Last week in my history class, we listened to and discussed The Beatles' career. The Beatles began their career in Liverpool at the Cavern Club. Today, the Cavern Club holds Beatles Festival Liverpool. The event is being held for a week in August of 2012, for anyone wild enough to take part in the festivities.
The Beatles are most popular for songs such as "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields." These popular songs are all landmarks that are found in Liverpool.
The Beatles played at the Cavern Club in Liverpool about 300 times and helped the venue become one of the most popular in the world! They made their debut on February 9th, 1961. "The Cavern was sweaty, damp, dark, loud and exciting," Paul
McCartney recalled, "as usual, we didn't start out with much of an audience, but then people began to hear about us. We could always entertain them." Though there was no information on how their first performance went, the group reportedly made three pounds. For George Harrison, the Cavern was a very casual atmosphere. The Cavern Club helped The Beatles gain public attention from fans and from management opportunities. Two and a half years after their first appearance, they had played 292 shows at the club. In November 1961, Brian Epstein caught The Beatles at the club and weeks later signed them to a management contract, having them be one step closer to stardom.
The Beatles got the idea to write a song about Penny Lane from a street in Liverpool.
Prior to researching Liverpool, I had no idea where The Beatles got the idea of most of their songs. The lyrics of the song, explain the everyday life on Penny Lane in the 1960's.
Strawberry Fields was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home. I think the song is a relaxing song and I think it fits into how the Beatles took drugs. So I think the song can be intended as the group having hallucinations.
Fran this was a really good blog post! I can tell you definitely put a lot of effort into it and it was really thought out! I never knew the two songs were landmarks in Liverpool and they had their own story behind it. OH and I also found it really interesting that there's a week long festival in Liverpool dedicated in honor of the band. Interesting blog post, great work, keep it up, the page looks totally FRANTASTIC!
ReplyDeleteNice job, Fran. It was good to make more connections to the Liverpudlian roots of the band.
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