The Beatles took inspiration from all sorts of places. They often took inspiration from their contemporaries. The Fab Four’s hit “Eleanor Rigby” was influenced by, of all things, a horror movie. First ...

The Beatles wrote many songs centered on fictional characters, from the title character of “Mean Mr. Mustard” to Desmond and Molly Jones from “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” “Eleanor Rigby” appears to be about ...

The violin has showed up on a few classic rock tracks through the years, and it always seems to hit just right.

More than 50 years after The Beatles broke up, the music made by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr continues to inspire and intrigue fans old and new. And beyond the music, ...

Excerpted from The Beatles Lyrics: The Stories Behind the Music, Including the Handwritten Drafts of More Than 100 Classic Beatles Songs by Hunter Davies. Out now from Little, Brown and Company. It ...

The gimmicky title is doubly misleading: “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” is neither a mystery nor Beatles-themed, but it is an elegantly wrought tale of anguish. In outline, the film is ...