REVEALED: FAB FOUR HID BEHIND CURTAINS TO AVOID GERMAN RECORDING SESSION!
The day The Beatles tried to bunk off work and the producer who wouldn't let them
The Beatles once hid behind curtains and sofas to avoid recording German versions of their hits
A Hard Day's Night celebrates its anniversary as a pioneering music film that captured Beatlemania
Beatles fans continue to debate their greatest songs, with surprising insights from Elvis Presley
Well, well, well. What have we here? It seems our beloved moptops weren't always the consummate professionals we imagined them to be. Fancy that! The latest unearthed anecdote from the seemingly bottomless well of Beatles lore reveals the Fab Four literally hiding behind furniture to avoid work. One almost wonders if they were method acting for "A Hard Day's Night" before filming had even begun!
Picture the scene, if you will: Paris, 1964. Fresh from receiving news of their first American number one with "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the boys are enjoying a 19-day residency in the city of lights. Manager Brian Epstein, ever the opportunist, has arranged for them to record German versions of their hits to boost sales in West Germany. A splendid idea, one might think.
But our lads had other ideas. When producer George Martin arrived at the Pathé Marconi studio with a translator in tow, there was no sign of John, Paul, George or Ringo. After an hour's wait, Martin telephoned their suite at the George V hotel only to be told by roadie Neil Aspinall that "They're in bed, they've decided not to go to the studio."
Well, you can imagine how that went down. "I went crazy," Martin recalled. "It was the first time they had refused to do anything for me."
Storming into their suite, Martin was confronted with a scene straight out of a Carry On film. Jane Asher - all pre-Raphaelite red locks and English rose complexion - was pouring tea from a china pot while the Beatles attempted to make themselves scarce. Some dived behind cushions, others hid behind curtains, all behaving like naughty schoolboys caught smoking behind the bike sheds.
"You are b------!" Martin reportedly screamed, to which they responded with "impish little grins and roguish apologies." Within minutes they were on their way to the studio.
The mind boggles, doesn't it? Here were four grown men - well, young men at least - at the cusp of global domination, engaging in the sort of juvenile avoidance tactics one might expect from a ten-year-old faced with the prospect of eating Brussels sprouts. It's fantastically revealing of the mischievous spirit that made the band so endearing despite their stratospheric fame.
Once at the studio, they dutifully laid down the tracks for "Sie Liebt Dich" and "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand," while also beginning work on early takes of "Can't Buy Me Love." It was their only recording session outside of the UK, and as McCartney later noted, "As if forty-odd shows weren't enough, Brian would also arrange all these other duties, like writing and recording sessions."
Sound engineer Norman Smith summed it up: "They were extremely pleased to get it over with. We all were." The equipment was "alien" to what they were used to, yet somehow they wrapped everything up in a single day, making a second reserved studio session unnecessary.
In March that year, Odeon released the songs, with the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" reaching number one on the West German charts, while "Sie Liebt Dich" reached number seven. George Martin later questioned whether these foreign-language versions were even necessary, noting, "They were the only things they have ever done in a foreign language. And they didn't need to anyway. The records would have sold in English, and did."
One wonders what Brian Epstein would make of today's translation software. Imagine the poor lads having to record in fifteen different languages! They'd have been hiding in wardrobes across Europe.
Meanwhile, as we dust off our cinematic memories, "A Hard Day's Night" is being celebrated once more for its revolutionary approach to music filmmaking. Director Dick Lester's documentary-style filming perfectly captured the claustrophobia of Beatlemania, while Alun Owen's script showcased the band's quick-witted humour.
As McCartney himself reflected, "Alun (screenwriter) picked up a lot of little things about us. Things like: 'He is late but he is very clean, isn't he?' Little jokes, the sarcasm, the humour, John's wit, Ringo's laconic manner; each of our different ways. The film manages to capture our characters quite well."
The movie, which combines comedy and music to create a pastiche of a day in the life of The Beatles during 1964, remains influential to this day. Its pioneering techniques have influenced countless music videos and concert films since, proving that The Beatles weren't just changing music - they were revolutionising how we consumed it visually as well.
Speaking of what makes a great Beatles song, opinions continue to vary wildly - even among the Beatles themselves! It's rather delicious to discover that John Lennon and Paul McCartney actually agreed on hating one of their own songs. "It's Only Love" from the album "Help!" apparently earned Lennon's particular ire. "I always thought it was a lousy song," he said. "The lyrics were abysmal. I always hated that song. That's the one song I really hate of mine."
McCartney concurred, noting that they knew the lyrics were sub-par when they wrote them but didn't feel the need to improve them. "Sometimes we didn't fight it if the lyric came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like 'It's Only Love'. If a lyric was really bad we'd edit it, but we weren't that fussy about it, because it's only a rock 'n' roll song."
Only a rock 'n' roll song? My dear Macca, your "fillers" are most artists' career highlights! Such is the curse of genius, I suppose - even your rejects are somebody else's gold.
Interestingly, it appears the King of Rock 'n' Roll himself had some strong opinions about which Beatles songs hit the mark. According to Elvis Presley's step-brother, David Stanley, the King showed a marked preference for George Harrison's compositions. "He loved George Harrison. He thought George was the most prolific writer. He really liked his writing," Stanley revealed.
Elvis's favourite Beatles songs reportedly included Harrison-penned classics "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" from "Abbey Road" and "If I Needed Someone" from "Rubber Soul," along with Lennon's "Norwegian Wood," which featured Harrison's groundbreaking sitar playing.
This tidbit is particularly poignant given that Harrison was profoundly influenced by Elvis in his formative years. "I'd never heard anything like it," Harrison once recalled of first hearing "Heartbreak Hotel." "Coming from Liverpool, obviously, we didn't really hear the very early Sun records."
Another fascinating historical footnote involves Harrison's 1963 visit to America, where he stayed with his sister Louise in Benton, Illinois. During this trip, before anyone in America knew who The Beatles were, Harrison travelled to Mount Vernon, where he purchased a Rickenbacker 325 guitar from Fenton Music Store - an instrument now valued at over a million dollars and residing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After buying the guitar, Harrison participated in an impromptu half-hour jam session with local friend Gabe McCarty and store owner Red Fenton. He later used this very guitar for studio recordings back in England, including the breakthrough hit "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Robert Bartel, a self-described "Beatlemaniac" from Springfield, is campaigning for a historical marker to be placed in Mount Vernon commemorating Harrison's visit, similar to one already existing in Benton. At 76, Bartel feels a sense of urgency in preserving this slice of Illinois Beatles history. "I'm one of the last holdouts. I don't want to leave this not being told, because I'm probably the only keeper of the story," he explained.
Harrison's visit to America also led to another curious connection. While staying with his sister, Harrison watched the Ed Sullivan Show, complaining about the poor reception in Southern Illinois. When they later crossed paths, Harrison mentioned this to Sullivan, inspiring the television icon to visit Mount Vernon himself, where he purchased and maintained a tower to ensure good signal in the area.
For those with a scholarly bent, American Songwriter recently highlighted three Beatles songs that instantly transport listeners back to the 1960s: "Revolution 1," "A Day in the Life," and "All You Need Is Love." Each captures essential aspects of the decade, from social revolution to psychedelic experimentation to the peace-and-love ethos that defined the era.
Meanwhile, a list of Beatles songs that drive some fans to "crank up the volume" includes classics like "Twist and Shout," featuring Lennon's magnificent vocals; "Yesterday," which has been covered more than 2,200 times; "Day Tripper," described by Lennon as a "drug song"; "Revolution," with its iconic guitar riff; "The Long And Winding Road"; "In My Life," ranked by Rolling Stone as number 21 among its 500 greatest songs of all time; Harrison's "Something"; "Lady Madonna," distinguished by McCartney's keyboard work; "Back in the U.S.S.R."; and "Hello, Goodbye."
What's delightful about these lists is how they reveal the astonishing range of The Beatles' output. From the relatively straightforward rock 'n' roll of their early years to the psychedelic experimentation of their middle period to the mature songcraft of their final albums, the band continuously evolved in ways that few artists before or since have managed.
It's rather like watching a particularly gifted child grow up before your eyes - from the cheeky schoolboy antics of hiding behind curtains to avoid a recording session to the sophisticated musical innovators who changed popular culture forever. And we're all the richer for having witnessed it.
As we near the end of today's musings, it's worth noting that the lads' reluctance to record those German-language tracks seems particularly quaint in retrospect. Given the global reach of their influence, a bit of linguistic stumbling through "Sie Liebt Dich" seems a small price to pay for world domination. And yet, this little anecdote humanises them in ways that countless biographies cannot. The Beatles - brilliant, revolutionary, world-changing - but also, when the mood struck, perfectly capable of hiding behind the sofa to avoid going to work.
Isn't that just the way with genius? One moment refusing to get out of bed, the next changing the world. Never a dull moment with our boys from Liverpool.
Until tomorrow, keep those turntables spinning, dear readers. The revolution continues at 33â…“ RPM.