The Beatles broke a lot of new ground in music.
When I hear some of the earlier Beatles tunes in particular, I’m drawn back to when I was a little kid, pestering my brother. He was a Beatles fan, and being 13 years older than me, had been aware of the changes in the American music scene when they landed, starting (at least in his case) with their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Now, any group of rock fans will have arguments over The Beatles, ranging from them being horribly overrated to them being the greatest thing to ever happen in music. My brother, now pushing 80 – old hippie that he is, is still fond of The Beatles. He has millions of people who agree with him. And while I was never a huge fan, they did make a big impact, setting the tone for a generation, and they did have a few truly great songs. It’s almost impossible to pick six that stand out; in fact, I can’t, so here are seven.
Yesterday (1965): Written by Paul McCartney, this rather melancholy tune has been said to be a paean to a lost romance, in the “I said something wrong” vein so common among youths. Paul McCartney later said the melody of the song came to him in a dream, while he was sleeping at the house of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. When he awoke, he later recounted, he rushed to a piano and played to prevent forgetting it.
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A Day In The Life (1967): The 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was, in my estimation, kind of a mixed bag. This was when The Beatles were starting to change, their style moving from “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to “I Am The Walrus,” and this one had some of those leanings. John Lennon and Paul McCartney collaborated on the writing and scoring; Lennon later said:
I have to add this one, because of a certain event about a month from now; When I’m Sixty-Four (1967): In less than a month, I’ll be hitting this milestone myself. My wife assures me she’ll still need me and will still feed me when I’m sixty-four. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (1968): From the famous White Album, this is a fun song. Unlike a lot of the band’s work, it describes two people in a pretty traditional British middle-class relationship, at least what that looked like in 1968: From a first meeting, to marriage, a home, and kids. While the couple Desmond and Molly go through lives, the one constant is that Molly keeps singing; “In the evening she’s a singer with the band.”Paul and I were definitely working together, especially on "A Day in the Life" ... The way we wrote a lot of the time: you'd write the good bit, the part that was easy, like "I read the news today" or whatever it was, then when you got stuck or whenever it got hard, instead of carrying on, you just drop it; then we would meet each other, and I would sing half, and he would be inspired to write the next bit and vice versa. He was a bit shy about it because I think he thought it's already a good song ... So we were doing it in his room with the piano. He said "Should we do this?" "Yeah, let's do that."
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All You Need Is Love (1969): Written by John Lennon and released as a non-album single, this was written as a contribution to the 1967 BBC-produced international television special “Our World.” The special was broadcast in 24 countries, with between 400 and 700 million viewers. The trouble I have is that every time I hear this song, I think of this:
Very sad.Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (1969): Paul McCartney is responsible for this oddity. It’s a weird tale of a medical student who murders people with a hammer; it’s got a strangely upbeat sound, given the dark, dark tone of the actual lyrics. It’s weird enough of a contrast that I still like it. Paul McCartney later claimed that the song was “symbolic of the downfalls of life.” Color me skeptical.
Let It Be (1970): Every time I listen to this song, it brings on a wistful feeling. It was, in many ways, The Beatles’ swan song, their last hit single. But more than that, it evokes a mood, a calm acceptance of anything unavoidable that life might throw at you, a message implying that you must remain calm, deal with it, and accept the things you cannot change:
And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow
Let it be
That’s not a bad message. And on this day, less than 48 hours after… what happened to Charlie Kirk, it may be a more appropriate message than ever.
The original Beatles fans are getting old and fading out. Today, as of this writing, of the band, only Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still alive, and they’re pretty long in the tooth. Their music, though, will be around long after they – and we – are long gone.Let’s see some of your favorites – the comments, once again, are all yours.
