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In 1997, Beatles producer George Martin was stunned by this Brazilian all-girls choir rendition of ‘Because’

He was walking through the Brazilian airport with his wife.

By

Ryan Reed

the beatles, george martin, the beatles because, choirs, brazil, airport, george martin choir, abbey road
In 1997, George Martin was visibly moved by a choir performing The Beatles' "Because." – Photo credit: Screenshots via the_beatlesrevolution on Instagram

Who deserves the honorary title of “fifth Beatle“? You could make a case for several people: guest keyboardist Billy Preston, early drummer Pete Best, even manager Brian Epstein. But on a musical level, no one was more crucial to The Fab Four than producer George Martin, who worked on all of their albums.

That close connection only highlights the beauty of a recently unearthed video: In 1997, an all-girls choir surprised a visibly emotional Martin by singing The Beatles’ “Because” at a Brazilian airport. 

It’s unclear exactly where the clip originated, but a Brazilian TV network appears to have shared it during a broadcast. Multiple social media profiles have also posted the footage, including Instagram account the_beatlesrevolution, who offered some additional context. The video, they write, shows Martin arriving at the Rio de Janeiro airport to find the Meninas Cantoras de Petrópolis choir sweetly singing “Because.”

“What a beautiful, brilliant human he was”

The video opens with Martin approaching the choir, his eyes welling. (It’s a fitting response for a song with the lyric, “Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry.”) He smiles, vigorously applauds, and even wipes the tears from his face. Beatles fans reacted in the comments with a similar warmth, including these top replies: 

“A genius & a gentleman!! ❤️”

“My god, the beauty of this moment… I’m weeping.”

“George Martin – he had one of the most amazing ‘jobs’ ever, the musical history he helped shape was astounding. 🙌”

“This guy wrote a history! There’s no musician or a Beatles fan that wouldn’t cry to this. Tears with goosebumps!”

“Wonderful legacy❤️”

“When you realize that what you’ve achieved with your friends (and what friends!) is truly remarkable”

“Just a beautiful video. Thank you so much for posting it. Sir George played a huge part in the Beatles story and here we see the joy he had, many years after they broke up, still being loved for his contribution to the Fab Four’s legacy ❤️”

“I am moved by the performance as well. What a beautiful brilliant human he was. I am grateful he existed in my lifetime.”

“Because” exemplifies George Martin’s connection with The Beatles

“Because,” a highlight from 1969’s Abbey Road, was an ideal choice as a Martin tribute. The recorded version, built on lush vocal harmonies, opens with one of his signature instrumental contributions: a chiming electric harpsichord.

The song also symbolizes his deep relationship with The Beatles: While he was less involved in recording 1970’s Let It Be, which featured final production by Phil Spector, Martin resumed his usual role on their studio swan-song Abbey Road. (For clarity’s sake, The Beatles didn’t complete and release Let It Be until after Abbey Road, even though they recorded it before.) 

In an archival interview, Martin explained that “Because” features triple-layered three-part harmonies from John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. (While drummer Ringo Starr doesn’t appear on the recording, he did provide a metronomic hi-hat pulse in the others’ headphones.)

For the song’s arpeggiated riff, Lennon was inspired by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” after hearing Yoko Ono play it on piano. In multiple interviews, he recalled telling her to play the chords “backward,” using the result as a springboard into something new. 

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    Mayor of Osaka visibly stunned after stranger donates $3.6 million in gold bars to fix city’s water pipes

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    Other bizarre anonymous donations

    Osaka’s golden donation isn’t the first odd or eccentric mystery donor case—and likely won’t be the last.

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    In 2021, a package sent to City College of New York contained $180,000 in cash. Delivered to the physics department, it sat unopened for more than a year. The donor remained a mystery, but a note inside said they had enjoyed a “long, productive, immensely rewarding to me, scientific career.” The money was ultimately used to fund undergraduate scholarships.

    In 2025, a charity bucket at a Salvation Army location in Vermont contained a gold coin wrapped in a dollar bill. The coin was worth $4,100.

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    50 years later, the iconic ‘Sesame Street’ counting song is overwhelming Gen X with nostalgia

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    Gen X is sometimes referred to as “the Sesame Street generation,” a moniker many of us wear with pride. Sesame Street was a childhood staple, along with Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and The Electric Company. Countless Gen Xers owe a great deal of our early childhood education to those public television programs.

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    “The concept and design was devised by our animation director, Jeff Hale. It was his idea that I create basic tracks then record as ‘wild-lines’ the Pointers shouting the various 2-11 numbers in different intensities and different compliments of voices. Then, each time the pin ball hit a selected number he would drop in these (off-key—couldn’t be helped) wild lines.”

    He also said that he realized after the fact that he “may have stolen the first five notes of the Woody Woodpecker Song.” Pretty sure no one noticed.

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    As terrific as these snow creations are, it takes a certain temperature and snow type to make it all work—even for the most brilliant artists. A 2015 article in Smithsonian Magazine explains the science behind it, citing perfectly-named physicist Dan Snowman, who says, “Snow can be either too wet or too dry.”

    “Scientists actually classify snow based on its moisture content—the amount of free water relative to ice crystals—not to be confused with the amount of water the snow would produce if melted. Snow comes in five categories: dry (zero percent water), moist (less than 3 percent), wet (3 to 8 percent), very wet (8 to 15 percent), and slush (more than 15 percent).”

    For snowman-building weather, it’s best to have moist snow. “Dry snow is like a loose powder with particles that don’t stick together very well, while slush is too fluid to hold a shape.”

    Temperature-wise, the weather needs to be just a bit above freezing. As for the “where” of it all: “Once the raw material is on the ground, it’s time to select your snowman-building surface. Level ground is best, but asphalt absorbs and holds heat from sunlight, so avoid driveways. A flat spot near the bottom of a large hill could provide shade and keep your creation safe from direct warmth from the sun—although it may wind up as a target for sleds.”

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  • Philosophy expert shares the 300-year-old rule to tell if someone is a good or bad person
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    Philosophy expert shares the 300-year-old rule to tell if someone is a good or bad person

    It was true then, and it’s even more true now.

    Tod Perry

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    What makes a ‘good person’ is hard to quantify, but sometimes, you just know it when you see it. But that’s the problem, you can’t always see it. Have you ever met somebody new and wondered if they were a good person with a mischievous streak or a bad person who can turn on the charm and behave occasionally? Determining someone’s true moral character is important, especially if you start dating them or have a business relationship. It is crucial to get to the core of who they are and know whether they can be trusted.

    Popular TikTok philosopher and Substack writer Juan de Medeiros recently shared a great way to determine whether someone is good or bad. His rubric for judging someone’s moral character comes from a quote commonly attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German poet, playwright, novelist, and intellectual known for works like Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther.

    How can you tell if someone is a good or a bad person?

    “Here’s a pretty good indicator that somebody is a bad person and vice versa, how you can spot a good one. And this goes back to a simple rule, a moral aphorism by Goethe in which he writes, ‘Never trust someone who is unkind to those who can do nothing for him,’” de Medeiros shared in a TikTok video with over 45,000 views.

    “Never trust someone who is unkind to those who can do nothing for him.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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    De Medeiros then provided real-world ways to determine whether the person you have questions about is good or bad. “A bad person is unfriendly to strangers, to the elderly, to children, to service staff, to anybody they’re not trying to impress,” he said. At the same time, the good person treats people equally, no matter what they can do for him. They’re good for goodness sake, not to get anything out of it.

    “A good person carries grace within them and shares it freely with abundance. A good person treats other people as they would like to be treated as well. And it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter what your status is, they will treat you and see you as their equal,” de Medeiros said.

    What is ‘The Waiter Rule’?

    Goethe’s quote echoes the common red/green flag test that many people have on dates. Sure, it’s important if your date is courteous and treats you well on the date, but you really want to watch how they interact with the server. The rule is often called “The Waiter Rule,” outlined by William Swanson. Swanson, the former chairman and CEO of Raytheon Company, wrote in his book, 33 Unwritten Rules of Management, “A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter—or to others—is not a nice person.” Boxer Muhammad Ali is also known for saying something similar: “I don’t trust anyone who’s nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position.”

    Rudeness toward the waitstaff also indicates that the person isn’t very smart. It’s not wise to be rude to someone who is in charge of your meal for the night.

    Conversely, a good person is kind to others without looking for anything in return because they want to spread joy and believe that others deserve respect. You are what you do, not what you think or believe, and when someone treats others with goodness, it’s a clear indicator of the type of person they are.

    In the end, we are all a mixed bag of behaviors and attitudes, and even the most perfect of us has a devil on their shoulder telling them that it’s okay to occasionally get into a bit of mischief. However, when it comes down to determining someone’s core character, how they treat those who can do nothing for them says everything.

     

    This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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  • A man at a bar bought a rude stranger a drink and used it as a brilliant lesson about consent
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    A man at a bar bought a rude stranger a drink and used it as a brilliant lesson about consent

    “One person noticed. That was enough.”

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    The situation was familiar enough to be exhausting. A man at a bar had bought a woman a drink. She didn’t want to go home with him. He apparently felt those two things were in conflict.

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    @tripptokk10

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    “I slide it over to him,” he explained in his TikTok video, posted December 20, 2025. They took the shots together. Then he leaned in and made his point: “So are you going to come home with me or what?”

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    In the video, filmed casually at home in a robe and bonnet, he explained what he was responding to: “This one’s for the boys who think buying a woman a drink at the bar means that she should go home with you. No, it doesn’t. She doesn’t know you.”

    A man stares at a woman at a bar.
    A man stares at a woman at a bar. Photo Credit: Canva

    The same creator posted a second video about another night, different bar, same basic dynamic. This time a man had approached one of his female friends, put his hands on her shoulders without asking, and kept going despite her visibly trying to shrug him off. When she tried to walk away, he reached for her hand. The TikTok user stepped in and told him to back off.

    What happened next is the part that stayed with people. The man started apologizing, directing the apology not at the woman he’d been grabbing, but at the guy who’d intervened. “You didn’t do anything to me,” the creator told him. “You were harassing her.”

    The man’s response: “I respect you so much.”

    He described how confused and frustrated he felt in that moment. “Go apologize to her and change your behavior,” he said in the video, “because an apology without changed behavior is just a manipulation tactic.”

    That line hit harder than the shot glass moment for a lot of viewers. The dynamic he was describing, where a man harms a woman and then seeks absolution from another man rather than the person he actually hurt, is one that gets talked about in academic gender studies literature but rarely gets explained so plainly in a 60-second video in a bathrobe.

    Neither incident is complicated. Nobody got arrested, nobody threw a punch, nobody did anything that required a news alert. What spread was simpler than that: one person noticed something wrong, said something proportionate, and kept his head on straight when the whole thing got weird. Apparently that’s still worth talking about.

    This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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  • Why the iconic Boston accent is disappearing as the pronunciation of ‘R’ makes a comeback
    Why the infamous Boston accent is disappearing as the pronunciation of "R" makes a comeback. – Photo credit: Canva
    ,

    Why the iconic Boston accent is disappearing as the pronunciation of ‘R’ makes a comeback

    ​The Bostonian accent is becoming a rarity in the city.

    Jacalyn Wetzel

    Accents are regional in America. Two people can be from the same state but live hours apart, resulting in wildly different accents. The same is true for Massachusetts. People living in Cambridge don’t have the same accent as those living in Boston.

    The South Boston accent is so iconic that it has captured the hearts of people who have never even been there. This is likely due to a few famous Bostonians. Mark Wahlberg and his brothers, as well as the best-friend duo of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are all from Boston. They’ve let their native Boston accent shine on the big screen more than once, helping cement the accent’s popularity.

    Boston, South Boston, Boston accent, regional accent decline, losing Boston accent
    Boston, Massachusetts. Photo credit: Canva

    But sadly, the endearing way Bostonians drop their “R” for the “ah” sound is fading, and fast. In a few short decades, people may not understand why someone would teasingly ask a Bostonian to say “car keys.” The famous “park the car in the Harvard Yard” line won’t hit the same. All Rs will be present and accounted for.

    Where’s the Boston accent going?

    So what’s happening with the accent that many Americans like attempting to mimic? The simple answer: humans migrate. We’ve been migrating since standing upright became a thing. Sure, we don’t migrate to follow food sources anymore, but we do follow jobs, social safety-net programs, and educational opportunities. As people from other states and countries move into Boston, and Bostonians move out, the accent becomes a casualty.

    Boston, South Boston, Boston accent, regional accent decline, losing Boston accent
    A group of people take a selfie. Photo credit: Canva

    Katherine Loftus, a native Bostonian and mom of two school-aged children, is a little sad about the accent disappearing. Her young children don’t have the iconic accent and tease her a bit for not pronouncing her Rs.

    “It might sound funny because it’s almost sort of this surface level, like, ‘what’s the big deal if your kids don’t have the accent that you have,’ but I have to admit that there’s a real sadness to the fact that they don’t have it at all,” she tells The Boston Globe. “There’s something for me that I’m very proud of that I sound like my dad, that I sound like my grandparents, that I sound like when you hear me, you know who I am.”

    According to linguist Ezra Wyschogrod, the mesmerizing South Boston accent has already reached its peak. He explains that there’s a trend toward the homogenization of American speech as people move more frequently. The City of Boston Planning Department reports that there are currently more than 100 different languages spoken in Boston. Additionally, more than 285,000 Boston residents are multilingual.

    “A lot of one’s dialect, and even one’s language, gets codified at very young ages amongst peer groups, and there are much less peer groups in Boston where you have all the kids that are all Boston kids,” Wyschogrod tells The Boston Globe. “New accents form all the time, and for all we know, whatever new mix that Boston is, there could be some new accent that everyone just starts noticing.”

    Bostonians didn’t always have the iconic accent

    It turns out the missing R is something that only started around 100 years ago. Now, that pesky consonant is returning after a brief centennial hiatus. Wyschogrod doesn’t want people to worry. No one is revoking anyone’s Boston card if they don’t drop their Rs.

    “There was this interesting period where we were R-less, and now we’re back to this R-full speech,” Wyschogrod reveals. “We were distinctly New England before that. We were distinctly New England during this R-less period, and we’re going to be distinctly New England after.”

    The South Boston accent isn’t the only one getting the boot. As people do what they’ve been doing since the dawn of time—move—dialect is evolving. Today reports that multiple studies have shown that the “Southern twang, the Texas drawl, and even the beloved Brooklynese are all slowly changing.”

    Marjorie Feinstein-Whittaker, a speech and communications consultant, explains to Today that while the Boston accent might fade, it isn’t going to disappear completely.

    “I don’t think the accent is ever going away, honestly, but I do think it’s changing,” she says. “Our lives are much more varied than they used to be.”

    Keep Reading →
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