I've just got a slight gripe with the Albert Hall one. There were 4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall - doesn't necessarily mean that it takes 4000 holes to fill the Albert Hall.
I realized that I bought my first Beatle album over 50 years ago...listing to these songs takes on a weird feeling (Sgt Pepper sure has survived! A Hard Day's Night is as listenable as 50 years ago.) The music is still incredible--the sweet tenderness in their voices was heavenly to our adolescent hearts--so unthreatening. As they grew musically, we grew up. It's so sad to think of John cut off just as he found his happiness as an adult. If only he'd have had the chance Paul had, to sit back and be 64...he'd have had such fascinating things to say. Truths that power hated. For George to suffer with cancer, be robbed and assualted in his own home, severely injured--he wrote and sang the most gentle music ever and created the 1st international charity concert for disaster victims....a terrible send-off from a world that loved him. It's a horror how they were treated. Someday people will think the Beatles were a myth. Then assume it was our religion. They were sacrificed....
What's also a shame is that at all their live performances the screaming drowned them out so much so they couldn't hear themselves and thus stopped playing live. They are/were all beautiful souls who brought so much joy to the world and will live forever. It breaks my heart what happened to John.
Agree it's a shame there wasn't more well recorded live stuff, especially later in their career. But if they had kept touring it's quite likely they would have split up sooner from the stress and tension, and the studio albums would have been less interesting with less time spent on them so...
I still remember watching their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and my father griping about their "long" hair and scoffing that all the girls screaming were probably paid by Sullivan to do it. He was a wonderful man but The Chuck Wagon Gang was more his idea of great music.
5 years later and old Frank Sinatra was calling "Something" by The Beatles the greatest love song of the century. Although his addressing "Jack" in his version was utterly bizarre.
Lived just north of SF, was 19 yrs old...friend of family asked me if I would drive a group of teenage girls to SF for a concert...extra ticket for me for free if I did...couldn't have cared less but family friends so agreed, reluctantly. Drove to Cow Palace in SF, saw the Beatles live, cost me nothing. A real phenomenon to try to hear the music but the roar of teenagers made it impossible to hear much. Girls crying, hands clasped together, ecstatic expressions on faces. Consider myself lucky in retrospect(!). The first record I remember hearing from the group before they were famous over here was "Please Please Me"---still have the 45---and found the harmonies and overall recording very appealing. Still think it's one of their better records. I didn't go to a lot of concerts but did see the following perform live: Beatles, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Chicago, Simon & Garfunkel, Blood Sweat & Tears, Ray Charles, John Denver, Carl Perkins, Diana Ross. Sweet.
This may be just a US thing, but there's a baseball analogy used (mostly by teenagers) to describe how far one has gotten with someone else, physically. The specifics can depend on who you talk to, but generally speaking and without getting too graphic: first base is kissing, second base is going under the shirt, third base is going down the pants, and a home run is "going all the way." Holding hands is less intimate than kissing, so it's on the way to first base.
For an absurd example of this analogy, listen to the sample of baseball announcer Phil Rizzuto's call of an inside-the-park home run during the interlude of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." The song's first half is about a teenager trying to convince his date let him go all the way, even promising to love her forever if she consents, and the second half is about him living up to his promise to stay with her years later even though they hate each other. Sandwiched right in the middle, even accompanied by some awkward teenage moans, is the part where he successfully "rounds the bases" with Rizzuto's commentary. What a time to be alive.
I got A Day in the Life, but a true synopsis would be "Man reads news story about a suicide, watches a movie, knows how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall".
Paul is a musical genius without question, but his penchant for that cheesy old English music hall style did the band no favors. Honey Pie, Martha My Dear, Maxwell's Silver Hammer...all pretty brutal to endure. I'd add When I'm Sixty-Four to that list, although I think I'm in the minority there.
I generally agree with you, but I don't put Martha My Dear in that category. It is one of my favorite Beatles song of all time. It is similar to Oh Darling, another excellent one.
in when i'm 64 I think their goal is to rent a house in the isle of Wight, not buy one.... lol but then again it might be my memory going... i'm getting old... thanks for the great quiz... man it brings back memories...