10 Best Beatles Lyrics

From premiering in America in 1964, to splitting apart in 1969, The Beatles wrote hundreds of songs, leaving the world to wonder what are the 10 best Beatles lyrics? During the 5 years between their premier on the Ed Sullivan show and John Lennon’s departure from the band, The Beatles song styles changed drastically to avoid being placed under a label.

1. “The newspapers said, ‘Say what you doing in bed?’/I said, ‘We're only trying to get us some peace.’” From the Ballad of John and Yoko, these lyrics talk about the bed-ins that the new couple performed as protests to the war.
2. “Hey Jude don't make it bad/Take a sad song and make it better/Remember to let her under your skin/Then you'll begin to make it better.” Written and performed by Paul McCartney, the song Hey Jude was intended to cheer up Julian Lennon after his parents, John Lennon and Cynthia divorced after 8 years of marriage.
3. “And when the night is cloudy,/There is still a light that shines on me./Shine until tomorrow, let it be.” These lyrics refer to Paul McCartney’s late mother and something she often said to her sons when they would argue. After his mother’s death, Paul wrote these lyrics to offer comfort to his father.
4. “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?/It took me years to write, will you take a look?” This song chronicles an aspiring writers attempting to gain acceptance from publishers. Many stories suggest that Paul wrote this after boasting to his grandmother that he could write a song about anything, to which she dared him to write a song about a paperback writer.
5. “In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass/And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen./He likes to keep his fire engine clean/It's a clean machine.” The Beatles enjoyed placing dirty references in their songs, and theses lyrics from Penny Lane are an example of this. Most of these dirty references were from English slang, which made them undetectable to most Americans. These lyrics, for example, tell of a man who “keeps his fire engine clean” or masturbates to a portrait of the Queen that he keeps in his pocket.
6. “Why don't we do it in the road /No one will be watching us /Why don't we do it in the road.” These lyrics repeated over and over make up the entire song by the same name: “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” which was written by Paul McCartney after he supposedly saw two monkey’s mating in the middle of the road  while visiting India.
7. “Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,/Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends.” These Beatles lyrics are taken from the song “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which was the theme song to the hit show “The Wonder Years”. These lyrics reference the use of marijuana used more openly at the time the song was written.
8. “Little darling/It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter/Little darling/It feels like year since it’s been here/Here comes the sun/Here comes the sun, and I say/It’s all right.” George Harrison wrote this song and lyrics after temporarily quitting the band and being arrested for possession of marijuana. When the song idea came to life, Harrison was spending time at the home of his good friend, Eric Clapton.
9. “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see./It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out./It doesn't matter much to me./Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.” These lyrics, taken from the song “Strawberry Fields Forever,” are said to be in reference to the Vietnam war. In addition to this, Strawberry Fields refers to an actual place, a children’s home in Liverpool where John Lennon spent a lot of his childhood.
10. “I want you,/I want you so bad/It’s driving me mad, it’s driving me .../She’s so heavy heavy, heavy, heavy.” In the 2007 hit movie, “Across the Universe” these lyrics played as the character Max Carrigan endures boot camp to Uncle Sam’s song and as Max carries the heavy Lady Liberty across the wastelands of Vietnam.