"There were bands that I loved, and songwriters that I loved, like Ray Davies and Townshend — lots of people. But you know, when it’s all said and done, there was the Beatles and then there was everybody else. I don't think anyone ever put anything together as incredible as those guys. They were the band of all bands. "I don’t think that the phenomenon of a band like the Beatles can ever be repeated. I just don’t think that you can get someone like John Lennon, someone like Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, you know, that kind of talent in one band. When you listen to the music and listen to all the parts, and you listen to the way the records sound, you think: 'there’s something else going on.' It creates something else . . . I think it has to do with how long they played together, the fact that they sang and played like — well, like brothers — but also there was just something divine about it, you know? I mean I’m not a religious person, but there was something. "And I think that’s the thing that won’t be repeated. You know, you can get different people together and play those same songs and replicate everything and it’ll just sound nothing like them. That’s the remarkable thing." --#ColinHay #MenAtWork #Songwriter #ARIAHallOfFame #Actor #Beatles #TheBeatles #Influence #Unicorn #GOAT Sources: SiriusXM, 2018, 2021; NBC San Diego, 2011

"The Beatles in my mind were, and are still, the best band that ever was. It was just a great combination of talents that hardly ever happens, it’s like lightning in a bottle. And I don’t know that we’ll ever see their like again. They kind of left the footprint that everybody tried to follow. So, yeah, to me — best band that ever was. "It was an amazing thing. Part of the whole post-war baby boom that happened was that we all grew up with the Beatles. And it was always interesting, we couldn’t wait. “What are they gonna do next? What are they gonna do next,” and they didn’t disappoint. They would do something evolutionary. It was such an interesting time. And, it was really a communal thing — the whole generation went through this. We were all still friends at that point, our baby boom generation, we all felt like we were part of the same community. And a lot of it was due to the Beatles. It was a wonderful time to be alive. "There really hasn’t been anything like that since. I step back from time to time and go, 'I wonder if another generation has had anything like this. I wonder if that’ll ever happen again.' I don’t know that it will . . . a lot of it was timing, a lot of it just happened to be who they were, what they were doing, how they did it, who we were, the way the world was. It was just a confluence of events that hit in a way that I don’t think has ever happened before. "They will be played a hundred years, two hundred years from now. I have no doubt about that. I don’t think there will be anybody like the Beatles." --#BillyJoel #PianoMan #Songwriter #Composer #Grammys #HallOfFame #TheBeatles #Influence #GOAT Sources: SiriusXM, 2016, 2017; WNEW-FM, 1980

"'Hey Jude,' now that’s beautiful. That should be what music is all about. The Beatles were great performers, too; we worked together in Hamburg before they were famous. You could tell they had something, you know. Because they didn’t sound like nobody else. They really did not sound like no other group that was around at the time — nobody. "But what they had was songs. The best. Never dirty — just beautiful songs you can play to your grandmother and your children alike. 'Hey Jude' has that quality. It don’t get any better than that." --#RayCharles #TheGenius #Soul #Country #RhythmAndBlues #BrotherRay #Grammys #HallsOfFame #Influence #Beatles #TheBeatles #Unicorns #Songwriters Sources: Uncut magazine, 2001; "Soundtrack of The Century," Ovation, 2006

"I love the Beatles Channel [on SiriusXM]. Can't stop listening to it. I drive around in my car and I listen to the Beatles and I just go into . . . a reverie of heaven. "Because the Beatles ended too soon for me. And that hunger for the Beatles, that has lasted my whole life — whenever a Beatles song comes on the radio, I reach for the volume and turn it up. Because I still haven’t gotten enough of them. "They 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." --#JerrySeinfeld #Comedy @JerrySeinfeld #Films #TV #Emmys #Seinfeld #ComediansInCarsGettingCoffee #Webbys #Beatles #TheBeatles #GOAT Sources: Howard Stern Show, 2017; interview with Tom Papa, 2011; Oprah, 2007

"When I was growing up, you were supposed to be different. You were either a great lyricist or a guitar band with great guitar players or your thing was melodies — or you were the Beatles, who had all of that. Now the product has to fit the marketplace and the marketplace wants this ONE thing and if you’re going to sell five million records you damned well better sound like that one thing. There are a lot of people looking to have a cut or a smash or a hit, or whatever you want to call it, and they are all writing the same thing. "When I heard 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' on the radio, it was the most thrilling thing I’d ever heard. Even though it’s just a boy-girl song, there was something magic about it. There was something really sparkly and different about it that we'd never heard in rock and roll before. A lot of musicians you talk to, if you ask them what is your favorite Beatles song, they'll say 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' simply because it gave us what rock and roll became. The Beatles just sort of informed everything else from that point on. "The idea then was to be different. The Beatles changed my life. [They] changed everybody's lives. When they came out, I knew — and I knew it then — that the bar had been set so high for my generation that we'd never reach it. Subconsciously, I think I knew that was never going to happen again. I grew up being in bands, and what we all wanted to be was the Beatles. I think that’s driven every musician who was around in that time — you get a band together and you want to be the Beatles. That drives you." --#BillyBobThornton #Actor #Director #Movies #TV #Oscars #GoldenGlobes #Music #Songwriting #Boxmasters #Beatles #TheBeatles #Influence #GOAT Sources: EQ Magazine, 2005; SiriusXM, 2019; Diablo Magazine, 2009

Didn't the disc jockeys block you at one time and wouldn't play your records? "Well, they felt like they shouldn't. They wouldn't play me, Elvis, Chuck Berry, no rock'n'roll. All you can hear is Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Darin, Bobby this, Bobby that, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. I'm damn tired of hearin' Bobbys comin' out my ears . . . "And here come these four kids called the Beatles. That was the end of the Bobbys. [laughs] Thank god . "That opened the door again. Really did. The Beatles. They opened the door. They showed 'em a trick, knocked the hell outta them. They got rid of all the Bobbys, swept them aside like wheat before the chaff. "Thank god for the Beatles. They reminded us what rock ‘n’ roll was all about." --#JerryLeeLewis #TheKiller #RockAndRoll #Rockabilly #Country #SunRecords #Grammys #HallOfFame #Pioneer #Beatles #TheBeatles #Influencers Sources: Interview with Cliff White, 1978; Salon magazine, 2005

"They were just out in front. There was the Beatles — and then there was everyone else. And everyone else could be great, but the Beatles were leading the way. And that’s just irrefutably true. I mean, if you just look back and follow the history of the music, that’s clearly what was going on. And it was obvious at the time. "It’s hard to explain to somebody that wasn’t there at that time how profound it was. I think that they were just hungry for anything that would inspire them, and they weren’t musical snobs at all. Having that kind of open-door policy of 'let’s try anything' was really revolutionary. You know, I don’t know if people really understand how incredibly, just, bold that was. To kind of just leave the format that you arrived in, and invent another one. It’s just unbelievable. "You know, before the Beatles, you didn’t really see rock stars trying to evolve. They were quite happy to have a hit, and often the follow-up was almost exactly the same. That’s what I’ve always really been amazed at — the Beatles had that incredible success and really could have put anything out, and it would have been a hit. But they kept their head and weren’t affected by all that going on around them and focused on music. "And they had such great taste, you know? When you think about the hideous things people did with the Moog synthesizer, the Beatles used it so tastefully [on Abbey Road] that you hardly noticed it, it was just part of the texture of the record. They had such a great sense of sound, of textures — I think it’s one of the reasons those albums still hold up." "It’s just strange, isn’t it, when you think about it, how all the perfect pieces of the puzzle were there. This really starts to get into a spiritual level of perfection [sighs]. What are the chances of that falling together, those kind of singers being in one band, let alone being great players and writers, you know? It’s startling, it won’t be done again. It’s a force of nature bigger than all of us." --#TomPetty #Heartbreakers #TravelingWilburys #Songwriter #Grammys #HallOfFame #TheBeatles #Impact #Influence #Evolution #GOAT Sources: "Conversations with Tom Petty," Zollo; "Here, There and Everywhere," syndicated radio special, 2009

"Rock and roll is not the beginning and end of all life. It’s 95 per cent bullshit. Rock now is boring. It’s not happening. In the '60s, rock and roll was a change of attitude — a drastic change which I think the Beatles were hugely responsible for, praise the lord. Their influence was just phenomenal. "Usually, when you think about the Beatles, it’s about the sophisticated way they used [different] pop elements to do things that hadn’t been done before. But they were real rockers. 'I Saw Her Standing There' is a standard, three chord rock and roll classic. It still explodes at you when you hear it today. There’s even a terrific live version that made me go, 'My God, these guys could really play'. "The beautiful thing about them was that they took the audience with them and they were growing with the technology. I can go back to Elvis Presley and look at him as an example of someone who, considering how wonderful and pure and unbelievable he was in the mid and late '50s, succumbed and became sort of a caricature of himself. But the Beatles, luckily because they had each other I guess, they were able to evolve completely on their own terms in an incredibly short span of time. "That evolution . . . they took not only the music community, but the world along with them." --#LindseyBuckingham #FleetwoodMac @LBuckingham #Songwriting #Guitarist #Grammys #HallOfFame #Beatles #TheBeatles #Influence Sources: Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac, Egan, ed; Lava Magazine, 2011; Songwriters On Songwriting, Zollo

"It’s all great music. To me, many of their great songs are written just like songs from the ’40s and ’50s. 'If I Fell,' 'Yesterday,' 'For No One' — those could have come from any of the great composers 20 years before that. That’s what makes the Beatles so timeless. They really understood classic song structure, and they really were adventurous in a lot of different directions. It’s incredible that they did it all in such a short period of time. They started ’61 or ’62 and it was over by 1970. They created a wealth of songs that generations have discovered. It’s still amazing. "Growing up in Motown was a great thing. I always felt I could excel in my art because there was so much wonderful music all around. Having said that, hearing the Beatles, watching the rapid growth of their music was — and still is — the most incredible thing musically that I've seen. Theirs was the first music I heard that really started me thinking about not only playing the music, but writing, arranging, and using the studio as an instrument to construct your own musical landscape free of restrictions. "So many musicians of my age would agree. They changed the world." --#EarlKlugh #Jazz #Guitar @earlklugh #Grammys #Songwriting #Beatles #TheBeatles #Influence #GOAT Source: Guitar Player magazine, 2010

#GarthBrooks on . . . The Beatles in live performance: "That’s a raw one microphone thing. There are no monitors — anywhere. They were feeding off the amplifiers onstage. For one, to try and hear yourself from that would be impossible. But two, to try and hear over the crowd reaction — I mean, that was amazing. And these guys not only pulled it off, but they were also playing it very much in tune, in time . . . these guys did it all." Sgt. Pepper, All You Need Is Love and 1967: "In all that change, and all that was going on in the world, it’s nice to know that that much power — that big of a sword — was in the right hands." The Beatles' singularity and staying power: "The Beatles were so much ahead of their time in everything. Everything they did was different from what they did before, and I think that’s what makes their longevity." Being certified as 2nd biggest selling artist by RIAA and whether he "feels any need to catch the Beatles": "No. I don't know why you're asking me this, because I'm never going to be on the Beatles' level in my mind. If I am to someone else out there, thank you, that's flattering, but I'll never believe it." @garthbrooks #Country #Grammys #AMAs #GershwinPrize #HallsOfFame #Songwriting #TheBeatles #Evolution #GOAT Sources: "Revolution," ABC-TV, 2000; Billboard, 2000

"England was very hierarchical, still is in a lot of ways. You know, how to use your knife and fork, what school you went from . . . and here were the Fab Four, spitting out a new vocabulary that comes from that kind of revenge against the old idea of England that wasn’t inclusive of the working class. "That revenge against class system . . . there’s a lot of complicated ideas that the Beatles represent. Humor is one of them. ‘Cause humor is a weapon — to defend yourself and attack the kind of baloney that attempts to keep you in your place. "The Beatles are the model. I mean, the White Album is still the blueprint for me. It's all there — the songs, the ideas, the disciplined songwriting right next to the mayhem. It’s mind-blowing. It's the complete encyclopedia of rock 'n' roll. "When I look back [at U2], I see the slowest, almost invisible revolution: just tiny, tiny gradations, just on the way of degrees. Really, it’s just so slow to me. I think we’re the slowest learners in the world. But you read about the Beatles, and it’s just all in ten years. "They raised the standards for everybody. Because those were miracles, those songs." --#Bono #Songwriter #U2 #Grammys #GoldenGlobes #BritAwards #HallOfFame #TheBeatles #Influence Sources: "Revolution," ABC-TV, 2000; Bono In Conversation, Assayas, 2005

"All of a sudden — bam! The Beatles twisted the whole thing up with 'Yesterday.' We were flabbergasted, it was so poignant and so sensitive. "I’m the type of guy who talks to the muses: ‘Damn, man, why didn’t you give me that one?’ 'The Long and Winding Road,' 'Here There and Everywhere' — I love that stuff. I'd try to deconstruct them. "'Something' has everything that makes a perfect song. It comes at you from all sides, and just takes over your emotions. 'Let It Be' just sounded very spiritual. Like a gospel song. With so many of their songs, I’d always get that feeling of, Why didn’t I write that? "The Beatles probably inspired us to be better than we even felt we could be. When they got hot, we tried to get hotter. When they did something spectacular, we tried to be more spectacular. When I talked with John Lennon, he said, 'You guys inspired us to do things.' I said, 'That's funny [laughing], you guys did the same thing for us.' Ringo Starr was telling me that they used to wait and hear what Holland-Dozier-Holland was going to do, just to see. [I told him] It was a mutual admiration society in that respect, because we used to wait to see what they were going to do. It was an appreciation we had for each other. "Remember, this was a particular time when people came together during the '60s, when there was a lot going on with civil rights, and barriers were coming down between the races in this country. But then there was a lot of happiness, and this music always had the positive about it. They had melodies that everybody could sing and feel good about. The positiveness of the songs and the love aspect of the songs and the melodies that were haunting, I think that's why they've lasted so long." --#LamontDozier #Motown #HollandDozierHolland #Songwriting #Grammys #GoldenGlobes #HallOfFame #TheBeatles #Influence Sources: Record Collector Magazine; LAWeekly, 2008; ITV, 2015; Metro Times, 2007; SFGate, 2001

"From the turbulent ashes of the 1960s social and cultural upheaval of political assassinations, violent riots, an unexplained war in unknown lands, a culture war kick-off after years of post World War II spoiled-brat denial, the escape provided by these four extremely talented and gifted music creators was just what the doctor ordered . . . as a guitarist and a music lover, I've got to go back to my Beatles. "Again, it’s the defiance factor. They wrote songs with incredible melodies and clever lyrics, and delivered them with such inventive vocal harmonies and musicianship. The skill and imagination is mind-boggling . . . John, Paul, George and Ringo found each other and provided a magical chemistry of musical inspiration much more powerful than the sum of its parts. "You probably couldn’t find two people with more polar opposite ideologies than Paul McCartney and myself, but when it comes to sheer musical brilliance, I could not care less what the man’s preference in diet or politics may or may not be. Like billions of real music lovers worldwide, I simply love the man’s creative genius, soul, musical gifts and creations. "I’m in awe of everything the Beatles did. How they could do that in those years is nothing short of a miracle." --#TedNugent #Nuge #MotorCityMadman #UncleTed @TedNugent #Guitarist #TheBeatles #Songwriting #Influence Sources: "50 Years of Beatles Music," Nugent, 2014; Music Radar, 2011; AXS TV, 2021

"It all started with The Beatles. All the Beatles albums really . . . "The quality of life in socialist Yugoslavia [in the 1960s] was getting better. Being the leading non-aligned country in the world, we were trading with the East, West, South and North. Many people from the country went to work in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and they returned with western goods, big cars, fancy clothes, magazines, records. Working families were rapidly introducing modern household machines and equipment: fridges, washing machines, B&W TV sets, telephones, gramophones, etc. Politics was fairly liberal for a communist country and the official state art direction was modernism, with a touch of socialist realism. We started to get specialised magazines in shops, comic books, socialist soft porn adult magazines, magazines dedicated strictly to pop music and culture . . . "The Beatles were the symbols of all this growing excitement. They were everywhere and everybody loved them. All the kids wanted to be John, Paul, George or Ringo. Soon there was also a whole bunch of uniformed electric bands all over Yugoslavia who looked like the Beatles, but dressed in different uniforms and called themselves Red Boys, Blue Boys, Blue Stars, Electrons, Hurricanes, Birds, Chameleons, Red Chorales, Pharaohs, Dynamites, Young Lions, Silhouettes, etc . . . "And then Sgt. Pepper's happened. With its complexity, with all those enigmatic faces on the cover and with 'A Day In The Life' as the 13th song on the album. Something serious happened with this album, something dangerous, which we couldn't explain. We all talked about it, analysed it, kids were gathering in basements, listening to songs together, trying to understand what the whole thing was about. "Dark clouds were gathering with it and soon the Russians entered Czechoslovakia, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, the Vietnam War escalated, and the era of the Beatles was over." --#IvanNovak of #Laibach @Laibach #Electronic #Industrial #AvantGarde #Yugoslavia #Slovenia #TheBeatles #Influence #Culture #Global Source: The Quietus, 2016

"Somebody at school had a New Musical Express and I thought, this is a silly name — The Beatles with an 'a', that's a stupid joke. Then I heard 'Please Please Me' once and I was hooked, like everybody else. The Beatles were something everyone had in common. It was good in that respect — it unified people. "[In the Soft Boys], Morris and Andy inclined to The Beach Boys and Steely Dan; Andy, Kimberley and I were big into Fairport, Richard Thompson, and The Albion Band; while I was magnetized by Syd Barrett and Captain Beefheart. But we all loved the Beatles. That's the great thing about the Fabs. All those different sluices melt into one canal and the Beatles is the universal. "The music was diabolically beautiful. To this day, I parade between 1965 and 1968 just with my guitar trying to work out new Beatle chords, and all my musician friends do the same thing. If it was designed, if it was put there by a higher power or something from another planet, or the CIA, I could believe any of it. "You grow up with that stuff and you take it for granted; you assume this is always going to be there. But actually no, it turns out to be a genuine golden age. And as we get older and further away from it, it gets goldener . . . " --#RobynHitchcock #SoftBoys #Egyptians @RobynHitchcock #Songwriting #PowerPop #AltRock #TheBeatles #Influence #Universal #GOAT Sources: Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1995; The Quietus, 2010; SXSW, 2013; SiriusXM, 2019

"The Beatles were what raised me. My love for music I feel 95 percent owes to the Beatles. [They're] what I can blame for my and Finneas’s way of songwriting, honestly — in so many ways, but specifically the way that we layer vocals and all the harmonies. And all the chords. They were really our biggest influence. "I mean, the way that the Beatles did all their harmonies was just like nothing else. They were just so cool, and so weird. They're unbelievable, they’re just like so nice to your ear, they just feel good to listen to. I think if you listen to my music and what me and [Finneas] create, there’s so much Beatles inspiration. "I love 'Something' — I feel like lots of people are saying something similar, but that only the Beatles could say exactly this. I love 'Julia,' I love 'You Never Give Me Your Money,' I love 'Anna,' I love 'Maxwell’s Silver Hammer' . . . gosh, I could go on and on. "The biggest insult that you can say to me is you make the same song over and over. That’s what I love so much about older albums . . . albums, that are full pieces of work and are cohesive, but are really different. That’s what I love about the Beatles. Their music is such art, like the album itself is art; it’s not just a bunch of songs put in a playlist. On its own it’s a piece of art, and I really appreciate that and strive for that. "If I had to choose . . . like, throughout my life, I think that no matter who my favorite artists are now, or next year or last year, whatever, the Beatles will always remain the favorite." --#BillieEilish #BillieEilish @billieeilish #GuinnessWorldRecords #Oscars #Grammys #GoldenGlobes #AMAs #Songwriters #TheBeatles #Influence #GOAT Sources: New Musical Express, 2022; YouTube shorts

"I was 18 when they hit. It was just so complete. I mean, I was in it too [with the pre-CCR Golliwogs], but I was a fan — I just thought the Beatles were the coolest thing that ever happened. And I still kind of feel that way. I mean the music and, you know, all of it. "When you look back and realize, well, if they stopped touring in ’66 and they got together in ’59 — that’s less than the years of being president [laughs]. I've taken longer than that to make an album. So you and [brother] Tom are in The Golliwogs . . . and you look up there and you see the Beatles. Did you and your brother look at each other and go, 'We can do it'? "Or did we look at each other and go, 'We suck.' I just wanted to be able to write great songs, which I hadn't done yet. And I wanted to be able to play great, which I also hadn't done yet. So I didn't look at my present condition, I just looked at the Beatles — as a fan — and loved all of it. Give me an example of a Beatles song that’s an amazing — "All of them, you know. They’re so great. The Beatles — I mean, history just sees them as this one big boom. But you know, when we were at that age, they evolved in front of our eyes. "They were very smart, and very smart musically. They were truly artists — they got bored, or tired, of sounding like something they’d already done. So they would just kick themselves to evolve into something else." --#JohnFogerty #Creedence #CreedenceClearwaterRevival #CCR @John_Fogerty #FortunateSon #HallOfFame #TheBeatles #Songwriters #Influence #GOAT Sources: Interview with Bill Flanagan, 2017; Interview with Rick Beato, 2025

"I was a huge Beatles fan. I listened to them with absolute, utter focus and attention to every note and every word. I just devoured everything that they came out with, and parsed it and learned it and reinterpreted it. So when it turned out that I got the opportunity, 'Carolina In My Mind' says 'With a holy host of others standing round me'. That's how I thought of the Beatles. Everybody did. "It was such a powerful thing, being a part of that generation — the music that was associated with it, the revolution in FM radio, the way we basically communicated and sort of self-identified through the music. And the fact that the Beatles continued to grow and carry us through it . . . you know, it was just — it was amazing. "Their music has a permanent place in the popular culture. It’s exciting on so many different levels. It’s definitely Western music, but it incorporates Indian music — I mean, that incorporation, you know, the entire culture was exposed to that at a certain point because of them. They had a huge and deep impact on us all. "And it doesn’t go away. They pass it on. I know that I refer daily, in my playing and my writing and my improvising, to the Beatles." --#JamesTaylor #JT #SweetBabyJames @JamesTaylor_com #Grammys #HallOfFame #MedalOfFreedom #Songwriters #TheBeatles #Culture #Influence Sources: Interview with Paul Zollo, 2017; SiriusXM, 2017; BBC, 2010

"The Beatles write a bridge like nobody else in the world. It’s what separates their writing from all the other rock writing, if you ask me. If I’m writing a real song, I have to have a bridge — there has to be a point where we stop, and the character goes to the edge of the stage and thinks about what’s happening, and then resumes their monologue. That’s kind of what a bridge is. And the Beatles didn’t just write a bridge, they wrote incredible, beautiful bridges. That would be the first important lesson, I think, if I were teaching songwriting. "The Beatles showed me the way, but the important thing to me is that they showed everybody the way. They weren’t like any other band, and it’s hard to show people that if they weren’t there. The phenomenon of people standing in the rain and screaming and fainting . . . it was because the Beatles had some kind of a spirit in them, some kind of magic that was also put into the music. "But there was something larger than that that was happening, and it changed the world. You know, before the Beatles, people were listening to Annette Funicello. It was a totally different direction that music was going into; there was a little rhythm and blues, but not much on the radio then. They changed the direction of everything that had been. "The Beatles were a phenomenon like nothing I’ve seen in life since. Nothing. Not in art, not in politics, nothing." --#RickieLeeJones #Songwriter #Singer @RickieLeeJones #Grammys #Eclecticism #TheBeatles #Influence #GOAT Source: "Fab Fourum," SiriusXM, 2019