Real Love

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From Wikipedia:

[…] Although the song was released as single in both the UK and US on 4 March 1996, the first time the song was publicly aired had come on 22 November 1995, when the American television network, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired the second episode of The Beatles Anthology.

The single jumped into the British charts on 16 March 1996 at number four, selling 50,000 copies in its first week. However, the single’s progress in the charts was stunted by BBC Radio 1’s exclusion of “Real Love” from its playlist. Reuters, which described Radio 1 as “the biggest pop music station in Britain“, reported that the station declared, “It’s not what our listeners want to hear … We are a contemporary music station.“

Beatles spokesman Geoff Baker responded by stating the band’s response as “Indignation. Shock and surprise. We carried out research after the Anthology was launched and this revealed that 41% of the buyers were teenagers.“

The station’s actions contrasted strongly with what occurred at the launch of “Free as a Bird” the year earlier, when it became the first station to play the song on British airwaves. The exclusion of “Real Love” provoked a fierce reaction from fans, and elicited comment from two members of parliament (MPs). Conservative MP Harry Greenway called the action censorship, and urged the station to reverse what he called a ban.

An angry McCartney wrote an 800-word article for British newspaper The Daily Mirror about the ban, where he stated: “the Beatles don’t need our new single, ‘Real Love’, to be a hit. It’s not as if our careers depend on it. If Radio 1 feels that we should be banned now, it’s not exactly going to ruin us overnight. You can’t put an age limit on good music. It’s very heartening to know that, while the kindergarten kings of Radio 1 may think the Beatles are too old to come out to play, a lot of younger British bands don’t seem to share that view. I’m forever reading how bands like Oasis are openly crediting the Beatles as inspiration, and I’m pleased that I can hear the Beatles in a lot of the music around today. As Ringo said to me about all this, who needs Radio 1 when you’ve got all the independent stations?” The letter was published on 9 March, the day after Radio 1 announced the “ban”.

The station’s controller, Matthew Bannister, however denied that the failure to include the song was a ban, but merely meant that the song had not been included on the playlist of each week’s 60 most regularly featured songs. The station also hit back by devoting a “Golden Hour” to the group’s music as well as music by bands influenced by the Beatles. This “Golden Hour” concluded with a playing of “Real Love“.

“Real Love” fell out of the British charts in seven weeks, never topping its initial position of number four. In the US, the single entered the charts on 30 March, and reached number 11; after four months, 500,000 copies had been moved in the US. […]

Paul McCartney’s letter to The Daily Mirror:

The Beatles don’t need our new single, ‘Real Love’ to be a hit it’s not as if our careers depend on it. We’ve done all right over the years, and if Radio 4 feels that we should be banned now it’s not exactly going to ruin us overnight. But as see it, Radio 1 is part of the BBC, and the BBC is paid for by you and me.​

OK, I can afford the license fee – can afford a good few dozen license fees – but from my time growing up in Liverpool I know that a lot of people have to work damn hard to find the cash. And if you’re paying through hard graft for something, it’s not such a crime to expect that, when you’ve handed over your pennies, you get what you want. If you shell out a couple quid for a beer, you expect a decent pint. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Radio 1. In a Mirror poll, 91% of readers said they wanted to hear ‘Real Love’ played on Radio 1. Is Radio 1 saying its judgment is better than almost all the British public? Is saying that all the people who bought the record and yesterday put it at No. 4 in its first week don’t know what they like?​

I can understand that Radio 1 just wants to be a young person’s station. Fine. I have no problem with that. But it’s not just young people who pay the license fee to pay Radio l’s wages. People of all ages pay that fee, so how come they don’t get a look in?​

This whole issue about something being good because it’s young – and not so good if it’s not so young – is a weird one. You can’t put an age limit on good music. Just because I don’t suffer from teenage spots doesn’t mean I can’t play the guitar any longer. Are the records of Muddy Waters or B. B. King or Ray Charles no good because they’re not wearing shorts to school? It’s also very heartening to know that, while the kindergarten kings of Radio 1 may think the Beatles are too old to come out to play, a lot of younger British bands don’t seem to share that view.​

I’m forever reading how hands like Oasis are openly crediting the Beatles as an inspiration, and I’m pleased that I can hear the Beatles in a lot of the music around today. That’s what matters most not the views of Radio 1.​

It matters that you’ve passed your music on and that maybe it’s helped to inspire or influence in some little way. Having taken a look at the picture of Trevor Dann, the guy who’s stopped `Real Love’ getting on the air, I must say I’m not surprised – I doubt if anything much would get past him. He looks like a teacher I once knew and I’d be very suspicious if he did play `Real Love’. He’s no spring chicken either. The small group of people at Radio 1 who make these decisions say each record is judged on `artistic’ merit? Who is the judge of that merit? Just them? As a business man, if Radio 1 bosses were working for me I’d also be a bit suspicious of how well this new Radio 1 and its artistic judgment – is doing.​

To me, it doesn’t look too clever to have lost five million listeners by not playing stuff they want to hear. If common sense and the view of the guy in the street had anything to do with it, you’d think they’d be playing for an audience, not against one. But is Radio 1 as important as it was? With all the commercial stations around now, perhaps it’s Radio 1 that is past its time. As Ringo said to me about all this, who needs Radio 1 when you’ve got all the independent stations? But maybe they’re right?​

Perhaps the public doesn’t know what it likes and needs to be told. Maybe the Beatles never knew anything much about music either. When you hear that all of a sudden you’re not good enough for Radio 1 it’s very heartening to learn that, in fact, you’re more than good enough for 91% of the readers of the Daily Mirror. I was very pleased and encouraged to learn Mirror readers are behind the Beatles on this row with the BBC, because that’s what matters. It means we’re getting the people’s vote and that was all that the Beatles ever were – the people’s band.​

We were only a bunch of scruffs from Liverpool.​

Paul McCartney

Press release:

There was never a more romantic band than The Beatles. Throughout their career they only really said one four-letter word – l-o-v-e.

Love is the theme in almost every song they wrote. Although the actual word only appears in the titles of 10 of the 213 Beatles’ compositions (‘All My Loving’, All You Need Is Love, ‘And I Love Her’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘It’s Only Love’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Love You To’, ‘PS I Love You’, ‘She Loves You’, and ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’) the loving feeling hallmarks The Beatles’ musical history.

Love is all around in Paul’s ‘Here, There And Everywhere’. There’s the lust for constant love in “Ooh I need your love, babe… eight days a week”. There’s the idolized love of George’s “‘Something’ in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover”. There’s the desperate cry for love in John’s ‘Help!’ There’s the happiness of being in love in John’s “I’m in love with her and I feel fine.” And, of course, there’s Paul’s classic lost love lament of ‘Yesterday’, “Love was such an easy game to play”.

Even the last song they ever recorded together – the aptly-titled ‘The End’, at the very end of Abbey Road, their last album – highlighted the importance of love to The Beatles when they sang their very last lines: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”.

For The Beatles, all you ever really did need was love. And now they are releasing their very last love song as their absolutely final word.

Aptly it’s called Real Love.

Real Love is the final track from the Beatles’ reunion sessions that were the talk of last year after Paul, George and Ringo came together in the studios for the first time in 25 years to re-record unreleased songs penned by the late John Lennon.

Unlike ‘Free As A Bird’, which basically Paul, George and Ringo had to piece together and write extra parts for around an unfinished demo track of John’s, ‘Real Love’ was completed as a song by John before he died. However, to make it a Beatles song, Paul, George and Ringo spent hours in Paul’s Sussex studio layering over drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitars and instantly recognizable Beatles harmonies.

The result is a more catchy song than Free As A Bird and is many people’s favorite of the two for being the more “poppy”. In essence it passes the record industry’s “whistle test” – one listen and you can whistle along with it.

Real Love was different from Free As A Bird in that it had all the words and the music and so it was a bit more like being side men to John – but that was very joyful and good fun and I think we did a good job”, said Paul.

“I think ‘Real Love’ is slightly deceptive, it’s one of those songs that the more you hear it the more you go ‘ooo’”.

Recording sessions for ‘Real Love’ began at Macca’s studio in February, 1995 and lasted for a week. In June, Paul and George came together again to make the final edit. It is probably the last time that The Beatles will record together as Beatles. As Paul admits, that day is probably done.

“I think it may be a non-starter, just the three of us. You know, maybe we’ve done enough. If you look at our career, hell, it wasn’t a bad one. And now we’ve done the Anthology, had great success with that, and I think the only thing that might excite me and George and Ringo now would be some crazy idea someone might have or finding another crazy John track that we’ve all got to work on.

“But the three of us working on our own – I just can’t see it myself. But you never know”. If this really is, as it seems, the end, then it is fitting that the world’s most celebrated band is ending it all with a love song.

For Paul, leaving love as The Beatles’ last message is important. As it is, The Beatles led the Love Generation and influenced the spread of peace and kindness throughout the Sixties. But, Paul warned, the world could have gone a worse way had they used their power to tell their millions of fans to riot and violently rebel.

“The one thing that I’m really proud of with The Beatles is that I’m glad of the content of the songs, of what we said in them”, said Paul.

“Because if you listen to Beatles’ songs, we’re saying good things. We’re saying love and peace. ‘Let It Be’, there will be an answer, ‘Hey Jude’, don’t make it bad.’ Looking back on it, none of it says go and screw your brother.

“Our songs weren’t anthems of rebelliousness. We weren’t saying ‘come on kids, hate your parents.’ Although we could have done, we had that power – we could have stood for Satanism instead of love – and if we had chosen to use that power the whole thing could have gone a very different way.

“We could have gone off on the whole psychedelic thing and have really majored on that and forgotten the love thing. But love was important to us.

“I thought spreading love was important then and I still do now. I really do think that’s all there is. I don’t think you need much else and a lot of the problems in society that you’re getting now is because there isn’t enough love, especially between families. Kids are just not getting it.

“But I think the overall impression that The Beatles left people with was an affectionate feeling. Most people I talk to say ‘Aah, great days’, they’ve got lovely memories of it. And if there is any residue of love for The Beatles, I think it’s because we had that very honest, loving attitude and our message still remains a very positive, loving message”.

As he sang long ago, “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Last updated on September 8, 2020