What did 1965 give us? The best songs of the year

1965 was a pivotal time in music history. The world learnt about psychedelics, rock bands that would become legends appeared. This time is also called the "British Invasion", when rock musicians from misty shores flooded the US market and the whole world. All this was reflected in the hits of that time, in the best-selling and most listened to singles that played from every vinyl player and every radio. We'll tell you a little more about that today.

Landmark compositions

Let's start with the song that came in second on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the best songs of all time, which made it to the "Songs of the Century" list and put their artists, The Rolling Stones, at number one on the Billboard magazine chart for the first time. Please love and applaud - "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".

The song was written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Jagger had this to say about it:

This song literally made The Rolling Stones, turning us from just another band into a real monster... It captures the spirit of the time, which is very important in songs like this.

Since its release, the band has played this song at almost every gig and now its guitar riff, which we hear from the very beginning of the song, is instantly recognisable.

Now let's move on to another song, which, we can say with certainty, everyone knows, even if they don't realise they know it... This is the legendary Beatles song "Yesterday".

The working title of this song was "Scrambled Eggs", and why not, actually? The song became one of the first rock ballads. Its peculiarity is that only Paul McCartney was involved in the recording, for the first time in the band's history. From '65 to '73 alone, 1,186 covers of the song were recorded, which eventually led it into the Guinness Book of Records. And the financial portal 24/7 Wall Street simply recognised it as the best ever.

According to Paul's story, he had a dream about the melody of this song. He woke up with the feeling that he had heard this melody somewhere, and the first words that came into his head were about scrambled eggs, which gave the song its working title. For months the song remained unfinished, without a proper title, and Paul kept hoping to come up with the "right" words for it. These words were found in '65, in Portugal, as well as the song title "Yesterday", which easily rhymes with the end of many lines of the lyrics. Paul travelled to Lisbon, borrowed a guitar from the band The Shadows and finished creating the legend. He later revealed that he dedicated the song to his mother, who died when he was a teenager.

Another song that everyone seems to have heard. This time it's because its upbeat sound has been on the soundtrack of so many films that it's hard to count. Twin girls, fat ginger cats and living cars - none of them is without "I Got You (I Feel Good)"!

The song became the most popular of James Brown's compositions and made it onto all sorts of greatest hits lists around the world. The song ranked third on Billboard magazine's 100 Greatest Hits list. Although there have been many covers of it, James Brown's version remains the most popular and recognisable.

Help!

"The British Invasion was named so because so many British songs and artists became popular in the 60s. The Beatles naturally led the wave, so it's not surprising that they have more than one position in the list of the year's greatest hits.

"Help!" was the lead song of the album of the same name and was played in the film of the same title. John Lennon dedicated the song to the stress he was feeling because of the great attention their band was getting and their rapidly growing success. Ironically, the song only brought the band more success. For weeks the song was at the top of the charts in the UK, US and other countries.

For Lennon, this song was one of his landmarks. It reflected a new stage in his development as a songwriter, and was generally one of his favourites. He also said that it was a sincere song for the band, not just a song written to order.

And another song, which is considered a milestone in the history of The Beatles and which became popular that year - "Ticket to ride". Critics note that the song changed the band's style, making it tougher and deeper in meaning.

It is interesting that the title of the song has at least four interpretations. Either the girl leaves the narrator, or the train goes to the town of Ryde, or maybe the town was not called Ryde at all, but Paradise (there is such a town in Sussex). Which one is correct remains a mystery. In any case, the song was popular and in the spring of '65 it hit number one on the charts in Britain, Canada and other countries and stayed at number one on the Billboard chart for a week.

Now you can see why 1965 is considered a special year. So many bands were formed, so many iconic songs were sung. As if '65 is some special point in the flow of time... Anyway, it gave us amazing songs that will put you in the mood as soon as you hear them.