The Beatles are often remembered for their flawless songwriting, timeless melodies, and polished pop. From the haunting strings of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ to the euphoric echo of ‘Hey Jude’, their catalogue helped define generations.

But behind the perfectionism and critical acclaim, the Fab Four also sometimes embraced chaos. And according to Paul McCartney, no track captures that spirit like one of their lesser-known B-sides: ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’.

Recorded over multiple sessions between 1967 and 1969, ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’ stands out against almost everything else the band produced. Described by McCartney as “insane”, the song is recognised for its surrealistic humour.

The recording began during the band’s productive Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band period in May 1967. At the time, The Beatles were experimenting freely in the studio, having stopped touring and started treating the studio itself as a creative instrument. The track was then shelved for almost two years.

When The Beatles finally returned to the song in 1969, they decided to take it in a completely different direction. Rather than trying to craft a conventional pop tune, they tried a bit of absurdity, assembling unrelated musical fragments and spoken word interludes in a collage.

Unusual even by late-Beatles standards, the track doesn’t follow traditional song structure. Instead, it jumps between lounge jazz, ska, cabaret, and comedy voice-overs, with Lennon and McCartney adopting exaggerated personas throughout.

McCartney has since reflected on the track with fondness. Speaking about it years later, he said: “People are only just discovering the B-sides of Beatles singles. They’re only just discovering things like ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’ – probably my favourite Beatles track, just because it’s so insane. All the memories.”

Adding to the song’s unusual legacy is the fact that Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones contributed to the recording, not on guitar, but on saxophone.

McCartney later recalled how unexpected the collaboration turned out to be. “He arrived at Abbey Road in his big Afghan coat,” McCartney said. “He was always nervous, a little insecure, and he was really nervous that night because he’s walking in on a Beatles session. He was nervous to the point of shaking, lighting ciggy after ciggy. I used to like Brian a lot.”

McCartney assumed Jones would join them on guitar: “I naturally thought he’d bring a guitar along to a Beatles session and maybe chug along and do some nice rhythm guitar or a little bit of electric twelve-string or something, but to our surprise, he brought his saxophone. He opened up his sax case and started putting a reed in and warming up, playing a little bit. He was a really ropey sax player, so I thought, Ah-hah. We’ve got just the tune.”

Jones’s raw saxophone lines added yet another unpredictable layer to a track already chaotic in the best ways. ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’ was finally released as the B-side to ‘Let It Be’ in 1970.

In a sea of Elvis Presley biopics, documentaries and dramatisations, one stands out for centring itself not on the King himself, but on one of the most significant personalities of the Elvis universe – and it will be on TV tonight.

Written, directed and produced by Sofia Coppola, 2023’s Priscilla is a quiet, stylised and emotionally charged portrait of Priscilla Presley. The film is based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, written by Priscilla with Sandra Harmon, and Priscilla Presley herself served as an executive producer on the project.

The film stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis, charting the early beginnings and slow unraveling of their romantic relationship.

It starts with a chance encounter at a party in Germany in the late 1950s, when Priscilla was just 14 and Elvis was already a global superstar.

From there, it follows her life as she moves to Graceland, navigates the pressures of living in Elvis’s orbit, and grapples with identity, control and personal freedom in the shadow of one of the world’s most famous men.

Spaeny’s performance earned widespread praise, winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. Elordi’s take on Elvis, meanwhile, offered a contrast to the more bombastic portrayals of the singer – focusing instead on his mood swings, vulnerabilities and erratic behaviour behind closed doors.

Unlike Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis, which focused on spectacle and the singer’s career highs, Priscilla strips away the glitz to tell a more intimate, grounded story from Priscilla’s perspective.

Sofia Coppola’s signature style – understated visuals, pastel tones and a strong female-oriented lens – adds to the dreamlike, at times suffocating atmosphere of life inside Graceland.

The film was a critical success and generated considerable attention for its restrained storytelling. Though it didn’t receive any Academy Award nominations, it appeared on several year-end critics’ lists and was praised for centring a narrative rarely explored in mainstream music biopics – the cost of fame on the people standing just outside the spotlight.

The supporting cast includes Ari Cohen as Priscilla’s father, Dagmara Domińczyk as her mother, and Tim Post as Vernon Presley, Elvis’s father.

But most of the film’s emotional weight rests on Spaeny, who captures Priscilla’s transformation from star-struck teenager to a woman trying to reclaim her autonomy.

Priscilla airs tonight, Sunday April 20, on BBC Two at 10 pm.

With every album in the 1990s, Radiohead scrapped the rulebook or any preset formula and rebuilt their sound from scratch – going from grunge-tinged outsiders to one of the most progressive and critically acclaimed bands in modern music.

After the angst of Pablo Honey and the grandeur of The Bends, Radiohead hit new heights with 1997’s OK Computer – an album that became a landmark in alternative music and placed the band among the greats.

But with success came pressure: how do you follow up an album widely considered a masterpiece? For Thom Yorke, the answer was surprisingly going in the complete opposite direction.

Looking back on it in an interview with Rolling Stone, Yorke opened up about just how difficult the process was for what would eventually become Kid A – and he didn’t hold back when describing the strain he put on his bandmates.

“The others didn’t know what to contribute,” he said. “When you’re working with a synthesiser, it’s like there’s no connection. You’re not in a room with other people. I made everyone’s life almost impossible”.

Released in 2000, Kid A ended up stunning critics and fans alike. In the album, Radioheard replaced their soaring guitars and sweeping choruses with glitchy beats, icy textures, abstract lyrics and a futuristic sound reminiscent of Yorke’s obsession with artists like Aphex Twin, Autechre and DJ Shadow.

To get there, though, was anything but smooth. The sessions were chaotic and uncertain, and long stretches passed without progress. Jonny Greenwood taught himself to play the ondes Martenot, a rare early electronic instrument, the band argued over direction, and ideas were started and scrapped.

Yorke, battling personal anxiety and creative paralysis, admits he retreated into himself – more focused on texture and mood than conventional songwriting. The collaborative magic that had defined earlier albums was harder to reach.

Even within the band, opinions were split at the time. Guitarist Ed O’Brien once described the sessions as “the most difficult, the most confusing,” but also acknowledged the necessity of that discomfort. The payoff came in the legacy: a record that challenged genre, defied expectations, and laid the groundwork for an entire generation of experimental acts.

The hard work ended up paying off: even without a promotional single, Kid A debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and became Radiohead’s first number-one album on the US Billboard 200.

It was branded pretentious by some listeners, but by the end of the decade, it was a constant fixture in lists of best albums of the time chosen by specialised media – such as Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and the Times.

Kid A went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 2001, and was nominated for the Album of the Year award.