Why The Beatles Still Matter

A personal and cultural reflection on their relevance today

Come Together

The church was Baltic—not just cold, but freezing. You don’t expect a church in Edinburgh in mid-April to be warm, but this was colder than anyone expected. The heating was broken, we were told, so everyone kept their coats on—scarves too, and even the odd knitted hat. It felt like that Alpine scene from Help!

We were gathered to hear Ian Leslie discuss his excellent new book, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, an exploration of one of the greatest creative partnerships in modern music. The crowd had outgrown the original venue at Topping’s Bookstore, so the event moved to this draughty church hall for an audience spanning generations, from twentysomethings to retirees, all drawn by the promise of new insights into the Lennon–McCartney dynamic. Just days earlier, the book had been selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice.

It’s not as though Beatles books are rare. I’ve got an original 1968 hardback of Hunter Davies’ authorised biography—the one my mum gave my dad for Christmas that year. I devoured it as a kid, mostly because it printed the word fuck several times. Since that first authorised biography, over 2,000 books have been published about the Beatles. By comparison, Amazon lists around 70,000 books about Jesus. So maybe John Lennon was wrong—not bigger than Jesus, but certainly more written about than most others.

This ongoing flood of books is just one sign of the Beatles’ staying power. It’s been more than half a century since they played together, and yet their presence in our culture is undimmed. A Hard Day’s Night lies midway in time between us and the Wright brothers’ first flight—and still, their music streams in the billions on Spotify. Their final song, Now and Then, released in 2023, topped charts around the world. Peter Jackson’s Get Back docuseries drew huge audiences. Their guitars, lyrics, even their cars fetch millions at auction. You can still buy a LEGO Yellow Submarine.

But why, after all this time, do they still resonate so deeply? Why do they remain a cultural constant—not just for fans, but for artists, writers, and even LEGO designers? Does their story still matter, and if so, why?

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A Day In The Life

It was a morning like any other. Just over a decade ago and our son had just entered his teenage years, celebrated with a hand-me-down iPhone. As we lay in bed with coffees, preparing to face the day, our bedroom door burst open and he stood there with a look of astonishment on his face, brandishing his phone and demanding, ‘Have you ever heard this before?’ He was playing A Day in the Life. He’d begun to explore music over the preceding year or two, with a particular fondness for Arctic Monkeys. We had avoided that huge temptation to guide his listening. This was something he had to discover for himself, and he’d clearly just discovered the final song on Sgt. Pepper.

Faced with his question I had a choice. I could tell the truth (‘yes, I’ve heard it several hundred times before’) or lie (‘never heard it before in my life’). I chose the politician’s approach. I didn’t answer the question directly, but focused on the issue that lay at its heart. ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it? However many times you hear it, the song is extraordinary.’ And as he sat on our bed playing the whole song, a look of wonder and joy filled his face.

He reminded me of something that we perhaps too easily forget—that their music was, and remains, revolutionary. Nothing else comes close. Their experimentation with genres and studio techniques, the songwriting’s lyrical and melodic sophistication, the musicianship—even taken out of its cultural context, it stands as something quite remarkable, even to young teenagers today.

That morning he made the discovery that millions made before him, and millions will doubtless make after him—that the Beatles give us joy distilled into sound: a rush of youthful energy and boundless creativity that leaves you awestruck and alive. But even so, that’s not the half of it. It was never just about the music.

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In My Life

It was August 1964, and we were on holiday near Minehead. Just released was the Beatles’ first film, A Hard Day’s Night, which was showing at the Minehead Gaumont. Dad and I were full-on Beatles fans, so one morning he took me along for the first screening of the day. We loved it.

We walked back to the car, which was parked at one of the new parking meters. As we got there he asked, ‘Do you want to see it again?’ I nodded. He topped up the meter, and we went back to the cinema in time for the next screening. We loved it. Even more.

Afterwards we returned to the car. He asked, ‘Again?’ I nodded. He topped up the meter and we returned to the Gaumont.

He paid for us at the kiosk and by this time he was on first-name terms with the woman selling the tickets. We settled back into two seats at the end of a row. The lights went down. The credits rolled. The music started. And before the opening song had faded away Dad felt a tap on his shoulder: it was the usherette. ‘Here,’ she said in a West Country burr, ‘I hate to see people enjoying themselves so much and having to pay for it. Have all your money back,’ giving him a handful of sixpences and thruppenny bits.

Not only does this explain why the Gaumont cinema chain is no longer a going concern, but it also underlines the group’s appeal. The film presented exaggerated versions of themselves as smart, funny, rebellious, supportive and hugely talented. As Ian Leslie explains: ‘As with everyone who fell for the band—then and since—it was the people as much as the music that compelled them.’

For Brian Epstein: ‘They represented the direct, unselfconscious, good-natured, uninhibited human relationships which I hadn’t found and had wanted and felt deprived of.’ That was true of the buttoned-down, inhibited Britain of the early 1960s—but is equally the case for the digitally mediated, PR-manicured 2020s. When I invited people on Substack to share their own insights,

Alex

commented that ‘They feel almost like family members to me. A formative and constant presence.’

As a child in the sixties, I felt the Beatles weren’t just of their time—they were pulling us toward the future. Their music, their wit, their sheer audacity seemed to crack open the mundane and hint at something thrillingly new. Then, in the seventies, John and Yoko, Paul and Linda redefined partnership itself. Their relationships weren’t just romantic; they were radical collaborations, blueprints for living in ways mainstream culture had never dared imagine.

In his book, Ian Leslie makes the point that in terms of their personalities they were ‘strangely modern’. Writing about the recently released Get Back TV documentary: ‘When John, Paul, George and Ringo were in frame, we felt as if they could walk out of our screens, into our living rooms, without missing a beat. It wasn’t so much how they dressed as their demeanour: how they talked to each other, the way they sat, the jokes they made.’

The Beatles weren’t just about music—they were about life, and how to live it differently. Their interpersonal dynamics, creative clashes, personal growth, reinvention and breakup at their peak add drama and humanity, and indeed inspiration. And they still do.

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Back in the USSR

It was 1987, and the summer heat clung to Leningrad’s Nevsky Prospect on my third and final visit to the Soviet Union. Women in linen skirts and men in short-sleeved shirts queued outside an ice cream kiosk. Soviet ice cream was famously good—standardised, creamy, and made with very high dairy content, indeed much richer than any Western brand.

It was in the queue for this admittedly very rare pinnacle of Soviet consumerism that I got chatting to the man next to me, who was a lecturer at the university. We talked briefly about Sherlock Holmes, then conversation segued into the Beatles. At this he appeared to go slightly misty-eyed: ‘Yes, yes, the Beatles. They were wonderful. We love them.’

Why, I asked, was there this love for them and their music? ‘Deep sadness and great joy,’ came the reply. In his view, no other group expressed both in their music like the Beatles, and this runs deep with Russian culture. ‘And of course,’ he continued, ‘they were democratic socialists.’

Writing in The Guardian a few years ago, Ed Vulliamy argued that the Beatles meant far more to youth in the USSR than they did in Britain or America. He quotes Russian musician Sasha Lipnitsky, who insisted: ‘The Beatles brought us the idea of democracy. For many of us, it was the first hole in the Iron Curtain.’

The Beatles insinuated liberation into the Soviet Union—not just through smuggled LPs and cassettes, but through the very essence of what they represented. They were subversive simply by existing—they offered a blueprint for selfhood. The Beatles’ melodic humanism resonated deeply with a culture steeped in collective suffering and private longing. Their appeal today is perhaps best understood by appreciating the impact they had on Soviet youth—representing a set of ideas about self, community, and expression. In times and places where governments, corporations or algorithms dictate identity, the Beatles whisper: think for yourself.

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The End

We spilled out of the church onto Leith Walk to be greeted by a dreich evening. Hoods went up and scarves tightened. We were less than a mile from where, on my first visit to Scotland in April 1963, I first heard the Beatles on a crackly car radio. It was raining then too.

That first listening of Twist and Shout took me on a lifelong journey. I can mark my life with memories of how their music helped me to discover, at different times, a common passion with both my son and my father, and helped to break the ice as a stranger in a strange land. There are many other memories and markers too, but not always about shared passions. In 1977, at the height of punk, I bought the then recently issued LP of Magical Mystery Tour, which I played repeatedly in my room in our North London squat until Dolores, in the adjoining room, burst through my door screaming, ‘If you play the Beatles one more fucking time…’ So the Beatles provide me with a link to precious memories, as they do with millions of others—but their appeal and relevance today transcend any sense of personal nostalgia.

The enduring fascination with the Beatles—across Britain and around the world—speaks to their unmatched cultural impact and the timelessness of their music. The Beatles weren’t just a pop group. They were musical revolutionaries. By absorbing and reinventing rock, soul, folk, Indian, European classical and avant-garde influences, they created a sound that still feels fresh, vital, and alive today. And they stood for something: love and peace.

They captured a moment when Britain was redefining itself. It was not only stepping out from behind America’s shadow, but leading America and the world in creativity and ushering a new, vibrant, inclusive and liberal post-imperial future for itself. The Beatles also represented a new model of masculinity and provided a shared cultural touchstone, strengthening a belief that music can bring people together across generations.

In a country now grappling with Brexit, political upheaval, global insecurity, polarisation, toxic masculinity and a fractured sense of self, the Beatles remind us of a time when Britain gave the world something joyful, positive, and unifying. Something generous and loving. Today, in a world of algorithms and alienation, they remind us that art can be both wildly innovative and deeply human. They present us with a constant vision of what culture can be: generous, inclusive, connective, undimmed by borders or time. In a world that feels more dangerous and divided than ever, we’d do well to remember the optimism, the innovation, the sense of togetherness and the sheer fun they embodied.

Decades later, their story still matters—not as nostalgia, but as a guide to a better future.

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This is written by Mike, but is part of the Walk on the Wild Side project he runs with

Jackie Hopfinger

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