1961-1962

“Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision - a man appeared on a flaming pie and said to unto them, ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an A.’ - ‘Thank you, Mister Man,’ they said, thanking him.”

"I loved The Cavern. It was a claustrophobic hell, but it was a great one."

“On Saturday 28th October, 1961, I was asked by a young boy for a record by a group called The Beatles. It had always been our policy in records to look after whatever request was made. I wrote on a pad: “My Bonnie”, The Beatles. Check on Monday.’ (…) Before I had time to check on Monday, two girls came into the store and they too asked for a disc by this group. This, contrary to legend, was the sum total of demand for The Beatles’ disc at this time in Liverpool. But I was sure there was something very significant in three queries for one unknown disc in two days. I talked to contacts and found what I hadn’t realised, that The Beatles were in fact a Liverpool group, that they had just returned from playing clubs in the steamy, seedy end of Hamburg. A girl I know said: ‘The Beatles? They’re the greatest. They’re at the Cavern this week…’”

“On Saturday 28th October, 1961, I was asked by a young boy for a record by a group called The Beatles. It had always been our policy in records to look after whatever request was made. I wrote on a pad: “My Bonnie”, The Beatles. Check on Monday.’ (…) Before I had time to check on Monday, two girls came into the store and they too asked for a disc by this group. This, contrary to legend, was the sum total of demand for The Beatles’ disc at this time in Liverpool. But I was sure there was something very significant in three queries for one unknown disc in two days. I talked to contacts and found what I hadn’t realised, that The Beatles were in fact a Liverpool group, that they had just returned from playing clubs in the steamy, seedy end of Hamburg. A girl I know said: ‘The Beatles? They’re the greatest. They’re at the Cavern this week…’”

“We were the first working-class singers that stayed working class and pronounced it and didn’t try and change our accents, which in England were looked down upon. The only change was our image.”

“They’d sold a lot of records for ‘Love Me Do’ to get to Number Seventeen, which was great for a Liverpool band - they’d made the charts! Now that The Beatles were known nationally, not just in the Northwest and Liverpool, they were being played on the radio and people everywhere were hearing them.”

Here is a caption

1963

“It was never an overnight success. It started in pubs; we went on to talent contests and then to working men’s clubs. We played Hamburg clubs, and then we started to play town halls and night clubs, and then ballrooms. There could be as many as 2000 people in a ballroom, so if you did a gig there the word really got round. Next up from that was theatres, and Brian took us through all these steps. When we began to headline bills on theatres, we felt we had really arrived. The next ladder to climb was radio."

"They did some funny gigs. I remember the worst show was when they played Crewe. There were only five people there. There were more of us than there were of the audience, but they still went on stage twice, and the five people stayed. When we went back there a month later, there were 700 people. (Probably including the original five.)" - Neil Aspinall

“It was never an overnight success. It started in pubs; we went on to talent contests and then to working men’s clubs. We played Hamburg clubs, and then we started to play town halls and night clubs, and then ballrooms. There could be as many as 2000 people in a ballroom, so if you did a gig there the word really got round. Next up from that was theatres, and Brian took us through all these steps. When we began to headline bills on theatres, we felt we had really arrived. The next ladder to climb was radio. It was a gentle thing; we had conquered the clubs - we’d conquered the Indra, we’d conquered the Cavern - and we had gradually became quite known, so it was, ‘Well, what’s left? Radio!’” - Paul

1964

“We’d learnt the whole game: we knew how to handle the press when we arrived. The British press are the toughest in the world - we could handle anything.”

"In 1964 we played several concerts in Paris. The French audience was dreadful. We had visions of all these French girls, 'Ooh la la,' and all that, but the audience, at least on opening night, was all tuxedoed elderly people"

No.1 in the USA!

"I can't describe our response. We all tried to climb onto Big Mal's back to go round the hotel suite: 'Wey-hey!' And that was it, we didn't come down for a week"

Brian Epstein and the band in hotel room

"We knew that America would make us or break us as world stars. In fact she made us."

"We came out of nowhere with funny hair, looking like marionettes or something. That was very influential. I think that was really one of the big things that broke us - the hairdo more than the music, originally."

“We were aware that Ed Sullivan was the big one because we got a telegram from Elvis and the Colonel. And I’ve heard that while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest for ten minutes.”

1965

"If you look at our itinerary some of those years where we did maybe a tour of England, a tour of Europe, a tour of America, two albums and about four EPs, and three singles, and made a movie all in the same year - you think, 'Oh Jesus, how did we do that?'"

"Rubber Soul, as it was building up it was getting more experimental. The songs were getting better. More interesting... So that's where we were going."

Getting MBEs

"I really think the Queen believes in it all. She must. I do't believe in John Lennon, Beatle, being any different from anyone else, because I know he's not. I'm just a fella."

"BEATLES' GREATEST U.S. SHOW TO BE FILMED "British fans may see the Beatles' most important concert ever - on television. The group will appear before nearly 60,000 fans at the Shea Stadium in New York on August 15 at the start of their second American tour." NME Friday, March 12, 1965

"If you look at our itinerary some of those years where we did maybe a tour of England, a tour of Europe, a tour of America, two albums and about four EPs, and three singles, and made a movie all in the same year - you think, 'Oh Jesus, how did we do that?'"

"This was the first time that one of those stadiums was used for a rock concert." -

"It was good to make Help! and it's a nice film. It's funny. It's a very period film now. We just took it all very lightly, we'd had a laugh - and in the snow, all the snow scenes were cos the lads wanted a holiday, they were fed up working." - Paul

Another quote needed

"All the best stuff is on the cutting-room floor, with us breaking up and falling about all over the place, lying on the floor, incapable of saying a word."

"I had these two guys who used to write songs whenever we needed some. I think we just called them up and said, 'Look, we'll be doing a movie now lads, will you come up with a couple of catchy hits?'"

1966

"The idea of making promotional films for ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Rain’ was that we didn’t have to go out. We felt it was a great idea to send the film out there. I don’t think we even thought of calling them ‘videos’. There were just going to be on TV." - Ringo

"I’m trying to cram everything in, all the things that I’ve missed. People are saying things and painting things and writing things and composing things that are great, and I must *know* what people are doing. I vaguely mind people knowing anything I don’t know.” - Paul

"With ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ I’d imagined in my head that in the background you would hear thousands of monks chanting. That was impractical, of course, and we did something different. I should have tried to get near my original idea, the monks singing. I realise now that was what it wanted.” - John

"To me, (Indian music) is the only really great music now, and it makes Western three-or-four-beat type stuff seem somehow dead. You can get so much more out of it if you are prepared really to concentrate and listen. I hope more people will try to dig it." - George

1967

“We were all opening our minds to different areas, and then we’d come together and share it all with each other. It was exciting, because there was a lot of cross-fertilisation.”