2022 FBG, 172 to 1 Beatles Countdown 1-25 lists... And 173 to 1 Countdown from 1-64 lists! (2 Viewers)

[Zegras11]

I’m a Loser
2022 Ranking: 95
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 43
Ranked Highest by: Krista(TJ/Michael) (1) @Wrighteous Ray (15) Krista(Sharon) (21), @Guido Merkins (24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 98T/1/17

Getz comments:  Our first song with a #1 vote!  Also Guido is on the board! 16 left... YT is live from the show, "Shindig"

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  80

2019 write-up:

I'm a Loser (Beatles for Sale, 1964)

Yes, yes, John, we know.  You're such a loser.

More self-loathing from John, this song was described by Paul as joining "Nowhere Man" as John's cries for help during this period (funny he wouldn't also mention the song entitled, errrrr, "Help!").  John pegged this to his self-described "Dylan period" because he used the word "clown" in it, which he said he'd thought was too "artsy-fartsy" until Dylan used it, making it OK.  Alrighty.  @Uruk-Hai, how do you rate the truthiness of this statement by Lennon:  "Part of me suspects I'm a loser and part of me thinks I'm God Almighty."  That one sounds more spot-on to me than many of his statements.

Apparently I am a big fan of John's Dylan period, because in addition to loving this song, we'll see another heavily Dylan-influenced one much higher in the countdown.  I'm clearly also a big fan of John "heart on his sleeve," confessional songs, and I have a special appreciation for this one as perhaps the first time he dived into public exposure of his struggles.  It was a significant breakthrough in his songwriting.  Unfortunately, the lyrics and their cadence bug me a bit on this one; they sound choppy as he hits one note per syllable and the rhymes can seem forced.  He'll get better at it.  

Musically I love John's harmonica part (of course) and the sunny vocals on refrain - how can someone sound so gleeful about being a loser - but to me what makes this song is George.  There, I said it.  George is doing his Carl Perkins tribute perfectly on this song, and I find myself focusing on his guitar work and excitedly awaiting the two short solos from him, the first ~1:35 and the second as the song fades out.  George is the MVP of this one.  

Mr. krista:  "The melody is better than the lyrics.  The dude forced the lyrics into the medley.  The abbaba rhyme is so good you don’t care anyway.  It’s so melodic it doesn’t have to make sense."

Suggested cover:  Eels

2022 Supplement:  In addition to the Dylan influence on this song, Paul also credits country music for John’s inspiration:  “We used to listen to a lot of country and western songs, and they were all about sadness and 'I lost my truck,' so it was quite acceptable to sing 'I'm a loser.' You really didn't think about it at the time, it was only later you'd think, 'God! That was pretty brave of John.'.”

Fun fact and trivia question:  this is one of two Beatles songs where John hit his lowest vocal note:  a low G.  What is the other?

Guido Merkins

There was a period where John was very impressed by Bob Dylan.  So, he starts to write more autobiographical songs and the first one where it’s obvious is I’m a Loser from the Beatles For Sale album.

The most distinctive part of the recording is John’s “Dylanesque” harmonica playing.  Lyrics such as “beneath this mask I am wearing a frown” and “i’m a loser, and I’ve lost someone who’s near to me” (is he referring to his mother Julia) tells us that maybe there is something going on under the surface for John that isn’t apparent.  George’s cool country licks also feel right at home, especially on this album as it’s probably the closest the Beatles would come to a country album.  

When I first got into the Beatles and started digging into their catalog past the Red and Blue Greatest Hits, this is one of the ones that I gravitated toward.  I just loved the whole feel of it.  The country vibe.  The fact that the lyrics have some depth.  The harmonies on the chorus.  I just thought it was a super cool song.  Yeah, it probably goes a little too far into Dylan copying territory, but I like John’s twist on Dylan.  Dylan speaks about himself, but he kind of talks around it and you have to dig into it to see what he’s trying to say about himself.  John is more direct.  It would start on this song, then go through Help and Strawberry Fields Forever and eventually on Plastic Ono Band.  

64 List Rank: 115

64 List Voters/Points: 5/82

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

 

[krista4]

There's A Place (Remastered 2009)

64 List Rank: 120

64 List Voters/Points: 3/76

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2 (37,59)

The last song that didn't get a vote in the 2022 countdown to appear on the 1-64 Countdown.

#59 here.  Glad this one found a place in the 64 countdown.

 

[krista4]

On 2/16/2022 at 1:59 PM, Getzlaf15 said:
Love You To
2022 Ranking: 161T
2022 Lists: 1
2022 Points: 7
Ranked Highest by: @MAC_32
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz: Our 4th song not rated in 2019. Ranked 19th by  Mac_32.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  84

2019 write-up:

Love You To (Revolver, 1966)

My favorite of the George classical Indian songs, at least today - as mentioned previously, you could make an argument for any of the three.  I do wish this song were longer, because too soon after it seems to get going it builds and builds into...an unexpected conclusion.  This starts off with such a powerful sitar part, telling you right away that it's not going to be simple pop music and that you are listening to something different than you'd ever heard before.  Love the boldness of that and of having such a long instrumental intro.  That long intro leading into the loud tablas and strumming guitar at ~0:35 is mesmerizing and energizing.  Can only imagine being a teenybopper in 1966 putting the new Beatles record on and wondering WTF was this all about.  But somehow in this one George also manages to keep a pop vibe, integrating the sitar and the droning Eastern influence with a structure that (after the intro) is familiar in pop music, a lovely melody and vocal, and lyrics that could fit as well in a pop love song.  All of this gives the song such a deep, lush texture.  

Mr. krista:  "This is a rare example where I wish the song were longer.  That time signature where the melody seems one note off, and it needs time to develop. Then when I was starting to understand it, it sped up and fades out in a pop format.  The point of that music is almost like hypnosis, the transcendental quality of music, it needs time to develop.  It’s a neat experiment and really bold and courageous.  But making it into a pop song doesn’t work."

Suggested covers: In the category of "at least they tried," The Trypes Bongwater

2022 Supplement:  George had a hard time naming his songs, and John often made fun of him for it.  This one was called “Granny Smith” for some reason but being renamed with the only slightly more sensible “Love You To.”  It was the first song by George that he wrote on a sitar instead of guitar and the first that fully showed the Indian influences that became so much a part of his songwriting in later years. 

As with many George songs, and as I’ve discussed in another supplement that might or might not be posted before this one, John did not appear on this song as he became oddly absent in the work on many George songs.  But George also didn’t get a ton of support from the others on this track, either, with Paul supplying some backing vocals and Ringo playing the tambourine.  The majority of what you hear on this track is either George (not only on vocals and sitar but playing a variety of guitars) and musicians from the Asian Music Circle, a (now extinct) London organization that promoted Asian, and particularly Indian culture in the UK and is also credited with introducing yoga into Great Britain for the first time. George Martin had introduced the group to the Beatles during the recording of “Norwegian Wood”, having worked with them previously on a Peter Sellers recording.  It was also through this group that George met Ravi Shankar, who with the possible exception of Jeff Lynne became George’s closest post-Beatles collaborator.

Guido Merkins

Geroge Harrison’s love of Indian music is well-known.  The sitar was kind of used as window dressing on Norwegian Wood, but for Revolver, Geroge wanted more than just window dressing, enter Love You To.

George was very much in charge when recording Love You To.  The other Beatles involvement was minimal, but only George knew how to communicate with the Indian musicians.  George played sitar and, of course, sang lead.  Paul sang harmony, which didn’t appear in the final mix and Ringo played tambourine.  Anil Bhagwat played tabla.

The song itself is a melding of western and eastern music, Indian instrumentation, but with a rock beat.  The lyrics are interesting with things like “there’s people standing round, who’ll screw you in the ground” and “make love all day long, make love singing songs.”  I’ve read various interpretations from being about his fellow Beatles to a commentary on anti materialism.  Not sure either way.

This is a song that took a while for me to “get.”  It was very strange to my ear as a 14 year old kid.  Decades later, I appreciate how groundbreaking it was.  Others may claim to have used Indian influences before Harrison in pop music, but I’m not sure anybody else can claim to have put an actual Indian song on a pop record before George Harrison.  And the influence of Indian music on the Beatles, mostly led by George, is heard on so many of the songs on Revolver.  Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, I’m Only Sleeping, and Rain.  
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64 List Rank: 117

64 List Voters/Points: 4/77

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

I was surprised and pleased to see both this one and the next, "Long Long Long," on my mom's list.  They both just missed mine.

 

[krista4]

On 3/2/2022 at 7:30 AM, Getzlaf15 said:
I’m a Loser
2022 Ranking: 95
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 43
Ranked Highest by: Krista(TJ/Michael) (1) @Wrighteous Ray (15) Krista(Sharon) (21), @Guido Merkins (24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 98T/1/17

Getz comments:  Our first song with a #1 vote!  Also Guido is on the board! 16 left... YT is live from the show, "Shindig"

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  80

2019 write-up:

I'm a Loser (Beatles for Sale, 1964)

Yes, yes, John, we know.  You're such a loser.

More self-loathing from John, this song was described by Paul as joining "Nowhere Man" as John's cries for help during this period (funny he wouldn't also mention the song entitled, errrrr, "Help!").  John pegged this to his self-described "Dylan period" because he used the word "clown" in it, which he said he'd thought was too "artsy-fartsy" until Dylan used it, making it OK.  Alrighty.  @Uruk-Hai, how do you rate the truthiness of this statement by Lennon:  "Part of me suspects I'm a loser and part of me thinks I'm God Almighty."  That one sounds more spot-on to me than many of his statements.

Apparently I am a big fan of John's Dylan period, because in addition to loving this song, we'll see another heavily Dylan-influenced one much higher in the countdown.  I'm clearly also a big fan of John "heart on his sleeve," confessional songs, and I have a special appreciation for this one as perhaps the first time he dived into public exposure of his struggles.  It was a significant breakthrough in his songwriting.  Unfortunately, the lyrics and their cadence bug me a bit on this one; they sound choppy as he hits one note per syllable and the rhymes can seem forced.  He'll get better at it.  

Musically I love John's harmonica part (of course) and the sunny vocals on refrain - how can someone sound so gleeful about being a loser - but to me what makes this song is George.  There, I said it.  George is doing his Carl Perkins tribute perfectly on this song, and I find myself focusing on his guitar work and excitedly awaiting the two short solos from him, the first ~1:35 and the second as the song fades out.  George is the MVP of this one.  

Mr. krista:  "The melody is better than the lyrics.  The dude forced the lyrics into the medley.  The abbaba rhyme is so good you don’t care anyway.  It’s so melodic it doesn’t have to make sense."

Suggested cover:  Eels

2022 Supplement:  In addition to the Dylan influence on this song, Paul also credits country music for John’s inspiration:  “We used to listen to a lot of country and western songs, and they were all about sadness and 'I lost my truck,' so it was quite acceptable to sing 'I'm a loser.' You really didn't think about it at the time, it was only later you'd think, 'God! That was pretty brave of John.'.”

Fun fact and trivia question:  this is one of two Beatles songs where John hit his lowest vocal note:  a low G.  What is the other?

Guido Merkins

There was a period where John was very impressed by Bob Dylan.  So, he starts to write more autobiographical songs and the first one where it’s obvious is I’m a Loser from the Beatles For Sale album.

The most distinctive part of the recording is John’s “Dylanesque” harmonica playing.  Lyrics such as “beneath this mask I am wearing a frown” and “i’m a loser, and I’ve lost someone who’s near to me” (is he referring to his mother Julia) tells us that maybe there is something going on under the surface for John that isn’t apparent.  George’s cool country licks also feel right at home, especially on this album as it’s probably the closest the Beatles would come to a country album.  

When I first got into the Beatles and started digging into their catalog past the Red and Blue Greatest Hits, this is one of the ones that I gravitated toward.  I just loved the whole feel of it.  The country vibe.  The fact that the lyrics have some depth.  The harmonies on the chorus.  I just thought it was a super cool song.  Yeah, it probably goes a little too far into Dylan copying territory, but I like John’s twist on Dylan.  Dylan speaks about himself, but he kind of talks around it and you have to dig into it to see what he’s trying to say about himself.  John is more direct.  It would start on this song, then go through Help and Strawberry Fields Forever and eventually on Plastic Ono Band.  
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64 List Rank: 115

64 List Voters/Points: 5/82

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

First song to hit my family trifecta!  I had it at 57, Mom at 30, and OH at 62.

 

[krista4]

The other two people who had I'm A Loser can come to our family reunion.

 

[Binky The Doormat]

I was surprised and pleased to see both this one and the next, "Long Long Long," on my mom's list.  They both just missed mine.

wait ...what?  Long, Long, Long is next???

WTF man!!??

 

[Pip's Invitation]

She’s a Woman

64 List Rank: 123

64 List Voters/Points: 2/73

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 1 (39)

I didn’t change my top 25 so I’m still the 18. This is once again the first from my top 25 to appear.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Money

64 List Rank: 119

64 List Voters/Points: 4/76

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

1-64 helped out here...

I had it at 53. It was one of four covers I had on my 64 list. Had none on my 25.

 

[Zegras11]

I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
2022 Ranking: 112
2022 Lists: 2
2022 Points: 30
Ranked Highest by: Krista(Sharon) (3) OTB_Lifer (20)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz:  BBC Live YT above

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  97

2019 write-up:

I'm Happy Just to Dance With You (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

John and Paul wrote this one specifically for George for the A Hard Day's Night movie and album; as Paul told it later, he and John weren't interested anymore in singing the simple ones that appealed to the teenagers but could still toss out a "formula song" quickly on a "slim little premise."  This was the last song Paul and John wrote for George to sing, since after this George's songwriting was improving enough to feature his one of his compositions on the albums, albeit at a one-per-album pace until late in the band's existence.  It's a sweet if slight song, with highlights for me being John's excellent guitar work and Paul's countermelody bass.  I love the tom-toms or whatever Ringo is playing, but it's not his best performance as you can hear him miss some of the beats and be muddy at times.  I'm also a fan of the fast-moving chord changes on this and the way the harmonies lead back into the verses with that "Ohhhhh!" (which also ends the song).  If you're making your list of songs to vacuum to, this one is right up there - makes me want to do a little cha-cha while I'm sweeping.

Mr. krista:  "Uh, it seems very mod.  I imagine dudes on scooters.  Velvet pants.  Turtlenecks. It’s like some Brit’s version of something foreign and saucy.  Do you like it?  I don’t know. I don’t know if I like it or I like what it evokes in my imagination.  The last record had some really ####ty songs I didn’t want to listen to, and I enjoy this."

Suggested cover:  Most of the covers I listened to turned this into a ballad, which does show the beauty of this melody.  This has too much 80s(?) cheesiness for me to like it, but it's interesting to hear just that melody:  Anne Murray

2022 Supplement:  In another example of the blazing speed with which the Beatles recorded the albums in the first half of their existence, this song was recorded in full in about an hour of a 3-1/2 hour session at which “Long Tall Sally” and “I Call Your Name” were also recorded in their totality.  Though both Paul and John didn’t speak highly of the song (and let’s be frank that if they liked it a lot, they wouldn’t have given it to George to sing), they did use this one in concert as well as on their BBC sessions.  I think George’s sweetness and relative naivete at the time fit this song in a way that John couldn’t have pulled off.

Guido Merkins

John and Paul could be a bit condescending to George.  When you read their comments about I’m Happy Just to Dance With You, you can see why George would come to resent them later.  John calls it a “song just to give George a piece of the action.”  Paul calls it “formula just to pander to the fans.”  Eventually George would be able to write great songs and he would no longer have to rely only on the scraps given to him.

I’m Happy Just to Dance With You was George’s solo spot in the A Hard Day’s Night film.  I love the insistent guitar in the background.  I also love the intro which is like the end of the bridge, which is unusual.  I love George’s vocal on the song too.  It’s not a real hard song to sing, but he delivers it well.  I also love John and Paul’s background vocals.  And Ringo doing his usual great job and swinging it.

Despite the opinions of the composers, I quite like this song.  It’s different from the other songs in the film and it fits the Beatles image at the time of being on the dance floor with a girl.

64 List Rank: 114

64 List Voters/Points: 2/83

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 9 

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (20)

64 List 26-64 votes: 1 (27)

 

[Zegras11]

Michelle
2022 Ranking: 82T
2022 Lists: 5
2022 Points: 63
Ranked Highest by: @John Maddens Lunchbox (1) WrighteousRay(hub) (5) @neal cassady (21) @rockaction (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 86/3/23

Getz comments:  JMLBox had his #1 and #2 go today. 

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  111

2019 Supplement:

Michelle (Rubber Soul, 1965)

Someone tell @AAABatteries it's safe to come back in the thread now.

I could more easily understand loving this song than hating it, though for me it falls near the middle of my rankings.  I find some of the lyrics irritating, and you might (or probably won't) wonder how I have this above "I Will" after complaining about the trite lyrics in that one.  The answer is twofold:  first, I don't have it ranked higher every day, and if you asked me last week "I Will" might have been slightly higher, or next week it might be again.  I see these two songs as very similar sweet but slight Paul love songs.  The second answer to the question no one has asked is that, while this has some similarly basic "I love you"s that the anti-sentimental me doesn't appreciate, they're sung in this one with a desperation that I find more appealing.  Say "I love you" in a song and I'll probably dismiss it as banal and silly.  Imbue the "I love you" with desperation and pathos and angst and I'll call you genius, I guess.  It's not a surprise that this part in a minor key was written by angsty John (inspired by Nina Simone's "I Put a Spell on You") and not sunny Paul, or that I like that part the best.

Anyway, this also shines with a stunningly gorgeous bass part and a lovely guitar solo that was probably played by George (though some think it was Paul).  I appreciate the switch between major and minor keys in the verses v. the middle eight, which I think emphasizes the switch between the optimism of the verses by Paul and the sadness of the middle by John.  I also think Paul glides nicely between English and French, even if the French lyrics are a little simple.  

The song was originally composed by Paul in 1959 and was one he would play at parties thrown by John's friend Austin Mitchell.  Basically he played it to try to get girls and threw in the French parts to seem romantic.  As Paul tells it:  "I remember sitting around there, and my recollection is of a black turtleneck sweater and sitting very enigmatically in the corner, playing this rather French tune. I used to pretend I could speak French, because everyone wanted to be like Sacha Distel."  Later when they were cranking out albums and singles so fast that they needed material, John suggested to Paul that he dust this off and make something of it, and Paul did learn a little French rather than faking it.

Maybe it's because this one won the Grammy for song of the year that some people hate it, thinking it's overrated.  But I don't see how one couldn't appreciate its melody, its changes, and that bass.  It sounds like a pop standard, but that was groundbreaking for this band at this time.  It's only this low for me because I don't like ballads as much as the rock songs.

Mr. krista:  "I like this song.  I like the French singing.  I really like his bass solo."

Suggested covers:  Iggy Pop(!)  Ben Harper

2022 Supplement:  No need to call AAABatteries back in this time!  Happy that he has been able to participate more in the thread. 

As discussed in 2019, Paul went to art parties with older, cooler John, and wandered around “playing a French-sounding song and making guttural noises,” hoping someone would think he was French, “possibly even a French intellectual.”  He has more recently named Edith Piaf’s “Milord” as a specific influence on this song, along with some chords he learned from a guy named Jim Gretty, who worked in a guitar shop in Liverpool.  Paul and George loved to go into the shop and learn chords from Gretty, including a lush F chord that they called “F demented.”  Paul put “F demented” (which he says was probably something like an F augmented ninth) in the song, along with another “naughty” chord that he thinks might have been a D diminished.  Using these two chords, he “grunted along like a cod Frenchman, and there was ‘Michelle’.”

Guido Merkins

Paul loves to tell this story and it’s so cool because every guy has been there.  They were at this party and Paul wanted the girls to notice him.  So, he picked up his guitar and started playing this very French thing and singing nonsense French phrases at an art party so the girls would think he was this exotic Frenchman.  The interviewer asked Paul, “did it work?” and Paul said, very matter of factly, “No.”   So see, before he was Paul McCartney, he was just some goofy teenager from Liverpool trying to get girls to notice him.

Years later during the sessions for Rubber Soul, John said something to the effect of “Paul, remember that French thing you used to do?  Yeah, it was pretty good, you should work on that.”  So that’s how we got to Michelle.

Paul sought out Jan Vaughn, the wife of his old friend from Liverpool Ivan Vaughn (the guy who introduced John and Paul) who was a French teacher, to come up with a name and a rhyming phrase, so she came up with Michelle, ma belle and later Paul came up with “these are words that go together well” and asked her to translate, so that came up “sont les mots qui vont tres bein ensemble.”  John came up with the middle “I love you I love you I looooovvve you.” 

The main attraction, IMO are the guitars.  They are just lovely. Especially the solo and the outro.  Some people (Bob Dylan for example) have been dismissive of Paul’s ballads and especially Michelle, but I think it’s a beautiful song.  There is a time for everything under Heaven, yes even romance.  The guitars on this track are so beautiful I don’t especially care if the lyrics are a bit sappy.  

64 List Rank: 113

64 List Voters/Points: 4/86

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

Tell Me Why
2022 Ranking: 153T
2022 Lists: 1
2022 Points: 10
Ranked Highest by: Krista (Mom) (16)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz: 8th song not rated in 2019.  Harmonies are killer in this song.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  129

2019 write-up:

Tell Me Why (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

I'm grouping these two together [2022 Editor’s Note:  this was grouped with “Another Girl”]  because, after I saw they had ended up side-by-side in my rankings and checked my initial notes, I saw that I had written similar write-ups for both, making reference to their being enjoyable but kind of messy.  Also both were written in a hurry as "filler" for their records - "we needed a song and so I ripped this one off" in only the way that John or Paul could do.  Maybe someone loves one of these so much they'll make a case for one as being substantially better than the other.  

"Tell My Why" stands out to me for the manic drumming, and, for those who've expressed a soft spot for three-part harmonies, these are complex and twisty in a good way. The John falsetto is a bit jarring to me, though, and something about the vocal tracking sounds off, which accounts for the "messiness" I referenced in my initial notes.  As was often the case during this time, John seemed to have his tortured feelings expressed in his lyrics juxtaposed with some cheery vocals.  Sardonic, I guess, but with a positive "resolution" in the last chord that I doubt John truly believed.  This one seems simple on its face but has so much going on beneath.

Mr. krista:  "That’s a great jam.  Ringo’s drumming is particularly good.  He’s super-fast on the fills."

Suggested cover:  It's a @rockaction special!  The Beach Boys

2022 Supplement:  Although they served as inspiration for all the Beatles and were covered many times by the band, John was likely the biggest fan of the 1950s girl groups such as the Shirelles, the Marvelettes, and the Cookies.  Even after the Beatles stopped doing their covers, their influence remained in John’s songwriting for a while.  John has described this song as “black-New-York-girl-group song,” and the three-part harmonies – beautifully performed by Paul and George while also providing stellar bass and guitar work - harken directly back to those groups.  Ringo’s fills and swing rhythm are also outstanding.  I’d move this one up on my list today.  

Guido Merkins

The end of A Hard Day’s Night with the Beatles performing for the live studio audience is one of the best parts of the film.  All the other songs had either been performed earlier in the film or were earlier songs (She Loves You), but there was one song that hadn’t been introduced yet during that sequence, Tell Me Why.

Lennon described it as a “girl group thing with a walking bass line”, which captures the song kind of perfectly.  Call and response, vocal and Paul’s walking bass line.  The song has kind of a swing to it, I’ve always found it kind of jazzy.  

Once again, John claimed that the early songs were made up with no reference to real life, but John’s early songs always have an element of hurt and mistrust and “tell me why you lied to me” fits that bill.  Like any number of Beatles songs, it’s just an album track, but a pretty strong one, even if it’s not particularly exciting compared to the other songs on the A Hard Day’s Night album.

64 List Rank: 112

64 List Voters/Points: 2/87

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (17)

64 List 26-64 votes: 1 (26)

 

[Zegras11]

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
2022 Ranking: 119
2022 Lists: 2
2022 Points: 25
Ranked Highest by: @simey (3) @Man of Constant Sorrow (24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 61/4/49

Getz:  Quite the tumble here losing half the voters and points from 2019.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  101

2019 write-up:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

Nobody panic.  This is just a ranking for the reprise, not the version that opens the record.  Actually I like some aspects of this better than the other:  the energy is higher; the playing is tighter; and I love that charging drumbeat, Paul's count-in and John's little "bye" or "goodbye" at 0:04 during that count-in, and George's guitar riffs.  They sound like they're having a blast on this one, and apparently they were, as Geoff Emerick described it:  "Everybody was really upbeat that day, and it shows.  The vibe was fantastic...I could feel the excitement building from the very first moment...  The Beatles played the whole thing live, just two guitars, bass, and drums with just a single keyboard overdub.  Ringo was pounding the hell out of his drums...  In fact, everyone was playing full-out."

The idea to have a reprise actually came from Neil Aspinall, who suggested that the master of ceremonies from the intro should come back in at the end to close the album (which this song doesn't, but it does lead into the A Day in the Life finale).  John responded to the idea with "Nobody likes a smart-####, Neil," which translated from Lennon-speak meant he was on-board with the idea.  The only reason this isn't higher is because it seems like more of a snippet than a fully formed song, at 80 seconds long with just a repeated chorus, and I want to give other deserving full songs a spot in the top 100 instead.    

Mr. krista:  "Seemed like a passing reprise.  Probably should have been another one at the beginning of the second side.  Nobody thinks of records anymore, though.  As soon as I heard that beat, I thought of the Beastie Boys song."

Suggested cover:  I'll wait to post covers with the other version.

2022 Supplement:  I should have mentioned Paul’s excellent count-in. 

This was the last song recorded for the album, and the band had very little time to devote to it as Paul was going to be flying out to reunite with Jane Asher less than 48 hours later.  The group therefore did an overnight session, ending at 6 a.m. after approximately 11 hours of work on the song.  Since this was a last-minute addition, they couldn’t get Studio Two, which they’d used for the rest of the album, as whatever band had booked it refused to cede it to The Beatles.  (I’d love to know which dickmittens those were and what their finished product sounded like.)  Instead, they were booked into the gigantic Studio One, which the engineers then had to reconfigure to try to give it a close feel and reduce the reverb.  According to Emerick, they first had to “gather up all the available tall screens and build a kind of hut, thus creating a smaller room within a room. Then I asked Mal and Neil to set up the drums and amplifiers very near one another so that there would be minimal delay on the signal that would inevitably spill between the mics, and I arranged The Beatles themselves in a semicircle so they could all see one another.”  The effect of all of this was as I mentioned in my original write-up, which is that in these close quarters the Beatles were able to soak up each other’s energies to give an exciting, rocking performance.

 A couple of other interesting takes of the rhythm section (Take 9 was the final):

Take 5, with some wackier guitar parts over Paul’s guide vocal:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln76b4cTpMQ

Take 8, with Paul musing over the new speakers installed all over the walls of the studio:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu_I99DsGVg

Guido Merkins

The Sgt Pepper album was set up to be a fictional band performing a show.  They were attempting what would be known later as a concept album, but the concept was pretty loose.  John, specifically, in later years, said that “the concept worked because we said it worked, but it never got past the Sgt Pepper track and the reprise at the end of the album.”  John was fully into his Beatles bashing at the point, especially anything done by Paul, but in a way he is correct.  The songs really aren’t related much except for being tied together by the two Sgt Pepper songs.

In the case of the Reprise, it is sort of a “we hope you have enjoyed the show” at the end of the album.  It is a much tighter, more rock and roll oriented performance than the opening Sgt Pepper song.  I love Ringo’s drumming, especially during the intro.  I love John saying “bye” right in the intro.  I love the lead guitar throughout by John and George.  The other cool part is Paul’s background screaming in the outro which is heard very faintly on the stereo, but more prominently on the mono.  The song then goes straight into A Day in the Life.

64 List Rank: 111

64 List Voters/Points: 2/87

64 List Top 5: 1 @simey (3)

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1

64 List 26-64 votes: 1 (40)

 

[Zegras11]

Being of the Benefit for Mr Kite
2022 Ranking: 101
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 37
Ranked Highest by: @Anarchy99 (5) @PIK95 (18) OTB_lifer (18)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 105/2/14

Getz:  A99 ties for the song lead with nine.

Krista4

My 2019 ranking:  165

2019 write-up:

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!  (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967) 

It's getting really tough at this point, because I like all of these songs, and there's nothing left in the countdown that I'd turn off when it comes on (with one possible exception I'll mention when we get to it).  This is a John song with some of the hallmarks of a Paul song - the "circus" quality reminds me of Paul's dance-hall songs, and the invention of a new world is usually a Paul practice.  But was it an invention?  John admits that he cribbed most of the details from an 1800s circus poster he bought at an antique shop - from the Hendersons to Henry the Horse to the hogshead of real fire.  Interesting article and image of the poster here! 

John didn't particularly like the song and said he was "just going through the motions because we needed a new song."  I have a more favorable impression of the song than John does, as I love the creation of the circus atmosphere that makes me feel like I'm there (even though I hate circuses) - credit to George Martin for all of that.  I could listen to the part between 0:59-1:29 over and over - and I do - though I feel the ending soundscape starts to drag a little.  Don't sleep on the Paul's bass or Ringo's drums on this one.  We'll have to discuss Ringo on all of this album, as I think it's one of the many places where he really shines.

Mr. krista:  "Pretty good song about a circus.  Good circus song.  There’s probably a song somewhere about the Flying Wallendas that’s better."

Suggested covers:  I've studiously avoided this movie, but I like Eddie Izzard's version.  If only this were better quality - The Residents with the London Sinfonietta

2022 Supplement:  Mal Evans alert!  Mal’s Juilliard education* not only included deep study of the proper timing to hit an anvil (“Maxwell’s Silver Anvil”) and the most pleasing rhythm for shaking bags of gravel (“You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)”).  No no no!  Mr. Evans could also play the harmonica, as he demonstrated (along with George, John, and Neil Aspinall) on this song.

*No.

Guido Merkins

John Lennon was struggling in 1967.  Between his life in the suburbs with Cynthia and Julian and his new found obsession with LSD, John was struggling to come up with the same quantity of material that he had in the early days when he clearly dominated the group.  So he was taking inspiration from anything around him.  A circus poster that he bought in 1967 for the benefit of Mr Kite provided one such opportunity.

John described what he wanted in the track to George Martin as “wanting to smell the sawdust on the floor” and feel like he was at the circus.  The lyrics almost all came from the poster, including Mr Kite, Pablo Fanques, the Hendersons, but the horse was not named Henry.  George Martin described the challenge of finding a 19th century steam organ to go along with the Hammond Organ to create the circus atmosphere.  They couldn’t find a steam organ, so Martin instructed Geoff Emerick to find recordings of steam organs, callipopes, and other organ music and chop them up and throw them up in the air and paste them back together.  This part of the song can be heard near the end and it has the exact effect Martin was after, creating this kind of wash in the background which suggests a circus.  

John’s opinion on the song seemed to have changed, once calling it something he wasn’t proud of because he just took it from a poster, but in another interview calling it “pure, like a watercolor.”  IMO, it’s not a great song, but it is a spectacular recording and absolutely fits the atmosphere of Pepper.  What they accomplished in the studio with just tape and a pair of scissors and a vari speed control was amazing.

64 List Rank: 110

64 List Voters/Points: 4/92

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

 

[Zegras11]

Good Day Sunshine
2022 Ranking: 136
2022 Lists: 1
2022 Points: 18
Ranked Highest by: Krista (TJ/Alex) (8)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 74/3/31

Getz: First of several songs to take a big hit this time.  Three votes and 31 points (had an 8th place vote) down to one and 18. Voter this time didn't vote last time. Also, I won't be posting the Top 10 Chalk list unless someone breaks into the Top 10.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  100

2019 write-up:

Good Day Sunshine (Revolver, 1966)

What a fabulous way to start Side Two of Revolver!  The album was such a departure from much of their prior work that shaking up the experimental nature of some of the tracks with this gorgeous pop song about a sunny day seems a brilliant piece of positioning.  I've mentioned my soft spot for piano parts, and I adore the jaunty ragtime piano work by both George Martin and Paul on this track. The song just get you smiling and humming and happy, unless you're a serial killer or a Patriots fan (which might be redundant).  The highlight for me is the end of the song, where Paul starts raising the notes on "sun-shine" and then the key raises half a step, just before the fade-out of a bunch of voices that don't "touch the ground."  Beautiful ending to a perfect pop song.

The only problem with this song is that it is so sunny that if you're in a bad mood or it's a gloomy day, it can be kind of irritating.  Since I'm in a good mood 52% of the time, it fits here on the countdown.

Mr. krista:  "I like his vocals there – his feet are reluctant to touch the ground.  I like that it’s blatantly vaudevillian.  And it’s about a sunny day, and you got the girl you love, and the day off work, or whatever.  It’s really trite but effective.  The cascading piano is great.  Ringo’s drums again really good.  Like a Scott Joplin number.  You know what it is?  It’s Ben Folds Five.  Rockin’ vaudeville.  All of Ben Folds is 'Good Day Sunshine' and Wings."

Suggested cover:  Paul McCartney is a huge fan of this cover by Roy Redmond (as am I)

2022 Supplement:  Ducks and runs for cover from @otb_lifer

Guido Merkins

Paul was a big fan of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Daydream so he wanted to write a song like that.  Kind of a sunny song.  So he wrote Good Day Sunshine, which leads off side 2 of Revolver after the acid rock of She Said She Said ended side 1.

Good Day Sunshine's most distinguishing feature is the sunniest of the lyrics and the vocals along with the honky tonk piano solo played by George Martin and the other piano part, played by Paul.  In fact, this is one of the few Beatles track with no guitar.  I also love the end of the song with the layered vocals which is an interesting way to end the song, kind of like the Beach Boys.

Lots of people hate this song.  I think it’s a welcome sunny song on the otherwise heavy and dark Revolver album.   It’s side 2’s Yellow Submarine.  

64 List Rank: 109

64 List Voters/Points: 6/92

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 6 (35, 39, 52, 54, 55, 63)

A song that benefited from 1-64 lists

 

[Zegras11]

Martha My Dear
2022 Ranking: 132T
2022 Lists: 2
2022 Points: 19
Ranked Highest by: @Eephus (16) @MAC_32 (17)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz: 20th song to be NR in 2019.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  138

2019 write-up:

Martha My Dear (White Album, 1968)

How to make me love a rock or pop song:  add a cello.  Total sucker for a cello.  This song goes further and not only has multiple cellos, but a tuba and, to top it off, Paul wrote this about his sheepdog.      Starting with all that, this should make my top 100, but while it's charming and elegant and in some parts intricate, it's otherwise not interesting enough to make it that high.  But Paul sure did love that sheepdog. 

Mr. krista is less charitable:  "This might be the longest I’ve listened to this song.  More Paul McCartney Masterpiece Theatre music.  Boring-### drawing room music about British people who can’t express themselves and ####. WTF.  Why is that interesting?  Who the #### cares about any of these people?"

Suggested covers:  Punch Brothers Skip to ~0:53 for the real start of the song.  World Party version is also nice but a bit on-the-nose.

2022 Supplement:  Probably ranked this too highly in 2019, likely due to the sheepdog connection.  It’s a nice enough song but doesn’t grab me in any way.  And now, Paul has set out to ruin even the sheepdog connection, saying in The Lyrics that as the song progresses, the lyrics morph from being about the dog into being about a person, specifically a relative who had come to town to get away from their gossipy kin in Liverpool and wanted to confide in Paul about his/her affair.  Paul says this is where lines like “when you find yourself in the thick of it” came from.

Sigh.  Back to sheepdogs.  Paul had not been able to have a dog as a child because his parents were away at work too much, and he had always desperately wanted one.  He’s admitted he’s a sucker for ads and product placement, and he’d seen a Dulux paint ad on the telly with an Old English sheepdog, which inspired him to get Martha. One nice story Paul has told is how his sheepdog Martha helped bring John even closer.  According to Paul, when John came around and saw him playing with Martha, and how much he adored her, he saw Paul letting his guard down and started letting his guard down, too, and warming to Paul more.

I recommend googling Paul and Martha for a ton of adorable pics.  Here’s one:  https://imgur.com/3oC7Tgo

Fun fact:  Paul actually had another dog, Eddie the Terrier, at the time, but Eddie didn’t get his own song.  That is, until Paul, feeling bad about this, improvises a song called “There You Go, Eddie” during the Get Back sessions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjWk_Slcos You can hear that Paul then works in various other Beatles’ pets, such as Ringo’s dog Tiger and John’s cat Mimi.  This song is delightful!  

2022 Mr. krista Supplement:  As someone who frequently sings to his cats, makes up songs for them, makes up songs by them about other cats, this is top of the game for songs about pets.  I’ve only gotten close to this a few times.  It’s not Paul McCartney’s best song, or even his best song about a dog, but it’s way up there.  Here’s an exercise: Figure out how many of those are about dogs, or pets at all, and rank them.

Guido Merkins

The vast majority of the Beatles songs were written about love, but it usually referred to love on others, either women or friends or wives, but never about animals, that is until 1968’s Martha My Dear on the White Album.

Paul had an English sheepdog he named Martha and when he was trying to learn the piano, he started playing this part that was especially difficult for him at the time and the words Martha My Dear came to him.  The song was about Martha and once you know that, lines like “hold your head up you silly girl, look what you’ve done” make sense.  

To me, the song sounds like the typical McCartney jazzy number (as Lennon would call it, Paul’s “granny ####”, but it’s quite pleasant.  I like how it modulates, which is not something the Beatles did a lot of.  

64 List Rank: 108

64 List Voters/Points: 3/96

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: (28, 33 ,38)

 

[Zegras11]

I Me Mine
2022 Ranking: 92
2022 Lists: 5
2022 Points: 49
Ranked Highest by: @Binky The Doormat (9) @wikkidpissah(12) Shaft(Son1) (16) @PIK95 (22) @jamny (22)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 83T/2/24

Getz comments:  Jamboise on board! 12 left....

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  105

2019 write-up:

I Me Mine (Let It Be, 1970)

Though most of Let It Be was recorded before Abbey Road, the version of this song recorded during the Let It Be sessions was not included on the album.  Instead, this version was later recorded (after Abbey Road), making this the last song the Beatles ever recorded together.   Or, sorta together, since John didn't participate.  In fact, it appeared that neither Paul nor John ever much liked this song.  What do those dummies know about music.  

George composed this "heavy waltz" after an LSD trip caused him to look at everything around him and see ego, so the song is a criticism of egotism.  I'd quote some of his actual words here if I understood them at all; George was on a different plane than I am (I intend that admiringly).  Well, here's part of it anyway:  "'I Me Mine' is the ego problem. There are two 'I's: the little 'i' when people say 'I am this'; and the big 'I' – i.e. Om, the complete, whole universal consciousness that is devoid of duality and ego. There is nothing that isn't part of the complete whole. When the little 'i' merges into the big 'I' then you are really smiling!"

This is one of the only songs on the record where I strongly prefer the Spector-ized version.  The Spector version - adding 27 strings and six brass! - captures an eerie feel that I associated with the underlying basis of the song and also seems to have better flowiness.  Which is not a word, I guess.  Anyway, great jam.  Beautiful vocal.  Love the guitar intro.  Particularly nice work by Ringo.  Funky AF. That middle that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the song is way cool (apparently a Paul contribution - WTGPM).    

Mr. krista:  "I like that song, too.  Solid four to start this record.  I like that heavy chorus after the first part’s a waltz and then that is hard 4/4.  Great Harrison jam."

Suggested covers:  Beth Orton  Spoon

2022 Supplement:  As I suggested earlier, I have a hard time understanding why George “sided” with John in the John/Paul spats, given how little John seemed to care about George’s songs and how dismissive he often could be.  This bit from the “Get Back” documentary is painful for me to watch, as Paul seems to be encouraging George and John is simply nasty about the song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQv487gYgOA  It’s hard to feel sorry for “a Beatle,” but I certainly do.  I can’t imagine being in George’s position, still the “kid brother” trying to woo the others with something he’d just written, but obviously nervous and unsure about it.  I’m happy that George got his due by creating what I consider to be the Beatles’ post-breakup masterpiece, All Things Must Pass.

Guido Merkins

George was the most religious and philosophical of the Beatles.  When he had an acid trip he started thinking about his own ego and from that came the song I Me Mine.  Many people view it as a lightweight contribution, but George must have liked the song because he named his autobiography after it.  I Me Mine is notable in that it is the last new song recorded by the Beatles, well, 3 of the Beatles as John had already left, leaving Paul, George and Ringo to complete the song that was shown in the Let It Be film, but they had not recorded.

As far as the song itself, it is cool because it switches from waltz time to 4/4 in the chorus (I me me mine), suggested by Paul.  The song as originally recorded was only about a minute and a half long, so when Phil Spector went to mix it, he just repeated “all through the day” and the chorus and verse to get the finished song.  He also added brass and strings.

I love the switch between the 3 / 4 and 4 / 4  of the verses to chorus.  I also like the lyrics and George’s vocal along with Paul’s harmony on the chorus.  Kind of an obscure one, but one that I like on Let It Be.

64 List Rank: 107

64 List Voters/Points: 4/99

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (13)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

 

[Zegras11]

Fixing a Hole
2022 Ranking: 98
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 39
Ranked Highest by: @PIK95 (14) @Uruk-Hai (14) @Anarchy99 (14) @zamboni (23)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 69/2/37

Getz:  A’99 becomes the first to have 10 songs posted and retakes the Chalk lead. Fixing drops 29 spots from 2019. What is up with three of the four ranking this #14?  And again, no first timers…Where are you people?  Show your faces!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  108

2019 write-up:

Fixing A Hole (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

Credit to @Godsbrother for this being as high as it is.  I'd always thought this was one of my least favorites, bottom 30-40, but then I noticed that he hyped it in a thread or two as underrated, so I thought I should give it a shot.  Now when I play it, I can't get it out of my head, in a good way.  Maybe as more time goes by it will climb even higher.

See what I did there?  "Higher" in a post on a song about pot?

Oh yeah, back to the song.  It's about pot.  It's about Paul wanting to be free to experiment, to let his mind wander and not be constrained.  Maybe to include stuff other than pot, but definitely including pot.  And I think that's one of the most admirable qualities about Paul:  for all the criticism I've given to many of the vaudeville songs, his experimentation into different types of music well exceeded the others', both during the time of the Beatles and thereafter.  He can simply do it all, and even if we don't appreciate the results of his forays into certain genres, I think all his attempts are well-meaning and based on a genuine love for and interest in them.  I can't imagine what it would be like to have a mind that brilliant.

Also, he sure did look dreamy in that "Hey Jude" video.

Oh yeah (again), back to the song (again).  I might mention chord progressions too often, but these are fascinating and move through minor/major in a way that complements the lyrics beautifully.  The lilt of the vocal moving into a more urgent sound along with the guitar, culminating in the blast of "why they don't get in my door," is sublime, as is the guitar work itself.  The song shows off Paul's incredible vocal range not just in terms of the notes but the emotion.  The harpsichord forming part of the rhythm section is a brilliant touch.

Fun story about the session for this song:  a guy showed up at Paul's front door and when Paul asked who he was, he said he was Jesus.  Wait, I'll let Paul tell it.  "This guy said, 'I'm Jesus Christ.' I said, 'Oop,' slightly shocked. I said, 'Well, you'd better come in then.' I thought, 'Well, it probably isn't. But if he is, I'm not going to be the one to turn him away.' So I gave him a cup of tea and we just chatted...We used to get a lot of people who were maybe insecure or going through emotional breakdowns or whatever. So I said, 'I've got to go to a session but if you promise to be very quiet and just sit in a corner, you can come.' So he did, he came to the session and he did sit very quietly and I never saw him after that. I introduced him to the guys. They said, 'Who's this?' I said, 'He's Jesus Christ.'"

Mr. krista:  "I don’t know.  I don’t like it.  It doesn’t go anywhere.  Just plods along.  Made totally in the studio rather than the product of songwriting.  Seems like a high-dea."

Suggested covers:  I dunno about this vocal, but  The Fray.  Love it or hate it version from Electric Würms (count me as hate it).

2022 Supplement:  I’ve gone back to being more meh on this one in the ensuing three years.  In addition to saying over the years that it was about pot, Paul has described this as being an ode to the metaphysical idea of a hole and the creative process:  “Before I write a song, there’s a black hole and then I get my guitar or piano and fill it in.”  When complete, he’s filled in the black hole with a colorful landscape.  He has also said it was about LSD in that, around the time of writing it, he had had his first experiences with the drug and had a physical reaction thereafter:  “When I closed my eyes, instead of there being blackness there was a little blue hole.  It was as if something needed patching.”  He has said others thought it was about heroin.  And finally, he has said that when he wrote it he was living on his own in his new London home, and the whole world of home improvements had just started to hit his life.  

So take your pick.  This is about pot, heroin, LSD, the creative process, and/or carpentry.

Guido Merkins

In 1967, people were always looking for hidden meanings in songs, specifically about drugs.  So, you have the word “fixing” in a song, it must be a heroin, right?  Paul has said that heroin had nothing to do with the song, but has given alternative explanations over the years about pot, fixing himself so he can be artistic and about the people who would hang around outside his house.  So not sure what the truth is.  Could be all of the above.

On Side One of the Sgt Pepper album, Fixing A Hole starts off with a harpsichord intro, which I think was the first time the Beatles used an actual harpsichord.  Like most of Pepper, Paul’s bass is front and center, almost a lead instrument.  George also really lets it rip on the guitar solo, maybe one of the only time George contributed much guitar on the Sgt Pepper album.  

The song uses the old Beatles trick of switching between major and minor for verses and choruses, a trick they had been doing since the A Hard Day’s Night album.  This is a song I have always liked very much, but I think it’s a deep cut that most people haven’t discovered yet.

64 List Rank: 106

64 List Voters/Points: 4/99

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (14)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

 

[Zegras11]

The Word
2022 Ranking: 145T
2022 Lists: 1
2022 Points: 13
Ranked Highest by: Krista (Craig) (13)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz: First of four straight songs NR in 2019.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  136

2019 write-up:

The Word (Rubber Soul, 1965)

Jesus, we're getting into such great stuff now.  This description by John of his inspiration for this song makes it even better:  "It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the Rubber Soul album. My first expression of it was a song called The Word. The word is 'love', in the good and the bad books that I have read, whatever, wherever, the word is 'love'. It seems like the underlying theme to the universe.  Everything that was worthwhile got dow to this love, love, love thing.  And it is the struggle to love, be loved, and express that (just something about love) that's fantastic."  Whether or not you agree with that sentiment, or possibly even find it simplistic, it seems like a turning point in some of their songwriting and very much of its time.  Led by Paul's bass, this song grooves the hell out, feeling almost Stax-like to me.  You could even argue it has an evangelical preacher sound to it, or maybe I'm imbuing it with too much Memphis sound.  In any case, straight-up FUNK.  Ima gonna go dance now.

Fun fact:  the lyric sheets for this song were covered with psychadelic, colorful drawings, and later Yoko Ono gave this to John Cage for his birthday.  The manuscript was reproduced in Cage's collection called Notations and later donated to Northwestern University along with several other Beatles lyric sheets. 

Mr. krista:  [Shaking his head no.]  "Drums, bass, and guitar are really good, but the lyrics are so ####### dumb."

Suggested cover:  Bettye LaVette.  I happen to like the Shins so am posting this one, but I don't know what Beat Bugs means and just the name irritates me.

2022 Supplement:  Well, 2022, unlike the 2019 version, does know what “Beat Bugs” means, thanks to the efforts of people in the prior thread.  So there’s that.  On the down side, I’d probably change the ranking on this one for the worse, as the lyrics have really grown to irritate me more the last few years.  Kids, don’t toke and songwrite.  I have another odd association with this one in that I remember APK hating the lyrics as well, though as always I could be mixing him up with someone else.

I called out Paul’s bass in my 2019 post, but I’d also like to note John’s fantastic vocal here.  He seems like he really meant it on this one, as silly as the sentiment might seem to some of us now.  Ringo is, as usual, excellent on his fills, too.  Between the lyrics and the funky sound, this does have the feel of a down-home evangelical romp, which I’m partial to.  Maybe I like this song again after all.

Guido Merkins

It’s the word, love!!!!  John claimed this song was kind of precursor of All You Need is Love.  It’s very 60’s, flower power.  Lines like “it’s so fine, it’s sunshine, it’s the word, love” gives a very clear picture of the 60s and the emerging peace and love movement.  This song is almost religious in it’s furvor about the power of love, which was a first for John.  Other lines like “I’m here to show everybody the light” might be Lennon’s first attempt to use his star power to convince people that he was right, something he would do a lot of later.

The recording was pretty simple, with the standard Beatles lineup and George Martin on harmonium.  Paul’s bass is really jumping on this track.  Rubber Soul was the first album where you could, very clearly, hear the bass and it would get even more prominent on Revolver and Sgt Pepper, but for now, you can clearly hear that Paul is a great bass player.  I also love the harmonium part at the end and the piano throughout.  

Great song on a really great album.

64 List Rank: 105

64 List Voters/Points: 3/106

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (20)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

 

[Zegras11]

Dig A Pony
2022 Ranking: 88
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 54
Ranked Highest by: @Oliver Humanzee (8) Krista(TJ/Michael) (10) @Murph (12) @ProstheticRGK (20)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz comments:  37th of 39 songs to be NR in 2019. Song grew a lot on me watching Get Back twice. Do not miss all the write ups below. Excellent!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  118

2019 write-up:

Dig a Pony (Let It Be, 1970)

Speaking of the rooftop concert (well, we were yesterday)...the take used on Let It Be was the live version from that concert.  The "false start" at the beginning was because Ringo wasn't ready - he had only one drumstick, with a cigarette in the other hand - but then the song kicks in ferociously with that fantastic hook.  It's another where my ranking is likely higher than where most people would put it, and that's A-OK since this is my damn list.  This song suffers from some non-sensical lyrics, but I've never understood why that's all right for "Come Together" or "I Am the Walrus" but criticized in this one.  Taking out the nonsense lyrics, I love pretty much everything else about this song, including George's guitar work, Ringo's fills, and especially Billy Preston on electric piano.  Any track with Billy Preston on it is automatically bumped up ten slots.  It's another terrific John vocal with a stunning amount of emotion, and the transitions are marvelous, reaching their peak IMO with the "beeeecause" near the end.

Mr. krista:  "I dig Dig a Pony.  I like the lyrics a lot.  That being nonsense that almost means something.  The music’s great.  I love how all of it sounds really good.  Like a plain Jane recording showing off what a great band they are.  Not a bunch of studio ####ery.  Just a great rock band."

Suggested cover:  St. Vincent. (Getz: I'd really like to hear Meg Myers sing this after hearing this)

2022 Supplement:  One of two songs I’ll identify as being those that would jump the most if I did a full re-ranking.  The other one is “All I’ve Got To Do,” which we might or might not have covered yet.  This one, though, was one I absolutely adored at the time, but was just embarrassed to admit it.  And now I’m embarrassed to admit that.  Truly, I just knew that this song was not well-regarded, and along with putting songs I didn’t like as much higher than I should have (*cough*Penny Lane*cough*), I demoted this one unfairly as a result.  THIS WAS #27 ON MY RE-RANKING THIS YEAR.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’m turning this supplement over to Mr. krista, who has always loved this one too and even put it in his #8 spot.

2022 Mr. krista Supplement:  Every time I listen to this, I think “why is that not my favorite Beatles song?”  I love the main riff… the main riff and the verses are in waltz time or 6/8, the riff is in waltz time but just fast.  There could be another eight-hour Get Back movie of just Ringo throwing in an extra beat to make it 4/4, and it’s one of the things that makes it so propulsive and engaging is that  beat, maybe like 6/8 in half time - it’s off time and moves like a really fast waltz.  In rock music, it swings.  Musically it’s really complicated.  The lyrics are those funny tonal nonsense that John loved at that time, substituting one word for another, the interior rhyme like “penetrate” “radiate” all the various “ates” in every verse.  It’s designed to twist people in knots trying to find “meaning” behind it, which is the Western and dumb way of explicating art, like what does xyz symbolize or what is this metaphor for, and that’s not how one gleans meaning from music, or any other kind of art.  What does Beethoven’s 9th mean?  It’s unique among the Beatles songs.  It sounds like it would be a really great 70s hard-rock tune.  Could have been a hit for a lot of different bands, maybe five years later.  Is that the one where Mal Evans had to sit there with the lyrics taped to his back because John couldn’t remember his own lyrics?

Guido Merkins

Some of my opinions on the songs that were on Let It Be might have changed upon viewing the Get Back documentary.  One of which is Dig A Pony, which I never liked all that much.  And, for sure, it’s not a great Lennon song.  Just a bunch of words strung together which don’t mean much of anything, which he had done more effectively earlier (I Am the Walrus, Happiness is a Warm Gun.)

But I like the song more after watching Get Back.  I didn’t realize that the main riff was played in unison by John and George, and I like that because it’s more powerful.  I also like the drumming as I think the song has a swing that I didn’t realize before. Also the guitar solo is very well-done. Parts of the song that I always liked were the harmonies and the shot at the Rolling Stones (I roll a stoney.  Well you can imitate everyone you know.)  Typical Lennon.  Mick must have said something about the Beatles that he didn’t like or it was totally unprovoked, with John you never know.

Anyway, like I said, it’s not brilliant, but it’s a decent album song and they play it really well live on the roof.

64 List Rank: 104

64 List Voters/Points:  4/107

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (8)

64 List 1-25 votes: 1

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

 

[Zegras11]

Good Morning Good Morning
2022 Ranking: 113
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 29
Ranked Highest by: @Anarchy99 (12) @Murph (17) @MAC_32 (20)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz comments:  A99 posts his 7th song and takes back the Chalk lead. Just missed our third RingoBingoTM

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  110

2019 write-up:

Good Morning Good Morning (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

I had copied some notes into a file and was reading them thinking, "Wow, I agree with everything this person said," before realizing that it was my own notes from tim's thread.    At least, unlike Mr. krista, I did agree with my own prior opinions.

Here's what I said then:  "This song is bonkers and I love it.  No idea how Ringo could perform this song.  He's off the chain on this one."  This sums up most of what I love about this song. Poor Ringo.  The changes in time signatures are insane.  I can't imagine why anyone would write all that or want to play it, but somehow it works.  I also love Paul's guitar solo, the distorted horns, that big cymbal smash, and all the wacky animal sounds sprinkled in, from hens to horses to cats and dogs and unicorns and jackalopes and Yetis and what have you.  It's a seemingly "fun" song that's really about boredom, written when John was stuck in the suburbs watching telly (and inspired by a cereal ad) and an instance where I particularly enjoy John's biting sarcasm; maybe I can relate to the cacophony that can be created by life's daily nuisances.

Mr. krista:  "I really liked the guitar solo and the middle part that’s all triplets on the snare.  But it’s crazy.  I like all the roosters, and the horses whinnying seem appropriate.  I like that rather than change the lyrics to fit a time signature human beings could play...naaaahhhh."

Suggested cover:  Maybe it's not a surprise given the nature of the song, but I believe I've set a new record for the song with the most horrible covers.  I'll have to post another from Cheap Trick as the only passable attempt.

2022 Supplement:  While I did single out Ringo for my love of this song, I don’t know how I neglected to deem it…A RINGO SHOWCASE!  Just to prove the point, by isolating the drums, listen to all the signature changes he had to maneuver:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxe0fp79_IA It really kicks in around 0:39 but then goes absolutely insane starting just before the two-minute mark.  If you ever had any doubts about Ringo, you’d damn well better not now.

Guido Merkins

John was struggling with suburbia in 1967 so he tended to write things around stuff he would read in the news or see on TV.  One of those, was the Sgt Pepper track Good Morning Good Morning.  

John wasn’t real pleased with the song. He got the title from a TV commercial for Kellog’s Corn Flakes and wrote the song around that.  Another TV reference in the song is the line “it’s time for tea and meet the Wife”, which was a British TV show.  The line “nothing to do” highlighted his boredom.

The most interesting thing about this song is the end with the animal sound effects.  John wanted the animals in order so that the animal would be capable of frightening or devouring it’s predecessor.  So you have cats, dogs, horses, sheep, lions, elephants, a fox hunt, a cow, then a hen, which the clucking of the hen matched the note of the guitar leading into the Sgt Pepper Reprise.

The blistering guitar solo was played by Paul.  George didn’t play much guitar on Sgt Pepper as he was more interested in the sitar at this point.

64 List Rank: 103

64 List Voters/Points: 5/108

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (16)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

Cry Baby Cry
2022 Ranking: 129
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 20
Ranked Highest by: Krista (Worth) (17) @Binky The Doormat (20) @Man of Constant Sorrow (22) @ProstheticRGK (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 117/4/10

Getz: Interesting… Four voters in both 2019 and 2022. 20 points this time…

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  94

2019 write-up:

Cry Baby Cry (White Album, 1968)

Like "Good Morning Good Morning," this John song might have been inspired in part by an ad, specifically some words he thought he'd caught:  "Cry baby cry; make your mother buy."  This song has a nice spooky feel to it; John's voice has a slight echo that, along with his dry and straightforward delivery, makes it sound chilling to me.  Paul's harmonies near the very end add to the eeriness, George's nifty guitar parts contribute to the tension, and the descending chords on the verses give a nice sense of menace.  The lyrics seem like a nursery rhyme and owe a debt to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" along with Lewis Carroll, and when John sings in a nearly childlike fashion in parts, it just increases how weird this song feels.  The last ~30 seconds, the "can you take me back" part by Paul, were not originally meant to be part of this song, but were from some improvisations during the recording of "I Will."  But that "song" didn't receive any separate mention on the album and by now is just considered part of this one.  In any case, my favorite part is when this song leads into that latter one; they actually seem to be meant to go together as the Paul song has a similar ghostly feel to it.  

Not-so-fun fact:  The song was first rehearsed the same day that "Ob-La-Di" was finished, the tension from all the battles over that song carrying over to the recordings of this one that night, with Geoff Emerick deciding then and there that he wouldn't be finishing this song.  The next day, he quit, and the recording of this song was begun anew.  

Mr. krista:  "It’s a great pop song.  There’s a lot of songs called cry baby or baby cry or baby baby cry cry, and I think I like them all. There’s the Janis Joplin song called Cry Baby… and there’s this…"

Suggested cover:  I guess I'm going to end up with at least three covers listed from Steve Earle, since there's another one later that I know I'll be using.  Oh well; I can't find any others I like better than this.

2022 Supplement:  That 2019 write-up was pretty damn good, hahaha.  I still think this is one of John’s most interesting songs lyrically, balancing the child-like “nursery rhyme” aspects with what seems a deeper meaning, even if John later didn’t remember what it was.  John called this song rubbish, as he did many of his own songs.  When pressed on his favorites, he always seemed to go for the strongly autobiographical songs like “Help!” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and I generally agree with John both in his Beatles and post-Beatles work, but I wish he hadn’t sold this one short, as it’s fascinating.

This song was the first John presented at the Esher sessions, which might indicate he thought more highly of it at one time.  Wait, have we talked about the Esher demos?  In May 1968, the Beatles met to start their new album, gathering at George’s home in Esher to complete some rough demos rather than going into Abbey Road to start work.  Aw hell, I’m feeling lazy; if you want to know more, this is a good synopsis: https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-beatles-esher-demos-the-lost-basement-tapes-that-became-the-white-album-630425/    And the Esher demo for this song is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCORYtqMr0g

2022 Mr. krista Supplement:  Seems oddly allegorical, but I don’t know from what.  There’s all this king, duchess stuff; seems symbolic but about something extraordinarily specific to him.  Lyrics are complete and doesn’t seem tossed off, like he worked on them.  It feels like if you understand the scenario, you’ll unlock the story.  Made me think of the Wallace Stevens poem, “The Emperor of Ice Cream.”  It seems to be referring to something specific and strange, but it was children playing “funeral,” like they had a doll that was dead.  Stevens describes it specifically, and it even has this childlike rhyme structure, but with complicated messages.  Like, someone says “ice cream” and they instantly abandon this scenario.  That’s like, “There’s no god.  The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.  There is no higher power.”  And just the mention of ice cream can stop this solemn ceremony.  These lyrics remind me of that, but I don’t know what it is that unlocks it.  But it invites imagining it, that thoughtfulness.  And it’s a cool melody.

Guido Merkins

Cry Baby Cry was written by John in India and first recorded at George Harrison’s house (the Esher Sessions on the 2018 White Album Sessions Box).  The Esher demo was remarkably similar to the finished version.  Apparently John got the title Cry Baby Cry from a commercial.  The lyrics are very much a fairy tale, but the chords suggest something a bit darker and the final verse with mentions of “seances” are in keeping with this .  John wasn’t a big fan of the song.  He called it “rubbish.”

I like the wobble that is on John’s acoustic guitar during the intro.  And John’s vocal is very hypnotizing.  Yet another oddity on the White Album in which the Beatles seemed to throw a bunch of crap against the wall to see what would stick.

Note, this song ends with a brief interlude of Paul singing “Can you take me back”, which I think was just a lick Paul had hanging around. 

64 List Rank: 102

64 List Voters/Points: 5/112

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

 

[Zegras11]

Any Time at All
2022 Ranking: 90
2022 Lists: 4
2022 Points: 52
Ranked Highest by: @Murph (9) @Eephus(13) @Encyclopedia Brown (14) @Shaft41 (16)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 111T/1/11

Getz comments:  Murph, EBrown and Shaft all jump into Chalk Top 10.

5 --Encyclopedia Brown---349.5
6 --Shaft41---303
7 --murph---302

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  79

2019 write-up:

Any Time At All (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

On its face it might sound like a great rock song belted out beautifully by John, and it is, but there's also a lot of other interesting stuff going on here.  There's the way John starts each chorus with a solo (other than the first chorus where Ringo lead with a whopping snare).  There's Paul's descending bass line.  There's the interesting structure, particularly notable for that time, with the bridge coming late in a chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus lineup.  And then when you get to that bridge, it's all instrumental, with Paul contributing a smashing piano solo that dialogues with the George guitar part beautifully by Paul playing up the scale and George down, until George "hands off" to Paul to finish with a flourish that mimics what George had previously been playing on the guitar.  That's kinda brilliant.  (It's possible that the instrumental was intended to have voices added later, but the song had to be rushed out as it was only started on the last day of recording for A Hard Day's Night.)  Finally, there's the double-tracking of John's vocal, which allows lines to be finished that otherwise would have run into each other in a way that would have been awkward to sing.  As a result, John is coming in to accompany himself smoothly - for instance, listen to the overdub start at ~0:27 in the first verse.   

Mr. krista:  "I like that the guitar and the piano play the same notes.  Great rocker. I like the guitar.  Really neat little trick."

Suggested covers:  Rave on, Dweezil Zappa.  Dunno about this breathy vocal:  OK Go

2022 Supplement:  In a similar vein to John’s reworking of “This Boy” to become “Yes It Is,” John said that this song is a reworking of “It Won’t Be Long.”  I find this re-imagining much more successful than that of “This Boy.”  Sadly the band abandoned this one after recording and never sang it at a show; I bet it would have been a fantastic live rave-up.  

Guido Merkins

I remember when I was first getting into the Beatles, after I had heard the more well-known songs, I asked my Mom for some other songs to listen to.  She gave me some and one of them as Any Time At All, so I have a soft spot for it.

I love the drum shot that starts the song.  I also live George Martin’s sped up piano trick on the solo.  Something interesting is that the solo wasn’t supposed to be a solo.  It was supposed to be a bridge, but they never came up with words for it, so it turned into a solo.  I also love the Lennon vocal.  And they lyrics (when the sun has faded away, I’ll try to make it shine) is quite a beautiful image. 

The song was written primarily by John who claimed that it was him trying to re-write It Won’t Be Long.  McCartney sings the second “any time at all” because it was a bit out of Lennon’s vocal range.  Really good song that kicks off side 2 of A Hard Day’s Night.

64 List Rank: 101

64 List Voters/Points: 6/113

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

 

[Zegras11]

Girl
2022 Ranking: 69
2022 Lists: 6
2022 Points: 93
Ranked Highest by: Shaft41(Son1) (4) Krista(Craig) (8) Krista(TJ/Michael) (9) @Guido Merkins(10) @rockaction (12) @fatguyinalittlecoat (20)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 78/3/2
5 --fatguyinalttlecoat---779
10 --rockaction---618.5
12 --Krista (Craig)---484

Getz: Last song with six voters. First song with four, Top 10 votes. Only five more songs that don’t have at least 10 votes.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  73

2019 write-up:

Girl (Rubber Soul, 1965)

It's a rare John song that John actually liked!  This goes higher or lower on my list daily based on how irritating I find the spliff-sucking sounds that particular day, but I always find them at least mildly irritating.  I've read that maybe they were supposed to be intakes of breath from love or lust for this "girl," but it doesn't make it any less irritating.  Aside from that, I love the song, and it's a favorite of my cat, The Squirrel (featured in a photo earlier in this thread), since I sing it to him substituting "Squirr-r-r-rel" for "gir-r-r-rl."  Perhaps I shouldn't have admitted that.

Moving on!  This song is hypnotic to me, with its gorgeous, languorous melody, sung by John with such longing, and some stunningly beautiful if depressing lyrics.  It's one of those songs where the lyrics take it to a new level in my estimation, from the opening plea of "Is there anybody going to listen to my story, all about the girl who came to stay?" to the descriptions of the kind of girl he's talking about.  I feel like I can exactly picture this girl from lines like...oh hell, I'm just going to copy all the lyrics here.  They're that special:

Is there anybody going to listen to my story

All about the girl who came to stay?

She's the kind of girl

You want so much it make you sorry

Still you don't regret a single day

Ah, girl, girl, girl

When I think of all the times

I tried so hard to leave her

She will turn to me and start to cry

And she promises the earth to me

And I believe her

After all this time I don't know why

Ah, girl, girl, girl

She's the kind of girl who puts you down

When friends are there

You feel a fool

When you say she's looking good

She acts as if it's understood

She's cool, ooh, oo, oo, oo

Girl, girl, girl

Was she told when she was young

That pain would lead to pleasure

Did she understand it when they said

That a man must break his back

To earn his day of leisure?

Will she still believe it when he's dead

Ah, girl, girl, girl

Girl

I find the bolded lyrics particularly evocative and poetic.  John has said the last lines I bolded were a criticism of Christianity, but I prefer to interpret them more broadly.  Another part of the song that I particularly dig is the bridge with its hammering eighth-notes; the vocal was inspired by a Beach Boys song that had "la la la"s in the bridge, but the Beatles wanted to use something else, so they substituted "dit dit dit."  Or did they?  Apparently what they really sang, to amuse themselves and trick the ever-naive George Martin, was a word that is not allowed on this family friendly site.  Rhymes with "dit."   I also love the Greek-inflected ending, which was a Paul contribution based on having heard some bouzouki music on holiday in Greece.

I feel like, when Squirrel is not around for me to sing the song to him, I just sink into this song and stay there, and it's a pleasurable place to be despite the glum lyrics.  It feels old-world and comfortable to me.  

Mr. krista:  "I really like it.  I like the changes.  I like the plink plink plink part at the end.  Songs like that are so outside of my canon that it would never occur to me to write something like that.  I don’t know how they come about, but it’s so interesting that people do.  It’s like you’re dragging the name across a bowling alley floor.  Squeeeeek. But you’re right.  What are you doing?  You’re trying to write pop music, nobody will want that.  But wait, they do.  I guess I like that song because it reminds me how much I don’t ####### know.  I don’t know why that’s good.  It’s good because the Beatles are better than me at everything."

Suggested cover:   Joe Jackson does a helluva job live, and makes that part I dislike into sighs.  Rhett Miller leaves that part out entirely.

2022 Supplement:  Those breathy intakes that irritated me when I wrote this up in 2019 were apparently a favorite part of the song for the Beatles, so what do I know.  John loved them.  Paul loved them:  “My main memory is that John wanted to hear the breathing, wanted it to be very intimate… The engineer then went off and figured out how to do it. We really felt like young professionals.”  Ringo loved them: “’Girl’ was great – weird breathy sound on it.”  Obviously they’re right, being the best band ever to exist, while I’m the person singing this to my cat.  

Guido Merkins

Rubber Soul had the Beatles expanding their musical vocabulary.  Paul going into French music with Michelle and John answering with the German/Greek Girl.

Girl was written mostly by John about his dream girl, which he claims turned out to be Yoko.  I’ve always thought that was strange since the bridge of the song portrays the “girl” as not being very nice (she’s the kind of girl who puts you down when friends are there you feel a fool.)  

Anyway, the song is very interesting in that it has a very German beat, IMO, like a two step.  But it also has a bit of a Greek vibe with the acoustic guitars with a capo very high on the neck so it sounds like a bouzouki, a Greek stringed instrument.  The end of the song with John and George both playing the “bouzouki” style guitars together.  I also love the “###-###” background vocals, John loved to slip on a little smut on a record.  Lastly, Lennon’s vocal is very intimate, hearing the intake of breath as he sings.  Was the girl so hot that Lennon was breathing heavy or was he referring to inhaling pot, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting sound.  

This is a song that I have always liked, but in the last 5 years or so it has really risen in my rankings of Beatles songs.  It is one of John’s best 10 songs, IMO.

64 List Rank: 100

64 List Voters/Points: 5/118

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

 

[Zegras11]

It Won’t Be Long
2022 Ranking: 99
2022 Lists: 6
2022 Points: 38
Ranked Highest by: @rockaction (17) OTB_Lifer (17) @Eephus (18) @Encyclopedia Brown (23) @prosopis (24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 92T/1/19

Getz:  First song with six voters, but not one in the Top 15.  Six votes and no first timers!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  76

2019 write-up:

It Won't Be Long (With the Beatles, 1963)

Like "Any Time At All," this one starts with urgent solo shouts from John, but in this case the backing vocals jump in quickly to add some "yeah yeah yeah"s reminiscent of a less joyous "She Loves You."  Like "Please Please Me," the song featured some wordplay that Paul identified as the highlight of the songwriting, with the double meaning of "be long until I belong to you."  This song was intended to be the Beatles next single after the recorded-but-not-yet-released "She Loves You," but it ended up losing out to "I Want to Hold Your Hand."  Nothing to be ashamed of there.  

Love that blast start here, and I'm a sucker for a good call-and-response, so love the "yeah" "yeah" back and forth that follows.  The descending chords in the bridge(s) make me swoon.  This song perfectly fit the bill of the "potboiler" that George Martin always wanted to start an album.  I initially had this marked in my third tier and noted it was "messy," but over the course of this project it kept moving up the list once I realized that the messiness was part of the point.  The urgency, the messiness, the excitement combined with a smidge of terror...it all sums up the best and worst of relationships.

Mr. krista:  "This song really rocks.  That’s a burner of an opening track.  It just rips.  What the #### else do you want from a rock song."

Suggested cover:  If you don't like Richard Thompson, you're dead to me.

2022 Supplement:  Great song to sing with your cats.  They really kill the “yeah yeah”s on the chorus.

Guido Merkins

It Won’t Be Long kicked off the Beatles second album called With The Beatles in 1964.  It had a lot of “yeahs” in it, similar to She Loves You.  It sort of explodes out of the speakers at the beginning, so it makes a great album opener.  The chorus is kind of a call and response thing with John saying “it won’t be long” and George and Paul responding with “yeah.”  

The cool parts of this song is the wordplay of “it won’t be long till I belong to you.”  Kind of like the double use of “please” in Please Please Me.  I also love the descending guitar that George does at the end with the harmonies on top.

I like the song a lot, but I would have to say it’s one of the weaker album openers for the Beatles. Of course, when I Saw Her Standing There, A Hard Day’s Night, Back in the USSR, and Come Together are some of the other choices, that is understandable.  If the Beatles had put singles on this album, it would have been opened by She Loves You, probably, and since they couldn’t do that, they wrote something similar.  It only speaks to the majesty of She Loves You that It Won’t Be Long would be inferior.  But it’s still a great song.

64 List Rank: 99 Ringo Bingo!

64 List Voters/Points: 5/124

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (17, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

 

[Zegras11]

Love Me Do
2022 Ranking: 120
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 24
Ranked Highest by: @prosopis (17) Shaft41 (Daughter) (18) Shaft41 (Son2) (19)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz:  Two enter here with their first songs. Kind of shocked there are still 29 voters that have not appeared. Cool, quirky video above.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  103

2019 write-up:

Love Me Do (Please Please Me, 1962)

It's hard to put this song, which was part of their audition for George Martin and became their first hit single - the one that started it all! - in the bottom half, but setting sentimentality aside, this isn't one of their top-half-of-the-countdown efforts.  Love love love the harmonica, and the vocals are sweet. but the song is sooooo simple.  The lyrics are simple and repetitive (Paul wrote most of this when he was 15 or 16); the guitar part is simple; the drums are simple (though apparently not simple enough to save Pete Best from getting fired after the audition).  The harmonica saves it, along with Paul's charming "love me do" at the end of each line - Paul singing that bit was George Martin's idea so that John could focus on the harmonica part there instead of switching back and forth.  Worst of all, of course, is that Ringo is not on the album version of the song - George Martin went to his grave knowing I had never forgiven him for substituting Andy White in this session (discussed previously with respect to "P.S. I Love You").  Or maybe not.

The song rose to 17th on the UK charts; the rumor was that this was in part because Brian Epstein bought 10,000 copies himself for his record store, but both Epstein and John denied this was true.  This song is exciting to me mostly because of what it led to, rather than what it is.  And due to that harmonica.   

Fun John fact:  the harmonica John played on this was allegedly shoplifted by him during their Hamburg days.

Fun Paul fact:  Paul didn't ever play this song in his solo shows, thinking it was too "little," until the mid-2010s, when he started doing it at the request of, among others...David Bowie.  

Mr. krista:  "Great harmonica.  I like that beat, so slow, plodding, and heavy.  That’s about it.  About the sixth best of seven songs so far."

Suggested cover:  David Bowie & Jeff Beck (starts ~4:26)

2022 Supplement:  The harmonica here still does it for me, and I’d probably move it up in the rankings a wee bit this time.  Legend has it that Delbert McClinton, with Bruce Channel’s band at the time, taught John the bluesy harmonica when the Beatles opened for Channel in 1962 (Channel had a hit with the harmonica-laden “Hey Baby”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik9dxkKriV0 ), but it’s unclear if this actually happened.  John had had harmonicas since he was a child and was already playing it on several numbers before they met McClinton.  John has described their early use of harmonica as a “trick” they put into their numbers, until the “trick” had been played out and become, to John, “embarrassing.”  Given that John did not yet have a harmonica brace (pictures from the time show him always holding the harmonica in his hands), it’s believed that he did not play guitar on this track.

As discussed in 2019, there have been three versions of this song published with three different drummers.  Ringo’s style is so distinctive, and Alan White is obviously a great drummer in his own right.  Pete Best is Pete Best, and you can hear in these versions why the Beatles went away from him.  He seems like a lovely man, though.

Paul attributes the inspiration for this song, the first recording with the “Lennon - McCartney” name ever to be published (though actually this single said “McCartney - Lennon”), to their love of the Everly Brothers, and you can hear that influence in the harmonies of this song.  Paul says that they’d never seen anyone like the Everlys “just two guys, two good-looking guys,” and he and John idolized them.  Then Buddy Holly came along and blew them away even more, a guy who wrote, sang and played guitar. 

This song was written at 20 Forthlin Road, Paul’s home from 1955-1965, up a garden path under a mountain ash tree.  This is where John and Paul wrote many of their songs when they were teenagers.  Paul says of the song:  “John came up with this riff, the little harmonica riff.  It’s so simple.  There’s nothing to it; it’s a will-o’-the-wisp song.  But there’s a terrific sense of longing in the bridge which, combined with that harmonica, touches the soul in some way.”

Guido Merkins

So by 1962 the Beatles were on the verge of stardom.  They had been signed to a recording contract and George Martin was looking for a song for them to record that would be a smash hit.  In comes a song called How Do You Do It, which Martin was convinced would be a big hit.  The Beatles recorded a version of it and do a good job with it.  But the Beatles wanted to record their own song and How Do You Do It didn’t fit how they saw themselves, as a little R&B combo.  So they wanted to release Love Me Do instead and told George Martin this.

Now you have to put this in context.  The Beatles were not yet THE BEATLES.  They were an unknown band from Liverpool where nothing good ever comes from and they have the gaul to make demands on their producer who, held their future literally in his hands.  However, to George Martin’s everlasting credit, he decided to go with Love Me Do, even though he knew it wasn’t the huge hit he was looking for.  Love Me Do reached #17 in the British charts, so his instincts were right that it was a good record.  It would be the last Beatles record for a long time that didn’t go to #1.

Love Me Do had been written a few years before by both John and Paul.  It’s most distinguishing feature with John’s harmonica which led to George Martin having to change the arrangement of the song in the middle of the session.  John usually sang the part “love me do, whoa, love me do”, but for this session he couldn’t both play the harmonica and sing this part, so Martin gave that part to Paul.  If you listen to the single version, you can still hear the wobble in Paul’s voice.

Which brings us to the question of the two versions that are out there.  The album version is Andy White on drums with the single version being the version with Ringo on drums.  George Martin, being unhappy with Pete Best, gets a session drummer and the Beatles bring in Ringo.  Martin, who had no idea if Ringo is up for the job, hands Ringo a tambourine and has Andy White on the drum kit.  You can tell which version is which by the tambourine on the Andy White version.  There is also a version of Love Me Do on Anthology 1 with Pete Best on drums.  If you still doubt that Ringo was better than Pete, go listen to this recording.  Ringo is far superior.

Another aside on this song, Mick Jagger felt sick when he heard Love Me Do because the Stones wanted to put a record in the British charts with a bluesy harmonica, but as usual, the Stones were slightly behind the Beatles.

64 List Rank: 98

64 List Voters/Points: 5/125

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (11)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

You’re Going To Lose That Girl
2022 Ranking: 74
2022 Lists: 5
2022 Points: 83
Ranked Highest by: @ManOfSteelhead(3) @Wrighteous Ray(hub)(3) Krista(Sharon) (6) @Encyclopedia Brown15 Krista(Craig) (20)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 89/1/21

Getz: Last song with five votes. Almost the first with three Top 5 votes (3-3-6).
3 --ManOfSteelhead---737.5
4 --Krista (Sharon)---692.5
9 --Wrighteous Ray(Hub)---520.5
13 --Encyclopedia Brown---448.5

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  59

2019 write-up:

You're Going To Lose That Girl (Help!, 1965)

This is one of the songs that shoots up a squillion slots in the rankings just because I can sing the harmonies, or more specifically the "response" on the call-and-response.  Oh, and it has call-and-response, in case that wasn't clear from the first sentence!  And there are bongos!  Bongos!  The fact that they're slightly off the beat makes them even better.

I shouldn't purposefully make the song seem slight just because of these items (but have I mention I can sing it and there are bongos???).  It's a great song with interesting structure and fantastic harmonies.  The key change from the verse to the bridge, and the transition to the bridge by holding that "looooo-se," bleeding the two parts together, are gorgeous and compelling.  John seems to have no trouble hitting those high notes in falsetto, and his variation in volume, almost to a whisper, at the beginning of the third verse shows a less aggressive touch that's fascinating in the overall tone of the song.  George's guitar twangs give the piece a nice texture.  To me, though, the real beauty is in Paul and George's harmonies both with John and in the responses.  This would be high on my list of "favorite Beatles harmonies."  

Also, bongos.  

Mr. krista:  [while I'm singing at the top of my lungs] "One thing is for sure, that song is hard as hell to get out of one’s head.  Another thing, while I enjoy that song, and millions of people love it, none of them love it as much as my wife does."

Suggested cover:  Nooooooooooooone!

2022 Supplement:  Ohhhhh, that 2019 ranking was too high, undoubtedly aided by the fact that I sing this one around the house as a warning to Mr. krista that, if he doesn’t shape up, he’s going to lose our cat, The Squirrel.  “If you don’t clean that lit-ter-box, you’re gonna lose that Squirrel {yes yes you’re gonna lose that Squirrel}”  If I set aside the bongos and the cat-related adaptability of the lyrics, this is kind of a simple song without a ton to argue in favor of its having been so highly ranked.  The part of the movie Help! in which this appears is a really great scene, but unfortunately I can no longer find a working link to it.  Stupid IP lawyers.

Guido Merkins

You’re Going To Lose That Girl is a cut from the Help film and the video shows the Beatles in the smoke filled studio singing the song.  After the song is over, the engineer says there was a “buzzing” sound causing them to ask, “who’s buzzing?” a likely reference to their….ummmmm….extra curricular activities at the time.  The buzzing was a saw cutting a hole causing Ringo to drop through the floor.

As far as the song, it’s kind of the same subject matter as She Loves You, a guy giving his friend advice about a girl, but whereas in She Loves You, it is implied that the girl might just be taken from the friend, in You’re Going to Lose That Girl, he flat out tells him that “i’ll make it a point of taking her away from you.”  The song has a great solo, a great vocal, great harmonies.  This might be the best vocals on the entire album. 

This is another closet classic in the Beatles catalog, every bit as good as songs that are far better known.  

64 List Rank: 97

64 List Voters/Points: 6/126

64 List Top 5: 1 @ManOfSteelhead (3)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 1

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

 

[Zegras11]

When I’m Sixty-Four
2022 Ranking: 73
2022 Lists: 7
2022 Points: 84
Ranked Highest by: @Wrighteous Ray(hub)(10) @lardonastick(12) @PIK95(12) @falguy(14) @ekbeats(15) Krista(Rob) (17) Krista(Sharon) (18)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz:  So this is the 100th song to appear in the countdown.
It’s the 39th and last song that was Not Rated in 2019.
With 143 songs listed in 2019, that would make all the songs with zero votes back then tied for 144th. And this would make “64” the song that rose the most spots (71). But, I’m going to give this one an (*) and I’ll explain why sometime next week.
All the votes fell between #10 and #18.
1 --Krista (Sharon)---792.5
6 --Wrighteous Ray(Hub)---620.5

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  154

2019 write-up:

When I'm Sixty-Four (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

Paul wrote this on his dad's piano when he was 14-16 (depending upon which interview you believe), so even though it was included on Sgt Pepper's, I don't think of it as being entirely of those canonical sessions.  Sure, some lyrics were added and the musicality of it was enhanced by what they were doing at the time, but at its core this is still a simple vaudevillian-style song from Paul's early years.  I've never considered it a serious work, which I think makes me enjoy more than if I did, and Paul himself says that he originally wrote it tongue-in-cheek without a sense of how/when it would ever be used, with hopes that maybe it would make it into a cabaret show some day.  This is simply a fun little song, and if you don't sing along when you hear it, there might be something wrong with you, or you are Mr. krista, or both.

Originally slotted to be the b-side to "Strawberry Fields Forever" before that was changed to a blockbuster double-a-side record with "Penny Lane," what shine most on this in my opinion are the flowing clarinets, the backing vocals, the final "hoo!", and the shift to a minor key for the bridge followed by the introduction back into major before the verse through the use of a cheerful chime.  Though I find most of the lyrics slight, I find this clever:

Send me a postcard, drop me a line

Stating point of view

Indicate precisely what you mean to say

Yours sincerely, wasting away

Fun facts:  Paul switches to a Scottish accent for the line "Grandchildren on your knee...".  He also had the recording sped up significantly in production to, according to Geoff Emerick and George Martin, simulate a more youthful voice or, according to Paul, make the song more "rooty-tooty."

Mr. krista:  "The Kinks had a lot of songs like that, that were English music hall variety.  But the Kinks were funny because they were really sardonic.  They were in love with England but still cynical.  So Village Green Preservation Society was just as complex musically.  Paul is kind of lacking that cynicism that might have made that song good.  It’s just in the style it’s in because that’s how it was written, not because it has anything to say about a monarchy or an empire or anything.  Music like that is why I tended to like the Kinks more than the Beatles. That part where he rolls his r’s makes me want to throw him through a wall."

Suggested covers:  Keith Moon; The Del McCoury Band

2022 Supplement:  Paul has identified the humor and the “day-to-day” in Louis MacNeice’s poem, “Bagpipe Music,” as an influence on this song.  He’s mentioned a few different items he put it for his own amusement:  a pot reference with “digging the weeds,” making it 64 instead of retirement age of 65 (Paul’s sense of humor can be unusual), using the name “Chuck” because of its association with vomit.  Paul acknowledges that, due to his age when he wrote the song, he considered 64 to be very old, but that now “it looks quite sprightly”!

I’d like to add a new suggested cover this year.  Sure, it’s from an ad, but I love hearing this version from Julian Lennon:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDrjU1FTP0

Guido Merkins

Paul’s Dad was a jazz musician, so Paul was raised on 20s style jazz.  When he was about 14, he wrote a song called When I’m 64 and Paul used to play it on piano in Hamburg when the amps went down.

When it came time to record Pepper, it seemed to fit since Pepper was meant to almost be a little variety show.  Naturally you’d have something for the older folks.  Or perhaps Paul thought of the song at that time because his Dad just turned 64.

Whatever the reason, they recorded the song with John chipping in a few lines.  At this point, John was not yet frustrated with Paul’s “granny ####”, maybe since this was the first one.  The main part of the song are the horns, clarinets and a bass clarinet to give it that old time jazzy feeling.  Paul also recorded the song, and then sped up the tape to make him sound younger.  I like the song and I think it fits perfectly on Pepper.

An interesting aside is that in early 1967 when EMI was looking for a new single, George Martin already had Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, and When I’m 64.  George Martin thought Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were the two best songs he ever recorded with them, so he used those for the single.  Later he claimed this was a huge mistake as putting either song with When I’m 64 would have resulted in the song going to #1 because the songs wouldn’t have been “competing” against each other.  Whether that’s true or not, we don’t know, but SSF and Penny Lane was the first Beatles single since Love Me Do to not reach #1 as it stalled at #2.  The thought of Pepper with either Penny Lane or Strawberry Fields on it is staggering to think about.  

64 List Rank: 96

64 List Voters/Points: 4/129

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (12, 14)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

 

[Zegras11]

Mother Nature’s Son
2022 Ranking: 104
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 34
Ranked Highest by: Krista(Worth) (7) @Getzlaf15 (16) @fatguyinalittlecoat (21)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 94/3/18

Getz comments:  I’m on the board! All day long I'm sitting doing write ups for everyone. lol.  This is my go to chill song. I didn't have the ranked in 2019. One of many songs that really grew on me during the 2019 thread.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  40

2019 write-up:

Mother Nature's Son (White Album, 1968)

I always intended to rank these two together [EDITOR’S NOTE:  this was originally written up with “Blackbird”] and do the write-ups together, because I think they're the same song.  Ok, one has tweety-bird sounds and the other doesn't, but otherwise they're similar.  They're both Paul songs on which no other Beatles perform. They're both acoustic guitar driven with Paul's finger-picking style.  They both feature pure, peaceful Paul vocals.  They were both composed just after the India trip and included on the White Album.  They both have simple but stunningly beautiful melodies and redolent lyrics.  They both have "nature" overtones, though Paul years later asserted that "Blackbird" was about the US civil right movement.  In both you can hear Paul's feet tapping.  The chord progressions even sound the same to me, though I'm too lazy to look it up right now.  Some differences exist, though, such as the small tempo changes in "Blackbird" that aren't in the comparatively simple "Mother Nature's Son," and the absence of stupid bird noises in "Mother Nature's Son." Also, not every human with a guitar plays "Mother Nature's Son."

I love both of these songs as gorgeous, near-perfect creations, the only downside of them being that they seem like Paul solo works instead of Beatles songs, primarily because they were. Actually I enjoy "Mother Nature's Son" even more than "Blackbird," finding its melody and lyrics slightly more enchanting, and that four-note guitar run at the end of the second line of the second and third verses does it for me.  I prefer it, that is, until we get to the end.  That last line, where Paul sings, "Mother Nature's soooon" as if he were ending a Broadway show, jazz hands and all, drives me batty and makes me rank it just behind "Blackbird."

Fun fact:  the recording engineer accidentally used the sound of a thrush instead of a blackbird in the initial mix of "Blackbird."  Luckily someone else caught it and corrected the error.  How embarrassing would it have been to have a thrush when everyone knows that's not a blackbird?  Whew!

Mr. krista (Mother Nature's Son):  "It’s really good.  There’s a great cover by Harry Nilsson.  It’s really beautiful."

Mr. krista (Blackbird):  "The chords are so pleasing; no wonder everyone with an acoustic guitar learns this song.  It’s perfect the way it is.  That line - into the light of the dark black night - is so evocative.  Those are some of Paul McCartney’s best lyrics and writing and it bothers me that Paul McCartney, who is clearly a fantastic writer, feels that Western trap that everything has to be symbolic, that everything has to represent some larger concept. That a thing can’t just be what it is and beautiful on its own account.  But this is some of his best songwriting.  The Tweety Bird noises don’t help it, though."

Suggested cover (Mother Nature's Son):  Well, OK, Mr. krista, here's Harry Nilsson (the use of strings instead of brass is lovely)

Suggested cover (Blackbird):  Well, duh.

2022 Supplement:  I might not rank them quite as highly today, but I’ve grown to appreciate both of these songs as a bridge to much of Paul’s solo work, with which I became even more closely familiar with in the past few years.  I can pair these now in my mind with a song like “Little Willow” or one of my top Paul solo songs, “Calico Skies,” to understand Paul’s genius in creating pure, gentle acoustic songs with simple arrangements and gorgeous melodies.  While I’m still not sure we needed these two plus “I Will” all to be on the White Album, I wouldn’t want to eliminate any of them.

Paul has spoken a lot about his inspiration for this song.  One of his childhood homes was about a mile from rural Lancashire, which he described as having the feel “as if you’d fallen off the end of the Earth.  It was all woods and streams and fields of golden corn waving – everything you love about the countryside.”  He describes that he would often go walking and just wandering around, enjoying the bird life and feeling lucky to be able to access this place, and in particular he was a “golden memory” of watching a skylark rising, “singing as if its life depends on it, and it goes up this column of air till it gets to the top, and then it stops singing and just glides down.”  All of these memories was primary to his mind when he composed this song – “a love song to the natural world.”

Oh, also:  pot.  He has said the line “my field of grass” was a little joke to himself as he liked to stick that stuff in the songs and see if anyone noticed.  So, a love song to nature and to weed.

An earlier take, a fun look into the genius at work, was included in the Anthology series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJ0c-UXHSI His vocal sounds incredible, and there are some interesting changes in the guitar part at the end, though I prefer the approach in the finished product.  Also a terrific version of this in the Esher demos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu3zzAeII_I

Guido Merkins

The Beatles spent time in 1968 in Rishikesh and wrote most of the songs that would eventually be on the White Album.  One of the lectures from the Maharishi resulted in a Lennon song called Child of Nature (which would eventually be known as Jealous Guy) and a McCartney song called Mother Nature’s Son.  

Mother’s Nature Son was recorded by McCartney solo (which is something Lennon increasingly hated).  Paul recorded the drums like halfway down a hall or something, so they sound kind of muffled.  The main thing is Paul on acoustic guitar, which he did so well.  The vocal is outstanding.  There is also some brass on the song which George Martin helped with.  

I like the song, but in my opinion it’s the weakest of Paul’s 3 solo acoustic songs on the White Album after Blackbird and I Will and I’m not sure it’s really needed, but on the White Album almost nothing was discarded.

64 List Rank: 95

64 List Voters/Points: 5/129

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

From Me To You
2022 Ranking: 155
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 9
Ranked Highest by: Krista (TJ/Holly) (22)  @AAABatteries (22) @Alex P Keaton (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 122/2/8

Getz: This would make my Top 64. First song to have multiple voters from 2019 and 2022. Holly is the 5th to have two songs listed so far. YT Video above is live from 2/11/1964, Wash DC. 

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  92

2019 write-up:

From Me To You (single, 1963)

Written on a tour bus during their 1963 tour with Helen Shapiro, this song was inspired by a column called "From Us to You" in the British weekly, New Musical Express, and became the first Beatles song to hit #1 on all three British pop charts ("Please Please Me" reached #1 on two of the three) and the first in a string of 11 singles that would hit the top of all the UK charts.  Although "Thank You Girl" was pegged to be their next single, once people (including others on the Helen Shapiro tour) heard this one, the decision was clear to make this the a-side and relegate "Thank You Girl" to the b-side of the single.  Interestingly, it didn't catch hold in the US very quickly, not even breaking the top 100, and a cover by Del Shannon that was released within a week of the Beatles's version performed slightly better on the charts than the original.  It was only later, when the song was re-released as the b-side to "Please Please Me" in the US, that the song became a US hit.

The song had double the musical "trick" that Paul described them as having employed at the time, which was to put the word "I," "You," or "Me" in the song to make it seem like they were singing directly and personally to the fans.  The chord progressions in the middle eight represented a departure that it seems in interviews that Paul was particularly proud of:  in the part that goes "I've got arms that long..." they slip into a minor chord (G-minor) that was unexpected and different from the structure of their prior efforts.  Beautiful harmonies here that weave perfectly in and out of the unison singing, along with a great bluesy feel with the usual-at-that-time harmonica.  I find the opening sweetly melodic and intriguing - if I hadn't heard the song before, those "da da da dun dun"s would have me excited to find out what was to come.  A wee bit of pop perfection.

Mr. krista:  "I think it’s a fine pop song, but the stuff that gets me excited about other Beatles stuff it doesn’t seem to have. Kind of clever lyrics, but just a nice pop song."

Suggested cover:  Have to admit that the Del Shannon cover mentioned above was pretty damn good.  Faster tempo and feels almost surf-y to me.

2022 Supplement:  Let’s turn to Paul again and see what he has to say:  “John and I were still living at home when the Beatles started making records, and it occurred to us we should try and reach out to our fans. … ‘Love Me Do’ was a very personal plea…so after that came this song, ‘From Me to You.”  We used every trick in the book.  There was a catchy sing-along intro; you didn’t even have to know the words and you could sing along with that.  We were foregounding the sound of John’s harmonica on these songs. … The idea of sending a letter was always a big thing in rock and roll.”  Paul also described that they were on tour with Roy Orbison when they wrote this, which of course is in opposition to earlier reports that they wrote it on the Helen Shapiro tour (note the recurring theme that Paul is an unreliable narrator):  “It was a special image to me, at twenty-one, to be walking down the aisle of the bus and there on the back seat of the bus is Roy Orbison, in black with his dark glasses, working on his guitar, writing ‘Pretty Woman.  There was a camaraderie, and we were inspiring each other, which is always a lovely thing.”

Guido Merkins

After Please Please Me was a hit, George Martin asked for something as good as that.  John and Paul had From Me To You next and there was a lot more where that came from.  From Me To You was the Beatles 2nd #1.

Paul has expressed pride in From Me To You because of the middle and how it goes to a minor chord (I’ve got arms that long to hold you…)    John expressed that From Me To You was far bluesier when they wrote it then what came out on the record.  It features John on the harmonica again and John and Paul singing dual lead in harmony.  Another Beatles trademark, the WOOOOO (Little Richard was their inspiration) which they would repeat on She Loves You and throughout the early years. 

From Me To You is a great early Beatles single and as big as the Beatles were at this point, it would be She Loves You that would really send them into the stratosphere.  

64 List Rank: 94

64 List Voters/Points: 5/134

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

64 List winner here...

 

[Zegras11]

Magical Mystery Tour
2022 Ranking: 94
2022 Lists: 5
2022 Points: 44
Ranked Highest by: @Anarchy99 (6) @Doc Holiday (15) @Man of Constant Sorrow (17) @shuke (23) @Dwayne Hoover (24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 88/4/22

Getz: Doc H and Shuke on the board!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  132

2019 write-up:

Magical Mystery Tour (Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)

More carnival music, but this one is particularly fun.  The tempo changes are a blast, and I love the bassline, the whooshing bus sounds, and more than anything else the piano coda that trails off into the ether.  I'm not surprised this was recorded a few days after Sgt. Pepper's; it still has the feel of a band pretending to be a different band.  I like to pretend that Paul never said the "dying to take you away" was in reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead; I prefer to think of this as an amusing carnival barker song with some interesting effects.

Mr. krista:  "What I like best were the tempo changes. Otherwise it seemed like half a song. They knew they were breaking up."

Suggested cover:  Cheap Trick

2022 Supplement:  When you listen to this song, it’s befuddling how the decision was made to broadcast this film in black-and-white rather than in color.  This question arises with many of the songs, but to me the title song of the film is the most obvious number that is all about psychedelia, circuses and other brightly colored endeavors.  It’s no wonder that the film was a monumental flop, but I’m happy to find that it’s become more well-received over the years.

Paul has called this song “very much in our fairground period.  One of our great inspirations was always the barker: 'Roll up! Roll up!' The promise of something-- the newspaper ad that says 'guaranteed not to crack,' the 'high class' butcher, 'satisfaction guaranteed' from Sgt. Pepper... You'll find that pervades a lot of [our] songs.”

Guido Merkins

After the success of Pepper, the Beatles thought they could do no wrong.  So Paul had this idea to make a film about them traveling across the country on a bus and filming whatever happened.  The resulting film was shown by the BBC on Boxing Day in black and white, making most of the colorful images and such moot.  The film was hated almost universally.

The resulting songs were more successful, although kind of a poor-man’s Sgt Pepper.  No song better fits that than the title track Magical Mystery Tour.  Written primarily by Paul it attempts to introduce the concept the same way that Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band introduces that album.  Lots of horns and tempo changes are contained in the song.  They are “coming to take you away” and even “DYING to take you away.”  Sounds of the bus roaring by are also present.  Perhaps the best part is the end piano piece which follows in the grand tradition of the Beatles putting something at the end of a song that seems to lift the proceedings.

Overall, I agree with the fact that Magical Mystery Tour is kind of warmed over Sgt Pepper, but without the great guitar flourish.  I like the song and when Paul played it live in concert for his 1993 tour, I liked it.  But I always hear the songs from Magical Mystery Tour as their psychedelic period running on fumes.  The White Album would get them back to their roots with some more substantial work.

64 List Rank: 93

64 List Voters/Points: 7/139

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

First with 7 voters...

 

[Zegras11]

Wait
2022 Ranking: 117
2022 Lists: 5
2022 Points: 25
Ranked Highest by: @ProstheticRGK (18) @Murph(20) @Encyclopedia Brown (21) @rockaction (21) @heckmanm (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 123T/1/8

Getz:  Our first song with five votes, but none above #18. Heckmann now on the board.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  87

2019 write-up:

Wait (Rubber Soul, 1965)

Things are a bit of a crapshoot at this point.  I mean, these are all great songs.  Somehow when I did my original rankings into five tiers, this one ended up in the fourth tier.  I don't know why, and now I've placed it more in line with what I actually think.  Maybe because Rubber Soul is just so damn good, this one suffers in comparison - it's a little same-y, and I don't like the ending.   What I do love is the build of the instrumentation in each of the verses - the light tambourine building into the maracas and drums, the backward fill from Ringo at 0:11, the guitar adding in mimicry of the yelp, "Wait!".  That sonic build gives the song such a pleasing texture, and I think the rhythms of the song work as a further expression of the lyrics, as if they were the stop-and-start of a relationship.

The song was recorded for Help! but ultimately left off that album, but the exact provenance of this song is somewhat unknown.  For years most people credited it as solely or mostly a John song, but in the mid-90s Paul indicated that he thought this was his composition with little or no input from John, and that he wrote it in the Bahamas while hanging out with former child actor Brandon de Wilde.  To me, the insecurity of the verses sounds like John and the sunnier bridge like Paul.

Mr. krista:  "I like playing maracas instead of a high hat.  The first time I heard that was Sonic Youth and it sounded so good.  Now that I think about it, it’s the same beat. [Plays Sonic Youth song 'Bull in the Heather.']  Yes, it’s the same."

Suggested cover:  Wowza.  Bettye LaVette

2022 Supplement:  As I mentioned in 2019, this was left off the Help! Album, and looking back now it sounds to me like a good bridge between Help! and Rubber Soul.  “Wait” almost missed out on Rubber Soul, as it was the last song pulled out of the earlier sessions and added.  It has some of the simplicity in the lyrics that is more characteristic of the earlier record, but, due to the overdubs (such as maracas and tambourine) that were added when it was resurrected, it also shows the much fuller instrumentation that the band progressed toward on Rubber Soul and beyond.  The song starts in such a jarring but pleasing (to me) way, with John a capella for the first words until the downbeat, and then it takes a number of interesting twists and turns, from odd meter (six measures on the verses and five on the choruses) and unusual syncopation and key changes to the way the full instrumentation weaves in and out of the song.  I love how at the end of the chorus, all the instruments suddenly go quiet other than the tambourine.  Lots of little effects like that in this song make it a compelling listen even for the squillionth time. 

Guido Merkins

The Beatles were progressing quite nicely in early 1965.  But the next album would really be the biggest jump of their career up to this point (with an even bigger one in 1966.)  Rubber Soul was the Beatles leaving behind the lovable moptops forever.  It took only one month to create a masterpiece, but at the end of that one month, they only had 13 songs.  They needed one more.

If there is one song that sounds like it’s not such a leap forward, it’s Wait.  Not that it’s a bad song, but it sounds a bit like the Help album.  There’s a reason for that.  It was from the Help album.  Wait didn’t make it to the Help album, so being one song short on Rubber Soul, they resurrected Wait and added some overdubs and added it to the album.

The volume pedal guitar by George is straight from I Need You on the Help album and Yes It Is, the B side of the Ticket to Ride single, from the Help sessions.  Wait is one of the few songs that the Beatles wrote in a minor key.  Paul writing another song about Jane Asher telling her to “wait.”  The harmonies are also great on the song.  And I like the middle part a lot (I feel as though, you ought to know…”

Overall a good song, but compared to the others on this album, nothing spectacular.

64 List Rank: 92

64 List Voters/Points: 5/144

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

Tell Me What You See
2022 Ranking: 111
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 30
Ranked Highest by: Krista(Sharon) (2) @falguy (21) @landrys hat (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR

Getz comments:  Finally! We get two first timers. Sharon has her 3rd and 2nd go back-to-back.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  99

2019 write-up:

Tell Me What You See (Help!, 1965)

This seems to be considered by many, including the Beatles, as "filler" and was deemed by Richard Lester to be too weak to include in the movie.  Jerks.  I love this song.  Love that funky piano part that ends with a driving bass drum and snare bringing it back together.  Love Paul and John seamlessly switching between harmonies and unison, and the big jump between the first two words of the verses ("If you") followed by a pleasing downward progression.  Love the little claves sounds and whatever the hell it is that George is doing.*  In the harmonies, you can hear that they are not quite singing on the same beat - I'm not sure if it was intended, but while they're both singing kinda on the downbeat, John comes in a microsecond earlier than Paul.  Whether intended or not, it forms a nice complement to the strong 4/4 time being kept by the percussion.

*Turns out that George was playing a güiro.  

Mr. krista:  "This is a’right.   Yeah, that’s a fantastic song.  The first part of the chorus part that’s so flat, so someone singing lower end and then it’s all intense and kind of insane.  I don’t even understand the instrumentation that’s going on.  I guess there are guitars there, but Paul’s electric piano sounds great, which usually depresses me, but in those breaks it’s coupled with Ringo’s backward ### fills."

Suggested cover:  Teenage Fanclub

2022 Supplement:  This is probably a bit bland compared to some songs below it on my initial ranking and should have been moved down.  I still enjoy everything I mentioned, but this isn’t a song I seek out.  Not much more to say!

Guido Merkins

Tell Me What You See is a “work” song as McCartney put it, meaning they saw it as nothing more than an album track for the Help album.  Paul claimed John helped (60-40), John claimed it was totally McCartney.

The song is not spectacular, but it has some interesting things.  First, the verse “Big and black the clouds may be, time will pass away.  If you put your trust in me, I’ll make bright your day” is a really good verse and, apparently, it was inspired by something hanging in Aunt Mimi’s house.  Second, instruments.  The Hohner Pianet electric piano which they used on several songs on the Help album.  Claves played by Ringo and the guiro played by George (a wooden stick scraping against notches to produce a percussive sound.) 

Even though the song is not terribly impressive or one of their more well-known songs, it is a decent album track and shows the continuing growth of the Beatles as song writers and recording artists.

64 List Rank: 91

64 List Voters/Points: 4/148

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (21, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

Last song with 4 votes...

 

[otb_lifer]

I should say that while I’d like a slowdown that could make for more discussion, I’m aware that several people have checked out of the thread entirely due to @otb_lifer’s posts here and elsewhere.  And yeah, I’m going there.  If multiple excellent folks tell me that, as they have, I’m gonna share it regardless of my own opinions.  So discussion might not happen for that reason, whatever the speed of the reveal. 

By the way, while she didn’t mention anyone by name, even my mom checked out because she said that “some of the folks just sound like jerks.”

when i saw things getting testy about John early on in the thread, i excused myself from commenting for a couple/few weeks ... didn't see the point in continuing down that path. 

but i love the band to death, and missed your first go 'round as i was not participating on the board at all for well over a year ... so i wanted to be a part of this, and got my list in to Getz toot sweet. 

i decided to jump back in when things heated up to the top 100 or so - felt like some of the deeper cuts i love and voted for were due for some over the top praise from yours truly. 

the Preston Saturday night debacle went off the rails due to some bad mix of contrarian stance and a few too many pops of great beer and bourbon. can't be any more succinct than that. 

i was reported, and sat down by the mods for a spell - bad outcome - but can't say, given the circumstances, that it was something i felt was unfair - was not the thread i needed to be spouting off some drunken barbs, etc.  

the dig i took in the other thread yesterday was edited away, as a cooler head prevailed. please acknowledge that as a good faith realization on my part. 

to those who avoided this thread because of these actions, all i can do is say that your presence here means more than the bullcrap that went on that night - apologies to those who strayed because of it - i'm usually not one to give a hang about matters,  but K4s love and hard work (along with Getz and Guido) didn't deserve the shennanigans i participated in. this thread is the gold standard of the FFA, it deserves better. full.  stop. 

tl;dr - to all friends, family, loved ones: don't penalize the hard work and love and passion that flows in here like wine because of it - this thread is bigger than that, and it needs to be given back to you all who helped make it the behemoth it is.  

- OtB

 

[AAABatteries]

Wow.  Well I like the apparent "smoothing" of some, it's a bummer to see something that someone loved the most ( @John Maddens Lunchbox ) get "shut out" in a way because of the bigger lists.  I'm sure JML can understand as he's doing a longer list exercise with U2. 

I know that some others who had this song higher dropped out of the 64 either due to being busy or, sadly, because of the unnecessary AND offensive posts of another person here.  This isn't a song on my 64, so it's not personal, but I do think that it's getting dinged because of the nature of this site.

That or because it’s crap. One of the two.

 

[MAC_32]

It showed up on my 65-96(98). I guess it needs a top 100 exercise.

I think 64 was about right. I liked having to choose which of the hits to add with my final few votes. 

 

[MAC_32]

That or because it’s crap. One of the two.

I will say the only words I know you understand

 

[krista4]

when i saw things getting testy about John early on in the thread, i excused myself from commenting for a couple/few weeks ... didn't see the point in continuing down that path. 

but i love the band to death, and missed your first go 'round as i was not participating on the board at all for well over a year ... so i wanted to be a part of this, and got my list in to Getz toot sweet. 

i decided to jump back in when things heated up to the top 100 or so - felt like some of the deeper cuts i love and voted for were due for some over the top praise from yours truly. 

the Preston Saturday night debacle went off the rails due to some bad mix of contrarian stance and a few too many pops of great beer and bourbon. can't be any more succinct than that. 

i was reported, and sat down by the mods for a spell - bad outcome - but can't say, given the circumstances, that it was something i felt was unfair - was not the thread i needed to be spouting off some drunken barbs, etc.  

the dig i took in the other thread yesterday was edited away, as a cooler head prevailed. please acknowledge that as a good faith realization on my part. 

to those who avoided this thread because of these actions, all i can do is say that your presence here means more than the bullcrap that went on that night - apologies to those who strayed because of it - i'm usually not one to give a hang about matters,  but K4s love and hard work (along with Getz and Guido) didn't deserve the shennanigans i participated in. this thread is the gold standard of the FFA, it deserves better. full.  stop. 

tl;dr - to all friends, family, loved ones: don't penalize the hard work and love and passion that flows in here like wine because of it - this thread is bigger than that, and it needs to be given back to you all who helped make it the behemoth it is.  

- OtB

Wow.  I couldn’t imagine a more lovely reply.  Thank you for all of this.  

 

[falguy]

When I’m Sixty-Four

64 List Rank: 96

64 List Voters/Points: 4/129

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (12, 14)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

Only 4 have this in their top 64?  What is wrong with you people? 

"Woo!"

 

[falguy]

Tell Me What You See
2022 Ranking: 111
2022 Lists: 3
2022 Points: 30
Ranked Highest by: Krista(Sharon) (2) @falguy (21) @landrys hat (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: NR
 

64 List Rank: 91

64 List Voters/Points: 4/148

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (21, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

Last song with 4 votes...

Still love this song and not at all embarrassed to have it in my top 25. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

64 List Rank: 109

64 List Voters/Points: 6/92

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: 6 (35, 39, 52, 54, 55, 63)

A song that benefited from 1-64 lists

Good Day Sunshine just missed for me. I had it at 68.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

64 List Rank: 108

64 List Voters/Points: 3/96

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 0

64 List 26-64 votes: (28, 33 ,38)

Martha My Dear is my 28. I adore it.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

64 List Rank: 105

64 List Voters/Points: 3/106

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (20)

64 List 26-64 votes: 2

The Word is good. I had it at 31.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

64 List Rank: 92

64 List Voters/Points: 5/144

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1 (25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

I waited until 33 before putting this on my list.

 

[simey]

64 List Rank: 127

64 List Voters/Points: 3/63

64 List Top 5: 1 @Shaft41 (5)

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1

64 List 26-64 votes: 2 (62,62)

I ranked this song #62. I think the harmonies are beautiful in it. What kept me from ranking it higher is I think it should have been considered part of The Medley. I think it fits with those sequence of songs. I don't mean that Getz should have considered it part of the The Medley, I mean in general The Medley is considered started at You Never Give Me Your Money.

 

[MAC_32]

Only 4 have this in their top 64?  What is wrong with you people? 

"Woo!"

When I'm 64 is...fine, but I think it and LSD are the lowest points on Peppers. They'd both be in consideration if we went to 100, but they'd both probably fall in a massive tier of it depends on the day. In my mind there's a big difference between that tier and the one Kite fell in just outside of my 64. I think I included every other track from the album on my list.

 

[simey]

64 List Rank: 111

64 List Voters/Points: 2/87

64 List Top 5: 1 @simey (3)

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 1

64 List 26-64 votes: 1 (40)

Who else put this (Sgt. Pepper's Reprise) in their Top 64?  

 

[MAC_32]

Martha My Dear is my 28. I adore it.

I enjoy it regardless, but in the interest of transparency i slid it down my list a bit when finding out the song was written about a dog. Right or wrong, my mind immediately went to Can't Hardly Wait when Preston found out the truth about the meaning behind the Barry Manilow song from the stripper. Gutted for him. And now that's what I think about whenever Martha comes on the shuffle. 

 

[MAC_32]

Who else put this (Sgt. Pepper's Reprise) in their Top 64?  

Both With A Little Help From My Friends and A Day In The Life would be a lot higher if they were combo packs. I omitted both Peppers tracks from my 25 because I don't view them as complete songs, but they were always auto add's in the 64.

 

[simey]

Both With A Little Help From My Friends and A Day In The Life would be a lot higher if they were combo packs. I omitted both Peppers tracks from my 25 because I don't view them as complete songs, but they were always auto add's in the 64.

   I think of them as companion songs. I have both Sgt. Pepper's songs in the Top 64 side by side with their mates. 

 

[krista4]

Last night's countdown songs massacred OH's and my mom's lists. 

At one point OH had four in a row go off the board!  He lost his #9 (Dig a Pony), #37 (Cry Baby Cry), #44 (Any Time At All), #59 (Good Morning Good Morning), and #63 (Good Day Sunshine, which I was shocked made his list).

My mom got it even worse, losing eight of her songs!  They were her #11 (Love Me Do), #26 (Tell Me Why), #35 (Mother Nature's Son), #36 (Wait), #45 (Girl), #55 (Good Day Sunshine), #56 (You're Going to Lose That Girl), and #59 (Cry Baby Cry).

I lost three, my #29 (Dig A Pony), #60 (Mother Nature's Son), and #62 (Any Time At All).  Look at me, being all chalky again.