Paul McCartney once tried to persuade Vladimir Putin to release a group of Greenpeace activists by quoting Beatles lyrics during a meeting. This information was revealed in a forthcoming documentary series titled On Thin Ice: Putin V Greenpeace, which highlights the struggles of climate activists who were jailed in Russia following a demonstration in 2013.
The demonstration was organized to monitor oil mining in Arctic Russian waters, but 28 of the campaigners were arrested and charged for hooliganism and piracy. In an attempt to aid their release, McCartney wrote a personal letter to the Russian President, calling on him to release the campaigners.
In the letter, McCartney noted that several years before he wrote a song about Russia in The Beatles’ White Album called “Back In The U.S.S.R.”, which contained one of his favourite lyrics: “Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it’s good to be back home.” McCartney appealed to Putin asking him to make this lyric come true for the activists.
The activists eventually served a three-month sentence before being released. In addition, Mark Ronson, a renowned producer, recently publicized a less sweetly-worded note from the former Beatles star, who had recorded a video targeting the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in his bid to get the band Foreigner inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.
It’s worth noting that the Beatles’ journey will also be featured in a series of four major films, with each one giving a perspective on the lives of one member of the Beatles. Each film will come out in 2027, and they are to feature the first-ever use of full life story and music rights of the Beatles. The project, which is by Sony Pictures Entertainment, is dubbed “innovative and groundbreaking” in the perspective of the movies’ dating cadence
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