Today is the anniversary of an important and significant event in the history of music,  although I doubt it will be marked in the national press. Way back in 1963, fifty years ago to the  very day, on Monday February 11^th, The Beatles completed the recording of their first ever album (or LP as it was called then), “Please Please Me” at the Abbey Road Studios in London. So what, you might say, plenty of musicians have made successful albums, why is this one so special?

Well, it’s special on a number of levels but first and foremost was the sheer speed of the recording, eleven songs performed and recorded in one day. Ten of those songs were included on the new album in addition to the four songs taken from their first two singles and the eleventh was kept back for their second album. The Beatles’ second single, also called “Please Please Me”, had recently become their first ever number one single in virtually every chart other than the Record Retailer chart (which was topped by the band’s next single, “From Me To You” a couple of months later) and the band’s producer, George Martin, naturally wanted to quickly capitalise on that success.

To record ten songs in a single day was a rarity then and is unheard of these days in spite of the enormous leaps in technology . The album went to the top of the album charts, as in fact did all bar one of their subsequent albums, and for the next seven years, until their 1970 demise, The Beatles led the way with their pioneering music. The Beatles instigated a musical and social revolution the like of which this country and indeed the world had never seen before.

Their music helped to shape and define the 1960s and the four members of the band became the unofficial spokesmen of their generation. People now well into middle age recount their memories with reference to Beatles songs. The Beatles were that important and that influential.

Music historians have often analysed their immense talent and critics have said, well so and so had a better voice than either Paul McCartney or John Lennon, so and so could play lead guitar better than George Harrison and so and so was a better drummer than Ringo Starr. All that may be true but the fact of the matter is that, aside from the obvious song writing genius of Lennon and McCartney, The Beatles were a band whose whole was greater than the sum of their individual parts. Together they were truly insuperable.

In truth, when trying to find the words to describe The Beatles one runs out of superlatives. Quite simply The Beatles were a phenomenon, totally unique and without peer, and those of us lucky enough to be around when they were can say without exaggeration that they wrote the soundtrack to our lives. That is some accolade.