Tom Hagen
Footballguy
I'm a huge Help! stan and even I'm surprised how many songs it's going to place in the top 25.
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2022 FBG, 172 to 1 Beatles Countdown 1-25 lists... And 173 to 1 Countdown from 1-64 lists! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Zegras11
- Start date
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
The space was part of it, going from a cold, impersonal, warehouse style space to their own (hey we should build that thing now) studio. But having a guest def put everyone on their best behavior.
Just realized we haven't had a song off of Help since #74. About 3 weeks ago.I'm a huge Help! fan and even I'm surprised how many songs it's going to place in the top 25.
Edit: I may, or may not, be exaggerating the time span
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krista4
Footballguy
Just realized we haven't had a song off of Help since #74. About 3 weeks ago.
Wow. WTG, Help!
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I feel pretty confident in saying that the product that would have come out of Twickenham if Preston had been there would have been better than the product coming out of Apple had he not. Your mileage varies and that's ok.PS - the lads shifting from Twickenham to Apple had as much to do with their demeanor/lightness as Preston.
let's dial back the ball washing - he was sensational, NO DENYING THAT - but let's not trip the #### all over yourselves to shine the sack.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
thought this was interesting (hilarious)
apparently this label pressed several LPs for GIs in Saigon
apparently this label pressed several LPs for GIs in Saigon
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Taiwan label
so guess it wasn't just for GI's....but it was the version US servicemen were able to purchase when they were in country
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Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
otb_lifer
Footballguy
i'm alright, Jack ... didja bother to read the ####in post?
it DOES vary, see my posts.
it's one thing to acknowledge his contriburions, quite another to see the line form at the left to scrub his jumblies.
it's hysterical, tbh.
YMMV
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otb_lifer
Footballguy
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
You seem to be fixated on Billy Preston's gonads.i'm alright, Jack ... didja bother to read the ####in post?
it DOES vary, see my posts.
it's one thing to acknowledge his contriburions, quite another to see the line form at the left to scrub his jumblies.
it's hysterical, tbh.
YMMV
I just stated my opinion that I think Preston was the biggest reason why those sessions flipped. I don't really care if you disagree, but I have no problem with you being wrong
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
This is not a On This Day post but it's so amazing I just wanted to share bc I'd never seen it before.
Stevie Wonder meets Macca - Feb 3, 1966
Paul McCartney saw 15-year-old Stevie Wonder perform at the Scotch Of St James club in London. The two of them chatted after the performance.
When on tour I have to write essays about the places I visit. In the essay I’ll be writing when I get back I’ll certainly include my meeting with Paul McCartney. I met him in the Scotch Of St James club. He’s a really swinging guy, the only Beatle I’ve met.
- Stevie Wonder – NME, 18 February 1966
The dude on the left is Wonder’s tutor, Ted Bull, who accompanied the 15-year-old singer on his tours.
Stevie Wonder meets Macca - Feb 3, 1966
Paul McCartney saw 15-year-old Stevie Wonder perform at the Scotch Of St James club in London. The two of them chatted after the performance.
When on tour I have to write essays about the places I visit. In the essay I’ll be writing when I get back I’ll certainly include my meeting with Paul McCartney. I met him in the Scotch Of St James club. He’s a really swinging guy, the only Beatle I’ve met.
- Stevie Wonder – NME, 18 February 1966
The dude on the left is Wonder’s tutor, Ted Bull, who accompanied the 15-year-old singer on his tours.
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FairWarning
Footballguy
I missed The Long and Winding Road - if there was a band that could cover it, its the Moody Blues.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Zegras11
Footballguy
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Zegras11
Footballguy
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
nothing related to jag, jack, jerk, et al, or for that matter toss
However...
not very British
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simey
Footballguy
That is in the xxx naked version of Come Together.
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a jagoff he just do what he please
I don't want to get too dirty in case Joe is lurking.
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Zegras11
Footballguy
I Want To Hold Your Hand - Performed Live On The Ed Sullivan Show 2/9/64
2022 Ranking: 21
2022 Lists: 22
2022 Points: 295
Ranked Highest by: Doug (1) @fatguyinalittlecoat (1) @whoknew (3) @DocHolliday (4) Holly (6) Slug (7) @Eephus (8) @Getzlaf15 (10) @AAABatteries (10) @John Maddens Lunchbox (12) @lardonastick (13) OH Dad (13) @Dinsy Ejotuz (14) @ProstheticRGK (15) @BobbyLayne (16)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 22/12/153
Getz: Had it at #11 in 2019, #10 in 2022. Moved up on the count down one slot also!
Just a timeless Beatles classic. Love everything about it. Our first song with two #1 votes!
Krista4
My 2019 ranking: 19
2019 write-up:
I Want To Hold Your Hand (single, 1963)
"I Want To Hold Your Hand" knocked "She Loves You" off the top spot on the UK charts, selling over a million copies in advance of its release! While Beatlemania was in full swing in the UK, it hadn't blossomed much yet in the US. Maybe everybody knows the background of this song, but in case someone wandered into the thread from Mars or Mississippi... An interview with the Beatles and story about their UK success was aired on CBS News on December 10, 1963, and a teenage viewer named Marsha Albert wrote to Carroll James, a DJ in DC, asking him to play something from the Beatles. James secured a copy of the song in advance of its official release and asked Albert onto the show to introduce it, which she did with the now-famous words, "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are The Beatles singing 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.'" Soon the song was being played by DJs around the country, and Capitol advanced its release to accommodate the overwhelming response, selling over a million copies in ten days. It quickly became the first Beatles song to hit #1 in the US, coincidentally being replaced by "She Loves You" after a seven-week run.
It's hard to imagine now how monumental it was at that time for a British band to maintain this kind of presence on the US charts, but it just didn't happen before that. Even for the Beatles, three singles - "Please Please Me," "From Me To You," and "She Loves You" - had previously been released mostly to yawns. The Beatles were in the midst of their Paris shows when word came in that they had hit #1 in the US, and Paul said they all jumped on Mal Evans and tried to ride him around the hotel room while, as Ringo described it, they “all just started acting like people from Texas, hollering and shouting ‘Yahoo!’” A US tour was quickly organized, including the iconic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show that had more than 73 million viewers! There were only like 73.5 million people in the US at that time, meaning more than 99% of Americans were watching, including infants and prisoners. Sure, I totally made that up. But holy hell, 73 million was a lot of viewers in 1963.
As their works tended to be at the time, this was a true collaboration between Paul and John - "eyeball to eyeball" as they termed it. It was so well-crafted by the first time they brought it into the studio that Geoff Emerick thought to himself how much time they must have put into writing and rehearsing it, and though they made 17 takes, the Beatles were on point from the very beginning, sounding polished and confident. George even laid down his guitar licks to everyone's immediate delight. Emerick described the atmosphere during this recording as joyous, such as when they recorded the handclaps: "As I watched the four Beatles gathered around a single mic, clowning around as they added the part, it was apparent to me how much fun they were having, how much they loved doing what they were doing."
That intoxicating energy exudes from this song, as does the dollop of confidence they'd gain with their success in the UK market. The song is best enjoyed for me as just a "feel," to get swept up in the excitement and fever and not think about it too deeply. But since I am still me, I'll note a few things I particularly love. Like several of my highly ranked songs, it starts with an infectious hook and then builds excitement, though this one is unusual in that respect; though it's hard to imagine not knowing what happens after those opening guitar licks, for just a second try to put yourself in the place of someone who's never heard this song before. Where is it going? How do I dance to this? It's only ~5-6 seconds in that the song starts to resolve itself and give you an idea where it's going. Like "She Loves You," it gives me the feeling of having been plopped into the middle of something wondrous that I don't yet quite understand.
The verses then start out normally enough, with some melodic unison singing punctuated by fun handclaps, until we get to that last line, where suddenly there's a break into an extremely high harmony for "I want to hold your hand," followed by - oh my god it's another reference to a drum fill but here we go - a phenomenal little drum fill. Things turn normal again for most of a line in unison, whew, until again the vocal breaks into an unexpected harmony that descends in a staggered pattern. What just happened here? I don't know. Luckily, we then go into a mellow bridge, and all is right with the world until oh my god there are those harmonies again and they're getting kind of loud and aggressively ascending and why are they shouting "I get high!" at me?? Relax, they're actually saying, "I can't hide," though Bob Dylan misheard those lyrics as "I get high" until the Beatles corrected him. (I did not make that part up.) Then we settle back into some verses and another bridge and everything goes fine because the harmonies are more consistent and we get to that "ha-a-a-a-a-and" part that all seems perfectly normal and is in waltz time and so no, mom, they are not bad boys, they are nice because look they are in suits and flicking their heads around cutely and that was 3/4 time and so you see this is all perfectly safe and you needn't worry and screeeeaam shrieeeeeek I'm gonna die if I can't make babies with them RIGHT NOW.
Mr. krista: "That’s a song that has gone up in my estimation. I love the chords that open it. I’m not 100% sure the rest of the song lives up to it, since it seems like something overwhelming is going to happen but it’s just 'I want to hold your hand.' I feel like that’s a substitute phrase for something desperate and full of pathos."
Suggested cover: Al Green
2022 Supplement: As I mentioned in 2019, the type of success this song had in the US was previously unheard of for a UK artist. The band had always seen US popularity as their goal but also largely a fantasy. As John pointed out, Cliff Richard, a huge star in the UK, “went to America and died. He was fourteenth on the bill with Frankie Avalon.” So the scene I described in my prior write-up, when they learned they had hit #1, was one of pure joy. And they didn’t just go to #1 with the song; they smashed sales records. 250,000 sold in the US in the first three days. 3.4 million in the first three months. The hunger for a new generation of rock-and-roll was evident, and the historical significance of this release can’t be overstated.
There are a crap-ton of live versions available of this song, and I’ll be interested to see which one Getz chooses. Notably and surprisingly, though, Paul has never played this at any of his post-Beatles shows. I should text him about that.
Fun fact: This was the first song to be recorded by the Beatles on four-track recording equipment.
Guido Merkins
Everything that made She Loves You so great is present on I Want to Hold Your Hand. For us Americans, it was I Want to Hold Your Hand that broke the Beatles, but as we know, She Loves You had already made them superstars.
So why was Hand the one that broke America? I think it was just because it’s the one that followed She Loves You. It so happens that She Loves You had made them such stars that the next record would start to make inroads in America, whereas the others had not. Hand has slightly less energy than She Loves You, but still a lot of energy. Great intro that grabs you by the throat immediately. Nice guitar licks. Great drumming. Great bluesy vocals. John and Paul singing in harmony. A great middle that kind of brings it down into a minor feel before “I can’t hide, I can’t hide” brings it back up. Also on the word “understand”, the way it goes from Em to Bm is the chord that made the whole thing according to John and Paul. When Paul hit that Bm, “John said ‘that’s it, do it again.’” It’s an unusual movement to go from Em to Bm in that key, but once again, they were going with what sounded good, not with what was “correct”
Like She Loves You, I’m not sure you can get a whole lot better than I Want to Hold Your Hand. It’s a perfect expression of what rock and roll would be in the early 60s and it sounded like nothing else on the radio. She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand combined was like the Big Bang. Everything after was forever changed.
2022 Ranking: 21
2022 Lists: 22
2022 Points: 295
Ranked Highest by: Doug (1) @fatguyinalittlecoat (1) @whoknew (3) @DocHolliday (4) Holly (6) Slug (7) @Eephus (8) @Getzlaf15 (10) @AAABatteries (10) @John Maddens Lunchbox (12) @lardonastick (13) OH Dad (13) @Dinsy Ejotuz (14) @ProstheticRGK (15) @BobbyLayne (16)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 22/12/153
Getz: Had it at #11 in 2019, #10 in 2022. Moved up on the count down one slot also!
Just a timeless Beatles classic. Love everything about it. Our first song with two #1 votes!
Krista4
My 2019 ranking: 19
2019 write-up:
I Want To Hold Your Hand (single, 1963)
"I Want To Hold Your Hand" knocked "She Loves You" off the top spot on the UK charts, selling over a million copies in advance of its release! While Beatlemania was in full swing in the UK, it hadn't blossomed much yet in the US. Maybe everybody knows the background of this song, but in case someone wandered into the thread from Mars or Mississippi... An interview with the Beatles and story about their UK success was aired on CBS News on December 10, 1963, and a teenage viewer named Marsha Albert wrote to Carroll James, a DJ in DC, asking him to play something from the Beatles. James secured a copy of the song in advance of its official release and asked Albert onto the show to introduce it, which she did with the now-famous words, "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are The Beatles singing 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.'" Soon the song was being played by DJs around the country, and Capitol advanced its release to accommodate the overwhelming response, selling over a million copies in ten days. It quickly became the first Beatles song to hit #1 in the US, coincidentally being replaced by "She Loves You" after a seven-week run.
It's hard to imagine now how monumental it was at that time for a British band to maintain this kind of presence on the US charts, but it just didn't happen before that. Even for the Beatles, three singles - "Please Please Me," "From Me To You," and "She Loves You" - had previously been released mostly to yawns. The Beatles were in the midst of their Paris shows when word came in that they had hit #1 in the US, and Paul said they all jumped on Mal Evans and tried to ride him around the hotel room while, as Ringo described it, they “all just started acting like people from Texas, hollering and shouting ‘Yahoo!’” A US tour was quickly organized, including the iconic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show that had more than 73 million viewers! There were only like 73.5 million people in the US at that time, meaning more than 99% of Americans were watching, including infants and prisoners. Sure, I totally made that up. But holy hell, 73 million was a lot of viewers in 1963.
As their works tended to be at the time, this was a true collaboration between Paul and John - "eyeball to eyeball" as they termed it. It was so well-crafted by the first time they brought it into the studio that Geoff Emerick thought to himself how much time they must have put into writing and rehearsing it, and though they made 17 takes, the Beatles were on point from the very beginning, sounding polished and confident. George even laid down his guitar licks to everyone's immediate delight. Emerick described the atmosphere during this recording as joyous, such as when they recorded the handclaps: "As I watched the four Beatles gathered around a single mic, clowning around as they added the part, it was apparent to me how much fun they were having, how much they loved doing what they were doing."
That intoxicating energy exudes from this song, as does the dollop of confidence they'd gain with their success in the UK market. The song is best enjoyed for me as just a "feel," to get swept up in the excitement and fever and not think about it too deeply. But since I am still me, I'll note a few things I particularly love. Like several of my highly ranked songs, it starts with an infectious hook and then builds excitement, though this one is unusual in that respect; though it's hard to imagine not knowing what happens after those opening guitar licks, for just a second try to put yourself in the place of someone who's never heard this song before. Where is it going? How do I dance to this? It's only ~5-6 seconds in that the song starts to resolve itself and give you an idea where it's going. Like "She Loves You," it gives me the feeling of having been plopped into the middle of something wondrous that I don't yet quite understand.
The verses then start out normally enough, with some melodic unison singing punctuated by fun handclaps, until we get to that last line, where suddenly there's a break into an extremely high harmony for "I want to hold your hand," followed by - oh my god it's another reference to a drum fill but here we go - a phenomenal little drum fill. Things turn normal again for most of a line in unison, whew, until again the vocal breaks into an unexpected harmony that descends in a staggered pattern. What just happened here? I don't know. Luckily, we then go into a mellow bridge, and all is right with the world until oh my god there are those harmonies again and they're getting kind of loud and aggressively ascending and why are they shouting "I get high!" at me?? Relax, they're actually saying, "I can't hide," though Bob Dylan misheard those lyrics as "I get high" until the Beatles corrected him. (I did not make that part up.) Then we settle back into some verses and another bridge and everything goes fine because the harmonies are more consistent and we get to that "ha-a-a-a-a-and" part that all seems perfectly normal and is in waltz time and so no, mom, they are not bad boys, they are nice because look they are in suits and flicking their heads around cutely and that was 3/4 time and so you see this is all perfectly safe and you needn't worry and screeeeaam shrieeeeeek I'm gonna die if I can't make babies with them RIGHT NOW.
Mr. krista: "That’s a song that has gone up in my estimation. I love the chords that open it. I’m not 100% sure the rest of the song lives up to it, since it seems like something overwhelming is going to happen but it’s just 'I want to hold your hand.' I feel like that’s a substitute phrase for something desperate and full of pathos."
Suggested cover: Al Green
2022 Supplement: As I mentioned in 2019, the type of success this song had in the US was previously unheard of for a UK artist. The band had always seen US popularity as their goal but also largely a fantasy. As John pointed out, Cliff Richard, a huge star in the UK, “went to America and died. He was fourteenth on the bill with Frankie Avalon.” So the scene I described in my prior write-up, when they learned they had hit #1, was one of pure joy. And they didn’t just go to #1 with the song; they smashed sales records. 250,000 sold in the US in the first three days. 3.4 million in the first three months. The hunger for a new generation of rock-and-roll was evident, and the historical significance of this release can’t be overstated.
There are a crap-ton of live versions available of this song, and I’ll be interested to see which one Getz chooses. Notably and surprisingly, though, Paul has never played this at any of his post-Beatles shows. I should text him about that.
Fun fact: This was the first song to be recorded by the Beatles on four-track recording equipment.
Guido Merkins
Everything that made She Loves You so great is present on I Want to Hold Your Hand. For us Americans, it was I Want to Hold Your Hand that broke the Beatles, but as we know, She Loves You had already made them superstars.
So why was Hand the one that broke America? I think it was just because it’s the one that followed She Loves You. It so happens that She Loves You had made them such stars that the next record would start to make inroads in America, whereas the others had not. Hand has slightly less energy than She Loves You, but still a lot of energy. Great intro that grabs you by the throat immediately. Nice guitar licks. Great drumming. Great bluesy vocals. John and Paul singing in harmony. A great middle that kind of brings it down into a minor feel before “I can’t hide, I can’t hide” brings it back up. Also on the word “understand”, the way it goes from Em to Bm is the chord that made the whole thing according to John and Paul. When Paul hit that Bm, “John said ‘that’s it, do it again.’” It’s an unusual movement to go from Em to Bm in that key, but once again, they were going with what sounded good, not with what was “correct”
Like She Loves You, I’m not sure you can get a whole lot better than I Want to Hold Your Hand. It’s a perfect expression of what rock and roll would be in the early 60s and it sounded like nothing else on the radio. She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand combined was like the Big Bang. Everything after was forever changed.
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Zegras11
Footballguy
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
I don't know what this is ...AND my "gifs" are well manicured if that's where you were headed - thank you very much!!!
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fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
My cover of I Want to Hold Your Hand
I’m in the middle of some stuff right now but will hopefully come back later to talk about how much I love this song.
I’m in the middle of some stuff right now but will hopefully come back later to talk about how much I love this song.
Zegras11
Footballguy
There it is!!!! And you thought this was coming up a long time (binky next) ago.
Amazing.. Love the tempo. Well done!
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Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
"send panties by mail"
All the likes fgialc, all of them.
(A little bit of a Dead Milkmen vibe in there for me.)
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simey
Footballguy
I love the rendition, fatguy. I see where it says to send panties by mail. I wear granny panties, so be on the lookout! I'll send them via overnight express.
simey
Footballguy
I thought the song would be in the Top 15 (as you know). It is one of the their most classic early songs.There it is!!!! And you thought this was coming up a long time ago.
Zegras11
Footballguy
I'm glad we are back to the caring, giving thread that I envisioned from the start.
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Zegras11
Footballguy
otb_lifer
Footballguy
You seem to be fixated on Billy Preston's gonads.
I just stated my opinion that I think Preston was the biggest reason why those sessions flipped. I don't really care if you disagree, but I have no problem with you being wrong
enjoy dem nutz
otb_lifer
Footballguy
AND my "gifs" are well manicured if that's where you were headed - thank you very much!!!
MY REACTION!!!!1!111111!
krista4
Footballguy
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love this so hard. That bit ~1:30 where you pause and then launch back into it is the best. Is that a Pokey LaFarge t-shirt?
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
otb_lifer
Footballguy
Uruk-Hai said:You seem to be fixated on Billy Preston's gonads.
I just stated my opinion that I think Preston was the biggest reason why those sessions flipped. I don't really care if you disagree, but I have no problem with you being wrong
wash 'em
ooohhhh, yeah, the greatest group of all-time REALLY needed the piano man, who could have been Nicky ####### Hopkins, to all of a sudden find their way -
HE. KNEW. THINGS.
good lord
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Zegras11
Footballguy
Come Together
2022 Ranking: 20
2022 Lists: 21
2022 Points: 306
Ranked Highest by: @jamny (2) @prosopis (5) @Yankee23Fan (6) @Gr00vus (8) @BobbyLayne (9) OH Dad (10) @Pip's Invitation (10) @falguy (10) Doug (10) @lardonastick (11) Slug (12) @DaVinci (13) @Man of Constant Sorrow (13) Alex (13) @wikkidpissah(13) @jwb (14) @worrierking (15) @heckmanm (15) @ConstruxBoy (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 35/8/106
Getz: And yet another song with a really strong showing compared to 2019. 19 of the 21 votes in 2022, were under #16.
13 more lists and 200 more points that 2019.
Also the top of a 5-song tier as the next song has 49 more points with a 355 total.
Krista4
My 2019 ranking: 98
2019 write-up:
Come Together (Abbey Road, 1969)
I might manage to piss off everyone in one feel swoop with this one! I know many people would have it very high, top 10 even, and then the likes of @Mister CIA, @shuke, @Dinsy Ejotuz, and @Shaft41 might have it much lower.
It's middle-ish to me because there are some aspects of it that are outstanding, but overall I find my mind wandering a little by the end. On the negative side, the lyrics...I"m OK with non-sensical lyrics as evidenced by some future rankings, but if I'm going to be listening to gibberish I'd rather be sitting on a cornflake. Plus, some of the lyrics were stolen from Chuck Berry, which led to an out-of-court settlement by which John agreed to record three songs for Berry's publisher. I also am not a fan of John's vocal on this. Like, at all. And I think if you're going to make this song, go all-in and make it more menacing than it sounds. The song makes me a little sad for showing some of the splits in the group, too - Paul has expressed how much he would have loved to sing harmonies on it, but he was too embarrassed and maybe a bit angry to ask. Likewise, John shut Paul out of the piano part, which Paul actually composed and would have done masterfully (not that there was anything wrong with John's version).
On the plus side, and this is why it gets to be so high, it's a great funky rock song with George's stunning guitar work, Paul's fantastic bass riff and, far more important than anything else in the song, those drums. I heard an interview once with Stewart Copeland, about a tribute to Ringo put on at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at which Copeland participated. He said that they producers of the tribute asked the drummers participating which was their favorite song for Ringo's drumming, and that they all had the same answer: "Come Together." Copeland then waxed poetic for a while about how ground-breaking and amazing this piece was in that respect, and when I listen to it, I feel the same way. I basically hear nothing but the drumming on this song; I'm simply fascinated with it.
The song was originally composed at the request of Timothy Leary, who had attended John and Yoko's second "bed-in" (even joining in on the singing of "Give Peace a Chance") and asked John if he could help with a campaign song for Leary's candidacy against incumbent Ronald Reagan for governor of California, a campaign the slogan of which was "Come together, join the party." Leary used an early rough demo of the song in alternative radio campaign ads for a short time - a demo that bears no resemblance to the finished product - before his arrest for marijuana possession derailed his candidacy (isn't that quaint?), since he was kept in jail until the election was over. The final version also doesn't bear so much resemblance to the version John brought into the studio for the band, as, among other things, it was later slowed down considerably to make it "swampy," at the suggestion of Paul.
Mr. krista: "The organ is awesome, and of course it takes a genius like Ringo Starr to write that drum fill. It’s so inventive. Only someone who’s forced to play and therefore think backwards could come up with that. A right-handed drummer just doesn’t play like that. It’s not supposed to be music. Ringo taking everybody to drum school. If you don't like Ringo, why don't you just throw yourself in a volcano. Or shoot yourself directly into the center of the Earth."
Suggested covers: I'm not posting "that one cover" despite its being a favorite of others. I like a cover either to take the best parts of a song (in this case the rhythm section) and expand around them, or do more of a reimagining of it. That cover does neither. Here are several I'd suggest instead: Cassandra Wilson The Meters The Brothers Johnson Arctic Monkeys Ike & Tina Michael Jackson Nevermind, I could go on...
2022 Supplement: Meh. To me the only terribly interesting part of this song remains the fact that is is A RINGO SHOWCASE! Otherwise, meh. I know most will disagree, though. I also blame this song for leading directly to John’s most dreadful post-Beatles album, Rock ‘n’ Roll. As I described in my solo Beatles thread:
“To talk about this album, we first have to turn back to a Beatles song (yay!), “Come Together.” While the title of the song came from Timothy Leary’s political slogan in his quest to become California governor, unfortunately the music and lyrics borrowed heavily from Chuck Berry, including a near word-for-word lifting of a line from Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me”: “Here come a flat-top, he was movin' up with me.” In the recording sessions for “Come Together,” at Paul’s urging the song’s arrangement was altered and the tempo slowed to try to make it more distinguishable, but the similarities didn’t escape the notice of Morris Levy, the owner of Big Seven Music (which in turn owned Berry’s catalog), who brought suit against John to claim a portion of the royalties for the song.
To his credit, John didn’t fight the notion that he had “lifted” this and quickly settled with Levy not for royalties but with an obligation to record and release three other songs from the Big Seven catalog on his next album. It was a good deal for John as he had been planning an “oldies” record anyway, to be produced by Phil Spector. Unfortunately, the sessions for the planned album went horribly, as they began in 1973 during a period where John was particularly out of control in his alcohol consumption. When you add the specter of Spector – who has plenty of his own madness to go around – into this mix, the whole endeavor ended in gunshots. Ok, not as dramatic as it might sound, but at one point Spector pulled a gun on longtime Beatle-mate Mal Evans and ended up shooting a hole into the studio ceiling. Not long thereafter, Spector left John a message saying he was terminating the project because the studio had burned down. This hadn’t actually happened, and then Spector left John another message saying he had the Watergate Tapes - what he actually did have were the master tapes for the record, which he then held hostage until Capital Records paid him a $90k bounty for their return.
So this project lay dead in the water for a year while John focused instead on Walls and Bridges, but oops! The agreement with Big Seven Music/Morris Levy was that John was to release the requisite three songs on his next album. John met with Levy to assure him he would turn back to the recordings that would fulfill this obligation. John had already recorded the three Big Seven songs in his Spector sessions, but when he got the tapes back, he found that they were, unsurprisingly, ####e and not worthy of release. John then knocked out new recording sessions in a week or so and presented Levy with a reel of the initial mixes to show that he was working in good faith through the recordings.
Oops again! Levy somehow claimed the presentation by John of these rough mixes became an oral agreement that Levy could release them. Levy took these mixes, unfinished and not intended to be heard, and prepared to release them on a mail-order basis as an album named Roots. Knowing that this was about to happen, instead of putting all the planned finishing touches on the songs that would become Rock ‘n’ Roll, Capitol rushed the release so as not to lose too many sales to Roots, even dropping the price by a dollar to be within a dollar of the bargain-basement price that Levy planned for Roots. More lawsuits and countersuits followed, with Levy eventually ordered to pay damages to John and the record companies.”
Guido Merkins
Timothy Leary was going to run for office, so he had a campaign slogan with the words “Come Together….” in it. He asked John to write a song with that phrase. John did, but said “it was a good track, I’m not giving it away.” So that’s how Come Together came to be.
Chuck Berry had a song called You Can’t Catch Me with the line “here comes old flattop” which John borrowed for the song. Apparently an early version of the song was very much like the Chuck Berry song, until Paul suggested a slower, swampier arrangement. John got sued anyway and had to record songs to compensate the publisher, which he did on the Rock and Roll album, which John very much resented.
As far as the song itself, it is the funkiest Beatles track on record, IMO. Paul’s swampy bass, Ringo’s highly original drumming, great lead guitar by George, and John’s great vocal and nonsense lyrics. People who claim to not like the Beatles love this song. I’ve met very few people who don’t like this song. It was on Abbey Road and the B side of the Something single.
Lots of people have covered this song……Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, and Ike and Tina Turner. It is notable that John performed this song live in New York in 1972 with the words “we’ll go back in the past just once.” This was one of John’s favorites, I think.
2022 Ranking: 20
2022 Lists: 21
2022 Points: 306
Ranked Highest by: @jamny (2) @prosopis (5) @Yankee23Fan (6) @Gr00vus (8) @BobbyLayne (9) OH Dad (10) @Pip's Invitation (10) @falguy (10) Doug (10) @lardonastick (11) Slug (12) @DaVinci (13) @Man of Constant Sorrow (13) Alex (13) @wikkidpissah(13) @jwb (14) @worrierking (15) @heckmanm (15) @ConstruxBoy (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 35/8/106
Getz: And yet another song with a really strong showing compared to 2019. 19 of the 21 votes in 2022, were under #16.
13 more lists and 200 more points that 2019.
Also the top of a 5-song tier as the next song has 49 more points with a 355 total.
Krista4
My 2019 ranking: 98
2019 write-up:
Come Together (Abbey Road, 1969)
I might manage to piss off everyone in one feel swoop with this one! I know many people would have it very high, top 10 even, and then the likes of @Mister CIA, @shuke, @Dinsy Ejotuz, and @Shaft41 might have it much lower.
It's middle-ish to me because there are some aspects of it that are outstanding, but overall I find my mind wandering a little by the end. On the negative side, the lyrics...I"m OK with non-sensical lyrics as evidenced by some future rankings, but if I'm going to be listening to gibberish I'd rather be sitting on a cornflake. Plus, some of the lyrics were stolen from Chuck Berry, which led to an out-of-court settlement by which John agreed to record three songs for Berry's publisher. I also am not a fan of John's vocal on this. Like, at all. And I think if you're going to make this song, go all-in and make it more menacing than it sounds. The song makes me a little sad for showing some of the splits in the group, too - Paul has expressed how much he would have loved to sing harmonies on it, but he was too embarrassed and maybe a bit angry to ask. Likewise, John shut Paul out of the piano part, which Paul actually composed and would have done masterfully (not that there was anything wrong with John's version).
On the plus side, and this is why it gets to be so high, it's a great funky rock song with George's stunning guitar work, Paul's fantastic bass riff and, far more important than anything else in the song, those drums. I heard an interview once with Stewart Copeland, about a tribute to Ringo put on at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at which Copeland participated. He said that they producers of the tribute asked the drummers participating which was their favorite song for Ringo's drumming, and that they all had the same answer: "Come Together." Copeland then waxed poetic for a while about how ground-breaking and amazing this piece was in that respect, and when I listen to it, I feel the same way. I basically hear nothing but the drumming on this song; I'm simply fascinated with it.
The song was originally composed at the request of Timothy Leary, who had attended John and Yoko's second "bed-in" (even joining in on the singing of "Give Peace a Chance") and asked John if he could help with a campaign song for Leary's candidacy against incumbent Ronald Reagan for governor of California, a campaign the slogan of which was "Come together, join the party." Leary used an early rough demo of the song in alternative radio campaign ads for a short time - a demo that bears no resemblance to the finished product - before his arrest for marijuana possession derailed his candidacy (isn't that quaint?), since he was kept in jail until the election was over. The final version also doesn't bear so much resemblance to the version John brought into the studio for the band, as, among other things, it was later slowed down considerably to make it "swampy," at the suggestion of Paul.
Mr. krista: "The organ is awesome, and of course it takes a genius like Ringo Starr to write that drum fill. It’s so inventive. Only someone who’s forced to play and therefore think backwards could come up with that. A right-handed drummer just doesn’t play like that. It’s not supposed to be music. Ringo taking everybody to drum school. If you don't like Ringo, why don't you just throw yourself in a volcano. Or shoot yourself directly into the center of the Earth."
Suggested covers: I'm not posting "that one cover" despite its being a favorite of others. I like a cover either to take the best parts of a song (in this case the rhythm section) and expand around them, or do more of a reimagining of it. That cover does neither. Here are several I'd suggest instead: Cassandra Wilson The Meters The Brothers Johnson Arctic Monkeys Ike & Tina Michael Jackson Nevermind, I could go on...
2022 Supplement: Meh. To me the only terribly interesting part of this song remains the fact that is is A RINGO SHOWCASE! Otherwise, meh. I know most will disagree, though. I also blame this song for leading directly to John’s most dreadful post-Beatles album, Rock ‘n’ Roll. As I described in my solo Beatles thread:
“To talk about this album, we first have to turn back to a Beatles song (yay!), “Come Together.” While the title of the song came from Timothy Leary’s political slogan in his quest to become California governor, unfortunately the music and lyrics borrowed heavily from Chuck Berry, including a near word-for-word lifting of a line from Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me”: “Here come a flat-top, he was movin' up with me.” In the recording sessions for “Come Together,” at Paul’s urging the song’s arrangement was altered and the tempo slowed to try to make it more distinguishable, but the similarities didn’t escape the notice of Morris Levy, the owner of Big Seven Music (which in turn owned Berry’s catalog), who brought suit against John to claim a portion of the royalties for the song.
To his credit, John didn’t fight the notion that he had “lifted” this and quickly settled with Levy not for royalties but with an obligation to record and release three other songs from the Big Seven catalog on his next album. It was a good deal for John as he had been planning an “oldies” record anyway, to be produced by Phil Spector. Unfortunately, the sessions for the planned album went horribly, as they began in 1973 during a period where John was particularly out of control in his alcohol consumption. When you add the specter of Spector – who has plenty of his own madness to go around – into this mix, the whole endeavor ended in gunshots. Ok, not as dramatic as it might sound, but at one point Spector pulled a gun on longtime Beatle-mate Mal Evans and ended up shooting a hole into the studio ceiling. Not long thereafter, Spector left John a message saying he was terminating the project because the studio had burned down. This hadn’t actually happened, and then Spector left John another message saying he had the Watergate Tapes - what he actually did have were the master tapes for the record, which he then held hostage until Capital Records paid him a $90k bounty for their return.
So this project lay dead in the water for a year while John focused instead on Walls and Bridges, but oops! The agreement with Big Seven Music/Morris Levy was that John was to release the requisite three songs on his next album. John met with Levy to assure him he would turn back to the recordings that would fulfill this obligation. John had already recorded the three Big Seven songs in his Spector sessions, but when he got the tapes back, he found that they were, unsurprisingly, ####e and not worthy of release. John then knocked out new recording sessions in a week or so and presented Levy with a reel of the initial mixes to show that he was working in good faith through the recordings.
Oops again! Levy somehow claimed the presentation by John of these rough mixes became an oral agreement that Levy could release them. Levy took these mixes, unfinished and not intended to be heard, and prepared to release them on a mail-order basis as an album named Roots. Knowing that this was about to happen, instead of putting all the planned finishing touches on the songs that would become Rock ‘n’ Roll, Capitol rushed the release so as not to lose too many sales to Roots, even dropping the price by a dollar to be within a dollar of the bargain-basement price that Levy planned for Roots. More lawsuits and countersuits followed, with Levy eventually ordered to pay damages to John and the record companies.”
Guido Merkins
Timothy Leary was going to run for office, so he had a campaign slogan with the words “Come Together….” in it. He asked John to write a song with that phrase. John did, but said “it was a good track, I’m not giving it away.” So that’s how Come Together came to be.
Chuck Berry had a song called You Can’t Catch Me with the line “here comes old flattop” which John borrowed for the song. Apparently an early version of the song was very much like the Chuck Berry song, until Paul suggested a slower, swampier arrangement. John got sued anyway and had to record songs to compensate the publisher, which he did on the Rock and Roll album, which John very much resented.
As far as the song itself, it is the funkiest Beatles track on record, IMO. Paul’s swampy bass, Ringo’s highly original drumming, great lead guitar by George, and John’s great vocal and nonsense lyrics. People who claim to not like the Beatles love this song. I’ve met very few people who don’t like this song. It was on Abbey Road and the B side of the Something single.
Lots of people have covered this song……Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, and Ike and Tina Turner. It is notable that John performed this song live in New York in 1972 with the words “we’ll go back in the past just once.” This was one of John’s favorites, I think.
simey
Footballguy
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Zegras11
Footballguy
19 songs left to go....
Only @pecorino has all of his Top10 12 left.
One of Top 10 posted - (4) Slug, @BobbyLayne, @Just Win Baby, @Ted Lange as your Bartender
Two of Top 10 posted - (7) Includes @krista4
Only @pecorino has all of his Top
One of Top 10 posted - (4) Slug, @BobbyLayne, @Just Win Baby, @Ted Lange as your Bartender
Two of Top 10 posted - (7) Includes @krista4
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Rock critic Bill Wyman (not to be confused with Stones bassist Bill Wyman:
It is surprising how much of a favorite this one remains despite oversaturation.
I had this at #9 in my original submission, and #20 in my subsequent 206 song reranking. Honestly I think you could make an argument for it as overall #1....were it not for the fact they wrote so many songs that would be any other band's magnum opus.
It is surprising how much of a favorite this one remains despite oversaturation.
otb_lifer
Footballguy
Paul: BLIMEY, what's this??!? WHERE AM I?
Preston: it's a bass, Paul, you're home - I am god.
EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD
Preston: it's a bass, Paul, you're home - I am god.
EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD
otb_lifer
Footballguy
it is not even near the zip code of "A Day In The Life".
plz.
great tune, but ease up here.
ProstheticRGK
Footballguy
Those drums, though. One thing my recent Beatles love has really changed: Mad respect for Ringo as a musician. Love George's guitar; the kooky lyrics kept this one out of the top 25 for me... but those drums. Ringo putting on a clinic.
The only thing really missing is some jaunty electric piano from somebody with impeccably clean balls. Maybe Nicky Hopkins?
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
otb_lifer
Footballguy
you washing, too?
have at 'em.
line is long, but it seems to move fast ...
GAWD.
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