{"id":689788,"date":"2026-07-13T19:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689788\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T19:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:01:11","slug":"the-1967-beatles-song-henry-rollins-crowned-one-of-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689788\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1967 Beatles song Henry Rollins crowned “one of the best”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Henry<\/p>\n

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

Mon 13 July 2026 17:15, UK <\/p>\n

After the idyllic sounds of the 1960s, rock music was about to get nastier in the next decade. Punk<\/a> and heavy metal were on the horizon to soundtrack the demise of idealism in a Thatcherite world.<\/p>\n

Becoming sick of the constant hippie ideals being shoved down people\u2019s throats, the next generation of rockers brought heavier types of music, whether that meant intense sounds like heavy metal or more cerebral music like prog rock. While punk rock came to tear everything down, Henry Rollins was looking to create anger personified in his music.<\/p>\n

Ever since the first wave of punk came and went with acts like The Clash and the Sex Pistols, that left a massive hole for people like Rollins to start making their hymns of self-destruction. Operating in the same realm as the Ramones, Rollins wanted to create a band that took the intensity of punk and paired it with the scariness of Black Sabbath.<\/p>\n

While classic rockers like The Who garnered a certain amount of respect among the punk crowd, The Beatles had no place in the same genre known for putting safety pins through their cheeks. For all of the songs about destruction and anti-singing, half of the punk faithful were busy rebelling against what the Fab Four had created.<\/p>\n

However, Rollins did have a soft spot for The Beatles<\/a>. Coming to them at an early age, Rollins was shellshocked by how nice the band\u2019s songs were at first, telling Dreaming The Beatles, \u201cI thought The Beatles made children\u2019s records because they were friendly, and their faces weren\u2019t scary like my father\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Apple Corps Ltd<\/p>\n

Just as they did for thousands of others, the Fab Four welcomed Rollins into the world of music where he could find solace. \u201cMy room was where I would go to be lonely and not beaten up, not teased, not made terrified by my fellow classmates,\u201d Rollins recalled. \u201cIn those days, the racial tension in Washington, D.C., was really, really intense.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yet, despite the chaos, The Beatles were colourful enough to still have their place in this rough and tumble world.<\/p>\n

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

Taking a deep dive into their back catalogue, Rollins still feels that one of their best songs comes from Sgt Pepper, explaining: \u201c\u2018Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite\u2019 is one of the best songs ever. It always felt like something really fun was gonna happen, and you didn\u2019t have to be scared. I cannot overexplain to you how much of my life I spent trembling in fear of everything. [But] records never threw a ball at your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, \u2018Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite\u2019 is one of the more avant-garde songs on The Beatles\u2019 magnum opus. Looking to capture the sounds of a carnival fairground, John Lennon worked with George Martin on various tape loops, creating a cacophony of different sounds that turned into the swirling track during the song\u2019s midsection.<\/p>\n

Even though Rollins had a companion in this music, it wouldn\u2019t take long before he started making his way towards heavier fare. Around the same time, Rollins got more acclimated to the sinister sound of The Doors. <\/p>\n

When discussing hearing the LA band\u2019s debut album for the first time, Rollins knew he had discovered something heavier, remarking in Classic Albums, \u201c\u2018This is the end, beautiful friend?\u2019 What\u2019s he talking about? Is he talking about death? That\u2019s not like \u2018Ob La Di Ob La Da\u2019. What\u2019s going on here?\u201d.<\/p>\n

After sinking his teeth into punk rock and heavy metal, Rollins found his calling to create music as an outlet for his anger. Assembling Black Flag, Rollins created the most feral punk rock he could, from tracks that felt too fast for their own good on Damaged to slowing things down to a sludgy crawl on the album My War. <\/p>\n

Rollins may have scrubbed the stench of The Beatles off when playing punk rock, but no one ever forgets that unparalleled feeling of finding a friend in music for the first time. And the Rollins recognised that very sentiment meant that music must be met with the utmost integrity.<\/p>\n

As he explained in a recent interview with Far Out, \u201cBut I think the past is best left alone. I don\u2019t mind documenting it, trying to get the facts, looking for the artefacts, but I don\u2019t want to be a living artefact.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Beatles were perhaps the best example of that: there might only be two years between \u2018Yesterday\u2019 and \u2018Mr Kite\u2019, but they are lightyears apart and that constant edge of reinvention inspired Rollins just as much as the \u201867 track he rightly hails as one of the greatest ever. Some might even controversially claim that it is the peak of Sgt Pepper.<\/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 Mon 13 July 2026 17:15, UK After the idyllic sounds of the 1960s,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,175967,128,10447,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-henry-rollins","tag-music","tag-the-beatles","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}