(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 23 November 2025 16:00, UK
It’s not unusual for people to see The Beatles as something more than basic musicians.
These were artists that were going to take over the world from the minute that they landed on Ed Sullivan, but they were far from the musical deities that people thought they were. They were simple music fans before they had even started, and playing that well meant doing their homework more than a few times behind the scenes.
After all, they had countless hours to fill when playing the clubs in Hamburg before anyone had even heard of them, and some of their greatest moments came from them stretching out songs that made people want to dance all night long. When you start running out of material to play, though, anyone would have to start digging a little deeper in their record collections to find the right tunes to work up.
And between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, they were connoisseurs of anything they could get their hands on. Most rock and rollers from around that time may have been purists about sticking with the standard Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers, but when looking at their personal favourites, ‘The Nerk Twins’ had a lot more going for them than a bunch of standard rock and roll tunes.
Those ‘Beatle’ chords didn’t happen by accident, and that came from listening to different showtunes to get what they were looking for. Admittedly, Lennon would always be embarrassed about borrowing from the more “proper” version of songwriting, but if there was one thing that he and Macca saw eye-to-eye on, it was the great artists coming out of Motown.
Every one of them followed in the footsteps of the biggest names from Hitsville, but there was something about Smokey Robinson that resonated with all of them. Even though they may not have had the same sense of musical discipline that Robinson did at the time, their versions of ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ showed that they had the utmost reverence for the melodies that he came up with.
McCartney would also be the first to tell anyone about Robinson’s impact, saying, “Smokey Robinson was like God in our eyes.” But even though McCartney spoke about loving Robinson, Lennon and George Harrison seemed to be the two writers who really internalised his music, hence why they still ended up having time to jam on ‘You Really Got a Hold On Me’ when they were being filmed for Get Back.
That influence didn’t go away once they made their solo records, either. Harrison was diplomatic enough to dedicate an entire song to him with ‘Pure Smokey’, and while there are certain pieces of Elvis Presley in the way that Lennon approached the song ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’, the strange chords in the mix are almost like a grown-up version of what he would have done when emulating Robinson on tunes like ‘All I’ve Got To Do’.
But given the impact that The Beatles made on every single fan, it’s no shocker that they had a bit more soul in them than their contemporaries. Anyone could have picked up guitars and tried to make the best tunes that they could think of, but if they wanted to become one of the biggest bands in the world, they were going to need to take a few cues from the ones that turned their music into an institution.
Related Topics
