Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have recalled the moment they told late producer George Martin that they would only play music they wrote – not songs written by others.
The video clip is lifted from Ron Howard’s documentary Eight Days A Week and features on the deluxe collector’s Edition DVD and Blu-ray, which was released last week.
McCartney says: “George Martin wanted to give us stuff he knew would be more successful. He gave us a song called How Do You Do It? that had been written by guys from Tin Pan Alley. We did a version of it, took it back up to Liverpool and like all our mates just laughed.
“We realised then that, ‘OK, we’ve got to better that other stuff.’”
Starr calls the episode “one of the magic moments of the Beatles” and adds: “I remember that moment so vivid that thank God we stood up for ourselves.
“We just wanted to do Lennon and McCartney songs. We actually looked him in the eye which was very heavy for those days because he was the producer and we were the lads.
“He took a chance on us – he joined in.”
Eight Days A Week was released in cinemas in September, with Classic Rock calling it “a labour of love, so fond, fast and captivating it would convert a non-believer.”
Martin died earlier this year aged 90.
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Buyer's Guide: George Martin – the legendary producer of The Beatles and more...
