The Beatles Ltd. changes its name to Apple Music Ltd.

On this day, The Beatles Ltd., formed in June 1963, changed its name to Apple Music Ltd. The company was later renamed Apple Corps Ltd. in January 1968.

The name “Apple” was suggested by Paul McCartney, who was inspired by “Le Jeu de Mourre”, a painting by René Magritte that he acquired through art dealer Robert Fraser.

The name “Apple” first appeared on the back sleeve of the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was released in June 1967. The first appearance of an Apple logo was on the packaging of the “Magical Mystery Tour” EP released in December 1967.

The first Apple logo featured a green, yellow and orange apple. It was replaced by a Granny Smith apple logo in mid-1968.

We were sitting around at EMI wondering, “What shall we call this thing?” We were looking through names, A is for Apple, B is for Banana, C is for Caterpillar, and we though, Yeah. Like a schoolbook. A is for Apple. That should be the name of the company. Then I thought, Wow, that Magritte apple is very much “an apple”, a big green apple, you know. I told the ad man about it.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Paul came up with the idea of calling it Apple, which he got from René Magritte. I don’t know if he was a Belgian or Dutch artist… he drew a lot of green apples or painted a lot of green apples. I know Paul bought some of his paintings in 1966 or early 1967. I think that’s where Paul got the idea for the name from.

Neil Aspinall – From “Those Were The Days 2.0: The Beatles And Apple“, by Stefan Granados, 2021

I had this really great mate, he was the owner of a gallery called Robert Fraser and he really knew his art, so I could get advice from him. And I enjoyed looking at those René Magritte, Belgian painter, and he knew his dealer. So Robert said to me “do you want to come to Paris and we’ll have dinner with this dealer, he’s invited us?” I said, “yeah right”. It was funny because Robert was gay and I told some of my friends I’m going to Paris with Robert. They went “are you sure”. I said “I’m quite secure about my sexuality”. Anyway… And the guy’s name was Alexander Iolas. And so, we have dinner and everything, it was above the gallery, so we go downstairs in these little stairs. And there were all those great paintings. An he’s like, you know, someone who loves his work. And I could now afford to buy a couple. Now I couldn’t, I mean you know, they are like, wow. But they were like three thousand pounds and now they’re worth a bit more but, yes, that kind of started my love of art. And in all of that, I saw this Apple and what happened one day, Robert knowing I loved this, I was out in the background in London doing a little music video with Mary Hopkin actually and I was busy and Robert knew I was busy. So I came back in from the garden and he’d left this little painting, little oil by Magritte, propped up on the thing and he had left, he’d just gone so and then one of the painting was a green apple and written across within Magritte’s writing was “au revoir”. So that is the coolest most conceptual thing anyone’s ever done. So yeah that’s where it came from. So people say “why was the Apple”, because you know there was an Apple before Apple… It was “a is for Apple”, we just like that it was near the beginning of the alphabet. So on any list, it would come early.

Paul McCartney – From Paul McCartney in Casual Conversation from LIPA, 2018

Some hippie designers were brought in and they came up with artwork depicting an old-fashioned variety of Cox’s orange pippin, all rosy red, green and yellow, which everyone loved because it was so friendly and nice, the kind of apple you’d find stuffed into your Christmas stocking. Initially, this logo was used on things for the Apple shop and for the notepaper. It was all very relaxed and harmonious but apparently not very businesslike.

Tony Bramwell – From “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“, 2005

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