10 Odd, Weird, and Kinky Facts About The Beatles You Might Ignore
From strange behaviors, drug abuse, and their sex lives, to STDs and ET encounters
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Are you a fan who gloats to be the ultimate Beatles connoisseur? How much do you know about The Beatles’ dark secrets?
Everybody knows who The Beatles were. John Lennon even said they were more famous than Jesus. They’re credited with being the first to do many things. Like the first band to play a stadium (Shea Stadium 1965), the first to use a harmonica (Love Me Do 1962). Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first album to include the lyrics printed on the covers, the first with no breaks between songs, and the first recording of sounds only dogs can hear.
They even include the first “devil horns” hand gesture on the cover of the “Yellow Submarine” album. But these are not the strangest facts of The Beatles.
Here are some weird, odd and kinky facts you might not know.
1.- John Lennon used to sleep in a coffin.
Some folks accused John of being a wife-beater and a pathological liar, but he had other weird behaviors. Did you know he used to sleep like a vampire?
According to one of their former managers, when they worked on the Jacaranda coffee bar, Allan Williams had an old, abandoned coffin on the premises. Lennon would sometimes nap in the coffin.
2.- Lennon’s love for cats was almost excessive.
Just as Dr. Eleanor Abernathy MD JD, better known as the Simpson’s Crazy Cat Lady, Lennon also loved them, owning over a dozen cats. Though he owned a couple of dogs, he preferred the company of his feline friends.
As a kid, he had a cat named after Elvis Presley, but one day, John discovered Elvis was a female when she gave birth to a litter of kittens. He kept the cat, and the cat kept the name.
3.- The Beatles’ first TV appearance wasn’t on the Ed Sullivan show.
You might have seen some video of February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan’s show featuring The Beatles, but you are wrong if you think it was their first appearance on American television.
The Liverpool band appeared for the first time on an American Network on November 18, 1963’s NBC News edition of the Huntley-Brinkley Report. The video, which aired over half a century ago, doesn’t exist anymore, but the studios recently discovered a copy of the audio in the archives.
In the audio, you can hear NBC News’ reporter Edwin Newman talking about the hottest musical group in Great Britain, called The Beatles:
At last, the British juvenile has someone immediately to identify with, not some distant American rock-and-roll hero. This weekend, under police protection, The Beatles appeared at the Winter Garden in Bournemouth. This is the actual sound of a performance by The Beatles. The sound, called the Mersey sound because Liverpool is on the Mersey River (you can hear “From me to You” in the background.) — Edwin Newman
4.- Yesterday’s original title was “Scrambled Eggs.”
Paul McCartney told author Barry Miles in his biography Many Years From Now,
“I woke up with a lovely tune in my head,” “I thought, ‘That’s great, I wonder what that is?’ There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano. I liked the melody a lot but because I’d dreamed it, I couldn’t believe I’d written it.” — Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney wrote the melody for Yesterday from a dream. To avoid forgetting it, he worked with the lyrics, “Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby, how I love your legs / Not as much as I love scrambled eggs.”
Paul wanted to be sure he hadn’t stolen the melody from somewhere else, so he played it to the band, and they confirmed it was an original melody. John and Paul wrote most of the Beatles’ songs together, but in this case, it took McCartney months to finish the piece.
The British label, Parlophone, didn’t want to release it, arguing “that fans would find it un-Beatles-like.” The American Label Capitol Records took the chance and released it on the album Help! in August 1965, and as a single in the United States the following month, reaching number one on the US charts.
So, the song “Scrambled Eggs,” which turned into “Yesterday,” became Rolling Stone’s and MTV’s top pop song of the 20th century, and it holds the record for the most-covered song in history (over 3,000 versions). Not bad for a little tune that Paul dreamed, perhaps while being a little hungry.
5.- The Beatles broke up when they were in their twenties.
Perhaps it was over creative differences, Brian Epstein’s death, Yoko Ono machinations, or just pure boredom. According to Paul McCartney, things were getting quite rocky for the Liverpool quartet. In September 1969, John announced he would leave the band, but it was unclear if it was temporary or permanent.
McCartney also said he would no longer be working with the band, like Ringo, who previously left the group and returned later. Everything changed when Paul McCartney made the official announcement of the Beatles’ breakup on April 10, 1970. None of the members were even 30 years old. Ringo, who was the oldest, was 29.
6.- The Beatles officially ended at a Disney World Resort.
Although the band was over after Paul’s conference, to make it official, the four Beatles had to sign the document. The entire ordeal took years slugging in the courts with their lawyers negotiating a satisfactory settlement. With the papers finished and ready to sign, the meeting would occur at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on December 19, 1974.
George, Paul, and Ringo were in the hotel. John, who was at his home nearby, decided not to turn up because “the stars aren’t right.” As May Pang (John’s assistant and girlfriend) told Lennon’s lawyer.
Ten days later, the lawyer flew to Florida, where John and May Pang were on their vacation at Disney World. This time, he was ready to sign as Pang recalls the moment in her book, “Instamatic Karma,”:
“When John hung up the phone, he looked wistfully out the window. I could almost see him replaying the entire Beatles experience in his mind. He told me to grab a camera and snap a shot of him putting pen to paper.”
“He finally picked up his pen and, in the unlikely backdrop of the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World, ended the greatest rock-and-roll band in history by simply scrawling John Lennon at the bottom of the page.” — May Pang.
On December 29, 1974, in a suite at a Disney World Resort, the Beatles officially ended with a stroke of John’s pen, on a document that years later Sotheby’s sold for $118,750.
7.- A dentist tricked the Beatles into trying LSD, and they discovered pot from Bob Dylan.
The Beatles were famous for using acid for years. Some people say that they even wrote the song “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” as an ode to LSD. But someone tricked them into using acid for the first time.
One night at a dinner at dentist John Riley’s house, apparently, the host spiked his guests’ coffee with acid after dinner without telling them. In an interview transcript on the book Lennon Remembers, by Jann S Wenner, John relates the event:
“He laid it on George, me and our wives without telling us at a dinner party at his house. He was a friend of George’s, and our dentist at the time. He just put it in our coffee or something. He didn’t know what it was, it was just, ‘It’s all the thing,’ with the middle-class London swingers. They had all heard about it and didn’t know it was different from pot or pills. And they gave it to us, and he was saying, ‘I advise you not to leave,’ and we thought he was trying to keep us for an orgy in his house and we didn’t want to know.” — John Lennon, 1970, Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner
Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to weed.
During an interview with Uncut magazine, McCartney revealed that Dylan was the first person to share a joint of weed with the group in the 1960s.
Paul told the magazine Ringo thought the “ceiling was moving.”
“It was at the Delmonico Hotel on Park Avenue and 59th in New York City in August 1964. We were in a hotel room, all being good old lads having our Scotch and Coke — it was an afterparty, I think,”
“Dylan arrived, and he went into the bedroom with his roadie. Ringo went along to see what was up. So he finds Dylan, rolling up, and he has a toke.”
“He came back in and we said, ‘What was it like?’ So Ringo says, ‘The ceiling is kind of moving down…,’”
“We all ran into the backroom going, ‘Give us a bit, give us a bit!’ So that was the very first evening we ever got stoned!” — Paul McCartney
After this experience, all four Beatles began smoking marijuana regularly.
8.- George Harrison lost his virginity, and the other Beatles cheered when he finished.
When we listen to “Love Me Do,” released on October 5th, 1962, we forget most of the Beatles were in their twenties, and George, who obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities, was just a teenager.
Therefore, it is no surprise that they experienced many first things together in their lives. Like the acid and marijuana events, Harrison experienced sex for the first time while playing with the group.
In one of their gigs in Hamburg, Harrison, 17, lost his virginity to a German Dancer, while John, Paul, and Pete Best, who was the drummer at the time, watched.
During an interview, Harrison recalled the experience:
“My first shag was in Hamburg, with Paul and John and Pete Best all watching. We were in bunk beds. They couldn’t really see anything because I was under the covers, but after I’d finished, they all applauded and cheered. At least they kept quiet whilst I was doing it.” — George Harrison.
9.- Calling call girls, and Hamburg’s STDs.
Rock Stars are well-known for their requests while they are on tour. From special menus, specific alcohol brands, chocolates, candles, or flowers, to other specific demands. One of the perks the group enjoyed during their America tour was having call girls waiting in their rooms.
In an authorized book about the Beatles, Paul revealed that while the band traveled across America, pre-paid prostitutes lined up at their hotels.
“There weren’t really orgies, to my knowledge,”
“There were sexual encounters of the celestial kind, and there were groupies. The nearest it got… There was once when we were in Vegas where the tour guy, a fixer, said, ‘You’re going to Vegas, guys — you want a hooker?’
“We were all, ‘Yeah!’ And I requested two. And I had them, and it was a wonderful experience. But that’s the closest I ever came to an orgy.” — Paul McCartney
Playing the sex roulette, it is just a matter of time you’ll bite the bullet, and since the Liverpool boys experienced multiple sex encounters during their Hamburg gigs, it isn’t strange they all contracted STDs.
Peter Brown, in his book ‘The Love You Make’, talks about several episodes that they would all line up for a penicillin injection. Brown as the Beatles’ personal assistant was in charge of multiple tasks, including once getting a sheep delouser to get rid of Paul’s crabs.
10.- When “Come Together” has another meaning.
They say that the group that plays together, stays together. And the Band did more than play, according to Paul. During an interview for GQ, they once masturbated together with John Lennon and three friends.
“What it was, was over at John’s house, and it was just a group of us.”
“And instead of just getting roaring drunk and partying — I don’t even know if we were staying over or anything — we were all just in these chairs, and the lights were out, and somebody started masturbating, so we all did.” — Paul McCartney
Bonus
John Lennon claimed to have encounters of the third kind with ET.
During the famous “Lost Weekend” period, while separated from Yoko Ono and staying with his new girlfriend, May Pang. John awoke one night, needing to look out his apartment window. They claimed seeing a flying saucer only 100 feet away, and taking photographs, but the pictures showed nothing.
The second time, John claimed bug-eyed aliens visited him one night in New York City. He opened his door, and found four small aliens waiting for him. When he tried to chase them, they blocked him with their minds.
They share the most iconic piano in Rock & Roll with Elton John, Carly Simon, and Queen.
In the 50s and 60s, the most famous studios were Abbey Road, Olympic, and Trident Studios.
It was on the last one that many famous albums used “the best rock-and-roll piano ever.”
The handmade Bechstein grand piano was notoriously difficult to play because of its stiff hammers, which made it perfect for the rock artists playing the keys, delivering the bright and crystal clear sound musicians loved.
This piano appears in David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Queen’s “Killer Queen,” Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, and “Your Song,” Carly Simon’s “You’re so Vain”, and The Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”
The famous piano went up for auction in May 2011, at £300,000 — £400,000, but they never revealed the final amount or the purchaser.
