John Lennon provides supporting vocals and guitar on David Bowie’s song “Fame”. John also came up with the title. Using Lennon’s title, and a guitar riff written by Bowie band member Carlos Alomar, Bowie quickly developed the song and recorded it with his band and John at The Power Plant studio in January 1975. Earlier, in the same one-day session, they had recorded a cover of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe”. Both tracks appear on David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ album, released March 1975.
Even though his contribution to the writing of the song was minor, Lennon is given co-writing credit. The songwriting credit is listed as David Bowie, Carlos Alomar, and John Lennon.
The double album released on November 22, 1968, though more commonly known as “The White Album”, is actually eponymously titled The Beatles. There are no photos on the plain white cover of the album, and the only text is the band’s name (and a serial number on the early LP and CD releases). Earlier pressings of the album had the band’s name embossed, and others have it printed in gray.
Originally the album was titled A Doll’s House. That name was given up when it was discovered that British progressive rock band Family released an album with the similar title of Music in a Doll’s House.
The Beatles was the first album to be released by the band’s own record label, Apple.
“Sie Liebt Dich” is the German version of “She Loves You”. The Beatles recorded it at the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris on January 29, 1964. At this time they also recorded “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”, a German version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.
The songs came about because the German division of EMI, Electrola Gesellschaft, thought that the only way to sell Beatles records in their country was if they were in German. The Beatles thought the idea was stupid, but George Martin convinced them to do it anyway. The tracks were a big hit in Germany, but as it turns out, today their English versions are much better known there.
The original two-track tape of “She Loves You” had been destroyed by EMI, so they had to re-record the instruments from scratch for “Sie Liebt Dich”. After 13 takes they had the backing track and then overdubbed their vocals in a single take.
Click the Play button to listen to “Sie Leibt Dich”:
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The “mountain” on the cover of John Lennon’s 1973 Mind Games album is the face of his wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon had designed the cover himself. It is seen by many as symbolism for John walking away from Ono’s huge influence on him. The Lennon’s had split up in mid-1973, around the time the recording sessions for Mind Games was to begin. Their separation was to last 18-months before they reconciled.
