THE BEATLES

“And in the end, the love you take

is equal to the love you make.”

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  "A"

EDITED AND IMPROVED INTRO

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Main Decade: 60's 

Main Eras:

Rock & Roll II, Early Sixties (1960-1966)

Psychedelia (1966-1969)

Hard Rock (1968-???)

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Key Members:

John Lennon, Rythm Guitar and Vocals

Paul McCartney, Bass and Vocals

George Harrison, Lead Guitar and Vocals

Ringo Starr, Drums 

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Key Songs: 

A Day In The Life, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, Oh! Darling, Dear Prudence, Eleanor Rigby, She Loves You, Come Together, In My Life, Helter Skelter, For No One, Here Comes The Sun, Ticket To Ride, Strawberry Fields Forever, Hey Jude, Don't Let Me Down, Penny Lane, Day Tripper, Tomorrow Never Knows, Nowhere Man, Revolution, Drive My Car, We Can Work It Out, I'm The Walrus, A Hard Day's Night, Paperback Writer, Help!, It's All Too Much, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, I Want You (She's So Heavy), Hey Bulldog, Rain, All You Need is Love, I Feel Fine, Let it Be, Yesterday, Get Back, Norwegian Wood, Across the Universe, Michelle, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Girl, All My Loving, Hello Goodbye, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Dig A Pony, And I Love Her, With A Little Help From My Friends, She’s Leaving Home … uff!

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Technically there are 50, but on Spotify I had to split the Golden Slumbers Medley…

Link to The Cavern's Spotify list of Best Beatles Songs

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The first time I heard the Beatles was on the road home. It was an old but very well-recorded cassette I had just bought at a street market in my mother's hometown. She was thrilled that I was interested in the music she listened to as a child, so she put the tape in, and out came that magical, rhythmic, slow sound of trumpets, like a train starting up and reaching a good speed, while a man's voice, with a lot of echo, said, "Roll up for the magical mystery tour, step right this way." I didn't quite understand what that meant, but now I find it delightful that with this very melody, with this phrase, the musical journey I've been slowly traveling began, and I'm grateful to that song for having led me to the left side of music and not the right. Of course, it was Magical Mystery Tour, but on the cassette cover, you could see four long-haired guys crossing a street at a crosswalk; A colossal blunder by the pirate who recorded the tape, which led me to believe for a while that MMT was Abbey Road.

 

Anyway, that was the pivotal moment when music captivated me, at eight or nine years old - quite old considering many children have their musical kindergarten from the cradle, with their parents' records. Mine had absolutely no knowledge of rock, and the closest thing to musical instruction was when my mother hummed a slightly off-key "Yellow Submarine" to me when I asked her about the Beatles. She, despite her very conservative tastes, couldn't help but grow up with that music. Even I, some twenty years after their breakup, stumbled upon the Beatles, intrigued by the enduring power they held on television, in the press, and on the radio, long before the new boom in anthologies. The Beatles are still a phenomenon, a popular force… So much so that a child without any direct influence from parents, uncles, or siblings (which is already a rare occurrence) can still discover for themselves EVERYTHING that four long-haired guys crossing the street at a crosswalk mean.

 

I don't quite remember if, on that first listen, "The Fool on the Hill" or "All You Need Is Love" blew my mind more. The point is, I completely understand García Márquez's words when he said that for him, hearing them for the first time was like going from black and white to color. A before and after. I listened to them all the time, and no other music had ever absorbed and moved me so much with those musical kaleidoscopes. I needed more, and the fact that it didn't include the much-talked-about Yellow Submarine made me patiently wait a week before going back and buying a greatest hits compilation—basically what would become disc 1 some years later. The first song was She Loves You, and my first thought was that I'd been ripped off and sold the wrong cassette. This was a completely different band! Without the kaleidoscope sound, catchier and more rhythmic, more melodic, younger, but a completely different band, damn it. The variety of sounds in that hour of music and the effect it had on me was brutal, and as I listened to the whole cassette (which had their greatest hits in chronological order), I realized it was the same band, even though it seemed unbelievable. I don't know if everyone has the same impression when they first hear a Beatles album with songs from various eras... Shortly after, I managed to get a friend to lend me one of those horribly delightful boxes of LPs sold by Reader's Digest, eight discs with the band's chronological history and a few lines with the bare minimum of their biography. When I couldn't get any more out of it, considering I was about 10 or 11 years old, I jumped to the Rolling Stones, with a collection of hits from the '60s, then to the Doors, and years later I'm still amazed by new (so to speak) bands from the '60s and '70s that I'm just discovering. But the Beatles were the gateway. And they remain my favorite band, the one I love the most, and from whom I keep discovering new things, new layers and details, anecdotes that just come to light (like Paul's lost bass guitar), and from whom I learn the most musically.

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This was my revelation, my initiation into the world of music, my loss of musical virginity. I don't know if everyone has one, and certainly not everyone has it with the Beatles, but I could assure you that a good percentage of rock lovers have a similar story…

 

This is just one example of what the music of the Liverpool quartet can do. The greatest? Don't know… According to Billboard's 2005 poll, the best rock band in history was Pink Floyd for their Live Aid reunion on July 2nd of that year. In 2007, it would be Led Zeppelin for their concerts at the O2 Arena. In 2018, the film Bohemian Rhapsody catapulted Queen back into the stratosphere, even for new generations, and shortly after, the Stones' final tours with Charlie did the same. In 2025, the Back to the Beginning mega-concert placed Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath at the center of a universe that transcended the boundaries of metal… And there are many more examples like these. The best band? Regardless of polls and trends, labeling a band as the greatest seems utterly unnecessary to me. Artistically, The Beatles didn't innovate much. Nope, they didn't create Rock, or Psychedelia, or Protest… nope, not even Heavy Metal or Rock Opera. Perhaps they introduced the sitar, took experimentation to the point of such lamentable catastrophes as Revolution #9, expanded the use of the studio, and were the first to include song lyrics on album covers. So what?

 

Some will argue that Led Zeppelin was THE Dream Team of instrumental virtuosos, or that Pink Floyd achieved the most perfect music on at least four albums, and that Waters' lyrics were deeper and his music more precise. Or that Manzarek's sheer genius and Morrison's personality, without diminishing the great qualities of Krieger and Densmore, led The Doors to occupy that place with their dark, semi-improvised music of suicidal poets. Or that the Stones are the greatest concert machine that ever existed. They're all right. There will even be those who say the same about more recent bands like Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Dream Theater, or Arcade Fire.

 

What I mean is that technically and artistically (form and content), there are many, many bands that far surpass the Beatles. Those already mentioned are a simple example, not to mention Yes, Blue Öyster Cult, Zappa, King Crimson, etc. No, the Fab Four weren't exactly virtuosos on their instruments: George has brilliant and exquisite guitar solos, precise and soulful, but he'll never be on par with Hendrix, Page, Clapton, Beck, King, and the other great guitar heroes. Moreover, his distinctive slide guitar sound defined him right after the band broke up. Ringo was an excellent drummer, perhaps the best musician in the band, with impeccable timing and playing style, but technically he was far surpassed by Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, and many others. It wasn't that he lacked technique; his merit lay in his ability to create the perfect arrangements for each song.

 

Paul started as a bassist who didn't particularly stand out, content to keep the beat, but he evolved through his rivalry with Brian Wilson, playing increasingly complex lines and being responsible for the bass becoming a leading instrument and sparking the interest of thousands of kids in the four strings. By the late 1960s, he had taken over the band, leading on bass. While he may not be the greatest bassist of all time, the lines and structures he brought to the songs (such as "I Want You," "Hey Bulldog," "Come Together," and "Don't Let Me Down") are truly melodic and outstanding, making him one of the most influential bassists in history. Lyrically, Lennon always looked to Bob Dylan as his mentor. Well, not always, but from 1965 onward, he certainly did. And although he created beautiful melodies with his lyrics, odes to double entendres and sharp wit, and even songs that became anthems for different generations, it's debatable whether he ever reached Bob's lyrical heights. Often overlooked on rhythm guitar, he was not only very good at building the melodic structure of a song, but he also occasionally delivered some excellent solos.

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The Beatles weren't masters of form and content, which is what essentially constitutes art. So why are the Beatles so damn great? Because no other band touches such deep chords as they did; that is, no other band so perfectly captured the spirit of their time, to the point of transforming music into a culture—pop culture, a culture of protest and activism, hippie culture, a culture of hope in another way of life—in short, a way of life in itself. They managed to metamorphose visually and artistically without losing their naturalness, not by creating movements, but by being their most visible faces, and I think they did so sincerely. And perhaps this is precisely why they are the most beloved, relevant, and influential band in history…

 

Furthermore, no other band is as diverse or mastered so well all the genres they dared to explore, namely: rock, pop, ballads, bolero, folk, country, swing, blues, psychedelia, jazz, hard rock, heavy metal, lullabies, children's music (which isn't the same thing), experimental collage (unsuccessful), etc.

 

No other band managed to make their own biography an inherent and relevant part of their music. Almost everyone who is suddenly struck by their music and blown away by it, soon looks for biographies, starting with Hamburg and the difficult days in Liverpool, the famous "Gentlemen, you've recorded your first number 1," the Ed Sullivan Show, continuing with the adventures of A Hard Day's Night and Help! With their respective films, the cancellation of tours due to exhaustion, the death of their manager, the arrival of Yoko Ono, the transcendent experience in India, the struggle for control, the clashes of egos, the inevitable breakup… The lives of the Beatles as individuals and as a band are directly linked to their music, and although I have no doubt that there are many people who have absolutely no idea about their lives and still enjoy their work, I maintain that the music is so captivating that it invites or inspires one to learn all these details, which are far more fascinating than those of any other band.

 

Finally, no other group elevated popular music to the realm of art or managed to generate as much controversy to this day about the boundary between popular music and art. There is still debate about whether, for example, "Yesterday" is a work inspired by classical composers like Schubert or whether it simply emerged as an ordinary ballad that could just as easily have been called "Scrambled Eggs" (as it almost was). With that, the Beatles broke the rock taboo, the generational barrier that had existed since Bill Haley created the first chords of that devilish music for rebels without a cause. Rock, ladies and gentlemen, could be listened to and enjoyed by young and old alike; it was no longer just about making the loudest music possible, no longer about talking about exclusively teenage themes. It was about UNIVERSAL music. Again, Dylan was ahead of them in this respect, but as always, they were the ones who perfected it and made it known. Impossible to imagine Mr. Zimmerman composing Yesterday, right?

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Now, the main premise of the Beatles' detractors is that they were a commercial band turned into a monster by marketing. I don't deny it: Their first album reached number 17 in the UK because Brian Epstein, their manager, bought the entire pressing for his record store. Brian was a businessman after all, and a really good one. He made the name The Beatles the most profitable in music history; he created Beatlemania; he filled stadiums; he sold dolls, masks, wigs, stickers; he created a phenomenon that got out of hand and that still sells today based on the name alone, even if the quality of the product sold is questionable. In 1963, he predicted, "Truly I tell you, the kids of 2000 will still be listening to the Beatles," when even John and Paul themselves didn't believe they would last more than a couple of years at the top. Today they continue to dominate Spotify. But all of this wouldn't have been possible without a dose of quality. Who remembers New Kids on the Block today? Who?

 

True, the Beatles received a lot of marketing help, but they themselves rejected it in '66, stopped touring, and with it, Beatlemania. They even fueled anti-Beatlemania with comments about being bigger than Jesus (actually, Lennon said they were more famous, which is VERY different). They stopped giving concerts, and yet they remained at the top, creating their best work from that period onward. Just take a look at the Billboard chart number one from 1960 to 1962 to realize that the industry was trying at all costs to kill rock with ballads and less provocative rhythms. While it wasn't their best period, the Rock & Roll of their early years has an outstanding quality compared to the rest of their contemporaries and completely revitalized a genre that was in danger of dying.

 

Nope. The Beatles weren't children of marketing and money, although it can't be denied that they benefited from them. What I do maintain is that they were children of chance, or rather, of a series of coincidences that make it impossible for such a story to be repeated for a very, very, very long time. The fascinating thing about their story is the "What If it hadn't,":

 

If Paul's father, who had a jazz band, hadn't taught his son basic musical fundamentals, and above all, vocal harmony, perhaps John wouldn't have been so interested in that young lad he met at a fair in 1957, and harmonies wouldn't have been one of their hallmarks.

 

If Paul hadn't met George at the bus stop on his way to school, we would have missed out on many of the most beautiful guitar performances in rock.

 

If Stu hadn't made money selling paintings and his best friend, Lennon, hadn't convinced him to buy a bass guitar to join the band, even though he had absolutely no idea how to play it, perhaps a more competent bassist would have joined. And this would have prevented two things: First, Astrid Kirchner, Stu's girlfriend in Hamburg, wouldn't have given them the French fringe hairstyle that would define their image in the early years. Second, Paul wouldn't have had to take up the bass by default, since neither John, as the band's leader, nor George, the most skilled guitarist, wanted to switch to the four-string, which ultimately led to a revolution in the role of the instrument.

 

If Brian Epstein hadn't owned a record store (NEMS), he would never have been interested in finding out which band the teenagers were asking about. Secondly, if he hadn't been homosexual, he would never have been interested in becoming the group's manager when he went to see them at the club where they were playing (COINCIDENTALLY two blocks away), since more than musical or even commercial interest, he had interest in John.

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If the record industry had been interested in rock, Decca would have immediately signed the Beatles for their first album, as they had undoubtedly become the best band playing this genre in all of England and possibly the world. Without this interest, EMI, their second choice, would have sent them to a good subsidiary and not to Pharlophone, where the comedy record producer George Martin ended up being a decisive factor in the Beatles' sound. And if you don't believe me, go to the Anthologies, where you can see the structure of the songs without Sir Martin's touch. In this respect, I can't imagine what would have become of the band without this figure, the musical maestro and refiner, creator of the harpsichord in "In My Life," the string arrangements in "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby," all the orchestral arrangements on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Town, and later albums… in short, considering the Beatles without George Martin is frankly impossible (and imagining them with Spector is even worse).

 

If the Beatles hadn't arrived in the United States in February of '64 for their first tour, the results might not have been the same: US was coming out of a period of intense mourning for their recently assassinated president, which had infested the radio with funeral songs, in addition to the winter season of Christmas carols. North America craved anything, ANYTHING that sounded cheerful, and they landed from across the Atlantic with the biggest publicity campaign to date. Guess who…?

 

If they hadn't met Dylan, not only would their sound have remained stuck on their first four albums, but they also wouldn't have experimented with drugs, which substantially altered their music, their lyrics, and their social role. To delve a little deeper, Dylan was as essential to the Beatles as the Beatles were to Dylan, and together they sparked an unprecedented musical and social revolution, without which many of the biggest groups of that decade wouldn't have been possible.

 

Without Vietnam, which already had a history dating back years but exploded in the media in '66, the musical revolution of the 60s would not have existed either, since a foundation was needed on which to build said revolution, a real cause towards which to direct all the repressed anger, in which to excuse the use of drugs, the rebellion of dress, of acting, of living that ended up creating the hippie culture, the anti-culture that in '67 reached unsuspected heights and managed to convince the world, at least for a time and through the best works ever created, and through the most creative year in musical terms in all of history, that such change was possible.

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Continuing, without the suffocating pressure of Beatlemania and the frustration of their concerts, where they could barely hear themselves, they would hardly have stopped touring. They were the first, and to this day, few groups survive without the publicity and power of live performances. However, without this situation, they could hardly have released albums as impeccable, as precise, as meticulously crafted as those from '67 onward. And likewise, without the absence of tours, Epstein wouldn't have felt so useless as to fall into the depression that led to his death from a fatal combination of barbitures and amphetamines, a death that was the slow beginning of the end.

 

Without this sense of abandonment, perhaps they wouldn't have embarked on their journey to India, where the most diverse album of all time emerged: the White Album (The Beatles, in any case, better known as the White Album). Then there are many factors: Yoko, Linda McCartney and their family, John's natural inclination towards more political music and Paul's tendency towards sweeter, more commercial sounds, the arguments over the new manager…

 

Fortunately, the Beatles ended up where they were meant to end up (perhaps), and fortunately, hindsight is 20/20, so all the hypotheses about what might have happened without these coincidences are just dust in the wind. I can't imagine the Beatles eliciting pity these days. No, no, no! The Beatles ended up at the top, and that's another reason why they are the most beloved group of all time. John, George, and Ringo decided not to continue after Paul's stubbornness, even though history shows he was right. It didn't happen like with the Stones and Brian Jones, or with the Doors and Morrison, with a replacement or a void, respectively. The Beatles even knew when to die, and if they reunited beyond the grave in the mid-90s, it was because John offered a worldwide apology with "Real Love," an apology that even Yoko didn't dare to stop, and whose lyrics contain the embrace that two brothers and two musical geniuses like Lennon and McCartney could never share. They left behind an exceptional legacy as solo artists, but one can't know what might have happened if their symbiosis had continued, and this only adds to the legend.

 

Another crucial point is the care taken to preserve their legacy by the surviving Beatles: Yoko, Olivia, and their children, especially Dhani and Sean. In a way, despite their breakup, The Beatles have always remained present and alive. From the 1973 Red and Blue albums, the 1988 Past Masters, the BBC albums, the Anthologies 1-3 project in the mid-90s, 1 Compilation, the anniversary box sets with remasters and alternate takes, and finally Anthology 4 and the long-awaited Beatles version of "Now and Then." Not to mention Paul's massive tours where more than half the songs are from the 60s, and where he never misses an opportunity to pay tribute to George and John (what a fantastic version of "I've Got a Feeling" with Lennon on the screens!). And the box sets and reissues of solo works that Sean and Dhani have done by their respective fathers. They themselves have said that it's to keep the Beatles flame alive in a society where consumption has become instantaneous and where new generations are more likely to forget that legacy. I believe that as long as we continue to introduce our children to good music, they may develop more contemporary tastes, even in very different genres, but the Beatles' catalog will never be missed in their playlists. I witnessed this firsthand at Paul's concert in  2012, but the one in 2024, which I attended with my teenage son, was quite special. I saw my son singing from beginning to end, crying and getting emotional just like the crowd of kids attending… Brian Epstein's musical prophecy pales in comparison.

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It goes without saying that if I had to go to a desert island with only one discography, I'd choose them. Why? Because throughout all their albums they make it seem like making good music is easy, when in reality, good albums, not to mention good songs, are few and far between. It also goes without saying that the oversaturation I've experienced from listening to them so much doesn't mean I've stopped liking them in the slightest, nor that the more music I discover, the more I appreciate them. However, all this doesn't mean I won't critique them as objectively as possible, because even the most perfect band in history has its flaws.

 

Lineup:

 

John Lennon - Lead vocals, backing vocals, rhythm guitar, occasionally keyboards and bass. The most intellectual, political, and critical voice in the group, and the one who took risks with the most experimental tracks. The leader in the early days.

 

Paul McCartney - Lead vocals, backing vocals, bass, occasionally keyboards, and even trumpet and drums. A multi-instrumentalist, but ultimately the bass was his instrument, and it was there that he created a melodic revolution in the way it was played and its role in bands.

 

George Harrison – Lead guitar, backing vocals (masterful third voice), lead vocals, and sitar. The quiet Beatle who provided the perfect embellishments, the one who brought Hindu influence, mysticism, and masterful harmonies to the band.

 

Ringo Starr – Drums, rhythms, very occasionally lead vocals. A drummer whose influence has been acknowledged by everyone from Phil Collins, Dave Grohl, and Kurt Cobain (who started playing drums because of Ringo), to Chad Smith. Being left-handed and playing a right-handed kit, he has a very peculiar and difficult-to-match beat, but he was never flashy or exaggerated; instead, he always played in service of the song.

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All composers and wizards. Also, George Martin: in production and arrangements. Billy Preston on keyboards for the later albums, and why not? Eric Clapton, on lead guitar (at least on one song), was also a Beatle.

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Regarding their history, I haven't added many details in this introduction, or they're only touched upon superficially, but you can check out the individual entries on their solo careers, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison y Ringo Starr, where the quartet's story is told in more detail, from each member's perspective. These entries were published in 2017 and are more or less in the same format as the four films directed by Sam Mendes, set to be released in 2028, which recount the story from the different points of view of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. And I'm eagerly awaiting them!

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By Corvan 

Aug/25/2007  

Edited Apr/24/2026

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