{"id":818037,"date":"2026-07-23T04:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818037\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T04:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:50:16","slug":"the-1963-beatles-song-that-changed-peter-gabriels-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818037\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1963 Beatles song that changed Peter Gabriel’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Peter<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Wed 22 July 2026 16:57, UK <\/p>\n

In 1967, 200 million people saw The Beatles<\/a> play \u2018All You Need is Love\u2019 via a ground-breaking satellite link-up.<\/p>\n

At the time, that wasn\u2019t far from one in 16 people on the entire planet receiving a message of unified peace in one fell swoop of sonic beauty. Capturing such an audience was an untold feat in human history, and amid tempestuous times, the Fab Four broke through clouds of uncertainty, dooming war and assassinations, with an assegai of hope and exultation. <\/p>\n

Certain cynics might think of the track as twee and naive in retrospect, but at the time, it sounded like a fresh alternative to humdrum drudgery. Peter Gabriel<\/a> had only recently turned 17, and like many his age, he saw the band he had grown up with in a new light. Fittingly, his own ambition dragged along by the Fab Four, he began to see himself in a new light, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an extraordinary felling,\u201d he once proclaimed, \u201cThat suddenly, this group that we\u2019d seen from very small beginnings were really holding the flame for the world.\u201d For Gabriel, they were not only a beacon of hope in the broadest sense, but on a personal level, this also illuminated a potential future in the world of music<\/a>. He was keen to be part of their progressive revolution. <\/p>\n

Thus, it comes as no surprise that he has always held the band dear. And his favourite anthem goes right back to those humble beginnings. \u201cThe first record I bought when I saved up my pocket money was With The Beatles,\u201d Gabriel told ABC<\/a> regarding the group\u2019s debut album when discussing his favourite songs of all time. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Please, Please Me\u2019 was coming over the radio. I would sit in the back of my parents\u2019 car when we were on these long drives down to the coast,\u201c he said, crowning his favourite track by the band. \u201cAnd what people forget, I think, is that at the time, it was really rebellious, rough, mischievous and full of life, and irresistible to any young person.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The whole memory sounds a bit like Brighton Rock, and it was just as literary for Gabriel. He continued, \u201dThe Beatles\u00a0were a huge influence as I was growing up, and continued to be as there was all that revolution around their success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

It was on the brink of The Beatles\u2019 seismic broadcast that soon followed \u2018Please, Please Me\u2019, thanks to the whirlwind of Beatlemania, that Gabriel first formed Genesis with his boarding school buddies. He had been stirred to emulate their revolutionary ways in some fashion. Recalling their impact, he explained: \u201cIt was to my mind and my ears, far more of a breakthrough than, say, the Sex Pistols, which was more stylistic, I think, and not really about the music or revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, he wanted to carry that sense of newness into the work he started crafting with his own little group of mates: Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, and (a little later down the line) Phil Collins. So, they set about combining an assortment of their influences. \u201cI grew up listening to the blues and Bach, and I never thought that they would meet and create a third thing,\u201d Steve Hackett says.<\/p>\n

Adding, \u201cThe two styles seemed to be at odds with each other.\u201d Alas, the band successfully created a third thing by blending those disparate influences and, as such, had their own walloping impact on music. But at the core of their prog revolution, the pulse of \u2018Please Please Me\u2019 remained.<\/p>\n

That makes it all the more shocking to consider that it was cooked up by a young kid, as Lennon recalled, \u201cI wrote it in the bedroom in my house at Menlove Avenue, which was my auntie\u2019s place\u2026 I remember the day and the pink coverlet on the bed and I heard Roy Orbison doing \u2018Only The Lonely\u2019 or something. That\u2019s where that came from.\u201d <\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why it moved Gabriel so much: it was unapologetically music for the youth, by the youth. It remains vital and timeless on that front to this day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Wed 22 July 2026 16:57, UK In 1967, 200 million people saw The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[16764,64,63,134,136,53866,245047,36484],"class_list":["post-818037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-peter-gabriel","tag-prog-rock","tag-the-beatles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}