Most polls to decide the best band in the history of rock and roll come up with one answer, and they are probably right. We all have our favourites, but most followers of rock music would concur that without the Beatles, much of what followed would have been very different. They were a rock and roll band who became a sophisticated songwriting team who became a challenging psychedelic outfit who became successful solo artists: what a CV! You will occasionally come across people who will tell you that the Beatles were crap – please tell them to shut up. Here, we have mixed questions about the Beatles with ones about the four individual members of the group.
Answers: here
1 In 2009, the remastered versions of the Beatles’ albums hit the charts. Which of them went highest (to No5)? And which 92-year-old topped the album chart in the same week with a greatest hits album to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of the start of the Second World War?
2 What connects W.C. Fields, occultist Aleister Crowley, Robert Peel, Dylan Thomas, Karl Marx and Marlon Brando? Where do pop artists Jann Haworth and Peter Blake fit in?
3 Which Paul McCartney Beatles lyric did novelist A.S. Byatt say had the ‘minimalist perfection of a Beckett short story’? Which McCartney composition from the same album, Revolver, was on the reverse of the double-A-side number one single?
4 In ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, of what were the yellow and green flowers made, and what were the rocking-horse people eating?
5 What connects the Beatles’ songs ‘If I Needed Someone’, ‘Taxman’, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’? Which track from Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band belongs in this group?
6 How many holes did the Beatles find in Blackburn, Lancashire? Where did they tell us?
7 Who played the drums on ‘Back In The USSR’ on the White Album? And to which American song was ‘Back in the USSR’ a tongue-in-cheek response?
8 To where do the Beatles travel to help out in the animated film The Yellow Submarine? Which bad creatures have taken control there?
9 Who produced all of the Beatles’ albums except Let It Be? Which instrument did this classically-trained musician play on some Beatles tracks?
10 ‘Across the Universe’, ‘The Long and Winding Road’ and ‘Get Back’ are on which Beatles album? Where were they filmed playing live for a documentary of the making of the album?
11 Who directed the 1965 film Help! in which the Beatles did battle with an evil cult? What was the film that the same director made with the band in the previous year as a fictional documentary of their lives?
12 Ringo had a UK Top 10 hit and a number one in the US with which lyrically dubious rock-and roll-cover in 1973? Which US rockabilly guitarist and singer had the original hit with this Sherman Brothers song in 1961?
13 ‘I Saw Her Standing There’; ‘It Won’t Be Long’; ‘A Hard Day’s Night’; ‘No Reply’; ‘Help!’; ‘Drive My Car’; ‘Taxman’; ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’; ‘Back in the USSR’; ‘Yellow Submarine’; ‘Come Together’. What is the significance of this list of Beatles’ songs, and what completes the set of twelve?
14 What was Ringo’s first major hit as a solo artist in 1971? On which multi-artist live album released later that year did he play it?
15 Which song off Sgt Pepper was a reworking of a tune Paul McCartney wrote when he was 15? Who were the grandchildren?
16 What was the most commercially successful single, written by George Harrison, by his post-Beatles supergroup the Travelling Wilburys? What fictitious name did he adopt for this project?
17 ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ and ‘All My Loving are on which Beatles album? And who wrote ‘Roll Over Beethoven’?
18 The success of the single ‘My Sweet Lord’ made which George Harrison album the best-selling album by a solo Beatle? The opening track, ‘I’d Have You Anytime’, was co-written with Bob Dylan; which other Dylan song does he cover on the album?
19 The Beatles covered a Smokey Robinson track on With the Beatles: what was it? And which Larry Williams song off Help! was their last cover version with an attributable songwriter?
20 What was the name of the record label set up by George Harrison in the mid-seventies, sharing its name with a poorly-received album from 1974? Which single, taken from 1987 album Clouds, got him back into the UK Top 10 for the first time in 14 years?
21 From 1963 to 1969, every Beatles single went to number one – apart from one. What was the exception, written at the same time as the songs for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? What was the last of these number one singles (it was the story of a marriage)?
22 Which two John Lennon solo albums hit number one in the UK (the second largely because it coincided with the singer’s murder)?
23 What instrument did George Harrison use for the first time on ‘Norwegian Wood’ on Rubber Soul? He would later take lessons on the instrument from which maestro?
24 Which John Lennon song was re-released and topped the UK charts in January 1981, a month after his death? Which Lennon song off the same album did Roxy Music cover and take to number one in his memory two months later?
25 ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, ‘Got to Get You Into My Life’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ are on which Beatles album? In which year was it released?
26 When Rocky Raccoon fell back in his room on the White Album, what did he find? Which other animal is celebrated in a particularly silly George Harrison song on the same LP?
27 The Beatles’ last live tour was in 1966: what controversy during this visit to the US set them against playing live?
28 What were the two duets Paul McCartney recorded with Stevie Wonder on the album Tug of War?
29 What is the significance of skiffle group the Quarrymen to the history of The Beatles? How about Rory Storm and the Hurricanes?
30 Paul McCartney has released eight solo pop albums since 1990. Can you name the two missing from this list: Off the Ground (1993); ______ (1997); Run Devil Run (1999); Driving Rain (2001); Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2003); Memory Almost Full (2007); Kisses on the Bottom (2009); ______ (2013)?