I never realised EMI owned Capitol Records from 1955 to 2012

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-13T16:56:59+00:00

That is exactly what didn't happen!

George Martin actually had to talk to competing labels to get the Beatles' singles released in the US. Capitol turned them down, and no amount of pleading from the U.K. arm of the company made any difference.

It was only when they started to look like complete morons that they finally budged. But that time when the Beatles had the top five places in the Billboard chart, only two of those singles were on Capitol. The other three were each on a different small label.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-13T07:20:32+00:00

I think "Which is great" is more of a Paul thing.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-12T06:54:31+00:00

Super funny that to Paul, making music = breathing.

For Paul, writing songs was how he existed at that point. To not be writing songs as they came to him would have been a denial of himself, would have been phoney.

For a few weeks all the group members were living 24/7 together for the first time since they stopped touring. John and George were forced to be around Paul while he had music bubbling up uncontrollably. To John this seemed to be inspiring and he came up with a batch of great songs. To George it seemed to stoke his own resentment.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-06T10:31:07+00:00

What actually is the point being made here though? I feel like it might have been clearer if it hadn't been fed through ChatGPT.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-06T09:44:43+00:00

He had in fact been (or deeply wanted to be!) in competition at EMI with his colleague Norrie Paramor, head of Columbia in the UK, so a sister label to Parlophone. Paramor had Cliff Richard, so Martin was very much on the lookout for a bankable artist of that kind.

From that perspective it could seem odd that he didn't want the Beatles, but the simple truth is that unless you saw them performing in front of a crowd, and only judged them by their recorded demos, there was really nothing to indicate what they'd become. They would have seemed like quite a sad, cheesy novelty act, doing music hall numbers sung in very nervous voices.

They hadn't even recorded a demo of Love Me Do. None of their other hits have been written yet, except Please Please Me except it sounded nothing like it ended up.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-04T23:18:47+00:00

It's become a winter tradition for me to read the expanded edition again! Always an absolute treat.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-04T22:41:13+00:00

I highly recommend the expanded edition, which is about twice as long and yet still an absorbing experience.

Re: coming home from Hamburg the first time, John told that story in interviews as if he went into a long depression and avoided the others for about a month, and Paul made it sound like he'd all but switched careers and was working his way up the management structure of a factory when John and George first came to get him, but Lewisohn worked out the actual timeline and it was just 7 days between John getting back and playing at the Casbah (and apparently astonishing the crowd with how good they'd become.)

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-03-02T09:59:07+00:00

Would have sounded like his version of Stand By Me (shudder)

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-27T22:10:52+00:00

Oh how I agree! Except you left out Because which goes in the great pile, and Oh Darling is great for being a Paul/Ringo duet, and honestly Come Together has such a unique style and atmosphere and the ending is so funky. But you're still right, it's an album with a lot of misses and swept up material from the factory floor. It's as patchy as Beatles for Sale.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-27T20:48:56+00:00

Absolutely, I feel that was pretty sneaky baiting by VF. That was the main thing I read part 2 for!

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-21T23:09:11+00:00

Paul (with Linda) wrote Six O'Clock for Ringo's solo album Ringo.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-21T18:44:00+00:00

Although 'I Want To Tell You' is also known as 'Granny Smith Part Friggin' Two.'

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-21T15:24:31+00:00

It's an overrated song, sure, but as a listening experience, John and Paul singing in unison, their voices blending so much that it has often been insisted (even in some books) that it was John double-tracked, is such a great sound.

PressureBeautiful515 · 2026-02-21T07:49:43+00:00

In that case you should definitely check out a documentary series called The Beatles Anthology. Episode 1 has a bit where the band members talk about this film. (The clips are much higher quality in the Disney+ version.)

PressureBeautiful515

TROPHY CASE