Where Paul McCartney got The Beatles’ ‘rose tinted glasses’ from

The “rose-tinted glasses” worn by The Beatles in several of their music videos were picked up by Paul McCartney from an optician.

Iconic glasses featured in music videos for The Beatles were, according to McCartney, picked up out of a necessity to make the drab recording studio that much better. Ordering “half a dozen” different colours, the Let It Be songwriter brought them to the sessions as a way of livening things up. George Martin, The Beatles’ long-serving producer, added that fluorescent poles were also added into the studio to kindle the band’s creativity. McCartney shared: “If you remember, we all came in with rose-coloured or funny-coloured specs, and where I was living.

“There was a little optician round the corner, and I sort of popped in and said, ‘Do you do different coloured lenses and everything?’ and they said, ‘Yeah, I do anything.’ So I ordered up like, half a dozen different colours, you know, rose, green, blue, and took them to the sessions.

Producer Martin confirmed he remembers the glasses, but also remembers the Fab Four’s strong dislike for the drab studio. White walls and the lack of atmosphere proved stifling for the band, who were offered some fluorescent pipes to liven the place up.

Martin replied: “That was to give you a bit of atmosphere in the studio. I remember all of you saying, ‘This is a sterile place, it’s just white walls and bloody awful.’ I had to do something to liven it up. So they put in three fluorescent stands with red, blue, and white.”

But McCartney says it was “red and green”, not “red, blue, and white”. The Wings frontman says he knows this “because I’ve got them in my studio.” Martin would add they were installed to give the Fab Four some “inspiration”, with McCartney jokingly adding: “And boy, did it ever. We grooved after that.”

McCartney has spent decades in the studio, and one of his major projects with The Beatles after the band disbanded was in remastering Let It Be. His dislike for the work Phil Spector provided the album prompted McCartney to create Let It Be… Naked.

Fans now consider the album, which released in 2003, to be more a personal project from McCartney than a fully-fledged Beatles project. One fan writing on the r/Beatles subreddit shared: “Let It Be… Naked just feels like McCartney’s personal revision, not a Beatles album.

“The whole thing is presented as if it’s some return to The Beatles’ original vision, but really, it’s Paul’s. He didn’t like what Phil Spector did, especially with The Long and Winding Road, so years later, he remixed the album to sound the way he wanted it.

“But the truth is, no one else was pushing for this. Lennon thought Spector’s version was ok and worked with him on solo albums. Harrison was fine with it and collaborated with Spector on All Things Must Pass. Ringo was neutral. It was only Paul who had a problem, and by the time Let It Be… Naked was made, the others were gone or not involved.”