The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle,beat, and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several musical styles, ranging from pop ballads and Indian musicto psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as “Beatlemania”, but as the group’s music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s.
Taken from Wikipedia
I could name hundreds of well known songs by The Beatles, but I am going to mention just my favourite ones and the ones you can use in your class of English with the students.
Yesterday
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go I don’t know she wouldn’t say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Why she had to go I don’t know she wouldn’t say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm
“Its about a Woman that was sick. She went to the hospital and died there the night after she was admitted. Her Son thought she left him because He may have said the wrong thing.”
Imagine
This is John Lennon’s song not The Beatles’ one, but it is also one of my favourite and it is perfect for the celebration of Peace Day at school. You can sing all the school together or to finish the class after watching Martin Luther King’s manifesto, and each student should finish the sentence “I have a dream…”.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
“Imagine is all about liberation and something we must all believe in if we want to make a better place for humanity. Lennon understood this better than anyone an this why Imagine will always be the best song associated with the Beatles because it chrystalizes and encapsulates what the Beatles stood for.”
Here you have a website with lots of activities for The Beatles songs: isl Collective
Across the universe
The music of the Beatles and the Vietnam War form the backdrop for the romance between an upper-class American girl and a poor Liverpudlian artist.
You can use it at the end of the unit to remember all The Beatles songs and also you can use it in collaboration with the teacher of History and talk about the Vietnam war, do a cooperative project.
TED talk
It is not exactly about The Beatles but it is about Tribes and the influence of Internet on society and he makes a comparison with Beatlemania and current teens.
There have been a little bit of mystery about the “fith beatle” and here you have a TED talk that maybe sorts out the doubt.
English in Paradise 