Trepanning is an ancient practice wherein a hole is punctured through someone’s skull. There’s no proof that it actually does anything positive, and different cultures have different ideas as to what the benefits are. John Lennon became fascinated with it, and tried to convince Paul McCartney to do it with him. Paul talked to GQ and said ““John was a kooky cat. We’d all read about it. The ‘ancient art of trepanning’, which lent a little bit of validity to it because ancient must be good.” He explained: “All you’d have to do is just bore a little hole in your skull and it lets the pressure off – well, that sounds very sensible. ‘But look, John, you try it and let me know how it goes.'”

When The Beatles were making Abbey Road, they were trying to come up with an album name and noticed a sound engineer’s cigarette brand, Everest. They liked the box and decided that’s what the albums’ name was. The idea was to climb the mountain and do a photo for the cover, and plans were being made. Eventually, they got lazy and decided they didn’t want to travel for a photoshoot. This led to simply naming the album “Abbey Road” after the studio, so they could just take a picture outside instead.

John Lennon met a guy named Alex Mardas, who was a TV repairman and artist. John was intrigued by a box blinking lights he made, so they started hanging out. At one point, he told them he could build force-fields around their houses to repel fans, so they hired him as Head of Apple Electronics.

Around 1968, The Beatles were staying in Greece, and a guy told them about Trinity Island, which was apparently shaped like a guitar. They checked it out, and decided they wanted to buy it. There were four smaller islands around it, so the plan was for each Beatle to have their own, and then they’d record on the main island, and live like a commune. Their company was making plans, until they backed out at the last minute.

They were really, really close friends. Paul McCartney said in their early years, after band practice, they had a lot of free time. A couple times John Lennon turned off the lights and announced they were all going to masturbate together. Apparently, towards the end of the “process” John like to yell out “Winston Churchill!” to ruin everyone else’s flow.

Before they were famous, The Beatles did a few engagements in Hamburg, Germany. Eventually George Harrison got deported for being underage, and the band was kicked out of the closets they lived in behind a movie theater. As revenge, Paul McCartney and their first drummer, Pete Best, nailed a condom to the wall and set it on fire. The walls were cement so it didn’t burn - but they still got deported for trying.

By 1966, The Beatles had made two movies off their three-film contract with United Artists. When searching around for what the third film would be, someone thought of Lord of the Rings. Paul would be Frodo, Ringo as Sam, George as Gandalf and John as Gollum. They tried to get Stanley Kubrick to direct, and came pretty close, but it didn’t end up happening.

The famous interview where John claimed “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus” had a lot of things going on in it. He took the interviewer around his house, and one room was dedicated to “gadgets” he bought, thought most of them didn’t work. The only thing that did “work” was gorilla suit, that he seemed to be kind of obsessed with. He keeps talking about it through the interview. It reads: "I thought I might need a gorilla suit," he said; he seemed sad about it. "I've only worn it twice. I thought I might pop it on in the summer and drive round in the Ferrari. We were all going to get them and drive round in them but I was the only one who did. I've been thinking about it and if I didn't wear the head it would make an amazing fur coat-with legs, you see."

Another time they were looking to fill the obligation for their third film, The Beatles were supposed to play the vultures in The Jungle Book. It was nixed when John Lennon delcared his hatred for Disney, saying "“There’s no way The Beatles are gonna sing for Mickey f*****g Mouse. You can tell Walt Disney to f**k off. Tell him to get Elvis off his fat a**e, he’s into making crap f*****g movies.”

Another Alex Mardas scheme, when The Beatles were in India, they asked Alex to build a giant radio tower for the Maharishi. That way, his teachings could be heard all across India. Alex didn’t know how to do that, and he eventually accused the Maharishi of sexual assault, probably just so he could get out of that job. The Beatles believed Alex, and they all left India the next day.

This is not as dramatic as that sounds. When recording “Tomorrow Never Knows”, John Lennon wanted a particular, distorted echoey sound on his voice. His only idea was to tie himself upside down to a ceiling fan, turn it on, and start recording. Eventually the engineer Geoff Emerick convinced him to just use a different speaker.