How Americans rate the Beatles and their songs

In a poll conducted weeks prior, we asked people familiar with the Beatles to tell us their favorite Beatles song in an open-ended question. Based on answers to this question, as well as other sources, we developed a list of 30 songs which we asked Americans to rate in a series of two subsequent polls.

While nearly every song is loved by more people than hate it, some stand out as the most highly regarded. The four top-rated songs, which were loved by at least half of Americans familiar with the Beatles, are Yesterday (53% love it), Here Comes the Sun (52%), Hey Jude (50%), and Let It Be (50%). Here Comes the Sun has the best net rating: just 5% are not a fan, fewer than for the other three top-rated songs.

A few songs stand out as particularly divisive among Americans familiar with the Beatles. Yellow Submarine is loved by 33% of people, but 21% say they are not a fan of it. Helter Skelter is disliked by nearly as many people who love it (23% love it; 21% are not a fan).

Listen to the songs yourself using the player below:

How do Americans rate the Beatles' band members? Of people who are at least somewhat familiar with the Beatles, 43% say they love McCartney, while somewhat fewer say they love each of the three other band members, including John Lennon (34% love him), Ringo Starr (32%), and George Harrison (31%).

People who said they loved at least one Beatle were asked which of those they love is their favorite. McCartney tops this list as well, by a bigger margin: 45% say he is their favorite. Lennon earns 27% of the vote, while Harrison (17%) and Starr (11%) take third and fourth place.

Despite being the favorite of one in four, Lennon is also the least favorite Beatle of nearly half (49%) of people who say they are "not a fan" of at least one of the band members. This could be due to the fact that many Americans attribute the band's break up to Lennon or his wife Yoko Ono, according to a separate poll conducted last year. In the ranking of least favorite band members, McCartney (21%) and Starr (18%) are a distant second and third to Lennon, while George Harrison is the least favorite of only 12%.

ncG1vNJzZmisn5muunrYqKygp6ZjsLC5jp6lrZ2iqa6qusyepa1nkafBqq%2FLnqpobGRlgnZ5x6iuZpmdmr%2Bqr8Cnqmaqkamybq7EmqulnaNirq%2BwjK2fnqGiYsCwusasZKmnnKE%3D