I just found out last week – my sister told me – that my father had some Beatles records. So I must have heard them quite a bit, but it never registered, really. Now I listen to them with new ears.
I grew up listening to a lot of classic jazz, and stuff like The Beatles, and old Motown stuff, and a lot of classical music. I just loved all of that.
I hope fans will go back and listen to the Beatles and the Beach Boys or Led Zeppelin, or put on ‘Tommy’ and let them experience like I did that moment when ‘Pinball Wizard’ comes on.
Black people created rock music, it’s a fact. Black people created bluegrass and rock and roll way before Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.
I’ve heard Jerry do mini concerts while driving, especially when the music of The Beatles or a handful of other ‘British Invasion’ bands aired. Hearing Jerry Lawler sing with a British accent is quite an experience.
Elvis Presley’s music said, ‘Free your body.’ The Beatles said, ‘Free your mind.’
At 18, I moved to L.A. with my heavy metal band Avant Garde, which was very much influenced by Metallica. At 19, I got a job at Tower Records, and everything started to change very quickly. I started listening to the Velvet Underground, Pixies, early Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and also earlier music like the Beatles.
I always loved LeAnn Rimes and especially Clint Black for his soulfulness. As I’ve gotten older, my influences have broadened – John Mayer, Michael Buble, Stevie Wonder, Keith Urban, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the Beatles – all of these artists have somehow been a part of my development as a songwriter.
I just sort of grew up with music always in the background like a soundtrack. And it really hit me hard when The Beatles came along, like so many people. That got me started digging back further to Chuck Berry.
My inspirations include the Beatles – love, love, love them – Elton John, Carole King, and Stevie Wonder.
I never was a hippie! I went to India because so many friends like Mia Farrow and the Beatles were going there to discover truth. And so I went and trekked through India by myself, but instead of discovering truth, I wanted to join the Peace Corps.
Before the Beatles, America was musically a very conservative country. You can see film footage of people at a baseball game, they all had hats and ties on, and the women were dressed up like they were going to church. That was the America that I started getting interested in musically.
I do not view myself as a psychedelic person but as a yogi. Although most link the Beatles with bringing awareness of yoga to the public, it was myself who actually brought yoga into the mainstream in the United States.
The awesomeness of God is that even in the works of the Beach Boys, Beatles, etc., the beauty of the music is a mere reflection of what God does everyday. He creates music of all kinds and moods.
I love Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Brandi, Sade, Nat King Cole. I like the Beatles. I listen to a lot of that.
As a kid, I loved classical music. Composers like Beethoven were like rock stars to me. Then there were the real rock stars: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.
The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end.
Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.
I’m a huge music fan. I usually say that if I had been born with a musical inclination, it would’ve been great. The Beatles changed everything for me, and I wanted to be a journalist for ‘Rolling Stone.’ I’m a big music fan in a Cameron Crowe way, kind of in a spectator way.
There were screaming girls, I had to learn as a blind person how to run to a limousine otherwise they’d take my clothes off and stuff. I thought to myself ‘how could this happen?’ I mean I could see it, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, but Jose Feliciano? It was a mystery to me.
The Beatles just changed everything right across the board. They just had that right combination of clean-cut good looks – a cute band – but under that they had a real rock n’ roll thing going on.
Musical recording history is full of multi-racial collaborations and it is this cross-pollination that has created the magic of Ellington, Sinatra and the Beatles. I am merely a part of that tradition.
I am just a little tired of the Stones and the Beatles, and I don’t care if I ever hear ‘Louie Louie’ ever again.
It was in 1967, and I was on a spiritual pilgrimage to India to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That was before the Beatles saw him, by the way, when not too many people knew of him. Anyway, I visited the Taj and noticed its wonderful sound.
Jeff and Mike had taken drum lessons at a young age. When the Beatles came out in ’64, we all wanted to play guitar.
I don’t hate pop music. I liked the Beatles, but then, I knew them.
Like any family, like any group – the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, EPMD, Public Enemy – they’ve had bumps in the road. I just think that because A Tribe Called Quest is so precious to fans, they were concerned about unveiling some of those things.
If we’d know we were going to be the Beatles, we’d have tried harder.
Men have made the world. And they’ve made a brilliant job of it. I love men. You know, men, you built Paris and you invented The Beatles, and, you know, and you’ve taught dogs to say ‘sausages.’ You know, I love your world. Thank you for it.
I grew up loving classic rock music – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones – and then one day I heard ‘Baby One More Time’ on the radio and I thought ‘What is this?’ I was eight and it changed my life.
I was wanting something new, and for me the Beatles were… outstanding. I was breathless, speechless.
Some people have been listening to the Beatles their whole lives; I didn’t discover them until I was 18 years old.
I grew up with Jilly and Tamsin driving Volvos. But I wasn’t one of them… I always felt more comfortable with Cockney and working-class people. My heroes were the Beatles and people like Michael Caine.
I just got so fed up with the bad vibes. I didn’t care if it was the Beatles; I was getting out.
For me, they are still my dear friends, not the Beatles.
Beethoven and Beatles, Mozart and Michael Jackson, Paganini and Prince – I like them all.
I understand it when the fans are looking at me. The Beatles, and John in particular, are their musical idols. You can’t touch John, but you want to know more about him, and you want to know from a person who was close to him.
The Rascals are something else. They’re up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.
By 27, Bob Dylan had already written ‘Highway 61 Revisited,’ the Beatles had released ‘Rubber Soul,’ Bruce Springsteen had recorded ‘Born to Run’ and U2 had delivered ‘The Joshua Tree.’
Growing up, as much as country was a big influence in my life, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and Led Zeppelin were such a close second. My first concert ever was the Rolling Stones in Denver. I snuck a camera backstage and filmed Mick Jagger during sound-check.
The Beatles were basically a vocal band.
Oasis are not just influenced by the Beatles; they actually take stuff. Then they get praised.
Paul McCartney and The Beatles in general are my idols. And I love Sting. I got to meet Sting. That was really cool. Dustin Hoffman is my favorite actor. Also, I think of Magic Johnson as an idol.
My first band was an Argentinian folk group when I was 10. When I was 12 I had my electric guitar, and by the time I was 13, the Beatles came into the scene, and that was over. So I have a mixture of all these traditions, and I think that’s who I am, a mixture of everything.
The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine.
I’m wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it’s MTV and radio, well, they’re great things, but can’t be the only thing. I don’t know that it would work even for the Beatles.
When I first started writing songs, I looked around at the bands that were making it, and they all had the original material. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Stones – everybody was writing their own songs. That’s the way that you established your own identity.
The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them.
We don’t ever spread ourselves too thin. And sometimes it’s a little bit to the chagrin of our fans; they don’t get albums… I mean, The Beatles were doing two albums a year at one point.
We always had a guitar at home, but it wasn’t until I was 14 when I picked it up myself when my father handed me these sheets of music of the Beatles and some other classics. That’s where I learned all the chords and learned how to play and sing at the same time.
Funny songs aren’t usually that good. Like Weird Al and maybe a couple of Beatles songs, but it’s kind of hard to bring humor into rock music in an interesting way.
