Their songs will always stay in our ears and our hearts: The Beatles are THE pop-culture phenomenon of the 20th century. They reached immortality with their songs and inspired millions – so let them inspire you! Follow these easy steps to become rich and famous…

1. Gather some promising young talent around you

You'd better start right now with your project. Success has to be planned as early as possible: John Lennon started playing with other hopeful musicians in high school and refined his style and song writing skills by practising on and on…

Firstly, you should therefore find out what your skills are. Then, you should watch out for others who might be talented in similar ways to exchange ideas and impressions - Paul McCartney joined John Lennon's band when he was only 15 years old! It is important to gather as much inspiration as possible to finally launch a long lasting product – whether it's a song, a show or just a really innovative car. So, find your own style by initiating a group of highly motivated geniuses and let them help you on your way to worldwide success.

2. choose THE NEXT CITY-TO-BE AND OVERWHELM IT WITH YOUR TALENT

"I didn't grow up in Liverpool. I grew up in Hamburg!", John Lennon declared in an interview once. The Beatles played some of their first concerts in the German port city where they went, still unknown to a broader public, at a very young age. Even though they performed in a former strip club, it wasn't just sex, drugs and rock’n'roll: they had to cope with long working hours and an audience that came for naked girls and was disappointed at first to find some teenage boys on stage. That was when they learned not just to play their songs but to perform.

Photo: Henry Mühlpfordt (GFDL)

The Beatles Square in Hamburg

3. GET A NEW HAIRCUT… OR SOMETHING ELSE TO STICK OUT

You might now immediately have the image of the notorious mop-top in your head. Back in the day, everybody with some style would ask his hairdresser to get him the Beatles’ cut. Thus, the band created their own trademark that was unique and easy for fans to copy.

Photo: Peter Brown (FAL)

John and Paul sporting the mop-top on 1966

Therefore, the next crucial step for you will be to develop a habit, a look or perhaps a smell (we recommend something that you can live with without getting sick of) that is distinctive, serves for identification and is available for your numerous followers. You should study the different subcultures already existing and pick whatever trademark that matches best with your ideas. The Beatles met a young photographer in Hamburg who sported one of the first mop-tops as a rebellion against his teachers. In the emerging student protests the band hit the nerve with their style. So go for something new, exciting and temporary. Sew some fantasy clothes, mix your own perfume or start carrying something weird around with you. It helps you to be recognised and might even be profitable if you can reproduce it and sell it as merchandise later on!

4. RAISE EVEN MORE ATTENTION BY ACTING EVEN WEIRDER

The Beatles reinvented themselves every few years and came up with new, seemingly nonsensical ideas all the time. So on your way to immortality don't hesitate to do something crazy – as long as it draws attention to your project and might still be considered avant garde. Have you ever seriously tried to understand what The Beatles are trying to say in "Yellow Submarine" or what they needed the uniforms on the "Sgt. Pepper’s"-cover for? It's probably impossible. But it just increased the already immense hype (and gave rise to speculations about extensive drug consumption).

It’s up to you whether you also want to travel to some exotic land and come back with a new philosophy and a guru or whether you just go for a brand new neon-pink tree house on one of the old oaks in Main Street. Just act weird – but never too weird for your fans and only to support your main project. This way, you should easily push sales figures and adoration – and you might even be dubbed knight one day…

5. CREATE LEGENDS AROUND YOU

To reach the ultimate stage of fame it is always useful to attract the attention of conspiracy theorists. You can start with a harmless story like Paul McCartney, who claimed that he woke up one morning with the complete melody of "Yesterday" in his head. This still makes people wonder where his subconscious could have picked up its ideas.

If you like more drastically steps try something along the lines of this: "Paul is dead!" Rumour has it that Paul died in a car accident in 1966 and was replaced by a doppelganger. The other Beatles then supposedly hid clues on their album covers and in their songs which revealed messages when being played backwards. Truth or fiction - the story kept journalists busy for years - and The Beatles in the magazines. Inventing stuff like this is always a bit risky but might pay off for you: the allegedly dead Paul McCartney is now one of the richest musicians alive!

Following these steps you should easily be able to become famous all over the planet, insanely rich and always surrounded by a group of hysterical groupies – provided you found your most ambitious project yet. So good luck on your way and… one last thing: please don’t get killed at the age of 40 already! We’d love to see you stick around for a while.

Thumbnail photo: United Press International (PD)