Our countdown of the top 20 BIGGEST BEATLES’ SONGS reaches its conclusion…

After 1964, the biggest BEATLE year of all is…

(no.1) 1967 - We hope you all enjoyed the show…

The Beatles were never better than in 1967. Though, as events transpired, it was only half a good year.

After six, long months without a new record, the Beatles bounced back in February with a double a-side single that was, by turns, a jovial, bizarre and sweetly unsettling homage to their home city. What had the Beatles become?

Then, that album, the most famous record of the 20th century. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was their peak achievement, one which dominated the pop-cultural climate like no Beatles release had since 1964, bursting with purpose, nostalgia, affection, optimism and eternal sunshine, emerging into the light after months of speculation at Abbey Road’s studios, buried under tape edits, sound effects, circus posters, newspaper clippings, love letters to traffic wardens, brooding Indian-styled epics, orchestras wearing party hats and a reservation for a cottage in the Isle of Wight. Amidst Peter Blake’s pop-art sleeve collage of Beatles’ heroes, the group set the tone for 1967 in their day-glo military garb, play-acting as members of an Edwardian brass band.

Was it their best album of all? No, that would be Revolver. But Sgt. Pepper was their greatest album, taking the rest of the pop world completely unawares and reminding the young pretenders (hello Monkees) that only the Beatles were capable of imagining who the Beatles could really be. Allied with ‘All You Need Is Love’, broadcast live to millions around the world, the Beatles delivered songs that defined the summer of ‘67 for ever more.

That was the good half. Then, during the last months of ‘67, they lost their manager Brian Epstein to a sad and early death - the man who dreamed the dream of the Beatles before anyone else dared. They made their first critical misstep with the quaint but nonsensical Magical Mystery Tour road movie, a Boxing Day TV treat too far. Musically, they began to drift about too, losing the clarity and objectivity that had always served them so well. After the promise of Revolver, George Harrison’s creative ambitions were reduced to just two songs in a year of plenty for the group. From here on, the cracks would begin to show.

For four incredible years, the Beatles had been the indisputable creative force in popular music. The end began, as it were, days after the release of Sgt. Pepper when Paul McCartney walked into the Saville Theatre and caught Jimi Hendrix, with all his electric pomp and flair, tearing into the album’s title track with a cranked-up blues gusto. Paul had heard the future and, for the first time since 1963, it wasn’t the Beatles. It would never be again. How they maintained their position for so long is beyond any easy reckoning.

No other artist or group has come close to matching their dominance, in sales figures or critical approval ever since. As our countdown has shown, the Beatles never ceased to matter. They were - no, are - a story that the public longed to continue through each succeeding generation. The songs have never remained the same, forming new meanings and nuances as we adapted to the ever-changing world around us.

That’s quite some legacy, from a chance meeting at a village fete to the most revered and best-selling group of all time. Not bad for a bunch of mop-tops!

Listen to this: A Day In The Life

They saved Sgt Pepper’s crowning moment for the very end. Now for that long, sustained piano chord…fading into chaos on the spindle.