Beatles - Matthew Weiner Battled To Get Beatles Into Mad Men

The group's song Tomorrow Never Knows was played during an episode of the current fifth season of the popular drama, which aired in the U.S. on Sunday (06May12), and TV bosses are rumoured to have paid a massive $250,000 (£156,250) for the privilege of including the track.

Creator Weiner has now revealed he spent "a few years" negotiating with bosses at the Beatles' Apple Corps label in a bid to buy the right to use the song in the show, and he even had to break his own secrecy rules by sharing confidential plot twists.

He tells Watoday.com.au, "It was always my feeling that the show lacked a certain authenticity because we never could have an actual master recording of the Beatles performing... Not just someone singing their song or a version of their song, but them, doing a song in the show. It always felt to me like a flaw. Because they are the band, probably, of the 20th century...

"Whatever people think, this is not about money. It never is.They are concerned about their legacy and their artistic impact... You cannot buy your way into these things... I had to do a couple things that I don't like doing, which is share my story line and share my pages. It was hard."

Weiner also admits that if Apple Corps chiefs had rejected his application once again, he would have rewritten the whole plotline to get them to change their minds.

He adds, "I would have changed the story."