Did you think you knew everything there is to know about The Fab Four? Q writer Tom Doyle compiled these ten rather unusual facts you might have overlooked. And if you want more, there is a further 190 bits of Beatle trivia in this month's Q Magazine, out now.
Win a Beatles box set! For a chance to win one of the new stereo or mono box sets see below.
- John Lennon was the poshest Beatle. As a child he even owned a pony. "He didn't come from a slum", said his Aunt Mimi in 1970.
- The Beatles won a 1961 Mersey Beat magazine poll after Lennon and McCartney filled out dozens of entry forms under false names. They put rivals Gerry And The Pacemakers last.
- The band learned to sing harmony by practising along to 1958 hit To Know Him Is To Love Him by The Teddy Bears, who featured future Beatle producer Phil Spector.
- The recording of She Loves You was disrupted when fans stormed Abbey Road Studios. One girl lunged at Ringo Starr, only to be rugby-tackled by Beatles PA Neil Aspinall.
- Lennon was obsessed by his Scalextric model car racetrack. He owned 20 sets of cars and insisted on taking it with him on The Beatles 1964 British tour.
- 200,000 people turned up to the Liverpool premiere of A Hard Day's Night on 10 July 1964. Lennon greeted them with a Heil Hitler salute from the balcony of the Town Hall.
- Stoned in-jokes abound on Rubber Soul, the first album recorded after discovering marijuana. Most notably the "Tit-tit-tit-tit" backing vocals on Girl. "Nobody noticed" said Lennon.
- The animal noises that close Good Morning Good Morning [on Sgt. Pepper] were arranged in order of creatures capable of eating the one before, at Lennon's request.
- During the stripper sequence in Magical Mystery Tour, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performed a song called Death Cab For Cutie - a name later adopted by the US indie rock outfit.
- Among the other schemes mooted to turn Apple into a profitable business were Beatles greeting cards and a Beatles motorcycle courier service.
8:40 AM | 09/09/2009
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Their song is so cool (3u0)
Their song is so pop !
Everyone like their song!
The new religion is a free business.
Take care about Soka Gakkai.
If this site is seen, it understands at once.
The other side of reality of Japan that media of pseudotell.
Soka Gakkai is really dangerous.
The problem is so deep for
Japanese music...
Posted by naoto kun at 6:38 PM | 09/09/2009 | Report Abuse
John Lennon never owned a pony in his life.Bollocks.I'm quite sure the Scalextric thing is bollocks too.
Posted by Hamski at 6:54 PM | 12/09/2009 | Report Abuse
Tom Doyle ate all the pies...
Posted by Joe at 7:11 PM | 15/07/2010 | Report Abuse
I have a blue painted piece of blockboard rescued
from a skip when Kenwood was being cleared out
that was part of John Lennon`s scalextric base
Posted by hugh hefferland at 11:13 PM | 28/07/2010 | Report Abuse
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