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Jackie: This month, Paul McCartney is 70 years old. Of course famous for being one of the Beatles but decades later, amazingly, Paul McCartney is still singing.
Richard: Yes, he was recently singing at the Queen's concert, wasn't he and also I believe he's going to um... be singing at the closing ceremony of The Olympics in London.
Jackie: Yes, so 70 years old and still going. So for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about The Beatles. Well, not The Beatles, far too big a subject, but The Beatles' songs. Richard, The Beatles wrote almost 300 songs.
Richard: Wow
Jackie: Name three, without thinking about it, just name three.
Richard: Okay. Help, Hey Jude er... Strawberry Fields.
Jackie: Oh, that's interesting because I did it on myself.
Richard: Right
Jackie: ...and I wrote down Eleanor Rigby, Something and Hey Jude as well and um... apparently Hey Jude is the most popular of the Beatles songs.
Richard: Mmm I can believe that, yeah.
Jackie: I wrote it down but it's not my favourite at all.
Richard: No, I'm not sure it's my favourite either.
Jackie: So you said Strawberry Fields Forever, Richard, do you know anything about Strawberry fields?
Richard: Like a lot of the Beatles' songs, they're written about places in Liverpool where the Beatles grew up. And I believe Strawberry Fields or Strawberry Field, isn't it a children's home? I think that's all I really know about it to be honest.
Jackie: And um... I think they used to have a garden party once a year for the children and John Lennon loved going to that.
Richard: Right, okay. I don't know who Jude is though [laughs]
Jackie: I don't know anything about that but I do know that um... Eleanor Rigby, I mean The Beatles were... they wrote pop songs, didn't they? But often a lot of the songs are very sad and Eleanor Rigby, well it's a song about er... it's about death and... and loneliness but it was very popular.
Richard: And I do know that one of the songs you chose, Something, is, again, one of the rare songs that were not written by Lennon and McCartney, was it?
Jackie: Yes, Lennon and McCartney are one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships and yes, of course, they wrote nearly all The Beatles' songs but, no, George Harrison wrote Something. So almost 300 songs and between 1963 and 1970, 12 albums and they are the most successful, well the best selling band, in history Richard...
Richard: By a long way I would have thought.
Jackie: By a long way, yes, I mean over a billion sales but what's interesting, it's not just the US and the UK, it's Germany, Australia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Canada, all those countries they're the best selling band.
Richard: Still?
Jackie: Yeah, yeah, in history.
Richard: And of course they're actually, they've stopped making records, obviously er... but they're reissuing a lot of their albums and they're still selling really well.
Jackie: Yes, universal appeal.
Richard: Universal appeal over the years.
Jackie: Yes, interesting they... they haven't dated, have they?
Richard: No. It would be interesting when Paul McCartney plays at The Olympics [because] everybody will know who he is and they'll know all the songs he's going to be playing as well.
Jackie: Probably, yes. So what about you the listeners? What's your favourite Beatles' song? Why not write in and tell us.
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