James McCartney’s acoustic ballad Primrose Hill, co-written with Sean Ono Lennon, was drawn from childhood vision in Scotland

The most famous songwriting credit in history, Lennon-McCartney, has been resurrected – though for a song written by the Beatles’ sons.

Primrose Hill, a single by Paul McCartney’s son James, has been co-written with Sean Ono Lennon: an acoustic ballad with a shuffling backbeat and ruminative guitar soloing.

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Penned by Paul McCartney as tribute to the civil rights movement, and featuring Black female country artists, it makes perfect sense for the superstar to feature it on Cowboy Carter

Written by Paul McCartney for the Beatles’ 1968 double album The Beatles (AKA “the White Album”) Blackbird isn’t the most obvious song to turn up 55 years later (retitled Blackbiird) on the new Beyoncé album. However, it makes perfect sense for the superstar to cover it on her so-called “country album”, Cowboy Carter . Where casual listeners could be forgiven for thinking Blackbird is a song about a small winged visitor to the garden – the Fab Four’s delicately lovely original does, after all, begin “blackbird singing in the dead of night …” and include birdsong – the song is actually steeped in the civil rights movement and female emancipation, themes that resonate deeply with Beyoncé.

McCartney penned it as a tribute to the Little Rock Nine, a group of students who had faced racial discrimination after starting at the all-white Little Rock high school in 1957. The incident attracted national attention because it was a test case of Brown v Board of Education, a supreme court ruling that said segregation in such schools was unconstitutional. Arkanas governor Orval Faubus didn’t agree and sent in the national guard to stop the students entering the premises. However, after federal troops were then brought in to escort them in, the fledgling civil rights movement had nine early heroes and the attention of the world – including McCartney.

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Designer laments the state we’re in but at Paris show says ‘the clothes should never be compromised’

Michael Jackson’s daughter between two Beatles on the front row, and a Spice Girl backstage with Charlotte Rampling. David Byrne on the mood board and an apple-leather mock-croc vegan trenchcoat with a sparkling mesh swimsuit made from recycled aluminium sequins on the runway. Kate Moss’s daughter catwalking in a turquoise minidress of responsibly sourced alpaca to a soundtrack of an environmental manifesto voiced by Olivia Colman and Helen Mirren. It can only be the Stella McCartney show.

“Well, I mean, we’re in a bit of a state here, aren’t we?” said McCartney of the slogan vest that read “About Fucking Time”. “I always want the platform of Stella McCartney to have an environmental message. I am here to remind people that this is one of the most harmful industries. But I’m not here to make people depressed and scared. I want to celebrate Mother Earth and all of her creatures and to remind us all to be conscious of that, but at the same time, I want it to be an uplifting experience.”

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Beatles singer says the line harks back to time he ‘embarrassed’ his mother for ‘talking posh’

Paul McCartney has revealed the inspiration behind the lyric “I said something wrong” in the Beatles hit song Yesterday.

McCartney said the line may have been subconsciously inspired by a moment when he mocked his mother for sounding “posh”.

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Following the news that Mendes will direct four fab films about the Fab Four , our critic picks his fantasy lineup

Just when we were getting sick of the Marvel Cinematic Universe … Sam Mendes comes along with the Beatles Cinematic Universe. It’s a quartet of interlocking movies about the Fab Four , each centred on one band member, and with the fascinating promise of overlaps and POV shifts, perhaps inspired by Lucas Belvaux’s triple-decker Trilogy pictures or Joao Canijo’s mirror image films Bad Living and Living Bad. Mendes’s moptop movies may tag quadrilaterally around key moments … Shea Stadium, the Maureen Cleave interview, Lennon’s death? But who to cast? Here is my fantasy lineup.

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Singer, guitarist and co-founder of the Moody Blues in the 1960s who later enjoyed success with Paul McCartney’s band Wings

Denny Laine, who has died aged 79 from lung disease , was best known as a long-term member of Paul McCartney’s band Wings from 1971 to 1981.

He contributed vocals, guitars, percussion and keyboards on all seven of their studio albums, from their debut Wild Life (1971) to Back to the Egg (1979), and including Band on the Run (1973), a chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic that delivered big hit singles with Jet and the title track, and is often cited as Wings’ finest hour.

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Software developed for Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back has been used to separate Lennon’s vocals from a demo tape he left to Paul McCartney

Now and Then, the long-awaited “final” Beatles song featuring all four members, is to be released next week thanks to the same AI technology that was used to enhance the audio on Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back.

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” Paul McCartney said in a statement. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”

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Merle Frimark was already a huge fan of the Fab Four when she started working for them. Here she recalls being in the room as they put the finishing touches on Come Together – and reveals her unseen snaps of her encounter

On the afternoon of 23 July 1969, I was a nervous 18-year-old American on my way to EMI Recording Studios on Abbey Road in St John’s Wood. Inside, the Beatles were putting the finishing touches on the song Come Together , which would end up on Abbey Road . An endless stream of pilgrims would soon arrive at the pedestrian crossing on the cover, and the studios would be renamed to match.

As I entered, I heard voices and wailing guitars. Their assistant Mal Evans greeted me and put me at ease. John, Paul, George and Ringo were scattered around the studio. The place was bustling, with crew setting up, moving equipment and microphones, placing towels over the drum heads. Then came the introduction. The boys – as everyone seemed to refer to them – were reminded that I was from the New York office. They all smiled; I felt warmly welcomed. Then they got down to business. Not wanting to be intrusive, I took some candid photos; I was by no means a professional photographer, and this is the first time they’ve been published.

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Mick Fleetwood and Peter Frampton also joined country star on her cover of Beatles’ 1970 hit

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have reunited to team up with Dolly Parton for her cover of Let It Be.

The country music star’s piano-led version of the 1970 single features the two surviving Beatles as well as Peter Frampton and Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood.

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