>>>>>It's a song that gets better and better the more times you hear it. Especially the middle part is "enormous", where the song has a speed change and a "volume" cahnge at the same time. Pete really showed his genius on this one, he made the "impossible" possible.
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>>>>That middle bit now - come to think of it, seems the Scissor Sisters liked it too. I was wondering where they got their plodding oom-pa-pa style from :-)
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>>>I am curious as to your take on The Beatles. Are they the greatest ever, in your opinion?
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>>I hope you don't mind hearing my opinion also? Yes, they are the greatest ever. But to fully understand why they were, you must have grown up with them. Even my grandmother could tell who was who. When they came home from their first USA tour, about thirty thousand people was waiting at the airport hoping to get a look at them. The massive hysteria which always followed them probably never will be surpassed. If you consider the continuous pressure they had, it's amazing how much great music they made.
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>I said they were the greatest when I first saw them, and I was just a kid in junior high. Paul McCartney will go down as one of the greatest musicians of all time. He played here in Memphis several years ago, and I decided then that he was the Beatles! John was good too, but I think Paul has stood the test of time. He has so many different sounds, unlike most musicians.
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>Something that should also be understood is the impact that George Martin and others had on them. If you listen to them before he got involved, they weren't very good. They grew by orders of magnitude in their playing abilities and songwriting after they hooked up with him. I think John and Paul were catalysts for each other as well.

Oh yes, the "fifth Beatle" had a big impact. But in a few cases he added too much from his own background, which was classical music. I like the "naked" version of The long and winding road much better than the Let it be version. I also have a very rare recording of Yesterday, without the violins, which is really great. In fact Yesterday was really the first solo record Paul made, none of the other three participate on that record, but officially it's a The Beatles record.