Is there a single song that defines The Beatles?

no

that's pretty tough man...

a day in the life

I don't think you could ever come up with one song that defines their greatness but if pressed for an answer I would have to go with :

She Loves You

The words "yeah, yeah, yeah" have become one of the most iconic phrases in music history.

nope, but A Day in the Life is the closet you get. The lyrical attitudes of John & Paul in that song was also noticeable in some other songs

For instance, John would give you Strawberry Fields, and then Paul would give you upbeat Penny Lane right after. John would tell you about heiress blowing his mind out of a car while Paul would tell you about waking up and starting the day.

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If so…what song would that be?

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I think you have to have a certain perspective to appreciate the group - as a group or phenomenon. If you have to pick a song to represent the catalogue, that's probably impossible. No song can capture the various eras (and keep in mind, as we know them, the "recording" act of The Beatles was a mere 6 years and change, although the act lasted a solid decade), or even the variations between the Paul, John and George compositions.

However, I nominate, "I want to hold your hand" as representing "The Beatles" as a phenomenon (For me, it invokes the strongest imagery of Beatlemania, at least in the U.S., even though I wasn't born yet.) It was an actual joint composition by Lennon and McCartney, and not, as it would later become, a partnership in name only.

If you want a song to represent the group - the four of them individually working together to make the music they made, I think you have to select "The End". I can find no other example that equals this concept of this group. If pressed for a second choice, I would choose "Come Together".

(Neither of these are my favorite Beatles song - I would be hard pressed to select between "Let it Be" and "Hey Jude!")

the closest in my opinion is "Hey, Jude"