Coincidentally, I was listening to the Beatles 'mash-up' album, "Love", in the car yesterday - the one where George Martin, with his son's help, presented different aspects and mixes of their music.

What struck me more than anything were two things: the solidity and force of Ringo Starr's drumming, and the very beautiful melodic harmonising and composition of McCartney and Lennon. The first track consists simply of the vocal backing chorus to "Because" with no other instrumentation - silence and all. Absolutely beautiful, even without the main melody. That is one demonstration of their talent for melody and harmony.

In my early musical lifetime, there were two main 'revolutions' in popular music - genres of music that swept in, overturned the then norm, and influenced others to follow the same path - early rock'n roll, and then the Beatles. I've just compiled a late 1940s/early1950s playlist as background music for a local village event - music I remember well - and, listening to it, it brought back memories of just how radical rock'n roll was at the time for those of an older generation. Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, crooners, dance bands - all blown away by Elvis and the rest.

Their soft-rock successors, in turn - the Pat Boones and similar - were blown away by the hard-edged sound of Lennon & McCartney, particularly in the US, where the careers of many musicians nose-dived.

The Beatles were not just a creation of Brian Epstein and George Martin, but had immense songwriting talent. McCartney, as a child, was very influenced by his father's piano playing, and you can detect echoes of earlier popular music in his chord changes and melodic creations. Which was why the older generation of "C, Am, F, G7" stuff sounded old hat at that time. For those who weren't making music at the time, all this may seem just old history but, for those of us who were actively making music, it was breathtaking stuff.

McCartney, in my view, is up there with Kern, Gershwin, Dorothy Fields, Al Dubin, etc. Having said that, a cursory listen to Egypt Station on Spotify doesn't impress in the same way.

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Duplicate removed, banter retained.