The Beatles

Released: October 28, 1996

Songwriter: George Harrison

Producer: George Martin

[Verse 1]
I look at you all, see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

[Verse 2]
I don't know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you

[Verse 3]
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

[Verse 4]
I don't know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don't know how
You were inverted
No one alerted you

[Verse 5]
I look from the wings at the play you are staging
While my guitar gently weeps
As I’m sitting here, doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weeps

The Beatles are arguably the most famous, critically-acclaimed, and successful rock band of all time—certainly the preeminent group of the 20th century. They started out as four teenagers playing grimy basement clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, but they progressed to become world-beating rock stars who are still influential to this day.

John Lennon first formed a skiffle group called The Quarrymen in March 1957. A fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined shortly thereafter, eventually inviting his friend George Harrison to audition for the band. After finally impressing John with his guitar skills, George was asked to join—but this juncture would be short-lived as John’s departure to college signaled the other quarrymen to go their separate ways.

By 1960, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison had re-branded from ‘Johnny & the Moondogs’ to ‘The Silver Beetles’ at the behest of their new bass player, Stuart Sutcliffe. The name would eventually evolve into ‘The Silver Beatles’ by July of that year, before settling on ‘The Beatles’ come August—just in time for their trip to Hamburg with new drummer, Pete Best. Though club residencies in Germany would prove fundamental to the group’s progress as a whole, the tour turned out to be a blessing and a curse, following the deportation of a then-seventeen-year-old George Harrison, and the eventual tragic death of Stuart Sutcliffe.

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