The Beatles react to receiving MBEs (1965) | Music Through the Ages

On this day in 1965, The Beatles were awarded MBEs for their services to music, having been nominated by Prime Minister Harold Wilson for inclusion in Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday Honours list. The fab four spoke to ITN's Richard Lindley about how it felt to receive the honour. "It's nice to have," Paul McCartney told Lindley, "and it doesn't make you anymore respectable... I'm still a scruff." Ringo Starr quipped that he might have to travel to Buckingham Palace in his pyjamas if he couldn't find the appropriate attire of a morning suit. George Harrison recounted how, upon receipt of the letters informing them of the honour, the band thought they were being called up to the army – a joke that John Lennon pointed each of the Beatles had made to different news outlets. Lennon, for his part, would not hold on to his MBE. Politically outspoken on a range of issues, in 1969 Lennon returned his MBE in a public protest "against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts." On 13 June 2023, Sir Paul McCartney told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had used AI technology to "extricate" John Lennon's voice from an old demo in order to create what he referred to as "the final Beatles record". While McCartney did not specify, it is thought the track will be a complete version of "Now And Then", a demo composed and recorded by John Lennon in 1978 – two years before his death. #TheBeatles #Beatles #PaulMcCartney #JohnLennon #RingoStarr #GeorgeHarrison #MBE #BirthdayHonours #QueenElizabethII #ElizabethII #TheQueen #Honours #Politics #Protest #Vietnam #Biafra #Nigeria To license the footage featured in this clip, follow the link below: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/videos/... To search the ITN Archive collection on Getty Images, follow the link below: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/footage... 🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel (tap the bell icon and stay up to date with all the latest ITN Archive videos!) -    / @itnarchive   🎥 Follow us on Twitter -   / itnarchive   🎥 Like us on Facebook -   / itnarchiveitnp   🎥 Check out our TikTok -   / itnarchive1955