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{{
[[File:the-beatles.jpg|frame|Clockwise from bottom left: [[Paul McCartney]], [[Ringo Starr]], [[John Lennon]] and [[George Harrison]].]]
{{quote|''And in the end
''The love you take
''Is equal to
''The love you make''
|"[[Grand Finale|The End]]"}}
''[[Sgt. Pepper's
The Beatles were the first band in history to make music video equivalents to their own songs, which every musician does now. They played themselves in three fictional films: the [[Mockumentary|pseudo-documentary]] ''[[A Hard Day's
The band broke up in 1970 under [[Creative Differences|circumstances painful to think about]]. Everyone went on to solo careers. The dissolution was finalized in 1974, but Apple Corps (the Beatles' management company) was left intact. For perhaps fifteen years, few people saw any purpose for that...
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But then a second wave of Beatlemania gradually hit -- too late for John Lennon, who sadly had been getting the [[Dead Artists Are Better]] effect since 1980 when he was murdered by a crazed fan, but everyone else got to see it. The events leading to this, in order: the initial release of the British Beatles catalog on CD in 1987; Paul McCartney finally embracing his Beatles heritage fully in 1989, in the process settling the last couple of lawsuits and freeing Apple Corps to ''act''; and most noticeably, ''The Beatles Anthology'' in 1995, with Beatles singles "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" (though the latter [[Covered Up]] a Lennon version). Since then, Beatles-related stuff has come out just often enough to keep second-generation fans on their toes and the fandom active and aggressive.
George Harrison died of cancer in 2001. Sir Paul McCartney (he was knighted in 1997 and handled it in a way that ensured ''no one'' would let him [[Never Live It Down|live it down]]) and Ringo Starr are still out there touring, doing a bunch of miscellaneous projects, and occasionally making records -- and they both still write
The legacy lives on. An installment of ''[[Rock Band]]'' was made featuring Beatles songs and ''only'' Beatles songs. Not quite coincidentally, the entire catalog has been remastered and was
After years of legal disputes having to do with the "Apple" label, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|iTunes has added Beatles music in 2010!]]<ref>[http://www.cnet.com/news/the-beatles-come-to-itunes-at-last/#! CNET article]</ref>▼
On December 24 2015, their music became available on most streaming services.<ref>[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35166985 BBC News article]</ref>
▲After years of legal disputes having to do with the "Apple" label, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|iTunes has added Beatles music in 2010!]]
Their complete discography (as available in the 9/9/09 remastered box sets) is:▼
[[File:The Beatles logo.svg|thumb|200px]]
▲{{discography|Their complete discography (as available in the 9/9/09 remastered box sets) is:}}
* ''Please Please Me'' (1963)
* ''With The Beatles'' (1963)
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* ''The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits'' (LP and cassette only -- it was an inadequate [[Greatest Hits Album]] collection; out of print)
* ''Rarities'' (LP and cassette only; out of print. The song choices were different in the UK (released 1979) and US (1980) versions, since some songs (and song mixes) had been released in one country but not the other.)
* ''Love Songs'' (LP and cassette only; out of print)
* ''The Star Club Tapes'' (The live album that just won't go away)
* ''Live at the BBC'' (1994) (The first new compilation after Apple got its act together)
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* ''[[Across the Universe (film)|Across the Universe]]'', a Mamma-Mia style musical using parsed lyrics to cobble together a loose plot
* ''[[I Am Sam]]'', a [[Sean Penn]] movie whose mentally disabled protagonist loves the Beatles
* ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'', a 1978 [[Jukebox Musical]]
▲=== The Beatles are the [[Trope Namers]] for: ===
* [[Abbey Road Crossing]] (The album cover from ''Abbey Road'')
* [[Bigger Than Jesus]] (Although [[John Lennon]] [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|didn't actually say that]])
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* [[Yoko Oh No]] (John's wife [[Yoko Ono]])
▲=== The Beatles provide examples of the following tropes: ===
▲* [[Added Alliterative Appeal]]: Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam.
** Bungalow Bill and Rocky Raccoon. And Sexy Sadie.
** "''W''hisper ''w''ords of ''w''isdom, let it be..."
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** George Harrison in particular was vocal about how, for him at least, the appeal of being a Beatle had worn off around 1966-1967, because of the above and because he was getting tired of Lennon and McCartney constantly treating him as the younger sibling of the group with regards to his own efforts at writing.
* [[Artistic Stimulation]]/[[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]: After their first visit to America (wherein they had an amusing run-in with [[Bob Dylan]]), the answer to the latter is "well, not ''all'' of it," more or less by their own admission.
** The boys have admitted that the majority of their movie ''[[Help!]]!'' was filmed in "a haze of marijuana," and that this was part of the reason that they didn't bother to take much creative control of the movie.
* [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign]]: "Sun King".
* [[Badass Boast]]: "When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best fucking group in the goddamn world."--John Lennon, 1980
* [[Ballad of X]]: "The Ballad of John and Yoko"
* [[Band Toon]]: As noted above.
* [[The Beat Generation]]: The name of the band was partially inspired by the Beats and Lennon in particular named [[Jack Kerouac]] as an influence. [[Allen Ginsberg]] later on became friends with the band, with [[Paul McCartney]] actually playing guitar on one of Ginsberg's albums.
* [[Bifauxnen]]: "Well you should see Polythene Pam/She's so good-looking but she looks like a man..."
* [[Bigger Than Jesus]]/[[Blasphemous Boast]]: The [[Trope Namer]] came from a John Lennon interview in which [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|he did NOT say]] "we're bigger than Jesus" but rather "we're ''more popular'' than Jesus now". Given the intensity of Beatlemania, that was a defensible statement. It still garnered a great amount of ill will from the kinds of people who weren't inclined to like The Beatles in the first place--mostly religious fundamentalist types from the American South. The protests that dogged The Beatles over their American tour played no small part in convincing them to give up touring for good.
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** "Blue Jay Way" ends with variations of a certain phrase being repeated 18 times. The phrase? "Don't be long."
** "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ends with several minutes of the same guitar riff repeated over and over and over and over until it comes to a dead stop mid-way thr
* [[B
** Sometimes they had two songs that were so strong they wouldn't even say one was the A and the other the B: "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper", and, even more powerfully, "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane". This practice was invented by the Beatles, and is now usually referred to as a "Double-A Side".
* [[Call-and-Response Song]]: "It Won't Be Long", "With a Little Help From My Friends", "Getting Better", "Baby You're a Rich Man" and many others.
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* [[Careful with That Axe]]: The creepy screaming on "Revolution 9", Ringo's quite unsettling "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS" at the end of "Helter Skelter", and John Lennon's full-throated scream (after a blistering opening guitar riff) on the single version of "Revolution".
* [[Cash Cow Franchise]]: During the sixties and since 1989. A re-release by the Beatles is as newsworthy as a new release by [[U2]].
** [[Crack is Cheaper]]: Lowest "introduction" package is at least $250 for the [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition|2009 remasters box set]] (stereo<ref>Every album in stereo, whether it was originally mixed in stereo or not ([[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]], as some would say)</ref> or mono<ref>Every album originally in mono, a form which many consider purest to the group's intent. However, you don't get any albums that were originally in stereo</ref>--many aficionados will argue that you really need both) and DVDs of ''[[A Hard Day's Night]]'', ''[[Help!]]!'' and ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' (which will demand quite some search as it hasn't been reissued since 1999). And you can damage your wallet even further (Books! The ''Anthology'' documentary! ''[[Magical Mystery Tour]]'' and other DVDs! ''The Beatles [[Rock Band]]''!).
** For the technically-minded Beatles fans and music recording geeks, there is the handy, epic tome ''Recording The Beatles" by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, a thoroughly exhaustive 540-page book chronicling the techniques, recording equipment, and studio-owned musical instruments used by the Beatles during the making of their music. The hardcover deluxe-edition book, available via Curvebender publishing, will set you back a good $100.00.
* [[Celebrity Toons]]: As noted above.
* [[Christmas Episode]]/[[Missing Episode]]: The Beatles sent flexidiscs with holiday greetings and [[Sketch Comedy]] to their fan club between 1963 and 1969, which were compiled onto an LP (also a fan club exclusive) in 1971. All these releases are long out of print. They've never been legally available to the general public, except for the first one, which is unlockable content in ''The Beatles: [[Rock Band]]''.
** An edited version of the 1967 message ("Christmas Time Is Here Again", the closest they ever came to doing an actual [[Christmas Songs]]) was, however, officially released as a B-side of the "Free as a Bird" single in 1995.
** [[wikipedia:Carnival of Light|"Carnival of Light"]] is an experimental track and [[Missing Episode]]. It's (probably) still floating around out there somewhere.
*** Paul McCartney apparently has the recording and keeps making noises about releasing it. George Harrison supposedly vetoed it when he was still alive, but a decade later and it's still nowhere to be found. With as many leaked studio sessions and bootleg albums as there are out there, it'a arguably one of the last truly rare Beatles recordings left.
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*** The second side of the ''Magical Mystery Tour'' LP is an earlier example of this, as was the ''Hey Jude'' compilation. Part of the problem was that American releases, in addition to be shorter than their British counterparts, tended to be centered around a popular single. Capitol generally refused to release an album that didn't include at least one hit single. EMI/Parlophone took the exact opposite approach, and few Beatles singles were included on their albums (at least not without substantial differences in mixing or arrangement, as was the case with "Revolution" and "Revolution 1"). Both the ''Past Masters'' disc and the US version of ''Magical Mystery Tour'' were released on CD in order that these tracks would be available on the medium in some form.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]: Gradually, as they earned more freedom to write songs not just for the money, became more jaded at the superficiality of fame and lust, and started using drugs. The definitive turning point was the single "Yesterday", which both dramatically went against their current image, and managed to be a great success. Their light and fluffy teen-pop image entirely dissipated after ''Rubber Soul'' came out.
* [[Days of the Week Song]]: "Lady Madonna" misses only Saturday.
* [[Dead Artists Are Better]]: John Lennon. While his musical accomplishments certainly can't be denied, he was a self-admitted [[Jerkass]] throughout his life. After his death, he was practically canonized from certain quarters. George also benefited from this following his passing.
* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]: The original, infamous "butcher" cover of the album ''Yesterday and Today''. Also, at a stop in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjXzTYExSLU Australia], there's a brief clip of them mockingly shouting "Deutschland uber alles!" at the adoring crowd, just to prove they could say or do just about ''anything'' and the fans would keep screaming.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: In [[Real Life]], all four of them were - their early press conferences consisted of approximately five smart-ass answers for every one serious answer to reporters' questions.
** They were from Liverpool, after all. It's in the water supply.
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** John Lennon's "Child of Nature" was originally conceived and demoed by the band following their trip to India in 1968, but never released. Three years later both was rerecorded with entirely new lyrics and released as "Jealous Guy" on Lennon's ''Imagine'' album. Likewise, George Harrison's "Not Guilty" was originally recorded for the ''The Beatles'' ("[[The White Album]]") in 1968, but never released until Harrison revived it, gave it a much bluesier take, and released it on his self-titled solo album in 1979
** A number of Beatles songs had their genesis in their early days but did not get album releases until much later into their career. "I'll Follow the Sun" and "Michelle" (released on ''Beatles for Sale'' and ''Rubber Soul'' in 1964 and 1965, respectively) date back to at least 1960, where it shows up on home recordings made by Paul McCartney. "The One After 909" even went through a number of studio takes in 1963 before being scrapped. It was returned to for the ''Let It Be'' album in 1970.
* [[Excited Show Title!]]: The movie, song, and soundtrack album--"Help!".
** Also "Oh! Darling" off of ''Abbey Road''.
* [[Expy]]: By Design ''[[The Monkees (band)|The Monkees]]'', the "Pre-Fab" four created to basically make a tv show out of the movie "[[Help!]]!". Notably, John Lennon is on record as saying he enjoyed the series and said that the writing and performances reminded him of the [[Marx Brothers]].
* [[Fading Into the Next Song]]: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" → "With a Little Help from My Friends". Then the "Sgt. Pepper" reprise → "A Day in the Life". "Back In the U.S.S.R." → "Dear Prudence" on ''[[The White Album]]''.
** Also, the B Side Medley on ''Abbey Road'', aside from "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" → "Golden Slumbers". SCITTBW fades out completely before GS starts up.
* [[Fake-Out Fade-Out]]: "Hello Goodbye", "Helter Skelter", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Free As a Bird".
* [[Falling Bass]]: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
* [[Fan Service]]: Pretty much the entire point of ''[[Help!]]!''
* [[Faux Symbolism]]: Deliberately invoked with "I Am The Walrus," written after John received a letter from a student who attended Lennon's [[The Good Old British Comp|old primary school]] about an English master there who was forcing his students to analyse the band's [[Word Salad Lyrics]]. Upon finishing the song, Lennon turned to his friend and said "let the fuckers work that one out!"
** John couldn't completely avoid all symbolism in "I Am The Walrus"; one item which (accidentally?) crept in was "semolina pilchard", a [[Take That]] at Detective Norman Pilcher of the Drug Squad, who had it in for pop/rock stars.
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* [[Five-Man Band]]:
** [[The Hero]]: Paul
** [[The Lancer]]: John. He was, however, pretty displeased about Paul assuming leadership of the band, since was he technically the one who started it.
** [[The Smart Guy]]: George
** [[The Big Guy]]/[[The Chick]] : Ringo
** [[The Obi-Wan]]: Brian Epstein
** [[Non-Action Guy]]/[[The Mentor]]: George Martin
* [[Flanderization]]: All of the Beatles were annoyed at the simplistic roles and stereotypes they were reduced to in the media as the 'Fab Four' (John the 'funny' one, Paul the 'handsome' one, George the 'quiet' one, Ringo the 'normal'/'dull'/'sad' one, etc).
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** "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" is probably the best example of this - both are in the key of G, both are full of special effects, neither uses that many chords, and neither is a love song. However, where "Paperback Writer" is a gritty, fast-paced, journalistic sorta-first person letter, "Rain" is a mystical, slow-paced third-person rant. It's even better if you compare both songs with "Taxman", Harrison's first song on the album that follows, which is again very similar and very different to both.
** "We Can Work It Out" is the best example of this, with Paul writing the optimistic, yet arrogant refrain - "Try to see it my way...We can work it out" - while John wrote the pessimistic "Life is very short, and there's no time..." middle eight (with the time signature change as George's sole contribution to the song).
* [[Four
* [[Four-Temperament Ensemble]]: Paul is choleric, John--despite his witty, loud-mouthed, smart-aleck facade--was really melancholic, George was phlegmatic, Ringo is sanguine.
** Interestingly, early on their personas were presented as Paul being sanguine, John being choleric, George being melancholic, and Ringo being phlegmatic.
* [[Garfunkel]]: Ringo in public perception, though the band reported he was the one who kept them together.
** Furthermore, utterly [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] in reality. The other three had tried and failed previously to lure him away from his job with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, with whom he was already wildly popular in the local music scene. It wasn't until the Beatles had secured a record deal that they had something to offer him that he didn't already have. The record deal, incidentally, specified that the Beatles could ''not'' keep the erratic Pete Best as drummer. The Beatles literally needed Ringo more than he needed them.
* [[Generation Xerox]]: When John's oldest son Julian tried to make it big as a pop star, many people felt that he was trying too hard to imitate the style of his father.
** Hell, everything about Julian Lennon. Both he and his father were born to parents too young and immature to raise a child; both were pretty much abandoned by their parents (though Julian did still live with his mother); and then, by the time they had mended their respective relationships, both times the parent gets killed by someone else. And Julian looks like his mother, Cynthia, and sounds a lot like his father.
** His younger half-brother Sean did better, at least from an artistic POV. Sean's 1998 indie rock effort ''Into the Sun'' was different enough from not only Julian's more pop efforts, but also the works of [[Oasis (band)|a certain other band who played the same genre as him]] who were endlessly indebted to his father, that it wound up being very well received.
*** Sean unfortunately has decided to imitate his parents in his own [https://web.archive.org/web/20100822082516/http://www.thetripwire.com/news/2009/09/10/sean-lennon-rips-off-john-lennon/ pretty creepy way]. (Link NSFW).
** There's also Dhani Harrison, who is half of the alternative rock duo, thenewno2. And by the way, his voice sounds nearly identical to that of his father. And he somehow looks just like George.
*** He looks so much like George that during the big tribute concert that Eric Clapton arranged a year after George's death, Paul quipped that with Dhani onstage alongside himself, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, and a lot of George's other longtime friends, "It looks like George stayed young and all the rest of us got old."
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** Capitol Records' "Duophonic" process, which artificially turned a lot of songs recorded in mono into pseudo-stereo. If you believe [[Wikipedia]], [[The Beach Boys]] and [[Frank Sinatra]] also underwent this particular form of [[Executive Meddling]].
*** You have every reason to believe Wikipedia. Capitol Records would take a mono recording, delay the right channel by a millisecond, play it through their famed echo chamber, and -- presto! -- fake stereo. Reportedly, Brian Wilson's father Murry ''preferred'' Duophonic, so much so that 8 of their albums were only available in mono or Duophonic.
* [[Greatest Hits Album]]: Several of them.
* [[Great White Hunter]]: "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".
* [[Grief Song]]: "Let It Be" and "Julia" about Paul and John's mothers, respectively. "Baby's in Black" is about someone else's grief. "Yesterday" would be the most famous of quite a few "lost love" songs.
* [[Groupie Brigade]]
* [[Hello]]: Goodbye!
* [[Hidden Track]]:
** The weird cacophonous noise loop that comes after "A Day In The Life" on ''Sgt. Pepper'', if you count that as a song.
** "Her Majesty" on the end of the ''Abbey Road'' album. Possibly the [[Trope Maker]], being the first known song to be left at the end of an album after a period of silence, and without being listed as a track. (Later printings of ''Abbey Road'' include "Her Majesty" on the track list.)
** "Can You Take Me Back", the song fragment on Side 4 of ''[[The White Album]]'' (included at the end of "Cry Baby Cry" on modern CD tracks), which to this day doesn't even have an official title.
* [[Hot and Cold]]: Although male, John had a personality similar to this.
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** Of course, even in their "mass-marketed pop band" days the Beatles wrote original material and played their own instruments, which doesn't really fit this trope.
* [[Insult Backfire]]: All four were skilled at giving smart assed answers to criticism, but Paul may have achieved the crowning moment at a 1965 press conference:
{{quote|'''Reporter:''' In a recent article, [[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]] put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute, and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian. I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
'''Paul:''' Well, we were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all. }}
* [[Intercourse with You]]: "Please Please Me," "A Hard Day's Night," "Drive My Car", possibly "Revolution 9," "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?", and others.
** Wait, "Revolution [[Mind Screw|9]]"? How is that -- ''what''?
* [[In the Style Of]]: A few. A notable one is "Rocky Raccoon," more or less an explicit semi
** "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is basically John doing [[Bob Dylan]].
** Don't forget "If I Needed Someone" being in the style of [[The Byrds]]. Or "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Because" being in the style of [[The Beach Boys]] (no, seriously -- listen to those harmonies). And "Back in the U.S.S.R." is not only in the style of Sixties-era [[Chuck Berry]], but it's specifically a parody of one of Berry's smaller-scale hits.
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** "I'm Down" is said to be the Beatles' rewriting of [[Little Richard]]'s "Long Tall Sally" (which they also covered).
* [[It Got Worse]]: For the band, after ''[[The White Album]]''. The music was still damn good, though.
* [[It Makes Sense in Context]]: John Lennon's "Bigger than Jesus" comment, [http://beatlesnumber9.com/biggerjesus.html which was part of a much larger article], and came about because he was reading about religion at the time. It got misrepresented in an American Teen Magazine, resulting in the infamous controversy.
* [[Jerkass]]: John. He mellowed in the '70s, but he was a ''dick'' in the '60s.
** He did have his share of jerkass moments in the 70s (or so I've heard).
** He was described as an ADD monster.
** Reports of what a complete tool he could be are especially glaring in light of the modern picture of him as being St. John of Peace.
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Paul. See [[
** Despite being an infamous control freak after "Sgt. Pepper", he did his best to hold the crumbling band together after manager Brian Epstein passed away.
** John's neglected son Julian has admitted that he was much closer with Paul than his father.
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** There's also "All this and World War II", which is a WWII documentary with covers of Beatles songs. It largely has a reputation for making no sense.
** A [[Broadway]] show called ''Beatlemania!'' was around in the 1980s. A home video release of it, however, was plagued with problems. Glenn Burtnik (who played [[Paul McCartney]] in the show) does many Beatles-themed tribute concerts nowadays.
* [[
* [[Last-Note Nightmare]]: Particularly "Long, Long, Long".
** "A Day in the Life"
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* [[Mythology Gag]]: The fact that the remastered albums and their [[Rock Band]] game were released on 9/9/09.<ref>"Number Nine... Number Nine... Number Nine..."</ref>
* [[National Health Service]]: Referenced in "Doctor Robert" (and also some of John's improv in their early work in Hamburg).
** Those glasses that Lennon made famous in the 1960s? Standard-issue National Health glasses.
* [[Never Learned to Read|Never Learned to Read Sheet Music]]
* [[New Sound Album]]: Pretty much every of one their albums from ''Rubber Soul'' forward could be considered one of these.
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* [[Only Sane Man]]: "The Fool on the Hill". The [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Oop North]]: They're from Liverpool, after all.
* [[Opinion Myopia]]: Yoko Ono's fans (which apparently exist, for some strange reason) really like to insist that the Beatles were just this brief, unimportant little project that John was fiddling around with, killing time until he met Yoko. They can't seem to grasp just why everyone acts like the Beatles were such a big deal when there's John and ''Yoko's'' work together to consider.
* [[Parody]]/[[Affectionate Parody]]: The song "Back in the USSR" is both a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA" and a decent imitation of the Beach Boys' distinctive "Surfing Sound".
** It's also suggested that it's a oblique (if not entirely affectionate) reference to Prime Minister Harold Wilson's "[[wikipedia:
* [[Performance Video]]: The Beatles were among the first to make music videos, and some of them are basically the band pretending to perform, such as the video for "Ticket to Ride."
* [[Please Select New City Name|Please Retain Old Street Name]]: Penny Lane in Liverpool is named not after the coin but after an 18th-century slave trader of that name. Were it not for the Beatles' song, it would have been renamed years ago.
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*** During the recording of "I'm Down" Paul self-criticised one of his takes as "plastic soul" (you can hear it in ''Anthology 2''). So ''Rubber Soul'' is actually a ''double'' pun.
*** Supposedly, Paul once overheard some black musicians using the term "plastic soul" to describe [[The Rolling Stones|Mick Jagger's singing]]. So the title might have also been a playful, in-joke [[Take That]] to the Stones.
** Another [[Pun-Based Title]] is ''Revolver''. [[What Are Records?|This one might take a second to figure out.]]
** Also, the name "Beatles" itself, though hardly anyone notices anymore, because everyone grows up knowing "The Beatles".
* [[Putting the Band Back Together]]: Fourteen years after John's death, the other three reunited for ''The Beatles Anthology''. During this time, Paul, George, and Ringo worked on fleshing out two of John's demos, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love".
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* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: The film ''[[Let It Be]]'' was originally conceived as a documentary of the Beatles' "rebirth" as a live performing band. Instead, by capturing the tension and infighting among the band members (including a famous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPWrooRSzY spat] between McCartney and Harrison), it became a chronicle of the band's break-up.
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the choice of name. When originally conceived as a chronicle of the band's rebirth, the project was entitled "Get Back". By the time the pieces had been picked up and enough footage cobbled together to release as an album and film, it had metamorphosed into "Let It Be", effectively serving as the band's epitaph.
** A more benign example is the movie ''[[Help!]]'' The band members have admitted they basically wanted to go skiing and hang out on the beach, so that's what got written into the script.
** Real Life Writes the Song: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", "A Day in the Life", "She's Leaving Home", "Blue Jay Way", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", many others. Lennon in particular did this constantly.
* [[Rearrange the Song]]: The two different versions of "Revolution" released in 1968--the original low-key version, actually released second as "Revolution 1" on [[The White Album]], and the hard-rocking version released as the B-side to "Hey Jude".
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** Perhaps the ultimate case of [[Serious Business]] is the fact that John was murdered by one crazed fan, and George and his wife nearly stabbed to death by another.
** Speaking of whom, this trope is what he was really, genuinely talking about when he uttered the famous words destined to be taken out of context: "more popular than Jesus". Anyone who has heard more than that one sentence fragment of the interview will tell you that he was talking about what [[Serious Business]] the Beatles were becoming for the fans, to the point of absurdity, and how he was ''not'' comfortable with being taken so seriously.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** The very name of the band was a Shout Out to [[Buddy Holly]] and the Crickets.
** The reference in "In My Life" to "lovers and friends/I still can recall/some are dead and some are living" is a Shout Out to Lennon's close friend and former bandmate, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died in 1962.
** "[[wikipedia:Elmore James|Elmore James]] ain't got nothin' on this baby!"
** "Julia"--guess what the Japanese for [[Yoko Ono|"ocean child"]] is?
** The cover to ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band'' is one of the most famous Shout Outs in history, filled with images of figures the Beatles regarded as significant. [[Wikipedia]] [[wikipedia:List of images on the cover of Sgt.
** "Martha My Dear" is a Shout Out to Paul McCartney's dog.
** "The eagle picks my eye/The worm he licks my bone/Feel so suicidal/Just like [[Bob Dylan|Dylan's]] [[wikipedia:Ballad of a Thin Man|Mr. Jones]]"
* [[Siamese Twin Songs]]: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "With a Little Help From My Friends".
** "Polythene Pam" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" were recorded together as a single performance. You can hear John Lennon saying "Oh look out!" right before the change.
* [[Silly Love Songs]]: Literally ''every last original song'' on their first ''five'' albums counts. Not that there weren't plenty later on; "Paperback Writer" was the result of Paul's aunt telling him to ''please'' find a new subject.
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* [[Single-Stanza Song]]: "Wild Honey Pie" and "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" off of [[The White Album]]; "Her Majesty" at the end of ''Abbey Road''. Also, "Can You Take Me Back", the [[Hidden Track]] between "Cry Baby Cry" and "Revolution 9".
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: At the beginning of their career they were far down the idealistic side, and if "Here Comes the Sun" is any indication, they missed it at the end. The rest of their career is [[Your Mileage May Vary|open to interpretation on this point.]] But then that shouldn't be surprising.
* [[Smarter Than You Look]]: George felt that Ringo's second song, "Octopus' Garden", was this. He described it as accidentally deep and spiritual.
* [[Something Blues]]: "Yer Blues".
* [[Song of Song Titles]]: "Glass Onion" on [[The White Album]] name-checks "Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am The Walrus", "Fixing a Hole", "Lady Madonna" and "The Fool On The Hill".
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* [[Step Up to the Microphone]]: Usually once per album for Ringo and twice for George. John and Paul's failure to allow George to grow out of this role, even after George had become their equal as a songwriter, was a key factor in the breakup of the band.
* [[Stop and Go]]: "I'm only sleeping...[Pause]...keeping an eye on the world going by my window..."
* [[Studio Chatter]]: Quite a bit, mostly from John, on ''Let It Be''. More on [[The White Album]], including the end of "Piggies", the beginning of "Revolution 1", and most famously Ringo's "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!!!" at the end of "Helter Skelter".
** While never legitimately released, there's a widely-bootlegged (and [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|absolutely hilarious]]) 20-minute outtake from a session for the ''Rubber Soul'' track "Think For Yourself". You can hear it (in two parts) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4q48Foltjs here] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oibSx5miTkY here].
* [[Stylistic Suck]]: The intentionally awkward guitar solo in "All You Need Is Love".
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** The [[Paul Is Dead]] theories, all based on supposedly hidden messages on the Beatles album covers and song lyrics.
** The 1970s saw a lot of urban legends concerning the possible (secret) reunion of the band. The most famous example was the initially anonymous Canadian progressive rock band [[Klaatu]], whose vaguely "Beatlesque" sound fueled speculation that they were a front for a reunited Fab Four.
* [[Uncommon Time]]: The bridge of "Here Comes The Sun" rotates between 11/8, 4/4, and 7/8, and "Good Morning Good Morning" has completely screwed up verses. "Happiness is a Warm Gun" (from ''[[The White Album]]'') has alternating measures of 9/4 and 10/4 in one section. While the chorus of The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" is in [[Common Time]], the verses are all in 7/8.
* [[Unplugged Version]]: [[George Harrison]] recorded a well-known acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." It finally got released on ''The Beatles Anthology''.
* [[Vocal Tag Team]]
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