John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon John, McCartney Paul - Materials for a music lesson Educational and educational video
John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (b. 1942)
Lennon and McCartney are without a doubt rare musical talents, natural and original, but gifted in different ways. In a sense, this difference stems from the peculiarities of their nature.
But perhaps the most striking thing about them as composers is that, despite the fact that Paul and John wrote music together for more than ten years, they completely retained their individuality, their own selves.
John Lennon's grandfather, a native of Dublin, performed in the United States as a professional singer. Father - Fred - worked as a waiter on a ship. He played the banjo quite well and often performed as a singer during concerts on the ship.
Papa Lennon can be described as an adventure-seeking migratory bird. Fred Lennon probably did not take his marriage, which took place in 1938, seriously from the very beginning. His wife Julia, née Stanley, gave birth to a boy, John, on October 9, 1940. Three years later they divorced.
John was raised by one of his mother's sisters. Mary Smith took very touching care of the boy. She raised John in strictness and fairness. This caring woman went down in Beatles history as Aunt Mimi.
In the 1950s, for most young people, the guitar had a magical, attractive power. John Lennon was no exception. He quickly grasped and reproduced everything. what I heard on the radio. His desire to be the first everywhere led to the idea of creating his own amateur vocal and instrumental ensemble.
On June 15, 1956, the Quarryman group played at one of the church holidays. The group members met there a young man who knew new, unknown to them, techniques for playing the guitar. For John, these playing techniques were a real discovery. Forgetting his cocky boast, he was sincerely amazed at how easily and confidently this boy named Paul McCartney wielded the instrument.
Like John, Paul McCartney inherited a love of music from his parents. Jim McCartney, Paul's father, loved to play the piano, and so Paul heard music constantly in his home from an early age. Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942 at Liverpool's Walton Hospital, where his mother worked as a nurse for many years. Paul's father was engaged in the cotton trade at that time. When the McCartney family moved to the Allerton area of Liverpool in 1955, their mother fell ill. The operation failed to prevent cancer deaths.
After leaving primary school, Paul attended Liverpool Central High School. After the death of his mother, he developed a love for music. If you put all your musical impressions together, you can understand what influenced him. It was all the music heard, from Fred Astaire to Little Richard.
John, accepting McCartney, understood that he could not treat Paul the way he treated the other members of the ensemble. However, John didn’t want to give it up either. There was a reason for this. After Paul played some tunes he had written one day, John also tried to organize his ideas and write them down. Paul, in turn, showed interest in John's texts, who subsequently fabricated them with great skill. This is how they encouraged each other. One wrote lyrics, the other wrote music, and together they practiced the guitar.
In this collaboration, John and Paul encouraged each other, and the group's performance improved from concert to concert. In 1958, George Harrison joined the group. The fourth member of the ensemble was Pete Best. He was later replaced by Ringo Star.
The Beatles' success began with performances at the Kaiserkeller restaurant in Hamburg. At first, Liverpool musicians clearly lacked experience. However, they were vain, practiced on instruments for hours, honing their skills, and finally achieved the favor and recognition of listeners.
Returning to Liverpool, the four musicians continued to perform in clubs. One of the group's concerts, held in the suburbs of Liverpool, was such a stunning success that many newspapers published enthusiastic reviews about it.
In Hamburg, the Beatles created a new type of group singing. They noticed that their voices became hoarse during hours of performances in smoke-filled rooms. So they began to sing in twos, threes or fours. This way their voices were less strained and, in addition, the perceptibility of the words of the songs being sung increased. The Beatles practiced with amazing diligence and soon achieved a harmonious sound that delighted many.
In December 1961, a contract was signed between the Beatles and Brian Epstein, who was selling records at the time. After repeated attempts, the new Beatles impresario managed to interest the record-producing concern Decca in having the Beatles make a test recording. They set off for London in good spirits. But once in the recording studio, the Beatles became very nervous and played uncertainly. The deal with the Decca concern did not take place.
The Beatles recorded their first single on September 11, 1962, in a studio owned by the English recording concern Electrical and Musical Industries. The Beatles' first single was broadcast on radio in Luxembourg and England and, according to New Musical Express magazine, took seventeenth place in the English hit parade. On November 26, 1962, the Beatles' second single was released, with the songs "Please, Please" and "Ask Me Why", which took first place in the English hit parade in February 1963. This record sold 250,000 copies within a year, for which it was awarded a Silver Disc award. The group was happy. The clock hands were set correctly. The next goal is a long-playing disc.
Of the fourteen songs included on the Beatles' first long-playing disc, eight came from the pens of Lennon and McCartney. The rest were popular pop songs, hits.
The style of singing the song “Anna” is typical of the early Beatles. John sings it expressively, without a hint of falsehood, clearly. Friends complete it.
The next long-playing disc was recorded in the fall of 1963. Of the fourteen songs recorded on it, eight were created by the Beatles themselves: Lennon and McCartney owned seven songs, another song belonged to Harrison. The performance of the songs on this disc was characterized by closeness to the sound style of American black music.
In the song “All My Love,” John managed to achieve a composition that has gone down in history as an example of classic rock music. The new program allowed the Beatles to separate themselves from the mass of ordinary beat groups.
From a harmonious point of view, the most interesting thing the Beatles recorded on their second long-playing disc was the song “There Will Never Be a Second Time.” This is the first Beatles song to be commented on by English music critics. William Mann, a well-known music critic for the Times newspaper, wrote in an article dated March 27, 1963 that in England, due to the decline in which domestic music and domestic music halls had fallen, popular songs from the repertoire of American performers began to be performed in huge numbers. However, he assessed the songs of Lennon and McCartney as creations that had a distinctly English character and were full of fantasy: “One gets the impression that they think about both harmony and melody at the same time, the chords and melodies are so closely fused in their songs.”
The Beatles' third LP, A Hard Day's Night, consisted entirely of thirteen songs written by Lennon and McCartney. All these songs were created for a film of the same name. The recording of this disc took place at the beginning of 1964 in one of the Paris recording studios. The disc went on sale on June 10. Conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein then wrote: "These guys are the best composers since Franz Schubert." Then this statement aroused both the interest and dissatisfaction of many classical music fans.
Of course, by comparing the Beatles with Franz Schubert, Bernstein wanted to talk about the close connection between text and melody that characterizes their songs. In some ways this refers to the synthesis of text and music in the Beatles' songs. They have a keen sense of the rhythm of the English language, which is characterized by a pronounced musicality.
The Beatles' fourth long-playing disc, released in 1964, unlike the third, consisted not only of the works of the group members: six songs belonged to popular rock music composers.
In 1963, the Beatles began touring. In 1964 they performed in Paris on the Olympia stage, in the USA, Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England. A year later, the group gave only thirty concerts. The Beatles had plenty of reasons to reduce their number of performances. They were attracted to working in the studio, where they could achieve greater artistic effect than during hackneyed performances in front of raging fans.
In June 1965, the English royal house awarded the Beatles with the order. The order is a silver cross with the inscription “For God and the Empire.” It was established in 1917.
Many of those awarded this order, mostly aggressive military men, politicians and aristocrats, were outraged and sent previously received orders to the royal house as a sign of protest. But these protests did not faze the royal family. And Prime Minister Wilson sincerely declared himself a Beatles fan: “We are proud of this new style of music.” At the same time, he boasted that the Beatles, as a British export, contributed much more foreign currency to the treasury than the famous British export firms. Indeed, in 1965, people around the world listened to 115 million Beatles records.
Released in 1965-1966, three long-playing discs constitute a transitional stage from the early songs of the Beatles to their later works, which can no longer be measured by the scale of ordinary pop music.
In such discs as “Help”, “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, a new artistic level of development in the work of the Beatles was outlined. Until now, musicians were forced to write new songs, as they needed fresh material for constant tours. Now that time was far behind. They had the opportunity to work in the studio and make thoughtful use of excellent recording devices. Much of what was now being produced as a result of many days and many weeks of work, they could hardly perform during concert performances, and in some cases they could not do it at all, because it required a large amount of equipment.
In 1967, the Beatles released their eighth disc. The name "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was given to it by the song of the same name. Starting from this disc, they recorded their songs only in the studio. Now the Beatles could no longer even think about performing on stage. Working in the studio took up all the time. This long-playing disc marked a milestone in the history of the Beatles and in the development of rock music. The costs of its release were unusual: George Martin demanded that the company take four months to record the disc.
Subsequent Beatles songs, starting with the Sergeant Pepper disc, are distinguished by their pronounced musicality. A superficial examination of the texts written since 1967 gives the impression that thematically they fit into the framework of the trivial poetry of hackneyed hits and boulevard operetta. But the way Lennon shapes his lyrics, using some teenage slang and delivering them with a sincere, youthful spirit, is a far cry from the mold. John's songs don't lie, they don't deceive, they don't provide any ersatz pleasures, they speak directly and honestly about what worries young people. Joachim Ernst Behrendt, a leading expert on jazz in Germany, spoke about this phenomenon as follows: “The Beatles created a new musical and social consciousness that turned hitherto popular pop stars into old grandfathers overnight.”
The Beatles' first double album was recorded between May and October 1968 and was released on November 22 of that year. From the very beginning of work on this album, the Beatles moved away from their usual tradition of writing songs together. Each musician brought his own songs and introduced his accompanying band. When you listen to songs from the White Album, it is not difficult to find out who exactly is playing. However, at the same time, the most significant thing disappeared: the typical common and unified sound of the Beatles. So, both long-playing records of the album became a collection of solo songs by individual musicians. This work by the Beatles became the first document that announced the impending collapse of the group. The album features Lennon on fourteen songs and McCartney on twelve. Both musicians continued the tradition established when releasing singles, dividing sides A and B between them.
McCartney's songs featured on The White Album showcase his multifaceted musical abilities, which from the outset precluded stylistic unity. Until now, the creative opposite in the group was John, whom Paul not only inspired, but also criticized. Now Paul had to abandon such artistic contrast. The songs on this disc present a rosy panorama, and from them you can find out in what direction McCartney will direct his future work. They already sound what he would later accomplish together with the Wings group.
Lennon's songs also look to the future. Their content is characterized by dissatisfaction with the social structure, sometimes aggression, in them the author tries to explain the problems of his own past.
The new long-playing disc “Yellow Submarine” was recorded in the first half of 1968 and went on sale in December of the same year.
1969 was the last year the Beatles worked together.
After the breakup, McCartney wrote songs for other artists and for movies, but finally realized that he had to do what he always loved most: playing with a band on stage. He decided to create his own group, Wings, with his wife Linda, who had no musical experience. One of the first singles of the Wings group was the song “Magu Had A Little Lamb”, and, admittedly, it did not cause much enthusiasm. But the Wings group became better and better. Gradually, during the tour, Paul began to include Beatles songs, so beloved by everyone, in her repertoire. And then, having composed “Band On The Run” and “Venus and Mars,” he again became a world leader and almost repeated the success of the Beatles. His 1976 tour was sold out and proved that the Wings had become an excellent pop group. Paul may not have reached the heights of "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby", but from a commercial point of view he left the rest of the Beatles far behind. His song "Mull Of Kintyre", released in 1977, surpassed all the Beatles' singles in success. McCartney was the head of the Wings until 1981. Later, his performances with Michael Jackson and Elvis Costello enjoyed great success. In 1991, together with composer Carl Davis, McCartney wrote his first composition in the genre of classical music - “Liverpool Oratorio”.
Until recently, McCartney was known as a typical happy family man who, perhaps, tries too hard to make this fact known to everyone. With his wife Linda and three children, he lived happily in his London home. His daughter Martha became a fairly famous fashion designer. More recently, in 1999, his wife died of cancer.
For Lennon, the decade after the breakup of the Beatles was not cloudless. He did not escape human and creative crises. But John overcame them. He felt at the height of happiness when he could play music. Shortly after the death of the Beatles, Lennon formed the Plastic Ono Band with his wife Yoko Ono, whom he married in 1969.
Living and working together with Yoko Ono there were tensions and disagreements. In October 1973, both individualists voluntarily separated for an indefinite period. But this separation did not resolve the conflict. In January 1975, they reconciled and moved into John's apartment in a house called "Dakota." Sean Ono Lennon was born on October 9, 1975. From the moment his son was born, John lived exclusively for his family. After the review disc "Shaved Fish", released at the end of October 1975, he did not record new records for a long time. Yoko managed the financial side of life, and John took care of the house, apartment, family, lived in a disciplined manner and even gave up smoking. For his son, John bought a farm located an hour's flight from New York. In this regard, he said: “... a boy should grow up in natural conditions, surrounded by animals.”
The John Lennon of 1980 bore little resemblance to one of the rebellious Beatles of the sixties: parted hair and nickel-plated glasses gave the impression of a European intellectual. Lennon felt internally balanced, there was no nervousness, he was able to work in a new way. He wanted to contrast the controversial 1970s with a new, creatively productive decade. This is how his latest disc, “Double Fantasy,” was created, created together with his wife. A total of twenty-two songs were recorded, of which fourteen were included on the title disc: seven songs belonged to John and seven to Yoko. These songs can be compared to dialogues between a man and a woman, they represent a fragment of their family history and reflect the years they spent in New York.
“Double Fantasy” became a live disc of new content, the themes of which concerned personal problems, but the meaning of the songs was addressed to all people. Without understanding the lyrics and their meaning, one cannot truly appreciate this long-playing disc.
In his last interview on December 6, 1980, John Lennon said: “I don’t feel like I’m forty. I feel like a kid and I still have so many good years ahead of me with Yoko and my son, or so we hope. I think that I will die before Yoko, because I can’t imagine my life without her any longer.”
On December 8, 1980, around 11 p.m., Lennon was shot and killed in front of his home in Manhattan. The killer, a mentally ill man, surrendered without resistance to the police.
Soon the following message appeared in the pages of the world press: “The city of New York has posthumously awarded its highest award, the Handel Medal, to John Lennon, one of the ex-Beatles, who was murdered last December.”
Leonard Bernstein wrote after Lennon's death: "I am confident that Lennon's music will live as long as the works of Brahms, Beethoven or Bach. For me, one of Lennon's best songs was the song “She Said, She Said” from the LP Revolver. Lennon's death left a huge void. The world has become poorer by one creative, driving force. I know it sounds naive, but Paul McCartney's feminine, siren-like voice was the perfect complement to Lennon's. Both of them created a couple with creative energy unusual for that time. John and Paul were like Saints Johannes and Paulus: they were masters who made millions of people happy. They were glorified, they immortalized themselves under the name “The Beatles,” which will live long in our memory.”
From the book Thoughts, aphorisms and jokes of famous men authorJohn LENNON (1940–1980) English rock musician Life is what happens to us just when we have completely different plans. * * * At the Beatles concert at the Prince of Wales Theatre: - Those in the cheap seats, clap; others can rattle with diamonds. * * * From the interview after
From the book 100 Great Dictators author Mussky Igor AnatolievichPOL POT (born in 1928) Head of the left-wing extremist Khmer Rouge regime in Kampuchea (1975–1979), which committed genocide of its own people. He has been in exile since 1979. On the world stage, Pol Pot spent only four years as the controversial leader of Kampuchea
From the book Dictionary of Modern Quotes author Dushenko Konstantin VasilievichGADDAFI MUAMAR (born in 1942) Head of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and its Revolutionary leadership. General Secretary of the General People's Congress of Libya in 1977–1979. From September 1, 1969 to March 1977, Chairman of the Council
From the book 100 great composers author Samin DmitryLENNON John (Lennon, John, 1940-1980), English rock musician 226 * Above only the sky. “Imagine” (“Imagine”, 1971), words and music. Lennon’s “Only the sky is higher” is not a completely accurate translation. From Lennon: “Imagine that there is no heaven. (...) / There’s just sky above us.
If you take Stevie [Wonder], for example, he just sits and writes at the keyboard. You call him for lunch, he shows up 10 hours later because he was playing something on his keyboard. He's a musical giant and a genius, and you learn that from him.
Michael Jackson... we were just sitting upstairs in his studio, and I was banging something on the piano, and we wrote a song right there. Well, as for Kanye, I had no idea what it would be; I knew what it wouldn't be - a roll call of two acoustic guitars. So I thought: okay, let it be - nothing.
But the only thing I told everyone in advance was: “Listen, if I feel that nothing is working out, then we just won’t tell anyone about it: who is Kanye? I’ve never worked with him!”
Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption McCartney, Rihanna and Kanye West recorded the song FourFiveSeconds in 2015So I was just being myself; I started telling Kanye different stories about what inspired me in life musically. One of them was the story of how [the Beatles'] "Let It Be" came about: it was inspired by a dream I had when I saw my mother, who had died 10 years earlier.
And I was so inspired by that that I wrote this song. I told this to Kanye because he also lost his mother. And then he composed a song called “Only One” with my strumming on the electronic piano. So he came up with a melody, I put chords on it in a certain style, and that's how it worked out.
BBC: When you started working on the Flowers in the Dirt record, was it a bit of a “start over again” for you?
FloorMcCartney: I think yes. I take care of my family, raise my children, and then suddenly a moment comes when I think: “Okay, I have some songs accumulated, I should do them, I should record them. We should go on tour, it's time."
And that’s what happened during that period. Someone suggested that I work with Elvis Costello as a co-writer, and it seemed like a good idea. I said to myself, "He's from Liverpool and he's not bad - which usually helps - and we have a lot in common, so I thought it could work out."
Image caption With Elvis Costello it turned out almost like with JohnBBC: Did you write while sitting next to each other, strumming something to each other on your acoustics?
FloorMcCartney: There are a million different ways to write, but when I wrote with John, it was always across from each other, sometimes sitting on hotel room beds with an acoustic guitar in our arms, and we were always looking at each other. He came up with something, I came up with something, and so we were fired up by each other. I liked looking at John - he is right-handed, I am left-handed - it was as if I was looking in a mirror.
It worked out pretty well with him in the end, of course. So I learned to write [songs] that way, and that's how I liked it, and Elvis didn't mind working that way. So it was kind of a repeat of the old process where he was John, essentially, and I was Paul.
BBC: I can’t help but ask a question about Chuck Berry, one of your musical heroes. What was he like? Did you work with him a lot?
FloorMcCartney: I didn't work with Chuck, but I met him. He came to one of our shows when we were playing in St. Louis, his hometown, and he came to see us backstage. It was great to meet him and tell him I'm a big fan of his.
When I think back to that time in Liverpool, before the Beatles, when we were all just kids learning to play guitars, dreaming of the future, there was a moment when we suddenly heard this song - Sweet Little Sixteen. We had never heard anything like this before - and when Johnny B. Goode came out and other amazing songs - Maybellene... All these songs about cars, teenagers, rock and roll - it was so great!
Image caption Sir Paul was interviewed by BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Matt EverittBBC: Watching the outpouring of condolences that followed the death of Chuck Berry, do you sometimes wonder how you will be remembered?
FloorMcCartney: You think about it, yes, but then you try to forget. I don't get into it, honestly. I remember John once said to me: “I wonder how they will remember me? Will they remember me in good words?” And I hastened to assure him, I said: “Listen to me, you will be remembered like that! You wrote so many amazing things!” But it was funny too - because you would never think that John had the slightest bit of uncertainty about it. But anything can happen, I think. Luckily, it won't matter because I won't be here anymore.
BBC: And on a more positive note: what new things are planned?
FloorMcCartney: I'm recording a new album and having great fun. I'm working with a producer I first met two years ago while working on the score for an animated film. Since then, he's worked with Beck [Hansen] and made a record of the year ["Morning Phase" won three Grammys in 2015, including Best Record of the Year] with Beck. Then he worked with Adele and made “song of the year” and “disc of the year” [disc “25” - also released in 2015] with Adele, and also became “producer of the year.”
So the only thing that worries me is that people will say, "Ah, Paul bought into the trendy thing." But he's a great guy, his name is Greg Kurstin and he's easy to work with. So yes, I'm creating, working my ass off, doing what I love most. As Ringo says, "This is what we do."
New edition of the record "Flowers in the Dirt" went on sale March 24, 2017
John Winston Lennon(October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980), James Paul McCartney(born June 18, 1942), British rock musicians, singers, composers, members of the Beatles.
The secret of the Beatles' popularity is simple. In the sixties, a new generation entered life, whose parents survived the war and now wanted their children not to know these horrors. The rapid growth of the birth rate led to the fact that there were more young people in society, so their tastes, habits, and moods determined the face of the time. The thirst for enjoying life, the desire to love and be loved became the content of the songs that were composed by children from ordinary families in Liverpool. They created their own ensemble and came up with an exciting, irritating name for it, similar either to the buzzing of a bumblebee or to the sound of an airplane - “The Beatles” (“Beetles”).
The second significant reason for their instant popularity was the so-called “promotion” - a competent and dynamic introduction to the music business. This was the beginning of the dealership process in show business, when the entertainment industry began to take shape 25 years after the war.
The Beatles' first producer, Brian Epstein, owned a record store. It was thanks to him that they immediately went on their first tour in Germany, to Hamburg, and soon they were recognized all over the world.
It is curious that the Beatles agreed to go on tour to America only when their songs began to take first place in the charts. This happened already in 1964.
The group consisted of four musicians: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Each of them had their own temperament and preferences. John Lennon and Paul McCartney met in 1957, while still teenagers. They had a common passion - modern dance and the new rhythm of rock and roll. In all other respects they were completely different, but despite this, they decided to create a group together.
For seven years, the Beatles' songs remained at the top of the song charts. Their plots were simple and unpretentious: Lennon and McCartney wrote about what their peers lived like. Although they did not invent any special style, it developed as if by itself, including clothes and hairstyles. Fans often came to concerts to sing along with their idols. Their performances were widely broadcast on radio, and their songs became world famous.
The band's tunes ranged from folk music to loud rock. Of course, it wasn't the ear-splitting roar that modern bands sometimes indulge in. The Beatles were just beginning to arrange their songs using electronic amplification. Therefore, their songs always have a melody; connecting with the vocals is what made them so famous. The hits of the early years were the songs “She Loves You” (1963), “Yesterday” (1965), “Yellow Submarine” (1966).
Each song is a small story with a dramatic, tense plot, which is organized by a simple rhythm, different each time, and an easy-to-remember general tonality, which is enhanced by the refrain.
The group's success was truly stunning; their records were in great demand. Numerous albums were released in different countries. The musicians starred in films and toured the world.
The group went through “fire, water and copper pipes.” The test of fame was not easy, often scandalous. Some of the musicians became addicted to drugs.
In the seventies, it became obvious that the group would no longer be able to exist with the same composition and with the same creative mood. During one of his tours, Ringo Starr remained in India, Lennon and McCartney began performing separately. Each of them made their own career. George Harrison became a film producer.
Lennon began performing more often with his Japanese-American wife, Yoko Ono. Together they were engaged in social activities and the struggle for peace. One of the peace anthems, “lmagine,” became a classic, and after Lennon’s death it was performed as a hymn in his memory. In 1980, the musician was killed near his home. He had two children.
Paul McCartney also, together with his wife, organized the group “Wings”, which became famous. After Lennon's death, he remained the only member of the group who continued to play music professionally. Many of his songs became hits.
In 1985, a real sensation was the release of an anthology of Beatles songs, which included previously unknown works by the group and John Lennon.