The Beatles are still the most recognized group in the world. From Moscow to Maui, everyone seems to have heard of them, or has experienced their flamboyant talent in some way, shape or form. The group had twenty-seven number one hit UK singles during their career, and have been credited with twenty-two separate number one albums worldwide – a position still unsurpassed by any other musical act. They have also sold more albums in the US than any other artist, have received 7 Grammy awards, 15 Ivor Novello awards, and hold the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 of the greatest top-selling artists of all time.

This list takes a look beyond the legend to discover the real truth behind some of the songs which made the group famous. They are listed in no particular order, and there is an option to do a sequel. As always, please give us your considered comments below.

10Step Inside Love

Cilla Black (real name Priscilla White), was a typist before a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool’s Cavern Club brought her to the attention of Brian Epstein – who signed her to Parlophone records. Her February 1963 debut single ‘Love of the Loved’ (an old Quarry Men song written by Lennon and McCartney and used on their original Decca demo tape) went to #35 in the charts – and sparked a career which would span over 45 years. Then in 1964 Paul McCartney wrote ‘It’s For You’ for her, which peaked at #7. Meanwhile, Brian Epstein continued to work fervently on Blacks career; finally securing a deal to front her own television show on 26 August 1967. The very next day he was found dead in his Chapel Street house in London – Blacks unsigned TV contract was found next to him.

‘Cilla’ was to be first aired at the beginning of 1968 and needed a theme tune which Black would sing live at the beginning of every show, and a mid White Album McCartney was keen to get involved. “You’re the kind of person that should invite people into your house,” commented Paul, “You should have a song that starts off very quiet and then builds up.” Paul’s first demo of the song ‘Step Inside Love’ contained only one verse and a chorus – which the producers used for a few weeks before enrolling McCartney to do a second verse. He reworked the piece into a full song which was released as a single on 8 March 1968 reaching #8 in the UK charts. However, the song was subsequently banned in South Africa under claims of prostitutes using the hook line as an invitation call. “It could have been worse,” said The Beatles road manager Tony Bramwell, “Paul’s original idea was to call it ‘Come Inside Love.’”

9I’ve Got a Feeling

Like a number of classic Beatles songs, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ was a combination of two unfinished songs. The first – ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ – was written by Paul as a love song for the new light in his life Linda Eastman, whom he’d first met two years earlier in June 1967 during an assignment to take photographs of “Swinging Sixties” musicians in London. The pair celebrated the launch of Sgt. Pepper together in June 1967 but rarely met in public until late 1968 during the recording of the White Album when it was decided they should move in together. They married two months after ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ was recorded during their live rooftop concert (30 Jan 1969) on 12 March 1969 at Marylebone Registry Office in London.

The second song ‘Everybody’s Had a Hard Year’ was John’s own self-reflective composition and was a litany where every line began with the word ‘everybody’. The main guitar riff of this track came from a January 14th, 1969 demo entitled “Watching Rainbows”. This had been developed and then abandoned during the infamous ‘Get Back’ sessions at Twickenham Studios. Indeed, everybody HAD been through a hard year: the Apple Boutique had closed down, Paul had relationship problems with his former girlfriend Jane Asher, the Maharishi had been accused of sexual indecency (which was the inspiration behind the song Sexy Sadie), and John, himself, had been through a divorce with his former wife Cynthia and had been separated from his son, Julian. Yoko Ono had suffered a miscarriage, John and George had been arrested on charges of drug possession, and John had been forced to sell his Waybridge home when his personal fortune was reported to have dwindled to just £50,000. Added to that the pressure of the ‘Get Back’ sessions and the inspiration behind the song becomes clear.

8She’s A Woman

‘She’s A Woman’ was recorded by the Beatles on October 8, 1964 and released 6 weeks later as a B-side to the number one hit single ‘I Feel Fine’. ‘I Feel Fine’ spent five weeks in the top spot of the UK charts over the 1964 Christmas period. The song was conceived by Paul on the streets of St John’s Wood, London, as he was fully intending to write a song in the high-pitched bluesy style of his hero Little Richard – whom the Beatles had met almost exactly two years earlier, at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool. “We needed a real screaming rocker for the live act,” said Paul. “It was always good if you were stuck for something to close with, or if there was a dull moment.” In 1965 he went on to say “A lot of people thought that I was just singing too high and that I’d picked the wrong key. It sounded as though I was screeching, but it was on purpose. It wasn’t a mistake.”

The song is notable as the first Beatles’ song to contain a drug reference: ‘turns me on when I get lonely’ – and came directly from their first experience of marijuana, just five weeks earlier, with Bob Dylan at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City. Dylan himself assumed the lads had smoked marijuana before having misheard the lyric ‘I can’t hide’ in ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ as ‘I get high’. Until then, their only drug experience had been Drinamyl and Preludin tablets (both amphetamine type stimulants) which they discovered whilst in Hamburg, and Benzedrine inhalers they’d been given in Liverpool. John later disclosed that he was “so excited to say ‘turn me on’ – you know, about marijuana and all that… using it as an expression.” The track escaped the attention of media censorship, but a similar phrase used three years later in ‘A Day In The Life’ went on to get that song banned from the airwaves in many countries – when by then (perhaps ironically), the authorities were more ‘turned on’ to the growing drug culture and it’s references within the media.

7From Me To You

This song was penned while on a tour bus traveling from York to Shrewsbury, in support of the popular singer Helen Shapiro. They demoed the song on arrival at Shrewsbury that same afternoon, in preparation for a concert at the Granada Cinema. “They asked me if I would come and listen to two songs they had,” recalls Shapiro. “Paul sat at the piano and John stood next to me and they sang ‘From Me To You’ and ‘Thank You Girl’” She responded positively towards ‘From Me To You’ saying it would “make the best A side”. The Beatles took the song to Liverpool the next day, where they played if for Pauls’ father, who convinced them that it was a “nice little tune”. The title of the song appears to come from the New Musical Express magazines letter column which went by the name of ‘From You to Us’ – of which the lads were avid readers.

Both Paul and John took turns to write the song – making it one of the only Beatles hits they built from scratch together, and using words such as ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘you’ as a way of making the song, according to McCartney, “very direct and personal”. The hook for the song was an ‘ooooh’ sound the Beatles arguably borrowed from the Isley Brothers 1962 recording of ‘Twist and Shout’ – a song the Beatles had also covered the year before. Upon hearing this gimmick the singer and comedian Kenny Lynch, who was also throwing in ideas for the song, exclaimed, “You can’t do that. You sound like a bunch of fucking fairies!”. He then reportedly stormed from the back of the coach where they were rehearsing shouting ‘Well, that’s it. I am not going to write any more of that bloody rubbish with those idiots. They don’t know music from their backsides. That’s it! No more help from me!’” ‘From Me To You’ was recorded five days later and went on to become the groups second #1 hit single.

6Lovely Rita

Sometime during the early part of 1967, Paul McCartney emerged from Abbey Road Studios to find a parking attendant was in the process of ticketing his car. He immediately walked over and removed the ticket from the windscreen. The attendant later recalled “I had to make out a ticket which, at that time, carried a ten shilling fine. He [Paul] looked at it and read my signature [which was] written in full… Meta Davis. He said ‘Oh, is your name really Meta?’ I told him that it was. He said ‘That would be a good name for a song. Would you mind if I use it?’ And that was that. Off he went.”

A friend of Pauls, whilst visiting London on vacation from America, noticed another attendant (in those days a rare site in the UK and who were more commonly known as a ‘Traffic Wardens’), and exclaimed “I see you’ve got meter maids over here these days.” Paul then went back to his piano and started to write the track. “I was thinking it should be a hate song,” he later mused. “but then I thought it would be better to love her.” Out of this came the idea of an office worker who tries to get out of a parking fine by seducing the attendant. “I was imagining the kind of person I would be to fall for a meter maid.” The gimmick during the recording of the song on February 23rd, 1967 was George Harrison playing comb and paper. The ‘paper’ in question was secured from an Abby Road lavatory, with the indignity of having the words ‘Property of EMI’ stamped all over it. This was used to cover hair combs, which they blew through to resemble the sound of a kazoo orchestra. Meta Davis later remarked “I was never a Beatles’ fan, but you couldn’t help hearing their music.”