The Beatles are considered the best band of all time and it’s not easy to pick just a few good songs from their discography. John Lennon revaled his 5 favorite Beatles songs in an interview with Rolling Stone back in 1968 and the chosen ones were not obvious.
John Lennon and his 5 favorite Beatles songs:
“Strawberry Fields Forever”
“I Want To Hold Your Hand”
“I Am The Walrus”
“Girl”
“Across The Universe”
John Lennon explains why:
The musician revealed the songs after being asked which was his favorite Beatles song written by him. He went on and said: I always liked ‘[I Am The] Walrus’, ‘Strawberry Fields’, ‘Help’, ‘In My Life’.
When questioned why he chose “Help!”, he said: “Because I meant it, it’s real. The lyric is as good now as it was then, it’s no different, you know. It makes me feel secure to know that I was that sensible or whatever- well, not sensible, but aware of myself. That’s with no acid, no nothing… well pot or whatever.” Lennon clarifies his point, “It was just me singing “help” and I meant it, you know. I don’t like the recording that much, the song I like. We did it too fast to try and be commercial.”
Besides those songs, the musician also picked ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, saying: “We (Paul & John) wrote that together, it’s a beautiful melody. I might do that and ‘Help!’ again. Because I like them. I sing them, you know, they’re the kind of songs I like to sing.”
When asked about ‘Strawberry Fileds Forever’, that he also liked, John Lennon said:
“Because it’s real, yeah. It’s like talking you know, ‘I sometimes think no but then again I mean-‘ you know, like that. It’s like that Elton John one where he’s talking to himself sort of singing which I thought was nice.”
Talking about another song he liked, “Girl”, the musician said:
“’Girl’ was real. There’s no such thing as the girl, she was a dream, you know. But the words are alright. It’s about, well, ‘she was taught when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure.’ All that, there’s, sort of, philosophy quotes. I was thinking about it when I wrote it, it was just a song. And it was about that, that turned out to be Yoko in the end, girl that a lot of us were looking for.”
He also talked about “Across The Universe, saying is one of the band’s best songs:
“It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best, I don’t know. It’s good poetry or whatever you call it. Without tunes it will stand.”