If we'd know we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.
There are so many reasons to mark the passing of the great Joe Cocker - as many songs as he wrote, recorded and performed in his remarkable concerts. For me, Cocker was also the only performer who successfully covered and even improved on The Beatles.
I haven't been afraid of John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Bill Evans or Wayne Shorter or Herbie Hancock. Why would I be afraid of the Beatles?
Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter in Florida, and in 2008, NASA beamed a Beatles song to the North Star (Polaris), on the assumption that any putative Polarians would appreciate the Fab Four's 1960s-genre compositions.
When we were trying to get 'Jersey Boys' off the ground, I'd get, 'The Four Seasons? Who's going to care? There's the Beatles, there's the Rolling Stones.' But people know those stories. Here was a story no one knew.
Growing up, I liked all the stuff that everyone else was listening to, like Motown, but the biggest group of all was The Beatles.
In the mid-'60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that played all kinds of music... You could hear Frank Sinatra right into the Yardbirds. The Beatles into Dean Martin. It was this amazing thing, and I miss it, in a way, because music has become so compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot.
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.
As every teenage girl, I was absolutely obsessed with The Beatles, and the first record I bought was 'Please Please Me.' I'd have been 13 at the time.
Do you realize that I have had five albums in the Top 30. Elvis and The Beatles have never done that. I had five singles in the Top 5, I mean, no one's ever done that.
The Beatles and Ray Charles were in the same charts together, and that was just called pop music - it wasn't called soul or rock. The best pop music just stands out as something that's just original, and I think it should all be called pop again.
I think the Beatles is one band that, if I'm working on a song arrangement or if I have some idea for a song, and there's a little bit of a Beatles quality to it, I never avoid that. I always will steer into it.
The Beatles were basically a vocal band.
I think the '60s was a great time for music, especially for rock and roll. It was the era of The Beatles, of The Stones, and then later on The Who and Zeppelin. But at one point in the '70s, it just kind of became... mellow.
The Stones were a big influence on me and the Beatles, obviously.
Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of 'Arabisation' soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as 'instruments of imperialism.'
I wasn't really terribly familiar with the Beatles when I met George. They were just emerging. They certainly weren't as big as they became later on. I just knew them as a pop group, and that's all. I was keener on George as a man and a person, as opposed to someone in a band.
India brings out so many different feelings in me. I've been fascinated with India and Indian culture as long as I can remember - ever since the '60s with the Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
I was the first to promote The Beatles in the States, and Ed Sullivan called me first about them before he ever booked them on his television show.
Just coming from a musical family, I was always surrounded by it. On the car rides to school, my mom loved playing A Tribe Called Quest and the Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' and then my dad was listening to a lot of Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder.
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.
I grew up a massive Beatles fan.
I listen to music - Lady Gaga, Kanye, Jay-Z, the Beatles, Robert Plant - while I'm walking down Fifth Avenue to my office in the Trump Tower early each morning.
The first songs I learned was 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline and 'At Last' by Etta James. I had been growing up with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, great bands.
When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'
I wasn't good in school. I didn't do sports. I sat in the bedroom and listened to records. Because the Beatles did whatever they wanted to, I took that as a kid and said, 'That's what rock is.'
I play guitar and I love the Beatles and melodic music.
People always say I write a lot of pop culture references. Can somebody please count the pop culture references in 'Firefly?' Because I don't know how to put this to you, but there was one. I referenced The Beatles in the pilot.
I'm the worst on facts about me or facts about the Beatles.
Many people say some of their best ideas come from dreams. Arguably the greatest Beatles song, 'Yesterday,' came to Paul McCartney in a dream.
I grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and every record those bands put out was very unique in its own right. I have that mentality. too: if a song sounds like something I've already done, then I'll throw it out, because I want each record to be a progression.
In the early '70s, coming out of the '60s, it was very hippy or it was very uniform, like The Beatles all wearing the same suit. Into the '70s, it became much more about a personal style. You had the glam period, which was a lot of fun, and then you went into punk.
The Beatles in 1963 came to America and became international celebrities, but Bobby Fischer was one of the first, as Elvis was, more in terms of the message created around him.
My parents were big music fans, and my dad plays music, so I grew up with Madonna, Frank Zappa, the Beatles, Alice In Chains... it was all over the place. I had a Third Eye Blind record, but I also had Korn, Courtney Love, and Shania Twain.
I like What Goes Around Comes Around for old concert tees. Oh man, I got this 'Sgt. Pepper' cartoon Beatles shirt there; it was, like, $300. I didn't even know how much it cost - I thought it was gonna be, like, $80 at most - till I got to the register and was like, 'Oh mah gawd!' Good Lord. But it's classic vintage rock, you know?
The Beatles did everything first, and they did it the best.
