Beatles Quiz
One of the most recorded songs in history came to its writer in a dream.
A Beatles quiz with answers that follows the band from Liverpool clubs to the last concert on a London rooftop. It asks about people, places and recordings, with no song lyrics to complete.
Did you know?
- The band's name is a pun. It combines 'beetles', a nod to another group named after insects, with 'beat', the driving rhythm of the music they played. Earlier names for the group included the Quarrymen and the Silver Beetles.
- Early in 1962 the group auditioned for a major London record company and was turned down. The decision is often quoted as one of the worst in music history: the band was reportedly told that groups with guitars were on the way out.
- The pedestrian crossing outside the studio on Abbey Road, shown on the famous album cover, was given protected status as a site of historic interest in 2010. Fans from around the world still stop the traffic every day to recreate the photograph.
How four musicians from Liverpool changed pop music
The Beatles grew out of a teenage band formed in Liverpool in 1957. John Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church fair that summer, and George Harrison joined soon afterwards. They learned their trade the hard way, playing for hours every night in the clubs of Hamburg in Germany between 1960 and 1962, which gave them stamina and a huge repertoire. At first they were paid little and slept in a storeroom behind a cinema screen.
Beatlemania
Success in Britain came in 1963 and in the United States the following year. Their first appearance on American television in February 1964 was watched by about 73 million people. Crowds screamed so loudly at concerts that the musicians often could not hear themselves play. Unusually for the time, the band wrote most of its own songs, which encouraged other groups to do the same. Their haircuts and collarless suits were copied almost as widely as their music.
The studio as an instrument
In 1966 the group stopped touring and devoted itself to recording. Working with tape played backwards, unusual instruments and orchestras, it treated the studio as a place to invent sounds rather than simply capture a performance. The 1967 album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' was presented as a complete work from start to finish and changed how albums were made and listened to.
After the break-up
The band split in 1970 and all four members went on to solo careers. Their recordings have never been out of fashion; they remain among the best-selling artists in history. In 2023 a final song was completed from an old home recording by John Lennon, using new software to separate his voice from the piano. Liverpool's airport is named after John Lennon, and the city's Beatles sites draw visitors from all over the world.