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Beatles lyric quiz: How well do you know the words to these classic Fab Four songs?

Getty Images
Getty Images

Call yourself a Beatlemaniac? Now’s the time to prove it.

To mark drummer Ringo Starr's 80th birthday on July 7, we’ve put together a quiz to test your knowledge of the words and rhymes in some of the Beatles’ most famous songs — as well as a couple of deep cuts.

With well over 220 songs written across the course of their decade-long career, the band were certainly a prolific outfit. Their lyrical content evolved as their sound did — from straight-laced loved songs to tripped-out psychedelia and grandiose tunes of their final years.

The majority of the lyrics were written by the fabled partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, even if some songs did see one of them taking the lead. George Harrison would occasionally chip in — Here Comes The Sun, While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Something are some of the favourites penned by the guitarist — with Ringo Starr responsible for a handful, too.

Their lyrics have been examined, dissected and analysed at great length in the decades since they were written, and some people have even uncovered alleged conspiracies. One of the major theories is known as ‘Paul is Dead’ — the claim that McCartney was killed in a 1966 car crash, only for a lookalike to take his place and carry on as if nothing had happened.

There are no overt references to this apparent demise in the lyrics, although some fans have claimed that if you reverse the audio of Lennon mumbling at the end of the track I’m So Tired, you can hear him saying “Paul is dead, man. Miss him, miss him, miss him.”

And the conspiracy goes further than just the lyrics, with the Abbey Road album cover supposedly packed full of hidden messages. If you want to find out more about that, read our guide to all the weird and wacky conspiracies surrounding that legendary image.

Aside from all that, though, the matter of the quiz remains. If you think you know your stuff, have a go at our quiz below.

How did you do?

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Explaining all the 'secret messages' on the Abbey Road cover