If there were ever a musician qualified to speak on the tremendous impact of the Beatles, Graham Nash, a fellow Brit and founding member of another iconic U.K. pop group, the Hollies, would be a worthy contender. Nash’s band shared a record label, Parlophone, with the Fab Four. Both the Beatles and the Hollies competed for the same chart slots, consequently creating a complex and, at times, relationship between the groups.
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In the mid-1960s, George Harrison made disparaging comments about the Hollies that created a tangible rift, leading Nash to publicly express their hurt and disappointment over Harrison’s harsh criticism. Decades later, that rift is a distant memory, replaced with respect, admiration, and the Beatles song that Nash considers “one of the most adventurous songs ever written.”
Graham Nash Considers This Beatles Song To Be The Best
In a 2015 appearance on The Foxhole, the Hollies and CSN(Y) founding member Graham Nash recalled hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ahead of its 1967 release. (The Hollies released their album, Evolution, on the same label that summer.) Nash heard his special preview edition of Sgt. Pepper after his bandmate, David Crosby, had given it a spin. Crosby marveled over the album, once saying that after hearing the album’s closer, “A Day in the Life,” he was literally speechless. Nash felt similarly.
“It’s one of the greatest songs ever written,” Nash told Foxhole. “It’s one of the most adventurous songs ever written and recorded. I don’t think there’ll ever be another Beatles. I think that the universe put those four kids in the right place at the right time and gave them the right talent to be able to move the hearts and minds and spirits of billions of people and continue to this day.”
Nash said that he, Crosby, and Stephen Stills often use Fab Four songs as their go-to vocal warmups. “Their incredible melodic structure is stunning to this day,” the CSNY alum said. “I mean, with all due respect, in this Western scale of music, there’s, what, twelve notes? Are you kidding me? The Beatles were unbelievable, and I think we all knew it. The Beatles were the best band in the world. There’s absolutely no question about it.”
His Perspective Certainly Softened Over The Many Decades
In 1965, the Hollies covered George Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone.” The not-so-quiet Beatle (in that moment, anyway) later disparaged the Hollies’ version, likening it to soulless session men playing together on their first run. Hollies frontman Graham Nash responded to Harrison’s comments shortly thereafter, telling New Musical Express, “Not only do these comments disappoint and hurt us. But we’re sick and tired of everything the Beatles say or do being taken as law. The thing that hurts us the most was George Harrison’s knock at us as musicians. I would like to ask this: if we have made such a disgusting mess of his brainchild song, will he give all the royalties from our record to charity? (via Far Out Magazine).
Of course, plenty can (and did) happen in the decades that followed. Two Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, died before the turn of the 21st century. Nash had to deal with his own band conflicts and major life changes. In hindsight, it’s much easier for someone to see how much younger and naive they were than they realized—even if the “someone” in question was a member of two of the most popular pop-rock groups of the 1960s.
From the early lovesick pop days to tracks like “A Day in the Life,” written and recorded in their final years, the Beatles’ impact on the musical world was tremendous. That’s something even their former competitor, Graham Nash, can agree on all these years later.
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