All posts tagged: Beatles

Transpersonal Creativity and the Beatles

Transpersonal Creativity and the Beatles

Published by Jenni Sidey

In August 1967, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney sat together in the front row at a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton Hotel (their drummer Ringo Starr couldn’t come due to the birth of his second child). The Beatles felt so enthusiastic about the Indian sage that they canceled the following week’s recording session and immediately decamped to Bangor, Wales, where the Maharishi was holding a 10-day transcendental meditation training course. Tragically, the sudden death of their manager Brian Epstein meant that they couldn’t complete the course. However, the following February—after completing work on the Magical Mystery Tour project—all four Beatles traveled to India for a longer meditation retreat. Research has found that meditation benefits creativity.1 It promotes psychological qualities such as openness to experience and cognitive flexibility, both of which are strongly associated with creativity.2 It also enhances mental clarity and attention, which helps us to express the insights and ideas that we gain. The Beatles were a remarkable test case of the creative benefits of meditation. Their …

At 60, The Beatles’ “Revolver” is still unfolding its secrets

At 60, The Beatles’ “Revolver” is still unfolding its secrets

Published by Sam Flores

For folks who spend the majority of their waking hours contemplating the music of The Beatles — and there are probably vastly more of us than you might think — “Revolver” (released on August 5, 1966, in the United Kingdom) sure checks a lot of boxes. For one thing, the album’s 14 tracks are a tour de force, a masterpiece of inspired songwriting and musicianship. The LP is also a whirlwind of competing genres in which John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr flex their muscles and prove that they’re at home in virtually any genre. But when it comes to The Beatles’ unparalleled legacy, “Revolver” finds the bandmates on an unimpeded trajectory towards greatness. Released the previous year, “Rubber Soul” set things into motion — arguably rock’s first cohesive LP. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson later recalled being mesmerized by the album, the first record, to his mind, that didn’t have any filler. Just one study in pop-music mastery after another. In terms of the album’s reception history, “Revolver” has enjoyed a …

How Greg Evigan became “possessed” by The Beatles

How Greg Evigan became “possessed” by The Beatles

Published by Sam Flores

Actor and musician Greg Evigan joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about becoming “possessed” by the Beatles, his new album and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack — a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon — and distributed by Salon. Evigan, best known for his roles on the classic TV series “B.J. and the Bear” and “My Two Dads,” (which co-starred previous “Everything Fab Four” guest Paul Reiser), has also long been a singer and composer. As he told Womack, “With every show I ever did I was always thinking, how can I incorporate my music into it?” Evigan began piano lessons at the age of eight due to his “very inspirational” mother who was an “incredible pianist,” so he already had music in his blood by the time he was 10 years old when The Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” As he said of watching them perform, “My sister and me – I don’t know what happened to us. We …

Ringo Starr says Beatles bandmates ‘laughed hysterically’ at his early songwriting

Ringo Starr says Beatles bandmates ‘laughed hysterically’ at his early songwriting

Published by Sam Flores

Ringo Starr has admitted his earliest stabs at songwriting didn’t exactly impress the rest of The Beatles — and the band would burst out laughing whenever he brought an idea to the table. The 85-year-old music legend, who released his new Americana‑leaning solo album Long Long Road today (24.04.26), looked back on those early days and said his bandmates didn’t hold back. He told the BBC: “They’d all be just laughing hysterically because all I’d done is rewritten another song. “So it took me a while to get through that moment into writing my songs, you know, and in the end they started turning out really good.” During his Beatles stint, Ringo penned two tracks for the legendary Liverpool group entirely on his own — Don’t Pass Me By and Octopus’s Garden — and he also shared writing credits on several others including What Goes On, Flying, Dig It and Maggie Mae. These days it’s a different story, with Sir Paul McCartney teaming up with Ringo for a new duet, Home to US, on Paul’s upcoming …

How Bob Dylan and The Beatles pushed each other to evolve

How Bob Dylan and The Beatles pushed each other to evolve

Published by Sam Flores

Today’s musicians would do well by their careers in reading Jim Windolf’s exquisite new book, “Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other—and the World.” In the book’s finest moments, Windolf reminds us what it means both to be an artist and to embrace change. In their day, Dylan and The Beatles challenged each other not only to eschew taking their own inherent greatness for granted, but to accept the risks that being a true artist demands. And that risk — more often than not — is embedded in change. Windolf’s narration of Dylan and The Beatles’ evolving relationship — an association that began even before they famously met in person in a New York City hotel room in August 1964 — is worth the price of admission in and of itself. By the time that they met in the Delmonico Hotel on that fateful evening, Dylan exerted a powerful influence upon The Beatles’ songwriterly aesthetic. John Lennon, in particular, idolized Dylan, whose performance style resonates across such …