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Tue 19 August 2025 23:30, UK
You’re not going to find any classic rocker more of a fan of The Beatles than Jeff Lynne. Ever since the 1980s, Lynne has practically been living out the kind of wish-fulfillment lifestyle that every single Fab fan has wanted since they first listened to ‘She Loves You’ back in the day, but even if Lynne was a diehard from the beginning, he knew that The Beatles had stiff competition.
After all, Lynne was already aware that The Beatles were far from the greatest musicians in the world when they first started out. They were an archetypal garage band when they started playing in the Cavern Club, but when they first started going down the studio rabbit hole with George Martin, they reshaped what many people think of music. That kind of ingenuity happened with people like Bach or Beethoven in the classical age, but the new sounds of ‘A Day in the Life’ sent shockwaves throughout the entire rock world.
And even if he was still a fan at this stage, Lynne did get a front-row seat of sorts when working with his own bands like The Idle Race and joining The Move. He was already working in the same studios as they were, and his opportunity to look in on a Beatles session as they were laying down the tracks for ‘Glass Onion’ was his version of getting a peek behind the curtain to see how his favourite musical magicians performed their tricks.
But the Fab Four didn’t always need themselves to bounce ideas off of, either. They listened to everything they could when they weren’t developing their own songs, and while everyone from Little Richard to Carl Perkins struck their fancy when they were cutting their teeth, people like The Byrds were wildly interesting for the time as well. Then again, nothing could prepare anyone for listening to an album like Pet Sounds for the first time.
The Beach Boys had already been known for their fantastic takes on surf music, but delivering the American Dream to people was only part of what Brian Wilson wanted to do. He wanted to make people’s hearts dance, and when listening to the band’s magnum opus, Lynne felt that there were far more geniuses out there than he thought.
The Fab Four were still the model for everyone to follow for years to come, but Lynne felt that Wilson reached the same level as his favourite band, saying, “I’ve obviously spoken to The Beatles a lot but I like every track on Pet Sounds; I think they’re all equally as good. I couldn’t even pick one out of it because the arrangements were so unusual at the time. I remember it was ’66 and in some parts it sounds like an old dance band. I’d think, ‘wow’!”
Wilson was still capable of making great music along those lines, but it’s a shame that he ended up in a heated battle with his own mental health for years. Because had he been able to make his answer record to Sgt Pepper on Smile at the time, chances are both bands could have been lobbing the ball back and forth and giving the people the most adventurous music any rock band had ever conceived of.
Even if time got away from Wilson whenever he made his masterpieces, Lynne knew to be reverent of everything he made when he eventually began working with him on his solo material. Because whereas the remaining Beatles still felt like three lads that wanted to have fun whenever Lynne worked with them on The Beatles Anthology, working with Wilson often meant trying to keep up with him as he spewed out the greatest harmonies the world had ever known.
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