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Five songs by The Beatles that will be remembered in the 2060s
Tim Coffman
FAR OUT MAGAZINE
Tue 30 December 2025
The impact of The Beatles’ music on popular culture is something that really needs to be studied to be understood.
No one quite knew what they were listening to when the Fab Four first started making their pop masterpieces, and there are subtle hints of what they did scattered throughout every generation that came afterwards. But when you look back on what they did in the 1960s, there are a few tunes that will still have the same impact if they were listened to in the 2060s.
The work of John Lennon and Paul McCartney was virtually flawless from the start, but if we’re talking about the moments that are bound to last for multiple lifetimes, it usually comes from their later years. The teenybopper phase of the band, as one of the greatest rock and roll acts ever, was bound to be fun, but there was a lot more for them to do once they embraced psychedelia and began using the studio as an instrument half the time.
Then again, it wouldn’t feel complete if we didn’t have songs from each respective songwriter in the group. While we will respectfully leave Ringo Starr absent from the writing side of things, Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison had tunes that introduced new ideas to the world, and their knack for turning the strangest ideas into hooks is something that most people are still trying to figure out.
So while many pop hopefuls might resort to cookie-cutter ways of making songs whenever they go into the studio, these Fab tracks are about more than writing a perfect melody. It’s about finding subtle layers in the production that are going to keep people coming back a century later and wonder how the hell mankind stumbled upon that kind of musical beauty.
Five Beatles songs that will be remembered in 100 years:
5
‘I Am The Walrus’
Throughout his career, John Lennon was always looking for sounds that felt a little out of place. He never wanted to be any ordinary pop songwriter, so the next best thing was trying to make songs that tested what audiences expected out of a standard rock and roll song. And while tunes like ‘Come Together’ and even ‘Help!’ were strange for the time, it’s impossible to put a finger on what ‘I Am the Walrus’ is from the moment it starts playing.
By psychedelic standards, this is the musical equivalent of falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, complete with some of the most incomprehensible lyrics that Lennon ever wrote. But the point wasn’t about making every line make sense. It was about the vibe of the music, and every single second of the tune is like getting a new musical treat, whether it’s the sweeping strings, the weird effect on Lennon’s voice, or the choir building to that rousing climax.
A lot of what turned up on the record wouldn’t be considered normal today, but it proved that The Beatles weren’t looking to fit into normal society. They wanted to challenge what a rock and roll song could be, and there’s hardly a second on the record that doesn’t feel like the most exciting fever dream anyone has ever gone on.
4
‘In My Life’
Just because John Lennon wanted things to sound weird didn’t mean he forgot how to make pop tunes. His favourite artists were the ones that kept people wanting to hear more every single time they sang, and when you listen to some of the Beatles’ finest moments, it often comes from him writing tunes that were on the same level as Paul McCartney’s whimsical ditties. But if you look at any of Macca’s best ballads, none of them can hold a candle to the honesty Lennon had on ‘In My Life’.
Although McCartney already had a few perfect songs in his arsenal, this was the first time the band started working on something more than the standard love song. Rubber Soul already marked their transition towards more adventurous songs, but with McCartney’s chords underneath, Lennon was able to tell the kind of story that everyone has to confront at some point: the passage of time. Nothing in the world is finite, so he figured that he would tell his other half how much he loved them when he had the chance.
This explains why the tune has become even more pertinent, especially as people get older. Not everyone may have picked up on every single detail of the lyrics here, but whether you’re singing along to it or reading deeper into the lyrics, ‘In My Life’ is the gift that keeps on giving, even for those who have become a bit more grey in the temples.
3
‘Here Comes the Sun’
George Harrison always seemed to get the short end of the stick whenever he worked on his own tunes. Anyone would have felt a little bit insecure when working opposite Lennon and McCartney, but the guitarist would always be working through his tunes and making sure that everything sounded perfect, even if his bandmates couldn’t care less. He didn’t need to rely on them by the end, and when working on Abbey Road, there was no one left to argue with him when he came up with ‘Here Comes the Sun’.
Whereas most of Harrison’s other songs have a lot of strange chords laced throughout the tune, there’s nothing that feels out of place throughout these few minutes of pop brilliance. The song could have easily been played on an acoustic guitar and still worked, but bringing in the primitive synthesiser sounds makes the whole tune feel like the sun hitting your face at the beginning of the day and melting away that early morning chill.
All Things Must Pass may have been around the corner for Harrison, but this was proof enough that he was going to be a songwriter to contend with. Lennon and McCartney may have had all the bases covered, but even with something as mundane as the sun coming up, Harrison could find the pure beauty that most songwriters may have taken for granted.
2
‘Yesterday’
Of all the Beatles, Paul McCartney seemed to be the pure embodiment of what music was supposed to be. Lennon would go off on his tangents here and there, and Harrison could hold his own in Eastern music, but there’s hardly anyone who knew the mechanics of a pop tune quite like Macca did. So, for all the countless tunes that he wrote in an attempt to make a hit, it’s almost ironic that his little slice of musical perfection is one that came to him when he wasn’t even trying to write.
Macca has said multiple times that ‘Yesterday’ came to him in a dream, but there had to be something more going on in his subconscious to make a tune like this. He had already grown up listening to some of the greatest jazz standards of the time, so having a song of his own with those complex chord changes was practically a godsend, even if it was a lot more melancholy than what McCartney usually comes up with.
Although the tune was a novelty whenever they played it live, the fact that they couldn’t figure out how to make it work in a live setting is really a testament to the song more than anything else. Of course, McCartney has the tune as a major part of his setlist to this day, but there’s something to be said about a track that’s so perfect that no one is able to properly do it justice outside the studio.
1
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
It’s almost laughable today how much people thought The Beatles had dried up when they left the road. No other rock and roll band lasted as long as they did, and when they stopped playing, it would have been easy to assume that they would move on to get proper jobs. But when they walked back into the studio, the peak of their powers came the moment that John Lennon began strumming his acoustic guitar.
Although ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ are often mentioned in tandem with one another, the former is definitely the more memorable composition. After getting immersed in the psychedelic sounds of the time, hearing them make strides like this wasn’t what anyone expected. They had made a song that existed in between standard musical keys, and from the strange Indian instruments to the orchestral backing, this was the first time the band created an entire world to play around in throughout the course of one track.
There isn’t any hierarchy over which of the songs on this list will last, but there’s no question that ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ will still be blowing minds years into the future. It’s hard enough to comprehend someone had this kind of ingenuity almost 50 years ago, so bringing that to the pop charts back in 1967 would have been like watching someone bring a piece of musical magic onto the speakers.
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