With the release of his album Around the World in a Day, many critics wondered if Prince was taking inspiration from The Beatles. They hadn’t inspired him to make the album, and while he acknowledged that they were influential artists, he didn’t know that they would have been successful in the decades after their split. Years after making these remarks, though, Prince proved himself wrong.
A member of The Revolution recalled when Prince heard The Beatles for the first time
Bobby Z., the drummer for Prince’s backing band The Revolution, said that the first Beatles album the artist ever really listened to was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
“Well, it’s a great story, because Matt and Dez [Dickerson] and I were sitting in the back of the tour bus, and we were listening to Sgt. Pepper and of all of the songs, it was ‘Good Morning Good Morning,’ which is right before ‘A Day in the Life,’ with animal noises,” he told Diffuser in 2017. “You know, it’s got all of these animal noises and snorts and stuff. He walked in on that.”
Prince didn’t seem too impressed when they told him they were listening to The Beatles, but he asked them to restart the song.
“[T]hat moment, I think he realized that the Beatles were more than he thought,” he said. “He just kind of swallowed them up. You can tell that Around the World in a Day — I’m just assuming a lot, and he’d probably get mad — but I’m assuming that by swallowing up Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper that Around the World in a Day is definitely influenced by it.”
Prince wasn’t sure The Beatles would have done well in later decades
Despite what Bobby Z. believed, Prince denied that The Beatles inspired Around the World in a Day. He didn’t mind people describing the album as psychedelic, though.
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“I don’t mind that, because that was the only period in recent history that delivered songs and colors,” he told Rolling Stone in 1985. “Led Zeppelin, for example, would make you feel differently on each song.”
He took a firmer stance about people comparing him to The Beatles. While he appreciated the influence their music had, he wasn’t sure that their music translated well into the 1980s.
“No. What they say is that the Beatles are the influence. The influence wasn’t the Beatles,” he said. “They were great for what they did, but I don’t know how that would hang today.”
He later proved himself wrong
It took nearly two decades, but Prince eventually proved himself wrong. In 2004, he got onstage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner where George Harrison was posthumously honored. Prince was also an honoree, and he took the stage for the song alongside Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Marc Mann, Dhani Harrison, and others.
Prince stood on the sidelines for much of the performance, but he eventually stepped onstage for a guitar solo so transfixing that even the other performers could hardly seem to believe it; Petty and Dhani stared at him with twin smiles of disbelief.
The strength of Prince’s performance proved two things. First, he was one of the most talented guitar players of all time. Second, a Beatles song could still sound incredible even four decades after they were at the height of their fame.
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