All Content Related to the Beatles
John Will Always Be My Favorite Beatle. But Lately I Keep Reaching for Paul.
When I first got into the Beatles, John was always my favorite. John Lennon was the loud one, the political one, the one who would say the uncomfortable thing and then double down on it. And if he changed his mind, he didn’t quietly pretend he’d never said the first thing. He’d say that too.…
Beatles Bootlegs: early limits of copyright enforcement
The Beatles encountered unauthorized recordings long before the music industry had tools to respond effectively. Live performances, studio outtakes, and broadcast recordings circulated outside official channels with increasing frequency during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These recordings challenged existing copyright law and revealed how poorly equipped courts and rights holders were to address informal…
Why the “Let It Be” film stayed locked away for years
The Let It Be documentary follows the Beatles during their final stretch as a working band. The film captures rehearsals, arguments, silences, and moments of that feel downright uncomfortable to watch. After its release in 1970, the film slipped out of circulation for decades. Legal red tape kept it there. For many Beatles fans, the…
Northern Songs: How Lennon-McCartney Lost Control
John Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing songs together as teenagers. Those songs became the foundation of the Beatles and, within a few years, one of the most valuable publishing catalogs in popular music. The shift from songwriting to corporate ownership arrived early, quietly, and with consequences that followed both men for the rest of…
How George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” changed copyright law
The lawsuit over My Sweet Lord occupies a strange place in music history. The song remains beloved, but to songwriters, the case remains unsettling. In reaching the decision in this case, the court introduced a form of liability that does not depend on intent, memory, or deliberate copying. For songwriters, the ruling altered how similarity…
The Beatles and Bad Contracts
The Beatles’ financial conflicts did not begin with a single lawsuit or end with the band’s breakup. They developed through a series of contracts, management decisions, and accounting practices that locked control away from the artists themselves. Those decisions created royalty disputes that extended well beyond the band’s breakup. Allen Klein played a central role…
Paul McCartney went to court to protect the Beatles
Paul McCartney’s 1970 lawsuit against the other Beatles remains one of the most misunderstood moments in the band’s history. It is often described as betrayal or abandonment. From a legal perspective, it reads very differently. The lawsuit functioned as an attempt to stop further harm at a moment when informal solutions had already failed. As…
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” and John Lennon’s refusal to look away.
Sunday Bloody Sunday appears on Some Time In New York City as one of John Lennon’s most explicit political statements. Written with Yoko Ono and recorded in early 1972, the song responds directly to Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civil rights demonstrators. The song does not attempt…
“Give Ireland Back to the Irish” is the moment Paul stopped being safe.
“Give Ireland Back to the Irish” was Wings’ debut single, released in February 1972. It marked a rare moment where Paul McCartney stepped directly into politics. What happened that made Paul and Wings write it The song was written in direct response to Bloody Sunday, which took place on January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern…
“Sue Me, Sue You Blues:” The Heartbreak of Going to Court
Sue Me, Sue You Blues sounds like the moment when hope finally gives out. It carries the weight of something already broken, spoken aloud after everyone involved knows there is no way back. Listening to it feels like arriving late to a room where the damage has already been done and realizing it can’t be…
Frank Zappa, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and “Jam Rag”
Why authorship clarity matters early The dispute between Frank Zappa and John Lennon offers a useful lesson for musicians. It shows how uncertainty around authorship and ownership, even during an informal live performance, can follow a song for decades once it enters permanent circulation. The disagreemhttps://youtu.be/mBAgKLOTWDg?si=Vm9jAhnsHotMQOtment began with a single night of music and ended…
Book Review – Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney
Title: Wings: The Story of a Band on the RunAuthor: Paul McCartneyEditor / Introduction: Ted WidmerPublisher (U.S.): Liveright Publishing (W.W. Norton & Company)Publisher (U.K.): Allen Lane (Penguin Books)Publication Date: November 4, 2025Page Count: Hardcover: approximately 560–580 pages (edition dependent)Audiobook Length: 19 hours and 6 minutesISBN (Hardcover): 978-1324096306 Paul McCartney recently released a book on Wings,…
Book Review: John Lennon vs. the USA by Leon Wildes
Title: John Lennon vs. the U.S.A.Author: Leon WildesPublisher: E.P. DuttonPublication Year: 1987 Page Count: Approximately 350 pages (edition dependent)Audiobook Length: Approximately 11 hoursISBN: 978-0525245960 I read John Lennon vs. the USA because my Immigration Law professor recommended it while I was studying abroad in Cambridge. He knew my academic focus and he knew my deep…
Ode to Wings’ Back to the Egg (1979)
Back to the Egg is the last Wings studio album, released in 1979, and it feels like the band was trying to prove something one last time. By the late 1970s, Wings had already gone through multiple lineup changes as well as enormous commercial success. Band on the Run had cemented them as a real…
Ah, Look at All the Lonely People
Here I am, alone on Christmas Eve, thinking about my favorite Beatles song. The first Beatles song I ever heard was Eleanor Rigby. I was in 8th grade English in 2007, thirteen years old, sitting in Mr. Robillard’s classroom when he played it for us as part of a lecture. We talked about the violins,…
Stephanie Iken, Attorney at Law 