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2022 FBG, 172 to 1 Beatles Countdown 1-25 lists... And 173 to 1 Countdown from 1-64 lists! (6 Viewers)

On today's date in 1973, Ringo, George, and John recorded the John-penned song, "I'm the Greatest" for Ringo's album Ringo, marking the only time that three Beatles reunited for a recording session during John's lifetime.  A little more about this song, cribbed from my own prior writing:

"This song was written by John for Ringo’s third studio album, Ringo.  In addition to John’s song, the album featured three songs written or co-written by George, and one song written by Paul (we’ll get to some of these later), plus appearances by Marc Bolan, 80% of The Band, Billy Preston, Harry Nilsson, Klaus Voormann, Nicky Hopkins, James Booker, and the ubiquitous Jim Keltner.   This marked the first time that all four Beatles participated in a post-Beatles album.

This record was hugely successful both with critics and the public, having gone Platinum and reached #2 on the US charts, and continues to be considered Ringo’s best post-Beatles work.  With the first two singles from the record (“Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen”) having reached #1, Ringo was out of the gate faster than John, who had yet to score his first chart-topper, leading John to send Ringo the following telegram:  “"Congratulations. How dare you? And please write me a hit song."   

This particular song, though written by John, fits into the huge pantheon of “Ringo relives the past” songs that I’ve mentioned previously – in addition to all the Liverpool songs we previously discussed, we have others already discussed such as “Gone Were the Days,” “Write One for Me,” and “Fading In Fading Out,” plus the following that all name-drop Beatles songs: “Choose Love,” “After All These Years,” “Devil Woman,” “Postcards from Paradise,” “Love First Ask Questions Later,” “Early 1970”…shall I go on?  No, I shan’t. 

John hadn’t written the song with Ringo in mind, but he knew that singing it himself would be taken poorly given the conception that he had a rather healthy ego.  So instead he tweaked the lyrics in order to put it in the hands of wholly unpretentious Ringo, who gives a terrific tongue-in-cheek performance.  I love the Sgt Pepper’s-type applause and Ringo’s gradual build to the declaration, inspired by the Beatles meeting Cassius Clay in 1964, that “I’m the greatest!” 

In addition to writing the song, John plays piano and provides backing vocals on it, with Voormann on bass and Preston on organ, plus…George!  Having already agreed to help Ringo with the record, George happened to call the studio to check on the sessions at the time that the other four were working on the song.  When the record’s producer said George was on the phone, John had him relay the message to bring his guitar and get down there to “help my finish this bridge!”   George complied, sparking rumors of a full Beatles reunion that was never to take place.  Instead, this was the last time that three Beatles would work in a recording session together until “All Those Years Ago” in 1981."

 
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Rain
2022 Ranking: 42
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 190
Ranked Highest by: @Oliver Humanzee (1) Worth (4) OTB_Lifer (4) @Pip's Invitation (5) @krista4 (6) @landrys hat (7) @Getzlaf15 (12) @Guido Merkins (13) @Westerberg (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 46/6/83

Getz: 
One of my favorite songs from the 2019 countdown, that I knew very little about at the time. Have it at #12 this year. My 2022 song that fits that mold is next up.
First song with four Top 5 votes and six Top 10 votes. Also first song selected by all in the Fab 3. About half way through getting the votes, Rain did reach as high as #23.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  9

2019 write-up:

Rain (single, 1966)

While Paul's unbelievable bass work prevents me from declaring this A RINGO SHOWCASE!, it's undoubtedly one of his best performances.  Ringo agrees:  "My favorite piece of me is what I did on 'Rain.'  I think I just played amazing.  I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat.  I think it's the best out of all the records I've ever made.  'Rain' blows me away.  I know me and I know my playing, and then there's 'Rain.' I feel as though that was someone else playing – I was possessed!"  You go, Ringo!

The deep, heavy feel of this song was accomplished via a technical trick that was novel at the time.  The rhythm tracks were played at an extremely fast tempo and then slowed down at playback, giving that "big, ponderous, thunderous backing" that Paul ended up loving.  Considering how amazing both Paul and Ringo sound on the song, imagine how much even more impressive their playing was when heard at the speed they actually played it! 

Much like the accidental brilliance of the backward guitar on "Tomorrow Never Knows," this song has a backward vocal and backward guitar that also came about by chance.  John had left the studio after the original sessions for this song, taking the tapes with him to listen later that night.  When, under the influence of The Evil Weed, he threaded the tape, he accidentally did it backwards and loved the sound.  He brought it back into the studio the next day and asked (well, more like demanded) that the engineers find a way to run his vocals backward for the song's fade-out and George's guitar backward for parts of the song, which they dutifully accomplished, making this the first recording to feature a backward vocal track.  

I don't have a lot of deep analysis of why I love this song; the lyrics, for instance, aren't notable to me, and the vocals are great but y'know, Beatles.  I just love the heavy groove and that it rocks my face off.

Bonus!  Around this time the Beatles started doing promotional videos for their singles; here's the one for "Rain."

Mr. krista:  "It’s called Rain and the whole song sounds like it’s underwater.  Gives this great impression of being sung in a rainstorm or a car wash or something. You can listen to the Velvet Underground and imagine 16-year-old Iggy Pop listening to it.  With this you just know 16-year-old Robyn Hitchcock listened to that song and thought, 'there’s a new direction.'  There are whole genres of music based on that song.  I don’t know why it’s not more popular or lauded.  It sounds perfectly contemporary; there’s nothing dated about it at all."

Suggested cover:  This is so disappointing.  Some musical heavy-hitters apparently love this song, because I listened to all their versions - from Freddie Mercury to Fairport Convention, Gregg Allman to Todd Rundgren, even listened to the Grateful Dead! - and I disliked all of them.  Why oh why can't someone do a great cover of this song?    

2022 Supplement:  Mr. krista didn’t do a list in 2019, though he gave me an off-the-cuff idea of his top 10.  When I forced him, at gunpoint, to put together a top 25 this year, this ended up on the top of his rankings.  While it moved up for me this year from #9 to #6, since this is his #1 Best Beatles song ever, I asked him to do the write-up:

“One of the coolest things about both intensive meditation and hallucinogenic drugs is generating a detachment from one’s thoughts and feelings sufficient to observe the workings of one’s own mind without fully inhabiting it.  One can see that their own mind is just a construction--a janky assemblage of thoughts, feelings, ideas, and urges that appear and disappear, largely beyond one’s control. 

“Rain” is like that, I think. 

While there are whole genres of music dedicated to replicating a psychedelic experience, “Rain” is perhaps the only song I’ve heard that directly addresses the insights one might glean from such an experience, and nearly every element of the song supports it.

Drums:

--The drums and rhythm tracks were played 50% faster, then slowed down for the recording of the guitar and vocals, thus subtly changing their texture to a more thunderous, ominous tone, revealing hidden depths.

--Ringo’s drumming has never been busier, nor his fills more startling and inventive.  He largely eschews the toms, opting instead for unlikely hi-hat/snare combos, creating the perception of a song that is simultaneously too fast and too slow.

Bass:

--Playing way the hell up on the fretboard, nimbly dancing around both Ringo’s fills and the midrange droney vocals, Paul’s bass carries more melody than rhythm, an unlikely place for a bass even as melodic as Paul’s.

Vocals/guitar/tape effects:

The vocals are sung through an oscillating speaker, creating the impression of a voice approaching and retreating simultaneously.  That the coda is played backwards and forwards at various points in the song only slightly adds to the uncanniness.

George and John’s guitars are both minimal and distinct enough to be discerned from one another by an attentive listener, but the overall impression is that of a slightly out of tune drone, the way multiple human voices (overheard in, say, a crowded cafe) might individually be crafting sonorous, compelling narratives, but combine into indistinct chatter. (For an artist’s recreation of this phenomena, please listen to Glenn Gould’s “The Idea of North” or watch Krista’s favorite film Wings of Desire.)

These incongruences are not ad-hoc psych-sounding additives--they are the stuff of the song, the stuff that elucidates the point that “rain or shine it’s all the same”, that nothing is discernable or knowable from without our individual consciousness, that it’s all, as “in yer mind, maaan.”

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.”

Guido Merkins

Revolver was the Beatles taking a quantum leap musically and technologically in the studio.  One such example is Rain, the B side of Paperback Writer.  I first heard Rain when someone gave me the Hey Jude album on vinyl around 1989 for Christmas.  I was immediately struck by the song for several reasons.

First, if anybody ever tells you that Paul and Ringo can’t play, put this track on.  Ringo is absolutely possessed and Paul absolutely drives the song with what can only be described as lead bass.  Around this time, the engineers at EMI finally figured out how to get loud bass on a record and Paperback Writer and Rain were the two that really introduced that to the Beatles sound.  Second, the backwards vocal at the end.  John and George Martin both claimed credit for it, but whomever did it, the sound absolutely draws you in.  Third, the droning nature of the song.  From John’s vocal delivery to Paul’s bass on certain parts, and George’s distorted lead guitar, Indian music was definitely an influence.  Fourth, John and Paul’s vocal delivery in the chorus has a vaguely Middle Eastern vibe.  

Rain is a brilliant track.  It’s amazing how much they have going on with a very simple 3 chord song.  

 
:wub:  Rain

weird it’s not in the Too 25 I submitted bc I think it was like #9 in my 1-206 do-over / re-ranking like three weeks later 

 
9 I Feel Fine(51)
12 Rain(42)
15 I Should Have Known Better(93)
16 Mother Nature's Son(104)
17 I Saw Her Standing There(43)
19 Hello Goodbye(56)
23 Paperback Writer(47)

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Rain
2022 Ranking: 42
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 190
Ranked Highest by: @Oliver Humanzee (1) Worth (4) OTB_Lifer (4) @Pip's Invitation (5) @krista4 (6) @landrys hat (7) @Getzlaf15 (12) @Guido Merkins (13) @Westerberg (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 46/6/83

Getz: 
One of my favorite songs from the 2019 countdown, that I knew very little about at the time. Have it at #12 this year. My 2022 song that fits that mold is next up.
First song with four Top 5 votes and six Top 10 votes. Also first song selected by all in the Fab 3. About half way through getting the votes, Rain did reach as high as #23.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  9

2019 write-up:

Rain (single, 1966)

While Paul's unbelievable bass work prevents me from declaring this A RINGO SHOWCASE!, it's undoubtedly one of his best performances.  Ringo agrees:  "My favorite piece of me is what I did on 'Rain.'  I think I just played amazing.  I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat.  I think it's the best out of all the records I've ever made.  'Rain' blows me away.  I know me and I know my playing, and then there's 'Rain.' I feel as though that was someone else playing – I was possessed!"  You go, Ringo!

The deep, heavy feel of this song was accomplished via a technical trick that was novel at the time.  The rhythm tracks were played at an extremely fast tempo and then slowed down at playback, giving that "big, ponderous, thunderous backing" that Paul ended up loving.  Considering how amazing both Paul and Ringo sound on the song, imagine how much even more impressive their playing was when heard at the speed they actually played it! 

Much like the accidental brilliance of the backward guitar on "Tomorrow Never Knows," this song has a backward vocal and backward guitar that also came about by chance.  John had left the studio after the original sessions for this song, taking the tapes with him to listen later that night.  When, under the influence of The Evil Weed, he threaded the tape, he accidentally did it backwards and loved the sound.  He brought it back into the studio the next day and asked (well, more like demanded) that the engineers find a way to run his vocals backward for the song's fade-out and George's guitar backward for parts of the song, which they dutifully accomplished, making this the first recording to feature a backward vocal track.  

I don't have a lot of deep analysis of why I love this song; the lyrics, for instance, aren't notable to me, and the vocals are great but y'know, Beatles.  I just love the heavy groove and that it rocks my face off.

Bonus!  Around this time the Beatles started doing promotional videos for their singles; here's the one for "Rain."

Mr. krista:  "It’s called Rain and the whole song sounds like it’s underwater.  Gives this great impression of being sung in a rainstorm or a car wash or something. You can listen to the Velvet Underground and imagine 16-year-old Iggy Pop listening to it.  With this you just know 16-year-old Robyn Hitchcock listened to that song and thought, 'there’s a new direction.'  There are whole genres of music based on that song.  I don’t know why it’s not more popular or lauded.  It sounds perfectly contemporary; there’s nothing dated about it at all."

Suggested cover:  This is so disappointing.  Some musical heavy-hitters apparently love this song, because I listened to all their versions - from Freddie Mercury to Fairport Convention, Gregg Allman to Todd Rundgren, even listened to the Grateful Dead! - and I disliked all of them.  Why oh why can't someone do a great cover of this song?    

2022 Supplement:  Mr. krista didn’t do a list in 2019, though he gave me an off-the-cuff idea of his top 10.  When I forced him, at gunpoint, to put together a top 25 this year, this ended up on the top of his rankings.  While it moved up for me this year from #9 to #6, since this is his #1 Best Beatles song ever, I asked him to do the write-up:

“One of the coolest things about both intensive meditation and hallucinogenic drugs is generating a detachment from one’s thoughts and feelings sufficient to observe the workings of one’s own mind without fully inhabiting it.  One can see that their own mind is just a construction--a janky assemblage of thoughts, feelings, ideas, and urges that appear and disappear, largely beyond one’s control. 

“Rain” is like that, I think. 

While there are whole genres of music dedicated to replicating a psychedelic experience, “Rain” is perhaps the only song I’ve heard that directly addresses the insights one might glean from such an experience, and nearly every element of the song supports it.

Drums:

--The drums and rhythm tracks were played 50% faster, then slowed down for the recording of the guitar and vocals, thus subtly changing their texture to a more thunderous, ominous tone, revealing hidden depths.

--Ringo’s drumming has never been busier, nor his fills more startling and inventive.  He largely eschews the toms, opting instead for unlikely hi-hat/snare combos, creating the perception of a song that is simultaneously too fast and too slow.

Bass:

--Playing way the hell up on the fretboard, nimbly dancing around both Ringo’s fills and the midrange droney vocals, Paul’s bass carries more melody than rhythm, an unlikely place for a bass even as melodic as Paul’s.

Vocals/guitar/tape effects:

The vocals are sung through an oscillating speaker, creating the impression of a voice approaching and retreating simultaneously.  That the coda is played backwards and forwards at various points in the song only slightly adds to the uncanniness.

George and John’s guitars are both minimal and distinct enough to be discerned from one another by an attentive listener, but the overall impression is that of a slightly out of tune drone, the way multiple human voices (overheard in, say, a crowded cafe) might individually be crafting sonorous, compelling narratives, but combine into indistinct chatter. (For an artist’s recreation of this phenomena, please listen to Glenn Gould’s “The Idea of North” or watch Krista’s favorite film Wings of Desire.)

These incongruences are not ad-hoc psych-sounding additives--they are the stuff of the song, the stuff that elucidates the point that “rain or shine it’s all the same”, that nothing is discernable or knowable from without our individual consciousness, that it’s all, as “in yer mind, maaan.”

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.”

Guido Merkins

Revolver was the Beatles taking a quantum leap musically and technologically in the studio.  One such example is Rain, the B side of Paperback Writer.  I first heard Rain when someone gave me the Hey Jude album on vinyl around 1989 for Christmas.  I was immediately struck by the song for several reasons.

First, if anybody ever tells you that Paul and Ringo can’t play, put this track on.  Ringo is absolutely possessed and Paul absolutely drives the song with what can only be described as lead bass.  Around this time, the engineers at EMI finally figured out how to get loud bass on a record and Paperback Writer and Rain were the two that really introduced that to the Beatles sound.  Second, the backwards vocal at the end.  John and George Martin both claimed credit for it, but whomever did it, the sound absolutely draws you in.  Third, the droning nature of the song.  From John’s vocal delivery to Paul’s bass on certain parts, and George’s distorted lead guitar, Indian music was definitely an influence.  Fourth, John and Paul’s vocal delivery in the chorus has a vaguely Middle Eastern vibe.  

Rain is a brilliant track.  It’s amazing how much they have going on with a very simple 3 chord song.  
Click to expand...
My rank: 5

This is another early favorite of mine that has remained that way. Even in the '80s when I was first listening to commercial FM radio, its heaviness and headiness stood out. When I was in high school, some of my friends and I went to a Beatles convention, and we sat in on a screening of their final concert before they stopped touring (Candlestick Park). Tongue-in-cheek-but-maybe-not, I called out "Rain!" a few times in between songs. (My head knew that they never would have attempted this live with 1966 stadium sound being what it was.)

The melodic bassline, the drumming, the backwards guitar and the backwards vocal (with the exuberant "RAAAAAAIN!!!!" harmonies emerging in the middle of it) are all jaw-dropping 50+ years on. It's AN EVERYONE SHOWCASE (but also A RINGO SHOWCASE). 

This ranking is criminally low (Binky: legally high). 

I love Todd Rundgren, but his cover of this kind of sucks and I may have explained why when I hippled krista's original thread. In 1976 he released an album called Faithful, the first side of which was covers of songs recorded in 1966, and true to the album's title, they were all note-for-note. Why he thought this was a good idea, I haven't a clue, but I generally skip the whole side these days and just play side 2, which has some of his best originals. 

 
Rain was #25 for me. Probably no other song has moved up my top Beatles list over the past 10-15 years as much as this one. Wasn’t one I knew very well when I was younger, but have come to really appreciate it more and more. Just a really unique symphonic sound.

 
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Two Of Us
2022 Ranking: 41
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 191
Ranked Highest by: @Dr. Octopus (2) @heckmanm (3) @Murph (3) Craig (5) @Oliver Humanzee (10) @Wrighteous Ray (11) @AAABatteries (14) @krista4 (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 67/3/38

Getz: Large jump up (binky down) of 26 slots from 2019. Twelve more voters and 153 more points! Let the Get Back influence begin!
I have it at #24 on my list and this makes 3-in-a-row for me. Can’t believe how often the Get Back repeated starts of this song were ear worm for me for days after each time I watched it. "Two of us...... Two of us...... Two of us riding nowhere..."

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

When I was a kid, we drove everywhere on family vacations, not because we couldn't fly, but because my Dad really loved driving.  The first time I was on a plane was when we went to Hawaii and had no choice, and there I learned of a supplemental reason for always driving - my Dad got horrible air-sickness on any type of plane.  Luckily I didn't inherit that from him, but I did inherit the love of driving.  There are few things better to me than a long drive with the stereo cranked up.  From this, I also developed a particular fondness for songs that feel perfect for motoring along, singing at the top of your lungs.  My favorite Beatles song to drive to lands at #28 largely as a result of perfectly fitting these needs.

I mean, it's a great song anyway, but we can't pretend it's one of the Beatles "best" on a musical or technical level.  It's just a ####### fun song with great harmonies singable by anyone, joyful little guitar riffs, a catchy bridge, whistling(!), and a perfectly suitable tempo for driving.  There are few songs I have more fun with than this warm, charming ditty.  George playing a bass-like sound on his Telecaster during the bridge, and most of all the expectant pauses leading to those guitar riffs that start each verse, are the highlights for me.  Roll your window down, throw your head back, and sing!  (But don't throw your head back for too long, since you're driving.)

Paul wrote the song about his and Linda's predilection for driving around and getting purposefully lost; in fact, it was on one of these "lost" days in the country that he composed it.  While it's not about his relationship with John, when you hear the sunny harmonies and ebullience with which they sing together, it's not hard to think that John and Paul might have been singing about each other during the recording, too.

Mr. krista:  "I like it a lot.  It’s nice hearing all the harmonies.  You could really hear George singing in that.  I like how chord-y it is.  If there were some distortion it’d be a poppy-punk type song."

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

2022 Supplement:  Somehow I’m re-writing this one up and see that “Savoy Truffle” is the next on the list to write, and it’s panicking me.  You people couldn’t possibly have this song below that one, could you?  Breathe, Krista, breathe.  Remember that Getz mixed these up so that we wouldn’t know the order.  BREATHE.  (Getz: :lmao: )

Anyway, this slipped into my top 25 this year after barely missing in 2019.  Is this song musically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Is it lyrically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Are there standout performances?  No.  Is it A RINGO SHOWCASE!?  Nope.  But it’s fun and sunny and perfect to sing along to.  And, to top it off, when we did the drafts for charity at the end of last year, Mr. krista said this was the Beatles song he associated most strongly with me, because he can vividly see me driving and happily singing along with it.  Take that, “Savoy Truffle.”

Cute little tidbit from Paul:  he says that the line about postcards came in part from John, because while Paul and Linda loved buying up and sending lots of postcards, John was “a great postcard sender, so you’d get some great stuff from him.”   Paul says that this picture of him in his Aston Martin is an actual pic of him while composing this song:  https://imgur.com/0aD3Mzp

Guido Merkins

I remember the day I first bought the Let It Be album.  I had read and heard that it was one of the Beatles weakest albums, but since I was a completist, I had to have it.  So, I got it home and dropped the needle and was immediately in love with the first song and thought, “well how bad can it be.”  That song was Two of Us. (and I realized that “weak” was relative when it came to the Beatles.)

For years I thought that Two of Us was clearly written by Paul about he and John.  Lines like “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead”, to me, were clearly written to John.  Add to it the close, Everly Brothers type harmonies were just like the early days, and it was Paul extending an olive branch.  Recently, within the past year, I discovered that Paul wrote the song about Linda.  Linda liked to get lost on purpose and have a little adventure.  The lines “sending postcards” refers to Paul and Linda sending each other postcards and “getting nowhere” refers to them going places to get lost.  So, it’s not John, it’s Linda…..mostly, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not John too.  

Anyway, why do I like the song?  It’s all about the shimmering acoustic guitars and the great harmonies.  The fact that John and Paul could still do this together when so much was going on in the band and in their relationship is comforting to me.  Like, the magic never left them.

 
krista4 said:
In Beatles countdowns as in life, the 40s have not been kind to me.
Click to expand...


It got worse!!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.  Rain (42)

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.  For No One (53)

13.  All My Loving (48)

14.

15.  Two of Us (41)

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.  And I Love Her (45)

22.

23.

24.  I’ve Got A Feeling (46)

25.

 
Haven't posted this in awhile, so I'm going to post the whole dang thing.

The top of the list has not changed a whole lot in terms of the ranking order.

The bottom feeders are catching up quickly.  I went from #62 to #34 by hitting the last three songs. I thought A'99 and Sharon were going to drop, but it's like they are married as twice they posted the same song since I last posted this.

 

Chalk Rankings Top 10. #41 = 132 pts. each Sponsored by: The Bottles

1 --ManOfSteelhead---1769.5

2 --anarchy99---1596

3 --Krista (TJ/Michael)---1465

4 --Shaft41---1463

5 --Krista (Sharon)---1461.5

6 --fatguyinalttlecoat---1378

7 --Shaft41(Daughter)---1318.5

8 --John Maddens Lunchbox---1216.5

9 --Shaft41(Son1)---1212

10 --Krista (Worth)---1202.5

11 --Krista (Craig)---1191

12 --OTB_Lifer---1182

13 --zamboni---1155.5

14 --Encyclopedia Brown---1152.5

15 --Pip's Invitation---1145.5

16 --ConstruxBoy---1123

17 --murph---1092.5

18 --BinkyTheDoormat---1084.5

19 --FairWarning---1082

20 --PIK 95---1077

21 --Man Of Constant Sorrow---1069.5

22 --Oliver Humanzee---1062.5

23 --Dwayne Hoover---1019.5

24 --Krista (TJ/Alex)---1005

25 --prosopis---978

26 --Wrighteous Ray(Hub)---968.5

27 --Eephus---964

28 --Dr. Octopus---953

29 --Shaft41(Son2)---942

30 --yankee23fan---939

31 --Mac32---921

32 --WhoKnew---914

33 --Guido Merkins---913

34 --Getzlaf15---907

35 --Dinsy Ejotuz---904.5

36 --wikkidpissah---884.5

37 --Uruk-Hai---878

38 --ekbeats---862

39 --AAABatteries---857

40 --rockaction---854.5

41 --Wrighteous Ray---844.5

42 --landryshat---829

43 --Dennis Castro---822.5

44 --Krista (Rob)---819.5

45 --Krista (Doug)---787

46 --shuke---777

47 --turnjose7---767.5

48 --jwb---766

49 --Krista4---763

50 --Lardonastick---721

51 --ProsteticRKG---712

52 --Alex P Keaton---709

53 --Ilov80s---687

54 --Krista (TJ/Holly)---670

55 --falguy---669

56 --DaVinci---641

57 --Heckmanm---637

58 --Simey---636

59 --Gr00vus---621

60 --Just Win Baby---613

61 --Ted Lange as your Bartender---606

62 --jamny---600.5

63 --Neal Cassady---598

64 --Westerberg---578

65 --Oliver Humanzee(Dad)---574

66 --pecorino---563

67 --DocHolliday---560

68 --Krista (TJ/Slug)---499

69 --Bobby Layne---370

70 --Tom Hagen---344

71 --WorrierKing---228

Top 10 Least Chalk

 
# of Songs to Have Appeared on The Countdown to Date

1 --anarchy99---21

2 --Krista (Sharon)---19

3 --ManOfSteelhead---19

4 --Krista (TJ/Michael)---17

5 --Shaft41---16

6 --OTB_Lifer---15

7 --Krista (Worth)---15

8 --Wrighteous Ray(Hub)---14

9 --Man Of Constant Sorrow---14

10 --Encyclopedia Brown---14

11 --fatguyinalttlecoat---14

12 --BinkyTheDoormat---13

13 --Shaft41(Daughter)---13

14 --Krista (Craig)---13

15 --Wrighteous Ray---13

16 --John Maddens Lunchbox---12

17 --zamboni---12

18 --murph---12

19 --PIK 95---11

20 --Krista (Rob)---11

21 --Mac32---11

22 --FairWarning---11

23 --Shaft41(Son1)---11

24 --Pip's Invitation---11

25 --rockaction---10

26 --Dwayne Hoover---10

27 --Krista (TJ/Alex)---10

28 --Eephus---10

29 --ConstruxBoy---10

30 --Oliver Humanzee---10

31 --DaVinci---9

32 --Shaft41(Son2)---9

33 --wikkidpissah---9

34 --prosopis---9

35 --Guido Merkins---9

36 --Uruk-Hai---9

37 --WhoKnew---8

38 --ProsteticRKG---8

39 --landryshat---8

40 --Dennis Castro---8

41 --ekbeats---8

42 --Dinsy Ejotuz---8

43 --jwb---8

44 --Krista (TJ/Holly)---8

45 --yankee23fan---8

46 --AAABatteries---8

47 --Dr. Octopus---8

48 --Getzlaf15---8

49 --Alex P Keaton---7

50 --Krista (Doug)---7

51 --Neal Cassady---7

52 --turnjose7---7

53 --Lardonastick---7

54 --shuke---7

55 --jamny---6

56 --Ted Lange as your Bartender---6

57 --Gr00vus---6

58 --Just Win Baby---6

59 --Ilov80s---6

60 --Simey---6

61 --falguy---6

62 --Heckmanm---6

63 --Krista4---6

64 --pecorino---5

65 --Krista (TJ/Slug)---5

66 --Oliver Humanzee(Dad)---5

67 --DocHolliday---5

68 --Westerberg---5

69 --Tom Hagen---3

70 --Bobby Layne---3

71 --WorrierKing---2

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Two Of Us
2022 Ranking: 41
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 191
Ranked Highest by: @Dr. Octopus (2) @heckmanm (3) @Murph (3) Craig (5) @Oliver Humanzee (10) @Wrighteous Ray (11) @AAABatteries (14) @krista4 (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 67/3/38

Getz: Large jump up (binky down) of 26 slots from 2019. Twelve more voters and 153 more points! Let the Get Back influence begin!
I have it at #24 on my list and this makes 3-in-a-row for me. Can’t believe how often the Get Back repeated starts of this song were ear worm for me for days after each time I watched it. "Two of us...... Two of us...... Two of us riding nowhere..."

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

When I was a kid, we drove everywhere on family vacations, not because we couldn't fly, but because my Dad really loved driving.  The first time I was on a plane was when we went to Hawaii and had no choice, and there I learned of a supplemental reason for always driving - my Dad got horrible air-sickness on any type of plane.  Luckily I didn't inherit that from him, but I did inherit the love of driving.  There are few things better to me than a long drive with the stereo cranked up.  From this, I also developed a particular fondness for songs that feel perfect for motoring along, singing at the top of your lungs.  My favorite Beatles song to drive to lands at #28 largely as a result of perfectly fitting these needs.

I mean, it's a great song anyway, but we can't pretend it's one of the Beatles "best" on a musical or technical level.  It's just a ####### fun song with great harmonies singable by anyone, joyful little guitar riffs, a catchy bridge, whistling(!), and a perfectly suitable tempo for driving.  There are few songs I have more fun with than this warm, charming ditty.  George playing a bass-like sound on his Telecaster during the bridge, and most of all the expectant pauses leading to those guitar riffs that start each verse, are the highlights for me.  Roll your window down, throw your head back, and sing!  (But don't throw your head back for too long, since you're driving.)

Paul wrote the song about his and Linda's predilection for driving around and getting purposefully lost; in fact, it was on one of these "lost" days in the country that he composed it.  While it's not about his relationship with John, when you hear the sunny harmonies and ebullience with which they sing together, it's not hard to think that John and Paul might have been singing about each other during the recording, too.

Mr. krista:  "I like it a lot.  It’s nice hearing all the harmonies.  You could really hear George singing in that.  I like how chord-y it is.  If there were some distortion it’d be a poppy-punk type song."

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

2022 Supplement:  Somehow I’m re-writing this one up and see that “Savoy Truffle” is the next on the list to write, and it’s panicking me.  You people couldn’t possibly have this song below that one, could you?  Breathe, Krista, breathe.  Remember that Getz mixed these up so that we wouldn’t know the order.  BREATHE.  (Getz: :lmao: )

Anyway, this slipped into my top 25 this year after barely missing in 2019.  Is this song musically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Is it lyrically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Are there standout performances?  No.  Is it A RINGO SHOWCASE!?  Nope.  But it’s fun and sunny and perfect to sing along to.  And, to top it off, when we did the drafts for charity at the end of last year, Mr. krista said this was the Beatles song he associated most strongly with me, because he can vividly see me driving and happily singing along with it.  Take that, “Savoy Truffle.”

Cute little tidbit from Paul:  he says that the line about postcards came in part from John, because while Paul and Linda loved buying up and sending lots of postcards, John was “a great postcard sender, so you’d get some great stuff from him.”   Paul says that this picture of him in his Aston Martin is an actual pic of him while composing this song:  https://imgur.com/0aD3Mzp

Guido Merkins

I remember the day I first bought the Let It Be album.  I had read and heard that it was one of the Beatles weakest albums, but since I was a completist, I had to have it.  So, I got it home and dropped the needle and was immediately in love with the first song and thought, “well how bad can it be.”  That song was Two of Us. (and I realized that “weak” was relative when it came to the Beatles.)

For years I thought that Two of Us was clearly written by Paul about he and John.  Lines like “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead”, to me, were clearly written to John.  Add to it the close, Everly Brothers type harmonies were just like the early days, and it was Paul extending an olive branch.  Recently, within the past year, I discovered that Paul wrote the song about Linda.  Linda liked to get lost on purpose and have a little adventure.  The lines “sending postcards” refers to Paul and Linda sending each other postcards and “getting nowhere” refers to them going places to get lost.  So, it’s not John, it’s Linda…..mostly, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not John too.  

Anyway, why do I like the song?  It’s all about the shimmering acoustic guitars and the great harmonies.  The fact that John and Paul could still do this together when so much was going on in the band and in their relationship is comforting to me.  Like, the magic never left them.
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My rank: 35

Definitely a bit of Get Back recency bias here, but I have always loved it. It's wistful, breezy and immensely enjoyable. I too always thought "two of us" referred to Paul and John, and the way they sing it, it still feels that way even though the real story has come out. When I just feel like blissing out in the car, this is one of the go-to songs. Few songs convey this much warmth and harmony, and it's amazing this was produced when relations between the bandmembers had deteriorated. To my ears, George's electric guitar sounds like a bass the entire song, and that sound is a big reason why I feel the vibe that I do when I listen to it. 

 
Pip's Invitation said:
I love Todd Rundgren, but his cover of this kind of sucks and I may have explained why when I hippled krista's original thread. In 1976 he released an album called Faithful, the first side of which was covers of songs recorded in 1966, and true to the album's title, they were all note-for-note. Why he thought this was a good idea, I haven't a clue, but I generally skip the whole side these days and just play side 2, which has some of his best originals. 
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Todd's Rain ...

Pip and I are a couple of Todd guys around here.  And I'm so glad he brought this up.  While I don't want to hipple this into a Todd discussion (though I'd be a lot cooler if I did) 

I see Todd's move in Faithful as a tribute to all of the influences that made him who he was. In no way does it compare, he also did

(but move down in these comments for the main ...point - going totally against my journalism education ...)

* Happenings Ten Years Ago (The Yardbirds)

* Good Vibrations (Beachboys

* Most Likely You'll Your Way I'll Go Mine (Bob Dylan)

* If 6 Were 9 (Jimi)

* Strawberry Fields Forever (More Beatles)

It's an homage. He then got crucified for again creating AN ENTIRE ALBUM of early Beatles "sound alike" songs called "Deface The Music".  He worshipped the Beatles. The whole concept was to create the sound of what he heard back when he was an early kid that changed his life. Listen and think about how you could create new songs wrapped around the same melodies and feelings of those songs.  I was in a different place at that point in my life - but even then, there were times I loved putting this on and reveling in the brilliance in this indulgent exercise. 

Deface the Music

This came out in 1980 ...15+ years after this kind of music came out. For those of you unfamiliar - Especially for you guys that voted heavily for the early Beatles - please give it a listen ... @Wrighteous Ray

If you LOVE the Beatles ...and not appreciate this homage ...I don't know what to say ...

1"I Just Want to Touch You"2:00" - (influence-source)  I'm Happy Just to Dance with You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Little Child"

2"Crystal Ball"2:00" (influence-source)  Can't Buy Me Love", "She's A Woman"

3"Where Does the World Go to Hide"1:41"  (influence-sourced) A World Without Love", "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"

4"Silly Boy"2:20"  (influenced-sourced)  I'm a Loser", "I'll Cry Instead", "Help!"

5"Alone"2:10"  (influenced-sourced)  And I Love Her"

6"That's Not Right"  (influenced-sourced)  2:37"Eight Days a Week"

7"Take It Home"  (influenced-sourced)  2:53"Day Tripper"

8"Hoi Poloi"2:33"  (influence-sourced)  Penny Lane", "Lovely Rita"

9"Life Goes On"2:21"  (influence-sourced)  Eleanor Rigby"

10"Feel Too Good"3:04"  (influenced-sourced)  Getting Better", "Fixing a Hole"

11"Always Late"2:22"  (influenced-sourced)  Yellow Submarine", "A Day in the Life (middle section)"

12"All Smiles"2:27"  (influenced-sourced)  Michelle", "I Will"

13"Everybody Else Is Wrong"3:38"  (influenced-sourced)  Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am the Walrus"

like it or not - the genre is captured, the feeling of those days and the Beatles are there in this album

my favorites - "Take It Home" and "Feel Too Good" ..."Smile" ....can't you just see Paul singing this?

and yeah, a lot of those vocals are by the magnificent Kasim Sultan - they split vocals quite a bit when Utopia went to a 4 piece

he still tours - along with Todd and with some other guys (sometimes with a couple of the Geeks guys)

 
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As we move into the top 40: 

1.
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. Rain (42)
6. 
7. I Want You (She's So Heavy) (60)
8. 
9.
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. With a Little Help from My Friends (44)
14. I've Got a Feeling (46)
15. 
16. 
17. I Feel Fine (51)
18. She's a Woman (107T)
19. If I Needed Someone (76)
20. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey (96)
21. 
22. 
23. Blackbird (52)
24. I'm Only Sleeping (65)
25. It's All Too Much (118)

 
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Binky The Doormat said:
Deface the Music

This came out in 1980 ...15+ years after this kind of music came out. For those of you unfamiliar - Especially for you guys that voted heavily for the early Beatles - please give it a listen ... @Wrighteous Ray

If you LOVE the Beatles ...and not appreciate this homage ...I don't know what to say ...

1"I Just Want to Touch You"2:00" - (influence-source)  I'm Happy Just to Dance with You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Little Child"

2"Crystal Ball"2:00" (influence-source)  Can't Buy Me Love", "She's A Woman"

3"Where Does the World Go to Hide"1:41"  (influence-sourced) A World Without Love", "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"

4"Silly Boy"2:20"  (influenced-sourced)  I'm a Loser", "I'll Cry Instead", "Help!"

5"Alone"2:10"  (influenced-sourced)  And I Love Her"

6"That's Not Right"  (influenced-sourced)  2:37"Eight Days a Week"

7"Take It Home"  (influenced-sourced)  2:53"Day Tripper"

8"Hoi Poloi"2:33"  (influence-sourced)  Penny Lane", "Lovely Rita"

9"Life Goes On"2:21"  (influence-sourced)  Eleanor Rigby"

10"Feel Too Good"3:04"  (influenced-sourced)  Getting Better", "Fixing a Hole"

11"Always Late"2:22"  (influenced-sourced)  Yellow Submarine", "A Day in the Life (middle section)"

12"All Smiles"2:27"  (influenced-sourced)  Michelle", "I Will"

13"Everybody Else Is Wrong"3:38"  (influenced-sourced)  Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am the Walrus"
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Some of these are too facile or just miss the mark, but Take It Home and Feel Too Good are legitimately great songs. 

 
Pip's Invitation said:
Some of these are too facile or just miss the mark, but Take It Home and Feel Too Good are legitimately great songs. 
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no doubt - but this is just the mark for the surprising amount of people that voted so high for the early stuff

AND let other artist try this - not only hard to do 

hard to get it released and stand behind  :hifive:

 
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1

2

3

4 I Feel Fine

5

6

7

8 She's Leaving Home

9 

10 

11 

12

13 Boys

14 Fixing A Hole

15 

16

17 All My Loving

18 Two Of Us 

19 Do You Want To Know A Secret

20 

21 

22

23 No Reply

24 I'm Looking Through You

25

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Rain
2022 Ranking: 42
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 190
Ranked Highest by: @Oliver Humanzee (1) Worth (4) OTB_Lifer (4) @Pip's Invitation (5) @krista4 (6) @landrys hat (7) @Getzlaf15 (12) @Guido Merkins (13) @Westerberg (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 46/6/83

Getz: 
One of my favorite songs from the 2019 countdown, that I knew very little about at the time. Have it at #12 this year. My 2022 song that fits that mold is next up.
First song with four Top 5 votes and six Top 10 votes. Also first song selected by all in the Fab 3. About half way through getting the votes, Rain did reach as high as #23.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  9

2019 write-up:

Rain (single, 1966)

While Paul's unbelievable bass work prevents me from declaring this A RINGO SHOWCASE!, it's undoubtedly one of his best performances.  Ringo agrees:  "My favorite piece of me is what I did on 'Rain.'  I think I just played amazing.  I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat.  I think it's the best out of all the records I've ever made.  'Rain' blows me away.  I know me and I know my playing, and then there's 'Rain.' I feel as though that was someone else playing – I was possessed!"  You go, Ringo!

The deep, heavy feel of this song was accomplished via a technical trick that was novel at the time.  The rhythm tracks were played at an extremely fast tempo and then slowed down at playback, giving that "big, ponderous, thunderous backing" that Paul ended up loving.  Considering how amazing both Paul and Ringo sound on the song, imagine how much even more impressive their playing was when heard at the speed they actually played it! 

Much like the accidental brilliance of the backward guitar on "Tomorrow Never Knows," this song has a backward vocal and backward guitar that also came about by chance.  John had left the studio after the original sessions for this song, taking the tapes with him to listen later that night.  When, under the influence of The Evil Weed, he threaded the tape, he accidentally did it backwards and loved the sound.  He brought it back into the studio the next day and asked (well, more like demanded) that the engineers find a way to run his vocals backward for the song's fade-out and George's guitar backward for parts of the song, which they dutifully accomplished, making this the first recording to feature a backward vocal track.  

I don't have a lot of deep analysis of why I love this song; the lyrics, for instance, aren't notable to me, and the vocals are great but y'know, Beatles.  I just love the heavy groove and that it rocks my face off.

Bonus!  Around this time the Beatles started doing promotional videos for their singles; here's the one for "Rain."

Mr. krista:  "It’s called Rain and the whole song sounds like it’s underwater.  Gives this great impression of being sung in a rainstorm or a car wash or something. You can listen to the Velvet Underground and imagine 16-year-old Iggy Pop listening to it.  With this you just know 16-year-old Robyn Hitchcock listened to that song and thought, 'there’s a new direction.'  There are whole genres of music based on that song.  I don’t know why it’s not more popular or lauded.  It sounds perfectly contemporary; there’s nothing dated about it at all."

Suggested cover:  This is so disappointing.  Some musical heavy-hitters apparently love this song, because I listened to all their versions - from Freddie Mercury to Fairport Convention, Gregg Allman to Todd Rundgren, even listened to the Grateful Dead! - and I disliked all of them.  Why oh why can't someone do a great cover of this song?    

2022 Supplement:  Mr. krista didn’t do a list in 2019, though he gave me an off-the-cuff idea of his top 10.  When I forced him, at gunpoint, to put together a top 25 this year, this ended up on the top of his rankings.  While it moved up for me this year from #9 to #6, since this is his #1 Best Beatles song ever, I asked him to do the write-up:

“One of the coolest things about both intensive meditation and hallucinogenic drugs is generating a detachment from one’s thoughts and feelings sufficient to observe the workings of one’s own mind without fully inhabiting it.  One can see that their own mind is just a construction--a janky assemblage of thoughts, feelings, ideas, and urges that appear and disappear, largely beyond one’s control. 

“Rain” is like that, I think. 

While there are whole genres of music dedicated to replicating a psychedelic experience, “Rain” is perhaps the only song I’ve heard that directly addresses the insights one might glean from such an experience, and nearly every element of the song supports it.

Drums:

--The drums and rhythm tracks were played 50% faster, then slowed down for the recording of the guitar and vocals, thus subtly changing their texture to a more thunderous, ominous tone, revealing hidden depths.

--Ringo’s drumming has never been busier, nor his fills more startling and inventive.  He largely eschews the toms, opting instead for unlikely hi-hat/snare combos, creating the perception of a song that is simultaneously too fast and too slow.

Bass:

--Playing way the hell up on the fretboard, nimbly dancing around both Ringo’s fills and the midrange droney vocals, Paul’s bass carries more melody than rhythm, an unlikely place for a bass even as melodic as Paul’s.

Vocals/guitar/tape effects:

The vocals are sung through an oscillating speaker, creating the impression of a voice approaching and retreating simultaneously.  That the coda is played backwards and forwards at various points in the song only slightly adds to the uncanniness.

George and John’s guitars are both minimal and distinct enough to be discerned from one another by an attentive listener, but the overall impression is that of a slightly out of tune drone, the way multiple human voices (overheard in, say, a crowded cafe) might individually be crafting sonorous, compelling narratives, but combine into indistinct chatter. (For an artist’s recreation of this phenomena, please listen to Glenn Gould’s “The Idea of North” or watch Krista’s favorite film Wings of Desire.)

These incongruences are not ad-hoc psych-sounding additives--they are the stuff of the song, the stuff that elucidates the point that “rain or shine it’s all the same”, that nothing is discernable or knowable from without our individual consciousness, that it’s all, as “in yer mind, maaan.”

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.”

Guido Merkins

Revolver was the Beatles taking a quantum leap musically and technologically in the studio.  One such example is Rain, the B side of Paperback Writer.  I first heard Rain when someone gave me the Hey Jude album on vinyl around 1989 for Christmas.  I was immediately struck by the song for several reasons.

First, if anybody ever tells you that Paul and Ringo can’t play, put this track on.  Ringo is absolutely possessed and Paul absolutely drives the song with what can only be described as lead bass.  Around this time, the engineers at EMI finally figured out how to get loud bass on a record and Paperback Writer and Rain were the two that really introduced that to the Beatles sound.  Second, the backwards vocal at the end.  John and George Martin both claimed credit for it, but whomever did it, the sound absolutely draws you in.  Third, the droning nature of the song.  From John’s vocal delivery to Paul’s bass on certain parts, and George’s distorted lead guitar, Indian music was definitely an influence.  Fourth, John and Paul’s vocal delivery in the chorus has a vaguely Middle Eastern vibe.  

Rain is a brilliant track.  It’s amazing how much they have going on with a very simple 3 chord song.  
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Sorry for the hijack here....hopefully this helps or inspires someone bc it'd be kind of pathetic if this verbal vomit is just me getting stuff out of my head...

__________

This write up is is great. I have insomnia virtually every night from my PTSD and this was a delight to wander through while playing the song through on repeat (I was bouncing around to some other sources as well.)

When we went through K4's original countdown three plus years ago, it was a difficult time in my life. That's a bit of understatement - but tbh I wouldn't call it the worst time of my life, though everyone assumes that was the case.

I was homeless from 10/1/2018 until November 24, 2020. Seven hundred eighty ####### six days. The last nineteen months of that nightmare was spent in one of two faith based Manhattan shelters (little under three months), temporary Veteran apartment housing (365 days), and a Marriott Residence Inn (4 months of pandemic lockdown.) It could have been worse - if I were going through that experience now, I'd be getting arrested for sleeping on subway trains or getting shot (a serial killer has murdered three of my street friends this month.)

If you're good at lower math you've deduced I spent the first seven months of being houseless literally on the street. Never went to a shelter or a soup kitchen during that time. Initially I had a network of 8 friends from church who let me couch surf. I was still going on job interviews and (unrealistically) thought I was just going through a little hiccup. But that wore down to just a couple friends by the end of 2018. One of those friends was in Jersey City and I didn't always have train fare for the PATH. Another friend, who is going to be my best man in June, let me stay over on Wednesdays. That was my one day of the week I didn't have to wash up in public restrooms.

I take abnormally long hot showers these days.

The other day when folks were trashing All You Need Is Love, I went back and reread the countdown thread from 2019. It made me a little weepy bc the original @krista4 thread was one of the few things I had to look forward to each day. She started it January 11, 2019. Dang, man....I remember the end of that month and beginning of February we had five straight nights below 15 degrees. I was mostly sleeping in booths at all night diners in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. I had a GoFundMe at the time a friend setup, and it's embarrassing how much people threw my way ($15-16K over 2+ years but iirc it was 1000-1500 a month when I was sleeping on park benches or on trains.) That allowed me to buy my own food/drinks and cover incidentals. During the day I'd sit in NYPL branches between meals, recharging my devices & laptop. Or go to my storage unit to change clothes and bathe in their (thankfully quite pristine) restroom.

ASIDE - when I got out of this and returned to a semblance of normalcy, I went back and thanked the folks who worked at the shelter, the kind ladies at the storage facility, the managers of the diners who looked the other way when I was trying to catch a few Zs. Wrote letters to all the friends (here in the city & from literally all over the globe) who supported me financially. I would have been stuck in an endless cycle were it not for the compassion of so many, as well as the amazing programs at the VA.

Eventually I stumbled through a series of referrals from the faith based shelters to NYC HRA to Easter Seals to the VA, which led to rapid rehousing (my favorite euphemism.) A few years ago, Fall 2019, I was diagnosed with major depressive syndrome and complex PTSD. Eventually that led to a holistic approach of attending an outpatient psychosocial program five days a week for two years (Jan 2020 to Jan 2022.)

Turns out I went more than three decades struggling with undiagnosed mental illness. It all started when I went through some a couple of intense combat experiences. Being high functioning I found ways to power through and slapped on some pretty impressive band aids (bc I thought it was normal to be depressed and have outbursts and be angry all the time.) Even managed a couple minor accomplishments: full academic scholarship as a non-traditional student (started community college at 29), decent job with a Big 4 accounting firm, CPA license, recruited to relocate to the Big Apple to join a tech startup at the height of the dot com era.

I also went through 9/11 while working at 39 B'way - my corner executive office had a direct visual of our largest client, the WTC complex - but that's a whole other thread that I'm not prepared to write.

Anyway....sorry for the nonlinear storytelling, I'm not able to organize my thoughts as well as I could when I was younger.

K4's thread was very cathartic for me. I'm in a better place now, having recently "graduated" from my outpatient program. I started dating a wonderful woman 15 months ago and we're busy planning our wedding. My kids are doing amazing, mostly bc they both have great moms. I thought I would be looking for work right now - that was the plan when I decided to graduate - but rn it's kind of hard for me to get unstuck. Working through that with a CBT specialist atm.

I was also really exhausted - mentally and physically - back in 2019. As THIS countdown has been posted, I'm either rereading something I'd forgotten or seeing it for the first time. Really grateful for K4/Saints Fan-Guido for their exhaustive research and for the grump who runs the thread.

_______________

I'm not very good at connecting with people. It's like there is so much pain inside, I don't want let anyone get close to me. Except for my fiancé, a couple of Veteran friends, my best friend from church, and my kids, I kind of keep everyone at arm's length. Parents passed away a long time ago and my siblings are busy enjoying their grandparenting phase back in Michigan. Occasionally I'll share something here in the Depression thread but it never feels like I'm helping anyone. When I was getting my apt 1.5 years ago I shared a small part of my story in a thread here; there were a bunch of delays after I posted. Basically....for the most part, it takes a PTSD Vet to understands what it's like....so it is kinda hard to disclose with most people. I mean, ####, we all got issues, right? This is my deal, but every one of us has disappointments and/or difficult relationships. Nobody likes to hear someone whine. As you can well imagine, being a former NYC street person and certified cray cray...yeah, good luck with that, man. Appreciate you. I spend an hour a week session just talking with other Vets about what a PITA it is trying to get to the point of being able to disclose with anyone.

The Beatles were an interest of mine 3+ years ago. Since Thanksgiving / Get Back, it's become a full on obsession. It's a pretty deep subject, with an endless supply of books, docs and recordings to delve into. It's both intellectually satisfying and very fun. But mostly I think it's a form of escapism. I get that's a pejorative for some, but for me it's not necessarily a bad thing. Just being able to have feelings is pretty incredible.

One thing I've learned in the last couple years of treatment at the VA is I'll never be cured. I'm mentally ill. I have mental illness. It doesn't define who I am - I've learned a #### ton of tools to effectively manage it. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit it's a mother####er to realize you're broke and there's no way to fix it.

But music brings me joy. Sometimes it triggers me lol and I get all sad, but that doesn't seem to happen with the Fab Four. I love listening to their albums. I hardly ever shuffle - it's always sequential by album. I'm on my third album of listening this morning as I attempted to write this. 

_______________

Even though I'm an alumni of PRRC (psychosocial rehabilitation & restoration center), as a service connected PTSD veteran I still do about ten hours treatment every week (down from thirty when I was full time.) I don't always make it but one thing I try to hit up is the end-of-the-day Music Therapy Song Group. It's usually 12-15 PTSD Vets, sharing music for one hour, telling what a specific song is about and/or what it means to us personally. Every time I have attended this year I've shared a song from The Beatles. Not in danger of hitting repeat anytime soon.

Today I'm gonna play the promotional video upthread of Rain.

☮️ & ♥️

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Two Of Us
2022 Ranking: 41
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 191
Ranked Highest by: @Dr. Octopus (2) @heckmanm (3) @Murph (3) Craig (5) @Oliver Humanzee (10) @Wrighteous Ray (11) @AAABatteries (14) @krista4 (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 67/3/38

Getz: Large jump up (binky down) of 26 slots from 2019. Twelve more voters and 153 more points! Let the Get Back influence begin!
I have it at #24 on my list and this makes 3-in-a-row for me. Can’t believe how often the Get Back repeated starts of this song were ear worm for me for days after each time I watched it. "Two of us...... Two of us...... Two of us riding nowhere..."

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

When I was a kid, we drove everywhere on family vacations, not because we couldn't fly, but because my Dad really loved driving.  The first time I was on a plane was when we went to Hawaii and had no choice, and there I learned of a supplemental reason for always driving - my Dad got horrible air-sickness on any type of plane.  Luckily I didn't inherit that from him, but I did inherit the love of driving.  There are few things better to me than a long drive with the stereo cranked up.  From this, I also developed a particular fondness for songs that feel perfect for motoring along, singing at the top of your lungs.  My favorite Beatles song to drive to lands at #28 largely as a result of perfectly fitting these needs.

I mean, it's a great song anyway, but we can't pretend it's one of the Beatles "best" on a musical or technical level.  It's just a ####### fun song with great harmonies singable by anyone, joyful little guitar riffs, a catchy bridge, whistling(!), and a perfectly suitable tempo for driving.  There are few songs I have more fun with than this warm, charming ditty.  George playing a bass-like sound on his Telecaster during the bridge, and most of all the expectant pauses leading to those guitar riffs that start each verse, are the highlights for me.  Roll your window down, throw your head back, and sing!  (But don't throw your head back for too long, since you're driving.)

Paul wrote the song about his and Linda's predilection for driving around and getting purposefully lost; in fact, it was on one of these "lost" days in the country that he composed it.  While it's not about his relationship with John, when you hear the sunny harmonies and ebullience with which they sing together, it's not hard to think that John and Paul might have been singing about each other during the recording, too.

Mr. krista:  "I like it a lot.  It’s nice hearing all the harmonies.  You could really hear George singing in that.  I like how chord-y it is.  If there were some distortion it’d be a poppy-punk type song."

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

2022 Supplement:  Somehow I’m re-writing this one up and see that “Savoy Truffle” is the next on the list to write, and it’s panicking me.  You people couldn’t possibly have this song below that one, could you?  Breathe, Krista, breathe.  Remember that Getz mixed these up so that we wouldn’t know the order.  BREATHE.  (Getz: :lmao: )

Anyway, this slipped into my top 25 this year after barely missing in 2019.  Is this song musically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Is it lyrically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Are there standout performances?  No.  Is it A RINGO SHOWCASE!?  Nope.  But it’s fun and sunny and perfect to sing along to.  And, to top it off, when we did the drafts for charity at the end of last year, Mr. krista said this was the Beatles song he associated most strongly with me, because he can vividly see me driving and happily singing along with it.  Take that, “Savoy Truffle.”

Cute little tidbit from Paul:  he says that the line about postcards came in part from John, because while Paul and Linda loved buying up and sending lots of postcards, John was “a great postcard sender, so you’d get some great stuff from him.”   Paul says that this picture of him in his Aston Martin is an actual pic of him while composing this song:  https://imgur.com/0aD3Mzp

Guido Merkins

I remember the day I first bought the Let It Be album.  I had read and heard that it was one of the Beatles weakest albums, but since I was a completist, I had to have it.  So, I got it home and dropped the needle and was immediately in love with the first song and thought, “well how bad can it be.”  That song was Two of Us. (and I realized that “weak” was relative when it came to the Beatles.)

For years I thought that Two of Us was clearly written by Paul about he and John.  Lines like “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead”, to me, were clearly written to John.  Add to it the close, Everly Brothers type harmonies were just like the early days, and it was Paul extending an olive branch.  Recently, within the past year, I discovered that Paul wrote the song about Linda.  Linda liked to get lost on purpose and have a little adventure.  The lines “sending postcards” refers to Paul and Linda sending each other postcards and “getting nowhere” refers to them going places to get lost.  So, it’s not John, it’s Linda…..mostly, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not John too.  

Anyway, why do I like the song?  It’s all about the shimmering acoustic guitars and the great harmonies.  The fact that John and Paul could still do this together when so much was going on in the band and in their relationship is comforting to me.  Like, the magic never left them.
Click to expand...
Always loved this one, though I suspect the Get Back Thing was in play on my inclusion this go-round. The cool thing about the song to me is that it could fit into any kind of relationship or situation - romantic partner, friend, family member, pet, favorite tree, beer - and still work. Perfect Sunday brunch or lazy afternoon song.

 
With a Little Help From My Friends - #21 on my list. I don't hate the Joe Cocker version either, it's just different. Actually, when watching the Wonder Years I always liked the acoustic guitar instrumental version during the end credits. Similar take on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaHd4tQzYzQ

Rain - Just outside my top 25, so you can blame me for being one of the reasons it isn't higher on the combined list. Kind of thinking I made a mistake on this one. Awesome song.

Two of Us - Definitely think this one probably had one of the biggest Get Back bumps. Still a great song, though. First new song I learned on guitar following the documentary. It's a ton of fun to play. Again a song that makes me actually wish I could actually sing. 

 
BobbyLayne said:
Sorry for the hijack here....hopefully this helps or inspires someone bc it'd be kind of pathetic if this verbal vomit is just me getting stuff out of my head...

__________
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this, BL. So glad you're in a really good place now. You're one of the really good dudes around here, and the boards are much better for it.

 
3. Two of Us (41)

6. I Want You (She's So Heavy) (60)

9. Any Time At All (90)

11. I've Got a Feeling (46)

12. Dig A Pony (88)

14. Ballad of John and Yoko (61)

17. Good Morning Good Morning (113)

20. Wait (117)

21. Yer Blues (82T)

22. Old Brown Shoe (147)

23. Rain (42)

24. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey (96)

 
I haven’t even seen Get Back and I still voted for Two of Us so that’s not the only reason it’s ranked this high.

For me it’s the “on our way back home, we’re on our way home, we’re on our way home, WE’RE GOING HOOOOOME.”   It’s like a comfort song I think, everyone can relate to that excitement and relief of going home after being away a long time.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I haven’t even seen Get Back and I still voted for Two of Us so that’s not the only reason it’s ranked this high.

For me it’s the “on our way back home, we’re on our way home, we’re on our way home, WE’RE GOING HOOOOOME.”   It’s like a comfort song I think, everyone can relate to that excitement and relief of going home after being away a long time.
Click to expand...
Two of Us was in my top 5 last time we did this so “Get Back” had zero to do with my ranking either. I love the Paul/John harmonies and the whole feel of a “Sunday Drive” that the song projects.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Two Of Us
2022 Ranking: 41
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 191
Ranked Highest by: @Dr. Octopus (2) @heckmanm (3) @Murph (3) Craig (5) @Oliver Humanzee (10) @Wrighteous Ray (11) @AAABatteries (14) @krista4 (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 67/3/38

Getz: Large jump up (binky down) of 26 slots from 2019. Twelve more voters and 153 more points! Let the Get Back influence begin!
I have it at #24 on my list and this makes 3-in-a-row for me. Can’t believe how often the Get Back repeated starts of this song were ear worm for me for days after each time I watched it. "Two of us...... Two of us...... Two of us riding nowhere..."

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

When I was a kid, we drove everywhere on family vacations, not because we couldn't fly, but because my Dad really loved driving.  The first time I was on a plane was when we went to Hawaii and had no choice, and there I learned of a supplemental reason for always driving - my Dad got horrible air-sickness on any type of plane.  Luckily I didn't inherit that from him, but I did inherit the love of driving.  There are few things better to me than a long drive with the stereo cranked up.  From this, I also developed a particular fondness for songs that feel perfect for motoring along, singing at the top of your lungs.  My favorite Beatles song to drive to lands at #28 largely as a result of perfectly fitting these needs.

I mean, it's a great song anyway, but we can't pretend it's one of the Beatles "best" on a musical or technical level.  It's just a ####### fun song with great harmonies singable by anyone, joyful little guitar riffs, a catchy bridge, whistling(!), and a perfectly suitable tempo for driving.  There are few songs I have more fun with than this warm, charming ditty.  George playing a bass-like sound on his Telecaster during the bridge, and most of all the expectant pauses leading to those guitar riffs that start each verse, are the highlights for me.  Roll your window down, throw your head back, and sing!  (But don't throw your head back for too long, since you're driving.)

Paul wrote the song about his and Linda's predilection for driving around and getting purposefully lost; in fact, it was on one of these "lost" days in the country that he composed it.  While it's not about his relationship with John, when you hear the sunny harmonies and ebullience with which they sing together, it's not hard to think that John and Paul might have been singing about each other during the recording, too.

Mr. krista:  "I like it a lot.  It’s nice hearing all the harmonies.  You could really hear George singing in that.  I like how chord-y it is.  If there were some distortion it’d be a poppy-punk type song."

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

2022 Supplement:  Somehow I’m re-writing this one up and see that “Savoy Truffle” is the next on the list to write, and it’s panicking me.  You people couldn’t possibly have this song below that one, could you?  Breathe, Krista, breathe.  Remember that Getz mixed these up so that we wouldn’t know the order.  BREATHE.  (Getz: :lmao: )

Anyway, this slipped into my top 25 this year after barely missing in 2019.  Is this song musically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Is it lyrically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Are there standout performances?  No.  Is it A RINGO SHOWCASE!?  Nope.  But it’s fun and sunny and perfect to sing along to.  And, to top it off, when we did the drafts for charity at the end of last year, Mr. krista said this was the Beatles song he associated most strongly with me, because he can vividly see me driving and happily singing along with it.  Take that, “Savoy Truffle.”

Cute little tidbit from Paul:  he says that the line about postcards came in part from John, because while Paul and Linda loved buying up and sending lots of postcards, John was “a great postcard sender, so you’d get some great stuff from him.”   Paul says that this picture of him in his Aston Martin is an actual pic of him while composing this song:  https://imgur.com/0aD3Mzp

Guido Merkins

I remember the day I first bought the Let It Be album.  I had read and heard that it was one of the Beatles weakest albums, but since I was a completist, I had to have it.  So, I got it home and dropped the needle and was immediately in love with the first song and thought, “well how bad can it be.”  That song was Two of Us. (and I realized that “weak” was relative when it came to the Beatles.)

For years I thought that Two of Us was clearly written by Paul about he and John.  Lines like “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead”, to me, were clearly written to John.  Add to it the close, Everly Brothers type harmonies were just like the early days, and it was Paul extending an olive branch.  Recently, within the past year, I discovered that Paul wrote the song about Linda.  Linda liked to get lost on purpose and have a little adventure.  The lines “sending postcards” refers to Paul and Linda sending each other postcards and “getting nowhere” refers to them going places to get lost.  So, it’s not John, it’s Linda…..mostly, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not John too.  

Anyway, why do I like the song?  It’s all about the shimmering acoustic guitars and the great harmonies.  The fact that John and Paul could still do this together when so much was going on in the band and in their relationship is comforting to me.  Like, the magic never left them.
Click to expand...
Not including this on my list is my biggest regret.  Honestly, I despise John's "I Dig a Pygmy" nonsense on the Let It Be version and as a result skipped over this song a lot.  I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I listened to Let It Be...Naked and this song suddenly clicked for me.  The Naked version isn't all that different musically but the vocals seem cleaner and more fun. I also think that although it's not about Paul and John there are certainly some parallels there.

If I put a list together today it would be in my top 10.

 
Slowly Getting caught up from the weekend away.  I see the 40's weren't kind to me either:

08 Can't Buy Me Love (49)

14 When I'm Sixty-Four (73)

16 Paperback Writer (47)

17 I Saw Her Standing There (43)

21 Tell Me What You See (111)

24 I've Got A Feeling (46)

 
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I'll end up with almost half of the top 40 in my top 25 (actually my top 23)

3    Two Of Us (41)
14    Drive My Car (62)
18    Savoy Truffle (80)
19    I've Got A Feeling (46)
24    Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (55)
25    Wait (117)

 
Back in the USSR
2022 Ranking: 40
2022 Lists: 16
2022 Points: 202
Ranked Highest by: Rob(4) @ConstruxBoy (5) @Dwayne Hoover (7) @wikkidpissah(8) @Dennis Castro (9) Alex (9) @rockaction (9) Doug (10) Daughter (12) @Wrighteous Ray (hub) (12) 
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 52/7/64

Getz:  Moves up 12 spots with nine more votes and 138 more points.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  71

2019 write-up:

Back in the U.S.S.R. (White Album, 1968)

Written by Paul as a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A."  My favorite part of this song is the whooshing jet sounds and tire screeches.  When your favorite part of a song is jet sounds, maybe you'd think it would be ranked lower, but no, this is a great thundering rocker that gets me dancing.  It's silly and tongue-in-cheek and a rocking blast.  George is an absolute standout on lead guitar here.  Like every sentient human, I also like the little Beach Boys tribute in the middle, which was suggested by Mike Love himself while they were all hanging at the Maharishi's joint.  And not to get too political but any song that pisses off the apparently-unaware-of-parody John Birch Society is A-OK in my book.

The song is notable for the absence of Ringo, with Paul filling in on most of the drum parts.  It could have used some Ringo, as I find the drums slight behind-the-beat and muddy, but this is one of two songs (the other being "Dear Prudence") recorded while Ringo had temporarily quit the band.  Some have blamed Ringo's departure on Paul's constantly complaining about how he played the toms, but Ringo tells it more diplomatically:  "I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John...I said, 'I'm, leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.'  And John said, 'I thought it was you three!'  So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!'  I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, 'I'm going on holiday.' I took the kids and we went to Sardinia."

WHOOOOSH!  SCREECH!

Mr. krista:  ""It’s like California Girls but about the Soviet Union.  I think it's funny.  Obviously tongue-in-cheek.  Tight little rocker.  I like the jet sounds and the Beach Boy ooo-eeee-ooos".

Suggested covers:  Not great sound quality but gotta show how much better this is with a drummer:  Beach Boys & Ringo.  Special delivery for @Yankee23Fan:  Billy Joel.  Personal favorite:  Dead Kennedys

2022 Supplement:  Why did I have this so low in 2019?  Dummy.  I’d find a way to slide it into the top 50 now.  It rocks, and the lyrics, including the play on the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles,  are incredibly clever as they parody someone proud to be in the USSR rather than the West.  Paul has said that, as they started working through all the Soviet territories and stereotypes, the song kinda wrote itself.  There’s the reference to “daddy’s farm,” representing collectivism.  The disconnecting of the phone, referring to phone tapping.  “Georgia” meaning Soviet Georgia rather than US Georgia.  And of course they worked in their usual wink-and-a-nod naughty bits, including “show me round your snow-peaked mountains way down South” and “come and keep your comrade warm.”

But “Ukraine girls really knock me out” is depressing me at the moment I write this, on February 26, 2022.

Guido Merkins

The Beatles were fans of both the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry, so why not write a song that pays homage to both?

Back in the USSR was a homage to Back in the USA by Chuck Berry and Surfin USA or California Girls by the Beach Boys.  Instead of talking about girls in the USA, they would discuss girls in the USSR.  Mike Love suggested in Rishikesh that they even name drop places in the USSR.  So you get Ukraine girls that really knock me out and Moscow girls that make you scream and shout and Georgia which is always on their mind. 

Musically, you’ve got the muscular Chuck Berry riff and beat along with the Beach Boys harmonies.  Paul played drums on this song as this was during the time that Ringo had temporarily quit during the White Album.  George plays a blistering solo with Paul also contributing some lead guitar.  John plays bass.  Paul plays drums in Ringo’s absence.  Apparently they felt like the snare drum needed some help, so George overdubbed a snare drum part.  Also throughout the recording was the sounds of a jet airplane, taken from the EMI library.  

Back in the USSR wasn’t without controversy as some right wing conservative groups thought the song was pro communist (wackos.)  In any event, Back in the USSR was a great album opener for the White Album and one of the better Beatles pure rockers and fades straight into Dear Prudence.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Two Of Us
2022 Ranking: 41
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 191
Ranked Highest by: @Dr. Octopus (2) @heckmanm (3) @Murph (3) Craig (5) @Oliver Humanzee (10) @Wrighteous Ray (11) @AAABatteries (14) @krista4 (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 67/3/38

Getz: Large jump up (binky down) of 26 slots from 2019. Twelve more voters and 153 more points! Let the Get Back influence begin!
I have it at #24 on my list and this makes 3-in-a-row for me. Can’t believe how often the Get Back repeated starts of this song were ear worm for me for days after each time I watched it. "Two of us...... Two of us...... Two of us riding nowhere..."

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

When I was a kid, we drove everywhere on family vacations, not because we couldn't fly, but because my Dad really loved driving.  The first time I was on a plane was when we went to Hawaii and had no choice, and there I learned of a supplemental reason for always driving - my Dad got horrible air-sickness on any type of plane.  Luckily I didn't inherit that from him, but I did inherit the love of driving.  There are few things better to me than a long drive with the stereo cranked up.  From this, I also developed a particular fondness for songs that feel perfect for motoring along, singing at the top of your lungs.  My favorite Beatles song to drive to lands at #28 largely as a result of perfectly fitting these needs.

I mean, it's a great song anyway, but we can't pretend it's one of the Beatles "best" on a musical or technical level.  It's just a ####### fun song with great harmonies singable by anyone, joyful little guitar riffs, a catchy bridge, whistling(!), and a perfectly suitable tempo for driving.  There are few songs I have more fun with than this warm, charming ditty.  George playing a bass-like sound on his Telecaster during the bridge, and most of all the expectant pauses leading to those guitar riffs that start each verse, are the highlights for me.  Roll your window down, throw your head back, and sing!  (But don't throw your head back for too long, since you're driving.)

Paul wrote the song about his and Linda's predilection for driving around and getting purposefully lost; in fact, it was on one of these "lost" days in the country that he composed it.  While it's not about his relationship with John, when you hear the sunny harmonies and ebullience with which they sing together, it's not hard to think that John and Paul might have been singing about each other during the recording, too.

Mr. krista:  "I like it a lot.  It’s nice hearing all the harmonies.  You could really hear George singing in that.  I like how chord-y it is.  If there were some distortion it’d be a poppy-punk type song."

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

2022 Supplement:  Somehow I’m re-writing this one up and see that “Savoy Truffle” is the next on the list to write, and it’s panicking me.  You people couldn’t possibly have this song below that one, could you?  Breathe, Krista, breathe.  Remember that Getz mixed these up so that we wouldn’t know the order.  BREATHE.  (Getz: :lmao: )

Anyway, this slipped into my top 25 this year after barely missing in 2019.  Is this song musically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Is it lyrically interesting?  Not as much as many others.  Are there standout performances?  No.  Is it A RINGO SHOWCASE!?  Nope.  But it’s fun and sunny and perfect to sing along to.  And, to top it off, when we did the drafts for charity at the end of last year, Mr. krista said this was the Beatles song he associated most strongly with me, because he can vividly see me driving and happily singing along with it.  Take that, “Savoy Truffle.”

Cute little tidbit from Paul:  he says that the line about postcards came in part from John, because while Paul and Linda loved buying up and sending lots of postcards, John was “a great postcard sender, so you’d get some great stuff from him.”   Paul says that this picture of him in his Aston Martin is an actual pic of him while composing this song:  https://imgur.com/0aD3Mzp

Guido Merkins

I remember the day I first bought the Let It Be album.  I had read and heard that it was one of the Beatles weakest albums, but since I was a completist, I had to have it.  So, I got it home and dropped the needle and was immediately in love with the first song and thought, “well how bad can it be.”  That song was Two of Us. (and I realized that “weak” was relative when it came to the Beatles.)

For years I thought that Two of Us was clearly written by Paul about he and John.  Lines like “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead”, to me, were clearly written to John.  Add to it the close, Everly Brothers type harmonies were just like the early days, and it was Paul extending an olive branch.  Recently, within the past year, I discovered that Paul wrote the song about Linda.  Linda liked to get lost on purpose and have a little adventure.  The lines “sending postcards” refers to Paul and Linda sending each other postcards and “getting nowhere” refers to them going places to get lost.  So, it’s not John, it’s Linda…..mostly, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not John too.  

Anyway, why do I like the song?  It’s all about the shimmering acoustic guitars and the great harmonies.  The fact that John and Paul could still do this together when so much was going on in the band and in their relationship is comforting to me.  Like, the magic never left them.
Click to expand...
I really do love this song.  It reminds me of my parents driving around in northern Wisconsin. If my grandfather had lived longer (he died when I was 7), this song is what I think it would have felt like to go fishing with him. 😢

 
1.     

2.      Two Of Us (41)

3.      

4.      If I Needed Someone (76)

5.      

6.      I've Got A Feeling (46)

7.      

8.      

9.      Oh! Darling (59)

10.   

11.   

12.   

13.   

14.   

15.   

16.  

17.   

18.   

19.   Rain (42)

20.   

21.   

22.   With A Little Help From My Friends  (44)

23.   She's Leaving Home (63)

24.   

25.   I Want You (She's So Heavy) (60)

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Back in the USSR
2022 Ranking: 40
2022 Lists: 16
2022 Points: 202
Ranked Highest by: Rob(4) @ConstruxBoy (5) @Dwayne Hoover (7) @wikkidpissah(8) @Dennis Castro (9) Alex (9) @rockaction (9) Doug (10) Daughter (12) @Wrighteous Ray (hub) (12) 
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 52/7/64

Getz:  Moves up 12 spots with nine more votes and 138 more points.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  71

2019 write-up:

Back in the U.S.S.R. (White Album, 1968)

Written by Paul as a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A."  My favorite part of this song is the whooshing jet sounds and tire screeches.  When your favorite part of a song is jet sounds, maybe you'd think it would be ranked lower, but no, this is a great thundering rocker that gets me dancing.  It's silly and tongue-in-cheek and a rocking blast.  George is an absolute standout on lead guitar here.  Like every sentient human, I also like the little Beach Boys tribute in the middle, which was suggested by Mike Love himself while they were all hanging at the Maharishi's joint.  And not to get too political but any song that pisses off the apparently-unaware-of-parody John Birch Society is A-OK in my book.

The song is notable for the absence of Ringo, with Paul filling in on most of the drum parts.  It could have used some Ringo, as I find the drums slight behind-the-beat and muddy, but this is one of two songs (the other being "Dear Prudence") recorded while Ringo had temporarily quit the band.  Some have blamed Ringo's departure on Paul's constantly complaining about how he played the toms, but Ringo tells it more diplomatically:  "I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John...I said, 'I'm, leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.'  And John said, 'I thought it was you three!'  So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!'  I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, 'I'm going on holiday.' I took the kids and we went to Sardinia."

WHOOOOSH!  SCREECH!

Mr. krista:  ""It’s like California Girls but about the Soviet Union.  I think it's funny.  Obviously tongue-in-cheek.  Tight little rocker.  I like the jet sounds and the Beach Boy ooo-eeee-ooos".

Suggested covers:  Not great sound quality but gotta show how much better this is with a drummer:  Beach Boys & Ringo.  Special delivery for @Yankee23Fan:  Billy Joel.  Personal favorite:  Dead Kennedys

2022 Supplement:  Why did I have this so low in 2019?  Dummy.  I’d find a way to slide it into the top 50 now.  It rocks, and the lyrics, including the play on the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles,  are incredibly clever as they parody someone proud to be in the USSR rather than the West.  Paul has said that, as they started working through all the Soviet territories and stereotypes, the song kinda wrote itself.  There’s the reference to “daddy’s farm,” representing collectivism.  The disconnecting of the phone, referring to phone tapping.  “Georgia” meaning Soviet Georgia rather than US Georgia.  And of course they worked in their usual wink-and-a-nod naughty bits, including “show me round your snow-peaked mountains way down South” and “come and keep your comrade warm.”

But “Ukraine girls really knock me out” is depressing me at the moment I write this, on February 26, 2022.

Guido Merkins

The Beatles were fans of both the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry, so why not write a song that pays homage to both?

Back in the USSR was a homage to Back in the USA by Chuck Berry and Surfin USA or California Girls by the Beach Boys.  Instead of talking about girls in the USA, they would discuss girls in the USSR.  Mike Love suggested in Rishikesh that they even name drop places in the USSR.  So you get Ukraine girls that really knock me out and Moscow girls that make you scream and shout and Georgia which is always on their mind. 

Musically, you’ve got the muscular Chuck Berry riff and beat along with the Beach Boys harmonies.  Paul played drums on this song as this was during the time that Ringo had temporarily quit during the White Album.  George plays a blistering solo with Paul also contributing some lead guitar.  John plays bass.  Paul plays drums in Ringo’s absence.  Apparently they felt like the snare drum needed some help, so George overdubbed a snare drum part.  Also throughout the recording was the sounds of a jet airplane, taken from the EMI library.  

Back in the USSR wasn’t without controversy as some right wing conservative groups thought the song was pro communist (wackos.)  In any event, Back in the USSR was a great album opener for the White Album and one of the better Beatles pure rockers and fades straight into Dear Prudence.
Click to expand...
To be fair to Ringo, I've been on holiday on Sardina - a bad day there trumps any day at work, even if your job is making music with the greatest band of all time. beaches and towns are awesome and the golf (esp Pevero GC) is Top Ten for the Med.

I've heard people bash this, which baffles me. It's such a fun song. I'm more of a John stan when it comes to toe tapper rockers but Macca kills it here.

 
Back In The USSR is far from my favorite tune on The White Album, but love the way it lands/glides right into Dear Prudence.

 
Happiness is a Warm Gun
2022 Ranking: 39
2022 Lists: 18
2022 Points: 204
Ranked Highest by: @turnjose7 (2) Alex (3) @neal cassady (7) @shuke (11) @jamny (12) Worth (13) Slug (13) @Murph (13) @simey(15) @fatguyinalittlecoat (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 44/8/88

Getz: Moves up five spots from 2019, with 10 more votes and 116 more points.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  33

2019 write-up:

Happiness Is A Warm Gun (White Album, 1968)

The idea for this song came from an article entitled "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" in The American Rifleman magazine, which was itself a take-off of the much cuddlier Peanuts book Happiness Is A Warm Puppy.  George Martin had the magazine in the studio, and John was inspired by the title:  "I thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say.  A warm gun means you've just shot something."  The structure of this song, combining several distinct song parts to form a whole, reminds me of something Paul would do; I love how Paul accomplished this on the "You Never Give Me Your Money" part of the Abbey Road medley, or later in "Band On The Run."  John is equally successful here, and this structure and all the various changes from fragment to fragment are my favorite element of this song.  All of the Beatles were big fans of this song, even normally critical John.  I'm glad they loved, it, since they recorded 70 takes of it over the course of two sessions!

The first of the three fused parts was called "Dirty old man" in John's handwritten notes on the lyric sheet (a precursor to "Mean Mr. Mustard"?).  Derek Taylor claimed this portion was written during an acid trip among him, John, and others, and he gives a detailed explanation for most lines, but I'm not sure if he's believable.  John claimed that the lyrics were just invented by him and were about nothing at all.  In fact, he asserted that the Beatles would sometimes throw these non-sensical lyrics into songs just to see what critics would read into them, sometimes even seeing an interpretation and thinking, "Hey, that's pretty good."  This portion of the song is the most straightforward musically.  Though it occasionally deviates briefly into 6/4 or 5/4 time to accommodate an extra syllable or two, it's mostly in standard 4/4 and played in an uncomplicated fashion on the finger-picking rhythm guitar, bass, and organ, with a simple drum fill, slight distortion of the electric guitar, or nice vocal harmony thrown in now and then.

The second part, beginning with "I need a fix," was called "the junkie" in John's notes, and it's this portion that perked up the ears of the BBC censors and led to its being banned at the time for heroin references.  John later claimed the song wasn't about drugs but just about rock and roll, but that seems a bit of revisionist history.  The references to "Mother Superior" represent Yoko, whom John had Pence-ably begun referring to as "Mother."  George's more aggressively distorted guitar announces that this section is going to be a big change, and this is where the music gets more complex.  While the time signature changes to 3/4 and remains there for the majority of the section, on the phrase "jumped the gun," sometimes - but not always! - a fourth beat is added to turn it briefly into 4/4 time.  To keep up with this madness, Ringo is doing something on drums that I can't exactly describe as it seems he's constantly doing something different, in particular playing each downbeat differently; the effect is really cool.  In addition, I feel like in this section the vocals turn (pleasingly) menacing; compare the harmonies contributed by George in the first section to the high backing vocal offered here by Paul, exactly an octave above John.  The effect sounds threatening to me, as does George's lead guitar that actually "leads" the vocal on the verse, playing the same notes with which the vocal follows.  

The last part was called "the gunman" and came from the article mentioned above, but in parentheses was the word "satire," which was how John addressed what the group saw as the US obsession with guns.  The satire continued with the "bang bang shoot shoot" part, meant to mimic the "shoop shoop" of a 50s R&B song.  This section also contains barely veiled references to sex ("When I hold you in my arms, and I feel my finger on your trigger..."), since as John describes it he and Yoko were spending all their free time in bed at that point.  If this section was supposed to be hilarious, it works for me.  Moving from the dark vocals in the second section to bursting lead vocal in this section while singing of the joys of guns, together with the 50s-style doo-*** in the backing vocal, is beautiful satire.  This section again moves among time signatures, from 4/4 to 6/8 and back, but pauses meaningfully and humorously for John to deliver that screaming line at the pinnacle of the song, followed again hilariously by the doo-*** backup, this time at the height of its sarcasm with the "band bang shoot shoot."  It's all glorious and brilliant to me, albeit somewhat exhausting. 

The subject matter does make me a little queasy now knowing how John met his end.

Mr. krista:  "“Yeah, there’s my jam.  [Narrator, noticing his eyes are closed: 'Hey, you awake?']  Oh, I’m just jamming.  Man, I love that song.  I like things that I generally would hate in songs that seem necessary in there, like the shoot-shoots.  It’s really sardonic.  Great lyrics. It’s heavy and it rocks really hard. It’s like three different songs mashed together."

Suggested cover:  The Breeders

2022 Supplement:  Having typed boatloads in 2019, I’ll just offer a couple of other versions of this song.  First is the Esher demo, which contains bits of the second and third sections of this song, plus a small ode to Yoko in the middle:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2tcFajzNQU   Second, Take 19, which sounds damn good considering they did 50+ more takes after this one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0uoakDesgo   Love the bit between John and George at the end of this one:  “Easier and fun!”

I’m also going to declare this officially A RINGO SHOWCASE!  Try to name a time signature this song doesn’t contain, and Ringo keeps propelling it forward perfectly through every change.

Guido Merkins

George Martin brought a magazine into the studio and it had the title “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”  John thought that was insane in that a warm gun means you just shot something.  So he wrote a song around this title.

Actually, he wrote 3 songs around this title.  First the “she’s not a girl” section.  Second the “I need a fix” section. Last the “happiness is a warm gun” section.  The first section had surreal images.  The second kind of a blues based section.  The last section a 50s doo *** section.  These 3 sections had wildly varying time signatures.  It’s almost like a mini suite.

The lyrics were a problem for the BBC, especially the lines “I need a fix” and “when I put my finger on your trigger.”  Lennon claimed the song was not about drugs, but about his love for Yoko, but did not deny the double meaning of the “trigger” line.  

Great, loud guitar by George between sections 1 and 2.  Great drumming.  The dichotomy between the doo *** of the 3rd section and the subject matter is also pretty cool.  Great harmonies, one of the few on the White Album with great harmonies.  For once, all the Beatles were in agreement that Happiness Is A Warm Gun was their favorite track on the album.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Getzlaf15 said:
Back in the USSR
2022 Ranking: 40
2022 Lists: 16
2022 Points: 202
Ranked Highest by: Rob(4) @ConstruxBoy (5) @Dwayne Hoover (7) @wikkidpissah(8) @Dennis Castro (9) Alex (9) @rockaction (9) Doug (10) Daughter (12) @Wrighteous Ray (hub) (12) 
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 52/7/64

Getz:  Moves up 12 spots with nine more votes and 138 more points.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  71

2019 write-up:

Back in the U.S.S.R. (White Album, 1968)

Written by Paul as a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A."  My favorite part of this song is the whooshing jet sounds and tire screeches.  When your favorite part of a song is jet sounds, maybe you'd think it would be ranked lower, but no, this is a great thundering rocker that gets me dancing.  It's silly and tongue-in-cheek and a rocking blast.  George is an absolute standout on lead guitar here.  Like every sentient human, I also like the little Beach Boys tribute in the middle, which was suggested by Mike Love himself while they were all hanging at the Maharishi's joint.  And not to get too political but any song that pisses off the apparently-unaware-of-parody John Birch Society is A-OK in my book.

The song is notable for the absence of Ringo, with Paul filling in on most of the drum parts.  It could have used some Ringo, as I find the drums slight behind-the-beat and muddy, but this is one of two songs (the other being "Dear Prudence") recorded while Ringo had temporarily quit the band.  Some have blamed Ringo's departure on Paul's constantly complaining about how he played the toms, but Ringo tells it more diplomatically:  "I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John...I said, 'I'm, leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.'  And John said, 'I thought it was you three!'  So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!'  I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, 'I'm going on holiday.' I took the kids and we went to Sardinia."

WHOOOOSH!  SCREECH!

Mr. krista:  ""It’s like California Girls but about the Soviet Union.  I think it's funny.  Obviously tongue-in-cheek.  Tight little rocker.  I like the jet sounds and the Beach Boy ooo-eeee-ooos".

Suggested covers:  Not great sound quality but gotta show how much better this is with a drummer:  Beach Boys & Ringo.  Special delivery for @Yankee23Fan:  Billy Joel.  Personal favorite:  Dead Kennedys

2022 Supplement:  Why did I have this so low in 2019?  Dummy.  I’d find a way to slide it into the top 50 now.  It rocks, and the lyrics, including the play on the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles,  are incredibly clever as they parody someone proud to be in the USSR rather than the West.  Paul has said that, as they started working through all the Soviet territories and stereotypes, the song kinda wrote itself.  There’s the reference to “daddy’s farm,” representing collectivism.  The disconnecting of the phone, referring to phone tapping.  “Georgia” meaning Soviet Georgia rather than US Georgia.  And of course they worked in their usual wink-and-a-nod naughty bits, including “show me round your snow-peaked mountains way down South” and “come and keep your comrade warm.”

But “Ukraine girls really knock me out” is depressing me at the moment I write this, on February 26, 2022.

Guido Merkins

The Beatles were fans of both the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry, so why not write a song that pays homage to both?

Back in the USSR was a homage to Back in the USA by Chuck Berry and Surfin USA or California Girls by the Beach Boys.  Instead of talking about girls in the USA, they would discuss girls in the USSR.  Mike Love suggested in Rishikesh that they even name drop places in the USSR.  So you get Ukraine girls that really knock me out and Moscow girls that make you scream and shout and Georgia which is always on their mind. 

Musically, you’ve got the muscular Chuck Berry riff and beat along with the Beach Boys harmonies.  Paul played drums on this song as this was during the time that Ringo had temporarily quit during the White Album.  George plays a blistering solo with Paul also contributing some lead guitar.  John plays bass.  Paul plays drums in Ringo’s absence.  Apparently they felt like the snare drum needed some help, so George overdubbed a snare drum part.  Also throughout the recording was the sounds of a jet airplane, taken from the EMI library.  

Back in the USSR wasn’t without controversy as some right wing conservative groups thought the song was pro communist (wackos.)  In any event, Back in the USSR was a great album opener for the White Album and one of the better Beatles pure rockers and fades straight into Dear Prudence.
Click to expand...
Great fun rocker. 

 
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