“The Beatles were huge for me. Without them, I don’t know if I even would have become a musician or a guitar player. When their hits started coming out, I was 8 and 9 years old and it had a tremendous impact on me. I saw the movie “A Hard Day’s Night” multiple times when it came out and I always loved that song. It is kind of impossible to imagine doing a record like this without including at least one Beatles song.” - Pat Metheny
Cherish (The Association)
“This was a huge hit in the late 60’s. One day i started playing around with it and while under the hood of the tune I found myself marveling at all the interesting moves that happen with the chords, especially on the bridge. And I used the same whole step modulation for the final A section of the song that was on the record, although I added a tag that is really not exactly derived from any obvious single point in the tune”. - Pat Metheny
The Girl From Ipanema (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
"People are often surprised to hear that this is one of the first songs I ever learned, but any beginning guitar student knows about the dreaded "F" chord; the first time you are asked to "barre" two strings together with one finger. For me, in that first week of playing the instrument, it was impossible to make my fingers do that. But by leaving the top string open and not doing the barre, you wind up with an F major seventh chord, which somehow I recognized as being the first chord of the tune I had just heard Astrud Gilberto sing with Stan Getz on TV around that time. I actually liked it better than the straight "F" chord anyway!" - Pat Metheny
That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be (Carly Simon)
"To me, there were always several interesting things about this piece," Metheny says of Carly Simon's first major hit (That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be), "not the least of which is the way that she moves from root minor key to the major key just a half step above it so effortlessly in a way that is almost invisible. But also, I always just thought it was a great melody, with that big leap at the end of the first phrase. And form wise, the way it goes through this whole thing and then starts back up again to make the same build again. My take on it harmonically colors in some of what I always thought was implied in there." - Pat Metheny
