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Featured Song

Norwegian Wood is a song written and sung by John Lennon, released on the Rubber Soul album in 1965. This track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use the sitar, an Indian stringed instrument. "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-Sixties. The song is now acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of what is now usually called "world music" and it was a major landmark in the trend towards incorporating non-Western musical influences into Western popular music.

Featured Album

In the United States, many of the songs on the album were first issued on Vee-Jay Records' Introducing...The Beatles in 1964, and then subsequently on Capitol Records' The Early Beatles in 1965. In a review, the All Music Guide says "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins."

Featured Article

The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, usually referred to as Lennon/McCartney (sometimes McCartney/Lennon), is one of the best-known and most successful musical collaborations of all time. In an agreement reached early in their partnership, the pair agreed to use the shared credit Lennon/McCartney on all songs written alone or in tandem, for The Beatles. Their output constitutes the bulk of The Beatles' catalogue. Lennon, with his cynical edge and knack for introspection, and McCartney, with his storytelling optimism and gift for melody, complemented each other. Lennon and McCartney formed a critically acclaimed and commercially successful partnership writing songs for The Beatles and other artistes.

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See Also: This Day in Beatles History

Did You Know...

• ...that Say Say Say, the duet by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, is credited for the introduction of dialogue and storyline into music videos?
• ...that the first song the Beatles recorded was In Spite of All the Danger?
• ...that John Lennon started and ended The Beatles?
• ...that Brian Epstein was gay?
• ...that Paul McCartney and George Harrison were best friends since they met on the school bus in 1954?
• ...that the full interviews of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison are viewable on the Dick Cavett Show page?
• ...that with the addition of the Hey Jude Disambiguation page, the Beatles Wiki became officially "evil" (666 pages)?
• ...that both Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono were older than John?
• ...that John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon had birthdays on consecutive days of the month? (9 October and 10 September, respectively.)
  • ...that the above means that their birthdays are 9/10 and 10/9, although which is which depends on which date format you use?

The Beatles

Every record was a shock when it came out. Compared to rabid R&B evangelists like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles arrived sounding like nothing else. They had already absorbed Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but they were also writing their own songs. They made writing your own material expected, rather than exceptional. As musicians, the Beatles proved that rock & roll could embrace a limitless variety of harmonies, structures, and sounds; virtually every rock experiment has some precedent on Beatles records. As a unit the Beatles were a synergistic combination: Paul McCartney's melodic bass lines, Ringo Starr's slaphappy no-rolls drumming, George Harrison's rockabilly-style guitar leads, John Lennon's assertive rhythm guitar — and their four fervent voices. As personalities, they defined and incarnated Sixties style: smart, idealistic, playful, irreverent, eclectic. Their music, from the not-so-simple love songs they started with to their later perfectionistic studio extravaganzas, set new standards for both commercial and artistic success in pop.