In a scene where John Lennon is asking a German Club's owner for a more reasonable work schedule, John refers to their marathons on stage as "a Hard Day's Night." Ringo invented that phrase three or four years LATER, in England (by accident). Also, at the end of the movie, just before the closing credits, it says Pete Best left the Beatles. He didn't, the Beatles left him. It was John, Paul and George, not Pete, who decided on that separation.
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I Want to Hold your Hand been credited to McCartney/Lennon, when it was actually Lennon/McCartney
The depiction of Cyn wantin babies. They were pretty much taken by surprise, as I've read.
Cillian Blue is the color of love
I read Cynthia Lennon's book about John and she mentioned about this movie. She said that she was portrayed inaccurately as the clingy girlfriend in headscarf when she doesn't really like wearing a headscarf. I think she's got a point because she's a beautiful woman and there's no need for her to wear anything to hide her face.
shareAs long as we are mentioning inaccuracies, I'll also point out that the recording session with Tony Sheridan didn't take place until the 2nd trip to Hamburg in 1961, not the first trip in 1960.
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And what about Stu telling the German doctor he worked for a band "eight days a week"?
Give me love , give me love , give me peace on earth.
how can it possibly be known that the words 'hard days night' were not utterred at some previous time? Hardly a gross inaccuracy.
Pete Best leaving the Beatles is a polite euphemism in this case.
Despite inaccuracies, the beauty of this movie is that it's about as close as we can come to the Hamburg beginnings of the Beatles as a working band. (Yeah, they played together before, but not like this.) I gather that it was originally John's band, but later became John and Paul, with permanent sidemen George and Ringo.
I grew up with the Beatles, seeing all of their Ed Sullivan appearances back when there was one TV in a house...and the father called the shots. Fortunately, my father enjoyed the Ed Sullivan Show, so I got to see all the big 60s bands, even the Doors when they weren't stoned, a rare event (Sullivan was a career maker, so even the Doors had to be professionals with no long, boring guitar/keyboard solos) and always thought of them as a unit, but after George complained of not having his songs featured as much as he might have liked (well, he got two songs per album on average, roughly speaking), while Ringo wrote one song (Octopus' Garden), I think, Lennon seems to be the one that really gave Ringo his vocal contributions, eg, "Help from My Friends), George and Ringo were stars, but not on the level of John and Paul (who seemed to see which one could be more self-indulgent). Maybe on a celebrity level.
I suspect that the White Album ("The Beatles" embossed on original copies) was intended to be their last effort, with Ringo's closing lullaby, which would have been very appropriate. Instead, they ended with McCartney's (self-indulgent) crappy Abbey Road "Her Majesty." Or Let It Be's "Long and Winding Road," recorded before Abbey, but released afterward. (John retaliated by letting former legend Phil Spector add those cloying strings to this tune without Paul's knowledge, while Paul was not amused to say the least.) I remember seeing Let It Be in the $1.99 rack after it's initial release. I can understand why they didn't want this to be their final group effort. None of the songs in the movie were actually used on the album, which is sad because of the funkier "Two of Us" in the film.
But by the end of the movie, with the band onstage in leather, as Stu looks on haplessly after assuming that he'd be noticed and invited onstage, the fabs virtually lunged out at the audience doing "Please, Mr Postman." KILLER scene, although this song had never been a particular fave. Hope this isn't a spoiler, but I love this movie and try to see it every year or so.
Lost to history: Dick Clark did one really great production during his career, an account of the early Beatles shown on TV, probably ABC. Anyone remember that one?
I thought it was Paul who wrote With a Little Help From My Friends. Ringo wrote more than one Beatles song. He wrote Don't Pass Me By, co-wrote What Goes on with John and/or Paul, and all four Beatles were credited as co-writers of the instrumental Flying from Magical Mystery Tour.
shareI suspect that the White Album ("The Beatles" embossed on original copies) was intended to be their last effort, with Ringo's closing lullaby, which would have been very appropriate. Instead, they ended with McCartney's (self-indulgent) crappy Abbey Road "Her Majesty."
The part that tickles me is...you know how Mr. Mustard "always shouts out something obscene" at the Queen? If the medley had been as it was meant to be, that would have been the sort of thing Mr. Mustard liked to say to Her Majesty. (Well, it's not obscene, but it is irreverent.)
shareThe "White Album" was in no way intended to be the final Beatles album, although with 40 years hindsight in ways it seems like it might have been. There was a lot of friction during the sessions but all four members planned to go ahead with the group.
They "White Album" was put out in late November 1968, and they gathered in early January 1969 to start working on the "Get Back" movie/album/ (and VERY tentative) live-concert project, so it wasn't like they had sat around for years after "White" came out.
Of course the "Get Back" sessions went very poorly from the start, with the attempts to record in the cold and drafty movie studio, etc etc, and all of them lost enthusiasm until by late spring basically they all walked away from the project. By that time all of them were getting more and more fed up with the whole Beatles existence.
By mid-summer they all had second thoughts about ending on such a disorganized note and Paul put on his best "rah rah" performance to rally the troops, and even John was convinced to go back in the studio (intermittently) to do one last real album with George Martin.
The "Get Back" tapes sat in the can for several months and for a while looked like they would never be released. Allen Klein, who was managing John, George and Ringo, wanted fresh product on the racks (and also wanted to put out another album to get closer to the end of contracts with EMI/Capitol) so he put on the heat to get "Get Back" out on the racks.
Martin thought the tapes were a mess and was fed up with the infighting and refused to produce, so Lennon called in Phil Spector instead to fix them up. He did slather his customary wall of sound all over the tracks but he made them at least "suitable" for release as "Let It Be" the next spring.
Back to the movie "Backbeat," the final concert scene, Stu is NOT "looking on haplessly after assuming he'd be noticed and invited onstage."
He is perfectly happy NOT being onstage. He knows the Beatles are going to be huge and he is fine not being part of it. The whole John-Stu farewell scene explains it very well.
I haven't seen the movie in several months, but I am pretty sure John sees him in the crowd and gives him a wink -- he knows Stu is happy with the choice he made. He knows Stu doesn't really care about being onstage any more.
The people on this board are obviously knowledgeable The Beatles. I think there was another inaccuracy. Didn't the movie give the impression that Paul wanted to take over for Stuart on bass? I don't think that was the case. I think they also discussed moving George to bass.
shareFrom the number of Beatles songs on which Paul plays lead guitar, including several of the more well-known rockers like "Back In The USSR," "Ticket To Ride," and even George's own "Taxman," it is certainly clear Paul felt he had lead-guitar ability.
But in 1962-63 when the band was really taking off, the "lead guitarist" as a Keith Richards/Pete Townshend showman had not really come into fashion. George seemed better suited to play the fairly simple rockabilly licks on most early Beatles songs and I think it was just decided by consensus they were better off with the "traditional" lineup of George on lead guitar and Paul on bass.
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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
As others have pointed out, the White Album was never intended to be the last album.
I like Her Majesty at the end of Abbey Road btw, it takes away somewhat the seriousness of The End.
Paul was the main writer of With a Little Help from my Friends, as both him and John said in interviews.
Paul didn't want to be the bass player. No one wanted to be at the time. Paul got stuck with it because he didn't have a guitar at all at the time, as his guitar had broken down and he had no money. There's a funny quote from Paul about it:
"Stu said he was going to stay in Hamburg. He'd met a girl and was going to stay there with her and paint. So it was like, Uh-oh, we haven't got a bass player. And everyone sort of turned 'round and looked at me. I was a bit lumbered with it, really-it was like, 'Well... it'd better be you, then.' I don't think you would have caught John doing it; he would have said: 'No, you're kidding. I've got a nice new Rickenbacker!' I was playing piano and didn't even have a guitar at the time, so I couldn't really say that I wanted to be a guitarist".
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/paulbass.htm
"The Love you take is equal to the Love you make" The Beatles.
Didn't the movie give the impression that Paul wanted to take over for Stuart on bass? I don't think that was the case.
Ringo Starr appears briefly in the film, but he's clean shaven whereas Ringo had a beard at the time.
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