Bob Dylan
When NME released their list of ‘The 50 Greatest Ever Beatles Songs’ – a list compiled by writers and musicians – Bob Dylan picked “I Want To Hold Your Hand” as his favorite Beatles song. “They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid… I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go,” Dylan remarked.
Frank Sinatra
Although Frank Sinatra wasn’t a huge Beatles fan, the American singer called George Harrison’s “Something” ‘the greatest love song of the past 50 years’. While the song is often seen as Harrison’s step out of McCartney and Lennon’s shadow, Sinatra initially mistakenly introduced “Something” as a Lennon-McCartney composition. Later, he corrected his mistake and credited the song to the man who deserved it.
Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson, the legendary bandleader of The Beach Boys, has cited several Beatles songs as his favorite, including “Let It Be”, “Norwegian Wood” and “She’s Leaving Home”. When McCartney joined The Beach Boys for a recording session in April 1967, he played the then-unreleased “She’s Leaving Home” in front of Wilson and his wife. “We both just cried,” Wilson reflected. “It was beautiful.”
Mick Jagger
While the members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were mostly in friendly contact with each other, Mick Jagger was undeniably jealous when he heard the Beatles’ debut single “Love Me Do”. “We were doing Chuck Berry songs and blues and things, and we thought that we were totally unique animals,” Jagger during his Beatles’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech. “And then we heard there was a group from Liverpool, and they had long hair, scruffy clothes.”
“But they had a record contract. And they had a record on the charts, with a bluesy harmonica on it, called ‘Love Me Do.’ When I heard the combination of all these things, I was almost sick.”
Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards also picked an early Beatles track as his favorite: “Please Please Me”. “I just love the chimes, and I was there at the time and it was beautiful. Mind you, there’s plenty of others, but if I’ve got to pick one, ‘Please Please Me’…oh, yeah!”
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson was quite interested in the Beatles’ music. So much, in fact, that he bought the rights to the Fab Four’s repertoire in 1985. When Jackson was asked to name his favorite Beatles songs, he answered “Yesterday” first. He went on to name several more Beatles songs, mostly McCartney-penned tunes.
Paul Simon
When Rolling Stone asked Paul Simon which Beatles songs he believed would remain popular in 1972, the folk singer gave an insight into some of his favorite Beatles tracks. “I would pick ‘Yesterday,’” he answered to the question. “I would pick ‘Strawberry Fields [Forever]’ — although there is your example of a total record. A very important record to me, I like it a lot. You can’t even sing the song. It’s really hard to sing the song.” Simon also stated he loved “Eleanor Rigby”.
Art Garfunkel
The other half of Simon & Garfunkel, Art Garfunkel, stated that “Here, There and Everywhere” is his favorite Beatles song. “Of all The Beatles’ records, this one truly intoxicated me,” he said. “It’s beautiful in every way a song can be. What was going through Paul McCartney’s life the week he wrote this? You have to be in some kind of magical mood to come up with something this enchanting. If music can be defined as that which perfumes the atmosphere, then ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ does it like no other single I’ve ever heard. It’s supreme.”
Bruce Springsteen
Many Americans were introduced to The Beatles through “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, including Bruce Springsteen. For the then 15-year-old Springsteen, who heard the song for the first time with his mother in the car, it was a life-changing experience. “I immediately demanded that she let me out,” Springsteen reflected on BBC’s ‘Desert Island Discs’. “I ran to the bowling alley, ran down a long neon-lit aisle, down the alley into the bowling alley. Ran to the phone booth, got in the phone booth and immediately called my girl and asked ‘Have you heard this band called The Beatles?’ After that, it was nothing but rock ‘n’ roll and guitars.”
Kurt Cobain
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was a big admirer of The Beatles, particularly John Lennon, who he considered one of his idols. So it isn’t a surprise Cobain’s favorite Beatles song was a Lennon-penned tune. In a radio interview, he revealed that “Norwegian Wood” was his favorite Beatles track.
Stevie Nicks
Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks stated she considers “Yesterday” ‘the perfect song’. She felt the song, in a way, predicted McCartney’s relationship with his wife Linda. “I think ‘Yesterday’ was very much a premonition of Paul of what was to come with Linda,” Nicks told Rolling Stone. “Finding his one great love and then what it was to lose her. It’s the perfect song.”
Elton John
While Elton John had a chart-topping hit with his cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” in 1974, he admitted it took him quite a while to become an admirer of the band. The song that eventually made him a fan was “We Can Work It Out”, which The Beatles released as a single in December 1965. In BBC Radio’s Tracks Of My Years, Elton John selected the song among his favorites. “There is so much I could have chosen,” Elton John said, referring to The Beatles’ large repertoire. “But I’ve chosen ‘We Can Work It Out’ because I just love the song.”
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