“Out of the four members of The Beatles, the one who had the most impact on me was John Lennon,” Radio celebrity Zhang Youdai tells Apple Music. “He changed the world with the messages of love and peace that he spread through his music, and he changed my world too.” Since the early 1990s, the iconic Chinese tastemaker has been DJing for radio stations, festivals, concerts, and podcasts—all according to his self-proclaimed mission to bridge the gap between Chinese and Western music. Here, Zhang has shared the 25 Beatles songs that changed his life. Read on for more on his love for the band. His first encounter with The Beatles was characteristic of the difficulties that people in China faced in accessing and understanding Western music at the time of Zhang’s youth. “The first Beatles album I heard was a cassette tape that my friend brought over from Hong Kong. It had a picture of The Beatles stuck on it, but it turned out to be a Filipino band doing Beatles covers. The first song was ‘Yellow Submarine’. I was extremely surprised—it sounded like a nursery rhyme. Then there was ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’: Why did it sound so merry, like they were playing at a party? Then, ‘Hello, Goodbye’: Why was it so simple? What kind of legends were these? I later realised that this is precisely why they were legends: Their music is a kaleidoscope, an encyclopaedia, a boundless source of treasures and a genuine wealth of riches.” Zhang first heard The (real) Beatles in 1989. “A British friend who was going back home left me with [1964's]Beatles For Sale and a discman," he says. "Every song on that album is imprinted with the memory of that spring." This false start preceded a journey that gave him his life’s purpose. “My favourite Beatles album is [1968's] The White Album. The most important song was ‘Revolution No. 1’. In the ’60s, young people from East to West were crying out for revolution, yelling slogans, wanting to change the world. Lennon was seen as a spiritual leader for revolutionary youth in the West. On this song, he put forward his own ideas. The song taught me to live a more thoughtful life; not to follow blindly along, but to realise that to change the world you need to open your spirit and free your mind.” Zhang says. Zhang started hosting radio shows and events all over China that revolutionised his listeners’ appreciation of Western music. “'Revolution No. 9' song ought to be seen as a piece of ’60s musical art, rather than a pop song," he says. "Only with Lennon could there be such bold and forward-thinking creativity, going against popular opinion, commercial interests, tradition and The Beatles themselves. If I hadn’t listened to this song, I wouldn’t have become the person I am today.” “Another song that changed my life is from The Beatles’ last album, [1969's] Abbey Road. It’s part of the Paul McCartney medley, called ‘Carry That Weight’. I was 19 years old when I first heard Paul sing these words to me: ‘Boy you gonna carry that weight for a long time…’ I thought that he was singing to me personally. Everybody has to bear heavy burdens in the process of growing up, and it’s precisely these burdens that allow us to mature and get older. We may carry those burdens into the grave, but this music will live on forever.” "I don’t think The Beatles are hugely influential on music within China," Zhang says. "There are not many musicians in China that really understand or get their musical sustenance from The Beatles. It's a big deficiency in Chinese rock and pop. As Beatles fans, we often feel quite lonely; we never find close friends who speak the same language as us, and it makes us feel even more like we have the responsibility and the duty to introduce The Beatles’ music and ideology to more people,” he says. "For the last half century, people in the music industry have always been talking about ‘the next Beatles’, but there has never been anyone who has managed to take their place in popular music.”