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Sometime during early stages of the 2020 pandemic-induced shutdown, I, Jonathan Pretus, a musician (Cowboy Mouth, The Breton Sound) and Beatles-fanatic, decided to kill some time by ranking the entire song catalogue of The Beatles. Thus, a spreadsheet was created, color-coordinated by album, with 223 songs recorded and released by the band. Over the course of several days, I placed every song in order, least favorite-to most favorite (I won’t say “worst to best” because I don’t believe any of these songs are bad, I love them all, to be honest). I began posting these on my Facebook page, purely because it seemed a fun way to stay connected to friends in an increasingly disconnected time.

The conversations that occurred in the comments section of these posts were incredibly fun, witty, and above all, interesting. Everyone had different takes on the songs and their placement in the rankings. Disagreements were encouraged, arguments were lighthearted, but fun. After several weeks of posting, several friends reached out and suggested this would make a fun podcast. As John Lennon once said, “and now it’s all this.”

It was suggested I have a co-host, one who didn’t share the same love of the band as me. I had no idea whom to ask, and brought it up in conversation over dinner with Julia, my wife. Surprise of surprises, she said she’d be interested in doing it, and the more I thought of it, the more I loved it. I get to talk about my favorite subject, with my favorite person. Hard to turn it down. I’m the Uber-fan, she’s the moderate-fan. Yin and yang, as it were.

So here we are.

We’ve been together since 2003, married since 2007. We both grew up, and live, in New Orleans, LA with our dogs, Jojo and Maxwell. In 2017 for our 10 year anniversary, we travelled to London and Liverpool for a trip in which Julia allowed me to indulge in all my lifelong nerdy Beatle dreams. We absolutely loved it, and can’t wait to return.

Have any questions? Want to know how our marriage survives the insane debates in our show, or where we went on our Liverpool/London Beatles vacation? Drop us a line at rankingthebeatles@gmail.com! We’ll be happy to give you any tips we can, whether it’s about when it’s time to put on music by another band so as to not drive your partner crazy, the google-map itinerary from our vacation (we still have it, happy to share), or anything else you want to know!