Lord, I wish I were a drinking man

The Beatles "All You Need Is Love."

• Almost as naive as your average Howard Jones lyric? You betcha.
• But a genuine celebration, an artifact? Absolutely. If anyone cares I think Barry Miles' Paul McCartney-Many Years From Now is the best book ever written on the songwriter, at least in his Beatle years. Miles writes of this song:

  It was the philosophy of Sgt. Pepper and the era reduced to five words.

• It's the site of one of the great self-quotes in pop music history, when Lennon starts singing "She Loves You" at the end.
• And of course, influencewise, it's all over Tears For Fears' "Sowing The Seeds Of Love," something they never hid-they used to follow performing that song in concert by covering the Beatle tune.

Yes, "All You Need Is Love" is all those things and even more.

And now it's the soundtrack to a commercial for credit cards.

The dream is over, yesterday.