All You Need Is Love

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"All You Need Is Love" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967, with "Baby, You're a Rich Man" as its B-side. It was written by John LennonTemplate:Sfn and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link, for which the band were shown performing it at EMI Studios in London on 25 June. The programme was broadcast via satellite and seen by an audience of over 400 million in 25 countries. Lennon's lyrics were deliberately simplistic, to allow for broad appeal to the show's international audience, and captured the utopian ideals associated with the Summer of Love. The single topped sales charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries, and became an anthem for the counterculture's embrace of flower power philosophy.

Our World coincided with the height of the Beatles' popularity and influence, following the release of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rather than perform the song entirely live, the group played to a pre-recorded backing track. With an orchestral arrangement by George Martin, the song begins with a portion of the French national anthem "La Marseillaise" and ends with musical quotations from works such as Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", "Greensleeves", Bach's Invention No. 8 in F major, and the Beatles' 1963 hit "She Loves You". Adding to the broadcast's festive atmosphere, the studio was adorned with signs and streamers and filled with guests dressed in psychedelic attire, including members of the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Small Faces. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, described the performance as the band's "finest" moment.<ref name="Badman/MojoSpecial" />

"All You Need Is Love", and its B-side, "Baby, You're a Rich Man", were later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album and served as the two morals for the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. Originally broadcast in black-and-white, the Our World performance was colourised for inclusion in the Beatles' 1995 Anthology documentary series. While the song remains synonymous with the 1967 Summer of Love ethos and provided the foundation for Lennon's legacy as a humanitarian, numerous critics found the message naïve in retrospect, particularly during the 1980s. Since 2009, Global Beatles Day, an international celebration of the Beatles' music and social message, takes place on 25 June each year in tribute to their Our World performance.

Background and inspiration

Launched in 1965, Intelsat I was one of the four satellites used in Our World, the first live international satellite television production.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

On 18 May 1967, the Beatles signed a contract to appear as Britain's representatives on Our World, which was to be broadcast live internationally, via satellite, on 25 June.Template:Sfn The Beatles were asked to provide a song with a message that could be easily understood by everyone,Template:Sfn and using "basic English" terms.Template:Sfn The band undertook the assignment at a time when they were considering making a television special, Magical Mystery Tour,Template:Sfn and working on songs for the animated film Yellow Submarine, for which they were contractually obliged to United Artists to supply four new recordings.Template:Sfn "All You Need Is Love" was selected for Our World for its contemporary social significance over the Paul McCartney-written "Your Mother Should Know".Template:SfnTemplate:Refn In a statement to Melody Maker magazine, Brian Epstein, the band's manager, said of "All You Need Is Love": "It was an inspired song and they really wanted to give the world a message. The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

John Lennon later attributed the song's simple lyrical statements to his liking of slogans and television advertising.Template:Sfn He likened the song to a propaganda piece,Template:Sfn adding: "I'm a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change."Template:Sfn Author Mark Hertsgaard views it as the Beatles' "most political song yet" up to 1967 and the origins of Lennon's posthumous standing as a "humanitarian hero".Template:Sfn The song's advocacy of the all-importance of love followed Lennon's introduction of the idea in his lyrics to "The Word" in 1965Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and George Harrison's declaration in "Within You Without You", from the band's recently released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, that "With our love, we could save the world".<ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).</ref>Template:Sfn

The Beatles were unimpressed when Epstein first told them that he had arranged for their appearance on Our World, and they delayed choosing a song for the broadcast.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In their interviews for The Beatles Anthology in the 1990s, McCartney and Harrison say they were unsure whether "All You Need Is Love" was written for Our World, while Ringo Starr and George Martin, the Beatles' producer, state that it was.Template:Sfn McCartney said: "It was certainly tailored to [the broadcast] once we had it. But I've got a feeling it was just one of John's songs that was coming anyway."Template:Sfn In McCartney's recollection, the song was entirely Lennon's, with Harrison, Starr and his own contributions confined to "ad-libs" at the end of the recording.Template:Sfn

Composition and musical structure

Main portion

Template:Listen "All You Need Is Love" contains an asymmetric time signature and complex changes.Template:Sfn Musicologist Russell Reising writes that, although the song represents the peak of the Beatles' overtly psychedelic phase, the change in metre during the verses is the sole example of the experimental aspect that typifies the band's work in that genre.Template:Sfn The main verse pattern contains a total of 29 beats, split into two [[7/4|Template:Music]] measures, a single bar of Template:Music, followed by a one bar return of Template:Music before repeating the pattern. The chorus, however, maintains a steady [[4/4 beat|Template:Music beat]] with the exception of the last bar of [[6/4 (time signature)|Template:Music]] (on the lyric "love is all you need"). The prominent cello line draws attention to this departure from pop-single normality, although it was not the first time that the Beatles had experimented with varied metre within a single song: "Love You To" and "She Said She Said" were earlier examples.Template:Sfn

The song is in the key of G and the verse opens (on "There's nothing you can do") with a G chord and D melody note, the chords shifting in a I–V–vi chord progression while the bass simultaneously moves from the tonic (G) note to the root note of the relative minor (E minor), via an [[F♯ (musical note)|FTemplate:Music]],Template:Sfn supporting a first inversion D chord. After the verse "learn how to play the game, it's easy", the bass alters the prolonged V (D) chord with FTemplate:Music, E, C and B notes.Template:Sfn The song includes a dramatic use of a dominant or V chord (here D) on "It's easy."Template:Sfn The "Love, love, love" chant involves chords in a I–V7–vi shift (G–D–Em)Template:Sfn and simultaneous descending B, A, G notes with the concluding G note corresponding not to the tonic G chord, but acting as the third of the E minor chord; this also introducing the E note of the Em chord as a 6th of the tonic G scale. Supporting the same melody note with different and unexpected chords has been termed a characteristic Beatles technique.Template:Sfn

According to Reising, the lyrics advance the Beatles' anti-materialistic message and are an "anthemic tribute" to universal love in which "nothing is tempered or modulated".Template:Sfn He says that Lennon favours words such as "nothing", "no one", "nowhere" and "all", thereby presenting a series of "extreme statements" that conclude with "the final reversals of 'All you need is love' and 'Love is all you need'".Template:Sfn

Quotations and coda

On the Beatles' recording, the song starts with the first few bars of the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", and contains elements from other musical works, such as Glenn Miller's 1939 hit "In the Mood". This use of musical quotations follows an approach first adopted by the Beatles in Harrison's composition "It's All Too Much",Template:Sfn which similarly reflects the ideology behind the hippie movement during the 1967 Summer of Love.Template:Sfn George Martin recalled that in "All You Need Is Love" "the boys ... wanted to freak out at the end, and just go mad".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the long coda, elements of other musical works can be heard, including "Greensleeves", Invention No. 8 in F major (BWV 779) by J. S. Bach, "In the Mood", "Prince of Denmark's March", and the Beatles' own songs "She Loves You" and "Yesterday".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The first of these three pieces had been included in the arrangement by Martin, while "She Loves You" and "Yesterday" were the result of improvisation by Lennon during rehearsals.<ref name=rs />Template:Refn

Like musicologist Alan Pollack, Kenneth Womack views the "She Loves You" refrain as serving a similar purpose to the wax models of the Beatles depicted on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, beside the real-life band members, and therefore a further example of the group distancing themselves from their past.Template:Sfn In his book Rock, Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, author Doyle Greene describes the combination of the "Love is all you need" refrain, "She Loves You" reprise, and orchestral quotations from Bach and Miller as "a joyous, collective anarchy signifying the utopian dreams of the counterculture topped off with a postmodern fanfare".Template:Sfn

Recording

Backing track

The Beatles began recording the backing track for the song at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes, South-West London, on 14 June 1967.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The producers of Our World were initially unhappy about the use of a backing track for the broadcast, but Martin insisted, saying, "we can't just go in front of 350 million people without some work".<ref name=rs>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The initial line-up was Lennon on harpsichord, McCartney on double bass with a bow, Harrison on violin – three instruments that were unfamiliar to the musiciansTemplate:Sfn – while Starr played drums.Template:Sfn The band recorded 33 takes, before choosing the tenth take as the best. This performance was transferred onto a new 4-track tape, with the four instruments mixed into one track.Template:Sfn The engineers at Olympic thought the Beatles displayed a surprising lack of care during this process,Template:Sfn a sign, according to author Ian MacDonald, of the group's new preference for randomness in contrast to the high production standards of Sgt. Pepper.Template:Sfn

From 19 June, working at Studio 2 in EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios),Template:Sfn the Beatles recorded overdubs including piano (played by Martin), banjo, guitar and some vocal parts.<ref name=rs/> Among this last were the "Love, love, love" refrains, and a Lennon vocal over the song's choruses.Template:Sfn On 23 June, the band began rehearsing the song with an orchestra, whose playing was also added to the backing track.Template:Sfn On 24 June, the day before the broadcast, the Beatles decided that the song would be their next single.Template:Sfn Late that morning, a press call was held at EMI Studios, attended by over 100 journalists and photographers, followed by further rehearsals and recording.Template:Sfn Publicity photos were taken during the press call and rehearsals, and a BBC television crew blocked the camera angles required for the live performance.Template:Sfn As part of this pre-broadcast promotion, the Beatles posed in a yard beside the studio building, wearing boards that together spelt out "All You Need Is Love"Template:Sfn and approximations of the song title in three other languages.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn

Live broadcast

Template:Quote box The Our World broadcast took place in the wake of the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War and, for the Beatles, amid the public furore caused by McCartney's admission that he had taken LSD.Template:Sfn On 25 June, the live transmission cut to EMI Studios at 8:54 pm London time, about 40 seconds earlier than expected. Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick were drinking scotch whisky to calm their nerves for the task of mixing the audio for a live worldwide broadcast, and had to scramble to hide the bottle and glasses beneath the mixing desk after being told they were about to go on air.<ref name="Badman/MojoSpecial">Badman, Keith. "Universal Love". In: Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name=rs />

The Beatles (except for Starr, behind his drum kit) were seated on high stools, accompanied by a thirteen-piece orchestra. The band were surrounded by friends and acquaintances seated on the floor, who sang along with the refrain during the fade-out. These guests included Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Keith Moon, Graham Nash, and Pattie Boyd (Harrison's wife), along with Mike McGear and Jane Asher (McCartney's brother and girlfriend, respectively).<ref name=rs /> The studio setting was designed to reflect the communal aspect of the occasion while also demonstrating the position of influence that the Beatles held among their peers, particularly following the release of Sgt. Pepper.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Many of the invitations were extended through Beatles aides Mal Evans and Tony Bramwell, who had visited various London nightclubs the night before the broadcast.Template:Sfn

File:Beatles-our-world.jpg
A colourised frame of McCartney and Lennon performing "All You Need Is Love" on Our World. Music journalist Peter Doggett has described the Beatles' performance as "one of the strongest visual impressions" from the Summer of Love.Template:Sfn

Also among the studio audience were members of the Small FacesTemplate:Sfn and the design collective the Fool.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Balloons, flowers, streamers and "Love" graffiti added to the celebratory atmosphere. The Beatles and their entourage were dressed in psychedelic clothes and scarves; in his report on the performance, Barry Miles likened the setting to a medieval gathering, broken only by the presence of modern studio equipment such as large headphones and microphones.Template:Sfn According to Michael Frontani, an associate professor of communications, whereas Sgt. Pepper showed the Beatles as artists and "serious musicians", Our World emphasised their identity as members of the hippie counterculture.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn

The segment was directed by Derek Burrell-Davis, the head of the BBC's Our World project.Template:Sfn It opened with the band playing "All You Need Is Love" for about a minute, before Martin, speaking from the studio control room, suggested that the orchestra should take their places for the recording as the tape was rewound.<ref name=rs /> The BBC presenter, Steve Race, announced that the Beatles had just recorded this performance and were about to complete the recording live.Template:Sfn In fact, in author John Winn's description, Race's statements were part of the "staged" aspect of the segment, which purported to show the Beatles at work in the studio: the opening footage of the band (merely rehearsing over the backing track) had been filmed earlier, and by the time Martin appeared to be issuing instructions, the orchestra were already seated in Studio 1.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn The Beatles, accompanied by the orchestra and the studio guests, then performed the entire song, overdubbing onto the pre-recorded rhythm track. In addition to the lead and backing vocals and the orchestra, the live elements were McCartney's bass guitar part, Harrison's guitar solo and Starr's drums.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the opinion of music critic Richie Unterberger, the performance of "All You Need Is Love" is "the best footage of the Beatles in the psychedelic period" and "captures Flower Power at its zenith, with enough irreverence to avoid pomposity, what with the sandwich boards of lyrics, the florid clothing and decor, and celebrity guests".Template:Sfn

Final overdubs

Template:Quote box Lennon, affecting indifference, was said to be nervous about the broadcast, given the potential size of the international TV audience. Later on 25 June, dissatisfied with his singing, he re-recorded the solo verses for use on the single.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn On 26 June, in EMI's Studio 2, Lennon's vocal was treated with ADT,Template:Sfn and Starr overdubbed a drum roll at the start of the track, replacing a tambourine part.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The programme was shown in black-and-white since colour television had yet to commence broadcasting in Britain and most of the world. The Beatles' footage was colourised, based on photographs of the event, for the 1995 documentary The Beatles Anthology.Template:Sfn Over the documentary's end credits, a snippet of studio conversation from the 25 June overdubbing session includes Lennon telling Martin: "I'm ready to sing for the world, George, if you can just give me the backing …"Template:Sfn The colour version of the band's Our World appearance also appears on the Beatles' 2015 video compilation 1.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Release and reception

"All You Need Is Love" was issued in the UK on 7 July 1967, on EMI's Parlophone label, with "Baby, You're a Rich Man" as the B-side.Template:Sfn The US release, on Capitol Records, took place on 17 July.Template:Sfn In his contemporary review for Melody Maker, Nick Jones said the Beatles represented the "progressive avant-garde" in their approach to singles releases, and that "All You Need Is Love" was "another milestone in their very phenomenal career". He described the song as a "cool, calculated contagious Beatles singsong" that was more immediate than "Strawberry Fields Forever", and concluded: "The message is 'love' and I hope everyone in the whole wide world manages to get it."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The single entered the Record Retailer chart (subsequently the UK Singles Chart) at number 2 before topping the listings for three weeks.<ref name="UK chart">Template:Cite web</ref> In the US, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a week.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Sfn The song was a number 1 hit in many other countries.<ref name=rs />Template:Sfn It was also the subject of a copyright dispute between EMI and KPM, the publisher of "In the Mood", later in July. Since Martin had not checked the copyright status of Miller's piece before incorporating it into the coda, EMI were obliged to pay royalties to KPM.Template:Sfn On 11 September, "All You Need Is Love" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.Template:Sfn

File:Scenic view off the coast of the Aegean Sea (April 2005).jpg
The Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece. In the weeks following the single's release, the Beatles holidayed on the Aegean in search of an island on which to establish a commune in the manner of Aldous Huxley.Template:Sfn

The single coincided with the height of the Beatles' popularity and influence during the 1960s, following the release of Sgt. Pepper.Template:Sfn In his retrospective feature on the song in Rolling Stone, Gavin Edwards writes that "All You Need Is Love" provided "the sing-song anthem for the Summer of Love, with a sentiment that was simple but profound".<ref name=rs /> According to historian David Simonelli, such was the band's international influence, it was the song that formally announced the arrival of flower power ideology as a mainstream concept.Template:Sfn The Beatles followed up the utopian spirit of Our World in their activities over July and August,Template:Sfn during their first summer free of tour commitments.Template:Sfn In late July, the band investigated the possibility of buying a Greek island with a view to setting up a hippie-style commune for themselvesTemplate:Sfn and members of their inner circle.<ref name="Hunt/Island">Hunt, Chris. "Fantasy Island". In: Template:Harvnb.</ref> After sailing around the Aegean Sea and approving a location on the island of Leslo,<ref name="Hunt/Island" /> the Beatles decided against the idea and returned to London.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In early August,Template:Sfn Harrison and a small entourage made a well-publicised visit to the international hippie capital of Haight-Ashbury, in San Francisco.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Writing in 2001, Peter Doggett said that the Beatles' performance on Our World "remains one of the strongest visual impressions of the summer of love";Template:Sfn Womack describes it as "flower power's finest moment".Template:Sfn Rolling Stone ranks "All You Need Is Love" 370th on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 21st on its "100 Greatest Beatles Songs" list.Template:Sfn Mojo placed it at number 28 on a similar list of the best Beatles songs. In his commentary for the magazine, producer and musician Dave Stewart admired the track's "jumbled-up mix of music – marching band and rock'n'roll" and recalled the Beatles' Our World appearance as "a signal for those [of us] who felt we were trapped in a mental hospital in some suburban town to break out".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2018, the music staff of Time Out London ranked "All You Need Is Love" at number 4 on their list of the best Beatles songs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In November 1967, "All You Need Is Love" was included on the American LP version of Magical Mystery Tour,Template:Sfn together with the band's other singles tracks from that year.Template:Sfn It was also included on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, released in January 1969.Template:Sfn As a statement on the power of universal love, the song served as the moral in the Yellow Submarine film;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn it plays over a scene where Lennon's character defeats the Blue Meanies by throwing the word "Love" at their evil Flying Glove.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn The song is also featured in Cirque du Soleil's show Love, based on the songs of the Beatles. It was sequenced as the closing track of the 2006 soundtrack album.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn

Cultural responses and legacy

Social relevance

File:A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration. Arlington, Virginia, USA.jpg
A demonstrator offers a flower to military policemen during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in October 1967 (photo by Marc Riboud). "All You Need Is Love" provided an anthem for the flower power movement.
File:AllYouNeedIsLovePillow.jpg
A decorative pillow depicting the title of the song

In a 1981 article on the musical and social developments of 1967, sociomusicologist Simon Frith described "All You Need Is Love" as a "genuinely moving song" and said that, further to the impact of Sgt. Pepper, the international broadcast confirmed "the Beatles' evangelical role" in a year when "it seemed the whole world was waiting for something new, and the power of music was beyond doubt."<ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).</ref> Psychiatrist and New Left advocate R. D. Laing wrote about the song's contemporary appeal:

The times fitted [the Beatles] like a glove. Everyone was getting the feel of the world as a global village – as us, one species. The whole human race was becoming unified under the shadow of death ... One of the most heartening things about the Beatles was that they gave expression to a shared sense of celebration around the world, a sense of the same sensibility.Template:Sfn

Doyle Greene writes that because of its presentation as the conclusion to Our World, "All You Need Is Love" provided "a distinctly political statement". He says that the song was "selling peace" on a programme that aimed to foster international understanding in a climate of Cold War hostility, the Vietnam War and revolutionary unrest in the Third World.Template:Sfn By contrast, NME critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler detected self-parody in the song, saying that the Beatles sought to debunk their elevated status during the Summer of Love.Template:Sfn

According to author Jon Wiener, "All You Need Is Love" served as "the anthem of flower power" that summer but also, like Sgt. Pepper, highlighted the ideological gulf between the predominantly white hippie movement and the increasingly political ghetto culture in the US.Template:Sfn Wiener says that the song's pacifist agenda infuriated many student radicals from the New Left and that these detractors "continued to denounce [Lennon] for it for the rest of his life".Template:SfnTemplate:Refn He also writes that, in summer 1967, "links between the counterculture and the New Left remained murky", since a full dialogue regarding politics and rock music was still a year away and would only be inspired by Lennon's 1968 song "Revolution".Template:Sfn

The Rolling Stones' 1967 single "We Love You" was inspired by the message of "All You Need Is Love",<ref name=pc46>Template:Cite web</ref> and John Lennon and Paul McCartney appeared on the song, contributing backing vocals.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the mid-1970s, according to Carr and Tyler, it was still "impossible" to hear the start of the French national anthem without launching into "All You Need Is Love", yet even a contrite "reformed hippie" could "bellow tunelessly along with this glorious, irreverent single without any real embarrassment – a measure of its internal strength and durability".Template:Sfn

In 2005, a handwritten copy of the lyrics sold at auction for $1.25 million (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation/year), more than tripling the record for a lyric manuscript previously held by Lennon's "Nowhere Man".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Template:Clear

Retrospective criticism

Template:Quote box

In the decades following the record's release, Beatles biographers and music journalists criticised the lyrics as naive and simplistic and detected a smugness in the message; the song's musical content was similarly dismissed as unimaginative.Template:Sfn Ian MacDonald viewed it as "one of The Beatles' less deserving hits" and, in its apparently chaotic production, typical of the band's self-indulgent work immediately after Sgt. Pepper.Template:Sfn Regarding the song's message, MacDonald writes:

During the materialistic Eighties, this song's title was the butt of cynics, there being, obviously, any number of additional things needed to sustain life on earth. It should, perhaps, be pointed out that this record was not conceived as a blueprint for a successful career. "All you need is love" is a transcendental statement, as true on its level as the principle of investment on the level of the stock exchange. In the idealistic perspective of 1967 – the polar opposite of 1987 – its title makes perfect sense.Template:Sfn

Writing in 1988, author and critic Tim Riley identified the track's "internal contradictions (positivisms expressed with negatives)" and "bloated self-confidence ('it's easy')" as qualities that rendered it as "the naive answer to 'A Day in the Life'".Template:Sfn By contrast, Mark Hertsgaard considers "All You Need Is Love" to be among the Beatles' finest songs and one of the few highlights among their recordings from the Magical Mystery Tour–Yellow Submarine era.Template:Sfn In his opinion, Lennon's detractors fail to discern between "shallow and utopian" when ridiculing the song as socially irrelevant, and he adds: "one may as well complain that Martin Luther King was a poor singer as criticize Lennon on fine points of political strategy; his role was the Poet, not the Political Organizer."Template:SfnTemplate:Refn

Writing in 2017, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times said that the song "appears hopelessly naïve 50 years on" yet its espousal of global connectedness had become increasingly relevant. In his view, through Our World, "'All You Need Is Love' marked a new chapter in the world's colonisation by telecommunications", and its message inspired the sentiments behind "Love Trumps Hate", displayed on placards protesting Donald Trump's 2016 US presidential win, and the One Love Manchester benefit concert.<ref name="Hunter-Tilney/FT">Template:Cite news</ref>

Validity of message

In Granada Television's 1987 documentary It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, commemorating two decades since Sgt. Pepper and the Summer of Love, several of the interviewees were asked whether they still believed that "Love is all you need".<ref name="Harrington/WashPost">Template:Cite news</ref> Harrison was the only one who unequivocally agreed with the sentiment.<ref name="Ellen/Q" /> Asked why this was, he told Mark Ellen of Q magazine: "They all said 'All You Need Is Love' but you also need such-and-such else. But … love is complete knowledge. If we all had total knowledge, then we would have complete love and, on that basis, everything is taken care of. It's a law of nature."<ref name="Ellen/Q">Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Refn

In 2009, George Vaillant, the chief investigator of the Grant Study, which tracked 268 Harvard undergraduates for a period of 80 years with the goal of finding what factors led to longevity, said that happiness had a strong correlation to close relationships, summarising: "Happiness is love. Full stop."<ref name="Stossel 2013">Template:Cite news</ref> The CBC reported that the "[Grant] study proves Beatles right: All You Need is Love."<ref name="CBC Havard Study">Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Equality March 2022 in Kraków - all you need is love.jpg
A demonstrator at the 2022 Kraków Equality March

Personnel

According to Ian MacDonald,Template:Sfn except where noted:

The Beatles

Additional participants

Charts

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Weekly charts

Template:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:Singlechart
Chart (1967) Peak
position
Australian Go-Set National Top 40<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Australian Kent Music Report<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Canadian RPM 100<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Finland (Suomen virallinen lista)<ref name=Finland>Template:Cite book</ref> 3
Irish Singles Chart<ref name="IRL">Template:Cite web Only results when searching "All you need is love"</ref> 1
Italy (Musica e Dischi)<ref>Template:Cite web Set "Tipo" on "Singoli". Then, in the "Titolo" field, search "All you need is love".</ref> 10
New Zealand Listener Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Swedish Kvällstoppen Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Swedish Tio i Topp Chart<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 1
UK Record Retailer Chart<ref name="UK chart" /> 1
US Billboard Hot 100<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
US Cash Box Top 100<ref name="cash">Template:Cite book</ref> 1
West German Musikmarkt Hit-Parade<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1
Chart (1987) Peak
position
Irish Singles Chart<ref name="IRL"/> 19
UK Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 47
Chart (2015) Peak
position
Sweden Heatseeker (Sverigetopplistan)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1

Template:Col-2

Year-end charts

Chart (1967) Rank
Canada<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 3
US Billboard<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 30
US Cash Box<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 43

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Certifications

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Notes

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References

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Sources

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Template:The Beatles singles Template:Magical Mystery Tour Template:Yellow Submarine (album) Template:Tom Jones Template:Authority control

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