The Beatles (band): Difference between revisions

 

 

 

 

 

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...

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.

 

 

 

 

 

* ''Please Please Me'' (1963)

* ''With The Beatles'' (1963)

* ''Rubber Soul'' (1965)

* ''Revolver'' (1966)

* ''Magical Mystery Tour'' (1967)

* ''Yellow Submarine'' (1969) Although only four of the songs ("Only a Northern Song", "Hey Bulldog", "All Together Now", "It's All Too Much") are not preexisting material from previous albums, the existence of this new material, as well as the flip-side original instrumental orchestral soundtrack by producer and "fifth Beatle" George Martin, makes the soundtrack officially a Beatles album instead of a compilation.

* ''Abbey Road'' (1969)

* ''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.)

* ''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)

* ''The Beatles Anthology, Volumes 1, 2 and 3'' (1995-1996) (Each volume is a two-CD set containing previously unreleased material from the archives, much of it having appeared on the ''Ultra Rare Trax'' bootleg CD series in the late 1980s. An earlier collection, ''Sessions'', would have brought some of the recordings to the public in 1984, but the surviving Beatles vetoed the album at the last minute.)

* ''1'' (2000) (Greatest Hits album that compiled virtually every #1 single from the UK and US from '62 to '70)

* ''Let It Be... Naked'' (2004) (remix of ''Let it Be'' closer to the original, abortive ''Get Back'' album, and shorn of Phil Spector's production changes)

 

Numerous tribute, soundtracks, and cover albums:

* ''[[I Am Sam]]'', a [[Sean Penn]] movie whose mentally disabled protagonist loves the Beatles

 

* [[Abbey Road Crossing]] (The album cover from ''Abbey Road'')

* [[Kaleidoscope Eyes]] ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds")

* [[Magical Mystery Doors]] ("Magical Mystery Tour")

* [[The Pete Best]] (Mr. Best himself)

* [[The Walrus Was Paul]] ("Glass Onion")

 

** Bungalow Bill and Rocky Raccoon. And Sexy Sadie.

** "''W''hisper ''w''ords of ''w''isdom, let it be..."

* [[Aerith and Bob]]: John, Paul, George, and...[[Stage Name|Ringo?]]

* [[Age Progression Song]]: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da".

* [[Album Filler]]: McCartney admitted that "Hold Me Tight" off ''With the Beatles'' was this.

** From ''Rubber Soul'', "Wait" was a song that remained from the ''Help!'' sessions.

** Sometimes John composed songs just because he didn't have enough in the record (such as "Run for Your Life" in ''Rubber Soul'', "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" in ''Sgt. Pepper's'').

** The inclusion of "Across the Universe" and "One After 909" on ''Let It Be'' couldn't be anything but filler. The former was released as a single long before ''Let It Be'' was released, and the latter was one of the first songs Lennon and McCartney had ever written (it was never included on an album because they were never satisfied with it).

*** "Dig It" from the same album was certainly that. When the album was remixed as ''Let It Be... Naked'' in 2002, it was even dropped from the track list.

* [[Alternate Reality Episode]]: "We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band..."

* [[And Starring]]: Billy Preston's work on keyboards with the band during the ''Get Back'' sessions earned him a special credit; the "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single was attributed to "The Beatles with Billy Preston". This was the only time the band shared billing with another artist.

* [[Disney Owns This Trope|Apple Corps Owns This Trope]]: Apple Corps and Apple (Computer) Inc. had an argument dating back to the 1980s over the use of the name "Apple". The two companies finally came to an agreement, however, and as of November 16, 2010, you can buy the Beatles' music on iTunes.

* [[Antiquated Linguistics]]: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", its lyrics being drawn from a Victorian circus poster.

** Recordings of their late live performances indicate just how sick they were of touring, with many of their songs being played at near-double speed, in order to get the concert over and done with as quickly as possible.

** 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.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[The British Invasion]]: They launched it. They were the first success.

* [[Broken Record]]: "Wild Honey Pie" ("HONEY PIE! HONEY PIE!") and "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?", widely considered to be [[Incredibly Lame Pun|White]] [[Album Filler]].

** ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' contained a few seconds of audio in the usually-empty runout groove of the record. On players that didn't have automatic pickup arm return (fairly common for cheaper players in the 1960s), this would loop forever, or until you got sick of it and turned it off.

** The lyrics of the last four minutes of "Hey Jude" consist entirely of "Na, na na, na na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude" being repeated. Nineteen times.

** "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

** 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.

** "[[Spelling Song|O-U-T spells out]]" - "Christmastime is Here Again"

** "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band":

[[Department of Redundancy Department|That the singer's going to sing a song]] }}

* [[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]]''.

*** 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.

* [[Christmas Rushed]]: ''Rubber Soul'' was rushed into production before Christmas 1965. ''Beatles For Sale'' was also rushed (hence the name and the presence of a few covers after the all-original ''Hard Day's Night'').

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: John Lennon is suspected to have been one of these.

* [[Comically Small Bribe]]: In 1976, ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the ex-Beatles $3,000 to reunite and appear on the show.

** According to John Lennon in a 1980 interview, Paul was visiting John in New York City (during one of their very few friendly meetings post-breakup) and they were actually watching SNL. Apparently, they strongly [[What Could Have Been|considered going down to the studio]] but decided not to.

** George did show up in a subsequent episode in 1976, wherein he demanded the money. "$750 is pretty chintzy."

* [[Concept Album]]: ''Sgt. Pepper's'' is widely considered to be one of popular music's first concept albums, although there's little about it that intrinsically makes it such. Lennon admitted that after the first two songs they abandoned the "concept", picking it up only for the reprise of the title track.

* [[Concept Video]]: The Beatles were among the first to make music videos. The video for "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a [[Concept Video]].

* [[Continuity Nod]]: A few shout outs to older songs exist. Notably "Glass Onion", which seems to be built ''entirely'' on this. Others include:

** "I am The Walrus" - "See how they fly, like ''Lucy in the Sky''"

** Cover songs were common practice in the pop industry for the time, and it was largely the Beatles who turned the tide towards original performances. Their third album (''A Hard Day's Night'') may not have been the first album of entirely original compositions, but it was one of the most important.

* [[Cut and Paste Translation]]: Before ''Sgt. Pepper'', Capitol Records of America released different Beatles albums than its parent company EMI/Parlophone, the original British publisher. Specifically, they removed songs from some albums to tack onto other albums; since the American albums held about ten songs and the British ones held about fourteen, there were two or three albums made from whole cloth. One of these, the 1966 release ''Yesterday... And Today'', was a compilation with "new" songs that had been issued the previous year in England, as well as rough mixes of three songs from the then-forthcoming ''Revolver''.

** All officially released versions of ''Let It Be'' are this compared to what the project was supposed to be. Phil Spector took the raw tapes and tried to hide flaws (real and imagined) under heavy orchestration. ''Let It Be... Naked'' doesn't use heavy orchestration, but ''does'' use something like ProTools. (For some reason, Paul McCartney tends to think it's okay to remove something from a recording if it was never meant to be there, even if it was there because of limitations in the tech at the time of recording. Normally, that would be fine for anyone who isn't a major audiophile; but John Lennon wanted the album to be raw and forbade ''George Martin'' from doing "producer tricks" on it!) Lennon later strongly defend Spector's remix of the album against McCartney's stringent protests, declaring the original ''Get Back'' album unlistenable.

** ''Past Masters'' 1 and 2 (now with the remasters, just one album), albums made entirely of singles which do not appear on any of their albums (including songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Rain" and "Hey Jude"), also count. Unlike many examples of this trope, they're extremely important.

*** 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.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: "Back in the USSR" -- "take me to your daddy's farm". Individually owned farms did not exist in the USSR at the time.

** [[Double Subversion|Except they kinda did]], just not in a universally recognized way. [[It Makes Sense in Context|It's complicated.]]

* [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]]: I don't care how horrible [[Misogyny Song|the sentiments]] expressed in "Run For Your Life" are, John Lennon just makes them sound ''so damn cool''.

* [[Dreadful Musician]]: The two Beatles that didn't make the cut, [[The Pete Best]] himself (the only condition George Martin gave to hire the band was to replace him) and Stu Sutcliffe (who only bought a bass to join the band at John's insistance, and usually was facing backwards on stage to hide his lack of skill).

* [[Dr. Feelgood]]: "Doctor Robert".

** "I want you, I want you so bad, I want yoooooouuuuu, I want you so bad, it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad..."

** "It's All Too Much", especially the blistering opening note.

* [[Everything Sounds Sexier in French]]: "Michelle" has a line in French, and a line in English, that mean the same ("these are words that go together well") and are sung to the same tune.

** 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.

** Also "Oh! Darling" off of ''Abbey Road''.

** 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.

* [[Falling Bass]]: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

* [[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.

* [[Sixth Ranger|The Fifth Beatle]]: Billy Preston was called this after he joined The Beatles for [[Let It Be]]. [[George Martin]], Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall, [[Brian Epstein]] and Stuart Sutcliffe have also been called "Fifth Beatle"'s.

* [[Five-Man Band]]:

** [[The Hero]]: Paul

** [[The Smart Guy]]: George

** [[The Big Guy]]/[[The Chick]] : Ringo

** [[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).

** "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-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.

** 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.

** 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."

*** His style is a lot different, though; he owes a lot to Keith Moon, though without playing exactly like him. Might have helped that Keith was his godfather...

* [[Genre Roulette]]: The albums post ''Rubber Soul'' go everywhere: folk, psychedelic, Indian, avant-garde...

* [[God Is Love Song]]: "Long Long Long".

* [[Gratuitous Panning]]: Early stereo mixes of albums separated entire tracks to one side. All Beatles albums were mixed in mono and different people handled the stereo mixes. It wasn't until ''Abbey Road'' that they actually did an album in stereo (''Her Majesty'' starts entirely on the right, and moves until it's entirely on the left by the end of the song.)

*** 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.

* [[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!

** The weird cacophonous noise loop that comes after "A Day In The Life" on ''Sgt. Pepper'', if you count that as a song.

* [[Hot and Cold]]: Although male, John had a personality similar to this.

* [[I Am the Noun]]: "I Am the Walrus".

** 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:

'''Paul:''' Well, we were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all. }}

** Wait, "Revolution [[Mind Screw|9]]"? How is that -- ''what''?

** "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" has, to some, always sounded like a forgotten Everly Brothers hit.

** "Lady Madonna" was done in the style of Fats Domino, and was even covered by Fats himself.

* [[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.

** 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.

* [[Jukebox Musical]]: Three of note, not counting ''Yellow Submarine''.

*** Having said that, if you are a big fan of The Beatles in general and don't mind a few lyrical changes, you're bound to at least enjoy the songs.

** 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"

** "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the canonical example. It fades out with a gorgeous swarmandel before fading back in with a dissonant mellotron, vicious drumming, trumpets that sound like ambulance sirens, and (most disturbingly) John Lennon's slowed-down voice saying "CRANBERRY SAUCE".

*** Even worse if you're a little kid and you think it's "I buried Paul." Ever since then, that song's end is the sound of death to her.

** The disonnant swirling effects at the end of "Blue Jay Way".

** The manic laughing sound effect at the end of "Within You Without You", meant to bring relief to the heaviness of the lyrics. It didn't work.

** ''The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl''. Out of print for many years.

* [[Lonely Funeral]]: "Eleanor Rigby" provides the page quote.

** Also, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".

* [[Lounge Lizard]]: Paul's [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|hilariously sleazy]] nightclub crooning in "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)".

** [[Broken Record|Number nine, number nine, number nine...]]

** The single, "Revolution", is a ''much'' faster and heavier (and louder) version of "Revolution 1". As Giles Martin said on the sleeve-notes for ''Love'', "even today it defines 'distortion'."

* [[Misogyny Song]]: Amazingly, they have two notable ones:

''You can't do that.'' }}

** ...though, it's pretty tame in comparison to "Run for Your Life" (from ''Rubber Soul''). At its heart, the message of this song is that if you decide to end a relationship with the singer, he will brutally murder you if you don't escape him first.

* [[Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness]]: Mostly levels one through three, but there are a few individual songs that are harder.

* [[Momma's Boy]]: The titular character of "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" is "the all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son." And behind that tough exterior, he really does rely on his mom's defense when people start to question him - hence why he always brings her along on hunting trips "in case of accidents."

* [[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).

* [[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.

* [[No Ending]]: Both sides of the ''Abbey Road'' album. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ends abruptly in the middle of a riff, after three minutes of repeating the same sequence of chords. John Lennon told engineer Geoff Emerick to "cut it right there", and Emerick did. "Her Majesty" was originally slated between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", but the band decided to delete it. The tape engineer who clipped it out of the master cut out the last crashing guitar chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" along with "Her Majesty", but missing the last note of "Her Majesty", which was left at the beginning of "Polythene Pam". Then he spliced "Her Majesty" onto the end of the master tape after 14 seconds of silence, creating a [[Hidden Track]] that ends one note too soon. The band liked the effect and left it that way. (The cut was a test-run of the crossfading and editing sequence, on rough mixes, ''not'' the final edit (if you notice, in the album version the final chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" is also missing but because the new sequence makes it redundant; the final chord of "Her Majesty" is totally absent though). The "Her Majesty" part, however, ''is'' the original clip tacked on to the final master just the same it was in the rough edit.)

* [[Non-Appearing Title]]: "A Day in the Life", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "The Ballad of John and Yoko", "The Inner Light", "Revolution 9".

* [[The Notable Numeral]]: "The Fab Four".

* [[The Obi-Wan]]: Manager Brian Epstein, who died shortly after "Sgt. Pepper". Major subversion, as his death is considered the beginning of the end for the group.

* [[Ode to Intoxication]]: Did you think "Got to Get You Into My Life" was a love song? It is. A love song about how much [[Paul McCartney]] loved to smoke marijuana.

* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: [[Eric Clapton]] came to the studio at his friend George's request to play on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". He delivered probably the best guitar solo to ever appear on a Beatles record.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: "The Fool on the Hill". The [[Trope Namer]].

* [[Oop North]]: They're from Liverpool, after all.

* [[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".

* [[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.

* [[Protest Song]]: Subverted with "Revolution", a protest about protestors (and specifically the Cultural Revolution with John's "Chairman Mao" reference".)

** Or maybe not. All versions of the song take a swipe at Mao, but Lennon's vocals in "Revolution 1" have a more ambivalent take on protest in general, with his introductory "don't you know that you can count me out" being immediately followed by a parenthetical "in".

* [[Punny Name]]: Apple Corps. Especially since it's '''''always''''' spelled "Corps" (and thus pronounced "core"). John loved wordplay.

** And a [[Pun-Based Title]]: ''Rubber Soul'' (sole).

*** 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.

** 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".

* [[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.

** 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.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|"The Reason You Suck" Song]]: "Sexy Sadie" to the Maharishi, "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill" to a [[Great White Hunter]] they met in Rishikesh who loved to shoot tigers in the wild.

* [[Record Producer]]: George Martin.

* [[Refrain From Assuming]]: Usually averted.

* [[Retraux]]: "Honey Pie" was already a song done [[In the Style Of]] [[Cole Porter]], but the effect is strengthened by having one line--"Now she's hit the big time"--sound like a scratchy old record being played on a tinny old record player.

* [[Ripped from the Headlines]]: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!" was pretty much John just reading out a Victorian circus poster to a tune, and "A Day in the Life" was based on the headlines from a single day's newspaper.

** "She's Leaving Home" was also based on a newspaper article, about a girl running away.

* [[Sad Clown]]: Ringo.

** "Although I laugh and I act like a clown/Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown..."

** [[Mind Screw|"Revolution 9"]] is a better example, and a lot more infamous.

** Also, the first few seconds of "Strawberry Fields Forever" are made up of flute samples.

* [[Scare Chord]]: At the beginning of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Her Majesty", and at the end of "A Day in the Life".

** The end of "Strawberry Fields Forever". The song fades out, and after a few seconds comes in a dissonant flute riff, some [[Scare Chord]] horns, and someone repeating "Cranberry Sauce" several times into another fade.

** There's also a ''negative'' one at the end of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" (where a sudden silence in the middle of a riff has this effect).

* [[Scatting]]: "La la la la la la" chanting on the otherwise wordless "Flying" (off ''Magical Mystery Tour''). More famously, "Hey Jude" with it's four minute coda of "Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude".

* [[Self-Deprecation]]: During many, many press conferences at the height of Beatlemania, all four members of the band frequently joked that they expected to flop at any moment. George Harrison also referred to himself and Ringo Starr as "economy-class Beatles," and in the 1980s freely described himself as "a middle-aged ex-pop star."

* [[Serious Business]]: It eventually got to the point that they had to stop touring after 1966, because their fans would reach such levels of hysteria that not even the band itself could hear their music.

** 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.

** 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.

** "Julia"--guess what the Japanese for [[Yoko Ono|"ocean child"]] is?

** "Martha My Dear" is a Shout Out to Paul McCartney's dog.

** "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.

* [[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.

* [[Something Blues]]: "Yer Blues".

* [[Song Style Shift]]: Several abrupt ones in Paul's "You Never Give Me Your Money" and John's "Happiness Is a Warm Gun".

* [[The Southpaw]]: Paul's left-handedness allowed the Beatles to perform a little bit of stagecraft in which Paul would face John, or George, and sing into the same mike with their guitars pointing the same way.

** In his defence, it was a popular convention at the time for pop musicians to come up with a catchy stage-name rather than use their own.

** The rest of the Beatles toyed around with stage names during their early years, with John Lennon briefly going by the name "Long John". Paul McCartney was a particular fan of this, adopting the alias "Paul Ramone" during the group's time in Hamburg.

* [[Stop and Go]]: "I'm only sleeping...[Pause]...keeping an eye on the world going by my window..."

** 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".

* [[Surreal Music Video]]: "Strawberry Fields Forever".

* [[Take That]]: George Harrison's "Only a Northern Song" is a swipe at Lennon and McCartney's publishing company, Northern Songs Ltd. Harrison wrote it to express his dissatisfaction over being screwed over on royalties from his own compositions. (The following year George would found his own publishing company, Harrisongs Ltd.)

** George certainly loved this trope, as his opening song on ''Revolver'', "Taxman", is a giant take that against Harold Wilson's supertax.

*** Actually, John wrote the part with Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. George went to John for help on "Taxman" durind a period of time when Paul had a grudge against George for a publicly unknown reason.

* [[Textless Album Cover]]: ''Abbey Road''

* [[This Is a Song]]: "Only a Northern Song"

* [[This Loser Is You]]: "Nowhere Man"

** They would actually learn from word of mouth who knew this chord, or who knew that chord, and would drive around in their van to wherever they needed to get to, drive back home and then they'd know how to play chord x.

** The "Get Back" project was an effort to, uh, get back to this. It met with mixed success due to the dissension in the band.

** 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.

* [[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]]

* [[Word Salad Lyrics]]: After their introduction to drugs, a lot of songs, most notably "I Am The Walrus".

* [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]: "Hello Goodbye" and the single version of "Get Back".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Seventies]]

[[Category:Musicians]]

[[Category:Baroque Pop]]

[[Category:Trope Overdosed]]

[[Category:Trope Makers]]

[[Category:Music]]