Bob Dylan’s favourite song by The Beatles: “Their chords were outrageous”
The Beatles are a band as deeply woven into the fabric of society as music itself. Emerging in the early 1960s as the hottest new pop sensation, they quickly evolved into one of the most innovative and influential groups in history. Their body of work spans not only anthemic moments of pure joy but also avant-garde experimentation and raw emotional expression.
It’s a catalogue that few artists can match, and they owe much of their joy to one man: Bob Dylan. The singer-songwriter also found fame in the early 1960s but came from a different viewpoint. Born out of the Greenwich folk scene, Dylan was the voice of his generation and wrote songs based on the societal experiences he saw around him. After one meeting between the two sets of maestros, Dylan sat down with the band and encouraged them to employ similar techniques when writing lyrics. He wanted them to make pop music more personal.
Few acts can comfortably say claim to have changed the world, but Dylan and The Beatles accomplished this task through their respective catalogues of songs. Most notably, the Fab Four were never the same once Dylan inflicted their life, and for the singer-songwriter, his influence was a hard pill to swallow.
Dylan could have seen it as a testament to his skill as a songwriter and viewed his impact on songs such as ‘Norwegian Wood’ as the ultimate compliment. Although Dylan was revered as a godlike figure in musical circles, The Beatles had acquired a level of fame that was never seen before, and he wanted a piece of their pie.
Of course, John Lennon openly admitted that he wrote many songs during his “Dylan period“. Despite his acknowledgement, they were never a direct rip-off. Instead, Dylan’s music merely broadened Lennon’s songwriting skill set by introducing storytelling elements and waving goodbye to singing exclusively about love interests.
Inspired by Dylan’s catalogue, The Beatles pushed their creative boundaries, but Dylan wasn’t their only influence. The band also drew inspiration from figures like Little Richard and The Beach Boys, proudly showcasing their musical influences throughout their career. But it was their admiration for Dylan, in particular, that helped shape a collection of songs that not only captivated a growing audience with deeper appreciation for pop music but also solidified the Fab Four as formidable musicians.
Although Dylan had verbal run-ins with Lennon, he still had a soft spot for The Beatles and would eventually form The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, who was his favourite member of the band. Nevertheless, when asked by NME to pick his favourite Beatles song, Dylan didn’t pick a Harrison cut, and surprisingly chose ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand. It was a track that helped kickstart Beatlemania in the United States after it was performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and its cultural impact is impossible to deny.
The naturally obscure Dylan has never been one to overcomplicate his feelings and didn’t exactly explain why he thinks ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ is their greatest song or at least his favourite. But what he did offer proves that he is a sincere appreciator of the band: “They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid… I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go.”
There’s no denying that the track has become a rich piece of The Beatles iconography. While it is certainly more poptastic than the majority of their work, the song did come from an organic place. “We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball,” said McCartney of the song’s inception.
“Like in ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, I remember when we got the chord that made the song,” he notes, sharing Dylan’s sentiment. “We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, ‘Oh you-u-u… got that something…’ And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, ‘That’s it!’ I said, ‘Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other’s nose.”
‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ became the band’s first number-one in the United States and cemented their place as the first British invaders of rock ‘n’ roll. Admittedly, from a technical perspective, it’s less impressive than dozens of later tracks in their repertoire, but it captured the zeitgeist, and even Dylan found them an irresistible force.
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