(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi / Tore Sætre)
Sat 11 October 2025 17:30, UK
My memory of my own childhood is admittedly fuzzy. Specific details constantly elude me, as I try to make sense of what culture tells me is perhaps the most important chapter of my life. One thing I do remember however, is that the first song I ever truly heard, was ‘Yellow Submarine’ by The Beatles.
I didn’t know who they were then, or what sort of psychedelic album the song existed on, I just merely loved the jovial fun of the entire track. It was routinely played as part of my primary school play time periods and without knowing better, I just assumed it was another imaginative song designed for the sponge-like minds of children.
But therein lies the true brilliance of the song, the band and Paul McCartney and John Lennon. They could write something that would felt so bespoke to the infant mind, yet it universally appealed to a fan base of mature adults. Moreover, it was placed on an album, that would become my undying favourite Beatles album when I grew up, and could somehow seamlessly fit behind perhaps my favourite Beatles song in the Revolver tracklisting. Only The Beatles could bleed ‘Here There and Everywhere’ bleed into ‘Yellow Submarine’ and make it work.
At school, I didn’t know what I know now, which is that McCartney and Lennon were the best songwriters in the world. They opened a gateway into a world that allowed me to understand music on a deeper level, and on that journey, I was introduced to even more artists who would shape my listening habits. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Crosby, Stills and Nash were all shaggy-haired members of that freethinking 1960s community I was introduced to through ‘Yellow Submarine’ and felt forever grateful to the song for doing so.
But as all music fans do, I went through phases, and for large spells, enjoyed the works of these legends slightly more than The Beatles. In the case of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, I became an obsessive over their first album and vehemently believed that they were the best band of all time.
A theory that its key member, Graham Nash, reminded me was untrue, when he said: “I think that in a hundred years’ time if anyone’s looking back at these ‘60s that didn’t finish until ’74 when Nixon fucking got out of here, I think the only people they’re going to remember are Bob and John and Paul and Joni.”
A subtle reminder that The Beatles pair were some of the original greats, but one I swiftly overlooked as I continued on my pursuit of other musical greatness from the swinging ‘60s and decades that followed. Neil Young wasn’t just a de facto member of Crosby, Stills and Nash, but another solo artist whose work I admired endlessly. But tried as I did to put him on an equal pedestal with The Beatles, he, like Nash, put me back in my place.
“I have a lot of respect for [Paul]. He’s just a great songwriter” he once said, before delivering the killer blow that finally put me back in my rightful place as a Beatles admirer. “One of the greatest songwriters, perhaps ever. I think he’ll be remembered hundreds of years from now for the work that he did, starting with ‘Yesterday’ and continuing into today and tomorrow hopefully.”
It’s now 63 years since The Beatles’ first ever single, ‘Love Me Do’, and their cultural impact shows no sign of slowing down.
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