the above and because he was getting tired of Lennon and McCartney constantly treating him as the younger sibling of the group with regards to his own efforts at writing.

** The boys have admitted that the majority of their movie ''[[Help]]!'' was filmed in "a haze of marijuana," and that this was part of the reason that they didn't bother to take much creative control of the movie.

* [[Badass Boast]]: "When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best fucking group in the goddamn world."--John Lennon, 1980

* [[Ballad of X]]: "The Ballad of John and Yoko"

* [[The British Invasion]]: They launched it. They were the first success.

* [[Broken Record]]: "Wild Honey Pie" ("HONEY PIE! HONEY PIE!") and "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?", widely considered to be [[Incredibly Lame Pun|White]] [[Album Filler]].

{{quote| "Number nine...number nine...number nine..."}}

** ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' contained a few seconds of audio in the usually-empty runout groove of the record. On players that didn't have automatic pickup arm return (fairly common for cheaper players in the 1960s), this would loop forever, or until you got sick of it and turned it off.

{{quote| But I thought you might like to know<br />

[[Department of Redundancy Department|That the singer's going to sing a song]] }}

** For the technically-minded Beatles fans and music recording geeks, there is the handy, epic tome ''Recording The Beatles" by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, a thoroughly exhaustive 540-page book chronicling the techniques, recording equipment, and studio-owned musical instruments used by the Beatles during the making of their music. The hardcover deluxe-edition book, available via Curvebender publishing, will set you back a good $100.00.

* [[Celebrity Toons]]: As noted above.

** According to John Lennon in a 1980 interview, Paul was visiting John in New York City (during one of their very few friendly meetings post-breakup) and they were actually watching SNL. Apparently, they strongly [[What Could Have Been|considered going down to the studio]] but decided not to.

** George did show up in a subsequent episode in 1976, wherein he demanded the money. "$750 is pretty chintzy."

* [[Concept Album]]: ''Sgt. Pepper's'' is widely considered to be one of popular music's first concept albums, although there's little about it that intrinsically makes it such. Lennon admitted that after the first two songs they abandoned the "concept", picking it up only for the reprise of the title track.

* [[Concept Video]]: The Beatles were among the first to make music videos. The video for "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a [[Concept Video]].

* [[Continuity Nod]]: A few shout outs to older songs exist. Notably "Glass Onion", which seems to be built ''entirely'' on this. Others include:

** "I am The Walrus" - "See how they fly, like ''Lucy in the Sky''"

** Cover songs were common practice in the pop industry for the time, and it was largely the Beatles who turned the tide towards original performances. Their third album (''A Hard Day's Night'') may not have been the first album of entirely original compositions, but it was one of the most important.

* [[Cut and Paste Translation]]: Before ''Sgt. Pepper'', Capitol Records of America released different Beatles albums than its parent company EMI/Parlophone, the original British publisher. Specifically, they removed songs from some albums to tack onto other albums; since the American albums held about ten songs and the British ones held about fourteen, there were two or three albums made from whole cloth. One of these, the 1966 release ''Yesterday... And Today'', was a compilation with "new" songs that had been issued the previous year in England, as well as rough mixes of three songs from the then-forthcoming ''Revolver''.

** All officially released versions of ''Let It Be'' are this compared to what the project was supposed to be. Phil Spector took the raw tapes and tried to hide flaws (real and imagined) under heavy orchestration. ''Let It Be... Naked'' doesn't use heavy orchestration, but ''does'' use something like ProTools. (For some reason, Paul McCartney tends to think it's okay to remove something from a recording if it was never meant to be there, even if it was there because of limitations in the tech at the time of recording. Normally, that would be fine for anyone who isn't a major audiophile; but John Lennon wanted the album to be raw and forbade ''George Martin'' from doing "producer tricks" on it!) Lennon later strongly defend Spector's remix of the album against McCartney's stringent protests, declaring the original ''Get Back'' album unlistenable.

** ''Past Masters'' 1 and 2 (now with the remasters, just one album), albums made entirely of singles which do not appear on any of their albums (including songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Rain" and "Hey Jude"), also count. Unlike many examples of this trope, they're extremely important.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: In [[Real Life]], all four of them were - their early press conferences consisted of approximately five smart-ass answers for every one serious answer to reporters' questions.

** They were from Liverpool, after all. It's in the water supply.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: "Back in the USSR" -- "take me to your daddy's farm". Individually owned farms did not exist in the USSR at the time.

** [[Double Subversion|Except they kinda did]], just not in a universally recognized way. [[It Makes Sense in Context|It's complicated.]]

* [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]]: I don't care how horrible [[Misogyny Song|the sentiments]] expressed in "Run For Your Life" are, John Lennon just makes them sound ''so damn cool''.

* [[Dreadful Musician]]: The two Beatles that didn't make the cut, [[The Pete Best]] himself (the only condition George Martin gave to hire the band was to replace him) and Stu Sutcliffe (who only bought a bass to join the band at John's insistance, and usually was facing backwards on stage to hide his lack of skill).

* [[Dr. Feelgood]]: "Doctor Robert".

** "I want you, I want you so bad, I want yoooooouuuuu, I want you so bad, it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad..."

** "It's All Too Much", especially the blistering opening note.

* [[Everything Sounds Sexier in French]]: "Michelle" has a line in French, and a line in English, that mean the same ("these are words that go together well") and are sung to the same tune.

** A number of Beatles songs had their genesis in their early days but did not get album releases until much later into their career. "I'll Follow the Sun" and "Michelle" (released on ''Beatles for Sale'' and ''Rubber Soul'' in 1964 and 1965, respectively) date back to at least 1960, where it shows up on home recordings made by Paul McCartney. "The One After 909" even went through a number of studio takes in 1963 before being scrapped. It was returned to for the ''Let It Be'' album in 1970.

* [[Excited Show Title]]: The movie, song, and soundtrack album--"Help!".

** Also "Oh! Darling" off of ''Abbey Road''.

** Also, the B Side Medley on ''Abbey Road'', aside from "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" → "Golden Slumbers". SCITTBW fades out completely before GS starts up.

* [[Fake-Out Fade-Out]]: "Hello Goodbye", "Helter Skelter", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Free As a Bird".

** John couldn't completely avoid all symbolism in "I Am The Walrus"; one item which (accidentally?) crept in was "semolina pilchard", a [[Take That]] at Detective Norman Pilcher of the Drug Squad, who had it in for pop/rock stars.

* [[Sixth Ranger|The Fifth Beatle]]: Billy Preston was called this after he joined The Beatles for [[Let It Be]]. [[George Martin]], Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall, [[Brian Epstein]] and Stuart Sutcliffe have also been called "Fifth Beatle"'s.

* [[Five-Man Band]]:

** [[The Hero]]: Paul

* [[Generation Xerox]]: When John's oldest son Julian tried to make it big as a pop star, many people felt that he was trying too hard to imitate the style of his father.

** Hell, everything about Julian Lennon. Both he and his father were born to parents too young and immature to raise a child; both were pretty much abandoned by their parents (though Julian did still live with his mother); and then, by the time they had mended their respective relationships, both times the parent gets killed by someone else. And Julian looks like his mother, Cynthia, and sounds a lot like his father.

*** Sean unfortunately has decided to imitate his parents in his own [http://www.thetripwire.com/news/2009/09/10/sean-lennon-rips-off-john-lennon/ pretty creepy way]. (Link NSFW).

** There's also Dhani Harrison, who is half of the alternative rock duo, thenewno2. And by the way, his voice sounds nearly identical to that of his father. And he somehow looks just like George.

*** He looks so much like George that during the big tribute concert that Eric Clapton arranged a year after George's death, Paul quipped that with Dhani onstage alongside himself, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, and a lot of George's other longtime friends, "It looks like George stayed young and all the rest of us got old."

*** His style is a lot different, though; he owes a lot to Keith Moon, though without playing exactly like him. Might have helped that Keith was his godfather...

* [[Genre Roulette]]: The albums post ''Rubber Soul'' go everywhere: folk, psychedelic, Indian, avant-garde...

* [[God Is Love Song]]: "Long Long Long".

* [[Gratuitous Panning]]: Early stereo mixes of albums separated entire tracks to one side. All Beatles albums were mixed in mono and different people handled the stereo mixes. It wasn't until ''Abbey Road'' that they actually did an album in stereo (''Her Majesty'' starts entirely on the right, and moves until it's entirely on the left by the end of the song.)

*** You have every reason to believe Wikipedia. Capitol Records would take a mono recording, delay the right channel by a millisecond, play it through their famed echo chamber, and -- presto! -- fake stereo. Reportedly, Brian Wilson's father Murry ''preferred'' Duophonic, so much so that 8 of their albums were only available in mono or Duophonic.

* [[Greatest Hits Album]]: Several of them.

** The weird cacophonous noise loop that comes after "A Day In The Life" on ''Sgt. Pepper'', if you count that as a song.

** "Her Majesty" on the end of the ''Abbey Road'' album. Possibly the [[Trope Maker]], being the first known song to be left at the end of an album after a period of silence, and without being listed as a track. (Later printings of ''Abbey Road'' include "Her Majesty" on the track list.)

* [[Hot and Cold]]: Although male, John had a personality similar to this.

* [[I Am Not Left-Handed]]: Leftie Ringo Starr played a right-handed drum kit.

* [[I Am the Noun]]: "I Am the Walrus".

** Of course, even in their "mass-marketed pop band" days the Beatles wrote original material and played their own instruments, which doesn't really fit this trope.

* [[Insult Backfire]]: All four were skilled at giving smart assed answers to criticism, but Paul may have achieved the crowning moment at a 1965 press conference:

{{quote| '''Reporter:''' In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute, and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian. I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.<br />

'''Paul:''' Well, we were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all. }}

** Wait, "Revolution [[Mind Screw|9]]"? How is that -- ''what''?

* [[In the Style Of]]: A few. A notable one is "Rocky Raccoon," more or less an explicit semi/AffectionateParody of cowboy ballads. "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" is also supposedly John doing an [[In the Style Of]] Paul.

** "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" has, to some, always sounded like a forgotten Everly Brothers hit.

** "Lady Madonna" was done in the style of Fats Domino, and was even covered by Fats himself.

* [[It Makes Sense in Context]]: John Lennon's "Bigger than Jesus" comment, [http://beatlesnumber9.com/biggerjesus.html which was part of a much larger article], and came about because he was reading about religion at the time. It got misrepresented in an American Teen Magazine, resulting in the infamous controversy.

* [[Jerkass]]: John. He mellowed in the '70s, but he was a ''dick'' in the '60s.

** He was described as an ADD monster.

** Reports of what a complete tool he could be are especially glaring in light of the modern picture of him as being St. John of Peace.

** Despite being an infamous control freak after "Sgt. Pepper", he did his best to hold the crumbling band together after manager Brian Epstein passed away.

** John's neglected son Julian has admitted that he was much closer with Paul than his father.

* [[Jukebox Musical]]: Three of note, not counting ''Yellow Submarine''.

** ''LOVE'' (2006) -- This is the only one of the three that [[wikipedia:Love (Cirque du Soleil)|actually involved]] the Beatles, and it's not a standard example of the trope, but a [[Cirque Du Soleil]] show. This live theater super-production (in a specially-built showroom at the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas) sets the company's trademark acrobatics and dancing to remixed versions of the group's original recordings, creating a metaphorical telling of their career and impact. The development of this show became the subject of the documentary ''All Together Now''.

*** Having said that, if you are a big fan of The Beatles in general and don't mind a few lyrical changes, you're bound to at least enjoy the songs.

** There's also "All this and World War II", which is a WWII documentary with covers of Beatles songs. It largely has a reputation for making no sense.

** "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the canonical example. It fades out with a gorgeous swarmandel before fading back in with a dissonant mellotron, vicious drumming, trumpets that sound like ambulance sirens, and (most disturbingly) John Lennon's slowed-down voice saying "CRANBERRY SAUCE".

*** Even worse if you're a little kid and you think it's "I buried Paul." Ever since then, that song's end is the sound of death to her.

** The disonnant swirling effects at the end of "Blue Jay Way".

** The manic laughing sound effect at the end of "Within You Without You", meant to bring relief to the heaviness of the lyrics. It didn't work.

** ''The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl''. Out of print for many years.

* [[Lonely Funeral]]: "Eleanor Rigby" provides the page quote.

** Also, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".

* [[Lounge Lizard]]: Paul's [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|hilariously sleazy]] nightclub crooning in "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)".

** [[Broken Record|Number nine, number nine, number nine...]]

** The single, "Revolution", is a ''much'' faster and heavier (and louder) version of "Revolution 1". As Giles Martin said on the sleeve-notes for ''Love'', "even today it defines 'distortion'."

* [[Misogyny Song]]: Amazingly, they have two notable ones:

{{quote| ''If I catch you talking to that boy again,''<br />

''I'm gonna let you down, ''<br />

''You can't do that.'' }}

** ...though, it's pretty tame in comparison to "Run for Your Life" (from ''Rubber Soul''). At its heart, the message of this song is that if you decide to end a relationship with the singer, he will brutally murder you if you don't escape him first.

* [[Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness]]: Mostly levels one through three, but there are a few individual songs that are harder.

* [[Momma's Boy]]: The titular character of "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" is "the all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son." And behind that tough exterior, he really does rely on his mom's defense when people start to question him - hence why he always brings her along on hunting trips "in case of accidents."

* [[Never Learned to Read|Never Learned to Read Sheet Music]]

* [[New Sound Album]]: Pretty much every of one their albums from ''Rubber Soul'' forward could be considered one of these.

* [[No Ending]]: Both sides of the ''Abbey Road'' album. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ends abruptly in the middle of a riff, after three minutes of repeating the same sequence of chords. John Lennon told engineer Geoff Emerick to "cut it right there", and Emerick did. "Her Majesty" was originally slated between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", but the band decided to delete it. The tape engineer who clipped it out of the master cut out the last crashing guitar chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" along with "Her Majesty", but missing the last note of "Her Majesty", which was left at the beginning of "Polythene Pam". Then he spliced "Her Majesty" onto the end of the master tape after 14 seconds of silence, creating a [[Hidden Track]] that ends one note too soon. The band liked the effect and left it that way. (The cut was a test-run of the crossfading and editing sequence, on rough mixes, ''not'' the final edit (if you notice, in the album version the final chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" is also missing but because the new sequence makes it redundant; the final chord of "Her Majesty" is totally absent though). The "Her Majesty" part, however, ''is'' the original clip tacked on to the final master just the same it was in the rough edit.)

* [[Non-Appearing Title]]: "A Day in the Life", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "The Ballad of John and Yoko", "The Inner Light", "Revolution 9".

* [[The Notable Numeral]]: "The Fab Four".

* [[The Obi-Wan]]: Manager Brian Epstein, who died shortly after "Sgt. Pepper". Major subversion, as his death is considered the beginning of the end for the group.

* [[Protest Song]]: Subverted with "Revolution", a protest about protestors (and specifically the Cultural Revolution with John's "Chairman Mao" reference".)

** Or maybe not. All versions of the song take a swipe at Mao, but Lennon's vocals in "Revolution 1" have a more ambivalent take on protest in general, with his introductory "don't you know that you can count me out" being immediately followed by a parenthetical "in".

* [[Punny Name]]: Apple Corps. Especially since it's '''''always''''' spelled "Corps" (and thus pronounced "core"). John loved wordplay.

** And a [[Pun-Based Title]]: ''Rubber Soul'' (sole).

*** During the recording of "I'm Down" Paul self-criticised one of his takes as "plastic soul" (you can hear it in ''Anthology 2''). So ''Rubber Soul'' is actually a ''double'' pun.

** Another [[Pun-Based Title]] is ''Revolver''. [[What Are Records|This one might take a second to figure out.]]

** Also, the name "Beatles" itself, though hardly anyone notices anymore, because everyone grows up knowing "The Beatles".

* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: The film ''[[Let It Be]]'' was originally conceived as a documentary of the Beatles' "rebirth" as a live performing band. Instead, by capturing the tension and infighting among the band members (including a famous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPWrooRSzY spat] between McCartney and Harrison), it became a chronicle of the band's break-up.

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the choice of name. When originally conceived as a chronicle of the band's rebirth, the project was entitled "Get Back". By the time the pieces had been picked up and enough footage cobbled together to release as an album and film, it had metamorphosed into "Let It Be", effectively serving as the band's epitaph.

** Real Life Writes the Song: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", "A Day in the Life", "She's Leaving Home", "Blue Jay Way", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", many others. Lennon in particular did this constantly.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|"The Reason You Suck" Song]]: "Sexy Sadie" to the Maharishi, "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill" to a [[Great White Hunter]] they met in Rishikesh who loved to shoot tigers in the wild.

* [[Record Producer]]: George Martin.

* [[Refrain From Assuming]]: Usually averted.

* [[Retraux]]: "Honey Pie" was already a song done [[In the Style Of]] [[Cole Porter]], but the effect is strengthened by having one line--"Now she's hit the big time"--sound like a scratchy old record being played on a tinny old record player.

* [[Ripped from the Headlines]]: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!" was pretty much John just reading out a Victorian circus poster to a tune, and "A Day in the Life" was based on the headlines from a single day's newspaper.

** "She's Leaving Home" was also based on a newspaper article, about a girl running away.

* [[Self-Backing Vocalist]]: Usually averted - the person who'd written the song took lead vocals (with some exceptions, especially involving the songs they gave to Ringo) and the other two (Ringo usually opted out) joined on harmonies. Exceptions were mostly Paul: "I Will", "Wild Honey Pie"... John also had a duet with himself (interpolating lines) on "Julia".

* [[Self-Deprecation]]: During many, many press conferences at the height of Beatlemania, all four members of the band frequently joked that they expected to flop at any moment. George Harrison also referred to himself and Ringo Starr as "economy-class Beatles," and in the 1980s freely described himself as "a middle-aged ex-pop star."

* [[Serious Business]]: It eventually got to the point that they had to stop touring after 1966, because their fans would reach such levels of hysteria that not even the band itself could hear their music.

** Perhaps the ultimate case of [[Serious Business]] is the fact that John was murdered by one crazed fan, and George and his wife nearly stabbed to death by another.

** Speaking of whom, this trope is what he was really, genuinely talking about when he uttered the famous words destined to be taken out of context: "more popular than Jesus". Anyone who has heard more than that one sentence fragment of the interview will tell you that he was talking about what [[Serious Business]] the Beatles were becoming for the fans, to the point of absurdity, and how he was ''not'' comfortable with being taken so seriously.

* [[Shout-Out]]:

** The reference in "In My Life" to "lovers and friends/I still can recall/some are dead and some are living" is a Shout Out to Lennon's close friend and former bandmate, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died in 1962.

** "[[wikipedia:Elmore James|Elmore James]] ain't got nothin' on this baby!"

** "Julia"--guess what the Japanese for [[Yoko Ono|"ocean child"]] is?

** "Martha My Dear" is a Shout Out to Paul McCartney's dog.

** "The eagle picks my eye/The worm he licks my bone/Feel so suicidal/Just like [[Bob Dylan|Dylan's]] [[wikipedia:Ballad of a Thin Man|Mr. Jones]]"

** "Polythene Pam" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" were recorded together as a single performance. You can hear John Lennon saying "Oh look out!" right before the change.

* [[Silly Love Songs]]: Literally ''every last original song'' on their first ''five'' albums counts. Not that there weren't plenty later on; "Paperback Writer" was the result of Paul's aunt telling him to ''please'' find a new subject.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: At the beginning of their career they were far down the idealistic side, and if "Here Comes the Sun" is any indication, they missed it at the end. The rest of their career is [[Your Mileage May Vary|open to interpretation on this point.]] But then that shouldn't be surprising.

* [[Smarter Than You Look]]: George felt that Ringo's second song, "Octopus' Garden", was this. He described it as accidentally deep and spiritual.

* [[Something Blues]]: "Yer Blues".

* [[Song Style Shift]]: Several abrupt ones in Paul's "You Never Give Me Your Money" and John's "Happiness Is a Warm Gun".

* [[The Southpaw]]: Paul's left-handedness allowed the Beatles to perform a little bit of stagecraft in which Paul would face John, or George, and sing into the same mike with their guitars pointing the same way.

** In his defence, it was a popular convention at the time for pop musicians to come up with a catchy stage-name rather than use their own.

** The rest of the Beatles toyed around with stage names during their early years, with John Lennon briefly going by the name "Long John". Paul McCartney was a particular fan of this, adopting the alias "Paul Ramone" during the group's time in Hamburg.

* [[Stop and Go]]: "I'm only sleeping...[Pause]...keeping an eye on the world going by my window..."

** While never legitimately released, there's a widely-bootlegged (and [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|absolutely hilarious]]) 20-minute outtake from a session for the ''Rubber Soul'' track "Think For Yourself". You can hear it (in two parts) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4q48Foltjs here] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oibSx5miTkY here].

* [[Stylistic Suck]]: The intentionally awkward guitar solo in "All You Need Is Love".

* [[This Loser Is You]]: "Nowhere Man"

{{quote| "Doesn't have a point of view/Knows not where he's going to/Isn't he a bit like you and me?"}}

** They would actually learn from word of mouth who knew this chord, or who knew that chord, and would drive around in their van to wherever they needed to get to, drive back home and then they'd know how to play chord x.

** The "Get Back" project was an effort to, uh, get back to this. It met with mixed success due to the dissension in the band.

** The [[Paul Is Dead]] theories, all based on supposedly hidden messages on the Beatles album covers and song lyrics.

** The 1970s saw a lot of urban legends concerning the possible (secret) reunion of the band. The most famous example was the initially anonymous Canadian progressive rock band [[Klaatu]], whose vaguely "Beatlesque" sound fueled speculation that they were a front for a reunited Fab Four.

* [[Unplugged Version]]: [[George Harrison]] recorded a well-known acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." It finally got released on ''The Beatles Anthology''.

* [[Vocal Tag Team]]

* [[Word Salad Lyrics]]: After their introduction to drugs, a lot of songs, most notably "I Am The Walrus".

* [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]: "Hello Goodbye" and the single version of "Get Back".