The Beatles were the greatest band of all time —- as any music historian will tell you. They wrote classic songs that will still be played a 100 years after they were written. They changed the culture of the time and its influence is still with us today. For thousands of bands afterwards, they changed how music in the studio was recorded.

The Beatles opened the door to music stars expressing their opinions about the world around them and not being simply a commercial product of their managers and the floor mats of money making recording companies.

They wrote the most covered song in the history of music, “Yesterday”, with over 6000 covers of the song to date. They have more songs than any other artist or band that are considered to be, by Rolling Stones Magazine, the best songs ever written. And their members, after their break-up, wrote some of the best songs I have ever heard. “Junk” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney come to mind as well as some great songs by John Lennon such as “Beautiful Boy” and songs by George Harrison.

If you, like me, consider a “song” to be a melody with lyrics then I must say I don’t know what I consider to be the best song ever written. But if I had to choose only one, I guess it would be “Imagine” by John Lennon because of its melody and its eternal lyrics and that nice repeated piano riff. My 92-year-old dad, not a Beatles fan, told me one day that it was his favorite song! I NEVER expected to hear that from him!

Listen to the Beatles song “A Day In The Life” — written in the 1960s. NO ONE had ever written anything as original back then, nor for years to come. A couple of years ago I read that that song was the one chosen by the greatest number of music stars as being the best song ever. Maybe they were right?

Nowadays we get force-fed too many McDonalized songs on the radio and a lot of RAP, often with amazingly good lyrics, but RAP is just rhythm and poetry with no melody worth its salt. Not really a “song”.

Some people may bring up Michael Jackson (even though he is not a band) but hey how many of his songs did he write on his own, or even in collaboration with other people — check it out, you’ll see, not that many. How many artists have covered songs that MJ wrote or co-wrote? NOT MANY AT ALL. The Beatles, both individually and as co-songwriters, beat him hands down. MJ was a great singer, dancer and arranger and also wrote some memorable songs but that is it. He didn’t write in many genres of music — the Beatles kicked the ass of everybody by the number of genres they wrote in and, some say, even created. Was Jimi Hendrix the first to use feedback in the studio? No, the Beatles were. Who wrote the first Heavy Metal song? Many say the Beatles did with “Helter Skelter”. Who first used backwards recording in a song? They did. The Beatles finger-picked, wrote songs with rcomplex harmonics (Because The World Is Round), Psychedelic songs, Political songs, Country songs, Rock, Pop, Folk, Classic music genre songs, Blues, Ballads, Instrumentals, Comical songs and even a Children’s song that became a Hit. They kicked ass and we are still feeling it today — but the younger generation just doesn’t know it.

GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME: The Beatles

BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN: One of theirs —- among many to choose from.