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

[Tom Hagen]

I just left the office after the final day of a brutal tax season. Here Comes the Sun came on the radio and 3 months of stress instantly disappeared. 

 

[krista4]

I just left the office after the final day of a brutal tax season. Here Comes the Sun came on the radio and 3 months of stress instantly disappeared. 

Perfection.  And congrats on tax day!!  My dad was a CPA, so this was always a big day for us, too.   

 

[Zegras11]

Here, There and Everywhere
2022 Ranking: 68
2022 Lists: 7
2022 Points: 94
Ranked Highest by: @Guido Merkins(3) @FairWarning(10) @fatguyinalittlecoat (12) @Oliver Humanzee (15) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (16) @ManOfSteelhead (18)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 55T/6/60

Getz comments:  Guido goes back-to-back and Fatguy nails a three-peat and four of the last five to be posted. Binky starts to sweat. Guido's last paragraph is 

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  51

2019 write-up:

Here, There and Everywhere (Revolver, 1966)

I've heard and read interviews with Paul in which he says this is the favorite of his songs.  John loved it, too, deeming it one of his favorites of all the Beatles songs.  I've wondered if John's opinion of the song influenced Paul's thinking; when I've read about their friendship, it's seemed to me that Paul was often hoping for John's approval.  Paul has mentioned John's praise of the song as "one of the nicest little moments" they had together.

This is one of those perfect songs that I don't rate more highly simply because love songs are not one of my preferred genres.  Still, Paul's haunting almost-falsetto vocal set against the shimmering backing vocals are irresistible.  Paul has stated that he wanted to sound like Marianne Faithfull with the near-falsetto, and his vocal was recorded at a slower speed then sped up for the recording to give it more of the high-pitched, boyish sound.  While the short introduction and the first verse address the "here," and the second verse contemplates the "there," my favorite part of the song is the "everywhere," which is covered in the bridge.  The second verse glides upward to a new key for the bridge, where the backing vocals also cease and are replaced by a more prominent guitar; it's this wobbly, slightly menacing guitar riff (starting ~1:02) followed by the lead vocal falling back down into the original major key that's my favorite part of the song.

Mr. krista:  "Did you notice that the song is in three different time signatures?  [We listen several more times as we count it out.] I like how it works with the previous song ("Love You To").  It’s like the Eastern and Western counterparts to the same sentiment – live for the day type thing.  I like it more than I thought I did.  It really rewards conscious listening, or whatever I do while I’m playing a baseball game on my phone.  Those really beautiful multi-tracked harmonies and guileless presentation show you how much he loved Pet Sounds.  Both those records probably alienated large chunks of their fanbase."

Suggested cover:  Of course Emmylou

2022 Supplement:  In the book The Lyrics, Paul reiterates that, “if pushed,” he would name this as his favorite of all of his songs.  He mentions in that book that he and John were trying to emulate old-fashioned songs like Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” by having “a completely rambling preamble.”  Paul’s favorite aspect of this song is its seeming circularity, comparing it to going for a walk and suddenly arriving where you’ve started, but then finding you haven’t gone in a circle and instead have come to a different beginning of the path you were taking.  Somehow that all makes sense to me when I listen to this song, and it makes me love it even more.

Paul’s favorite line in the song is “Changing my life with a wave of her hand,” which he describes as the power of the little thing.  Changing a life while doing hardly anything.  Stunningly beautiful sentiment.

Guido Merkins

John did not hand out praise easily.  So when John told Paul “I think that’s the best one on the album” Paul knew that he had written a good song.  Here, There, and Everywhere from Revolver is one of many Paul McCartney ballads.  This one stands out, however, for several reasons.  First, the influence of the Beach Boys was in full flower here with those block harmonies.  Second, the intro in the style of songs from the 1930s which are full blown intros that are not repeated anywhere else in the song.  Third, the way each verse begins with “Here” or “There” and the bridge starts with “Everywhere.”  Once again, this suggests that Paul was thinking about the songs that he heard as a young boy from his Dad.

I love the minimal instrumentation including Ringo and George’s guitar after the line “....and if she’s beside me I know I need never care…”  And it’s a small detail, but I love the little bass run that Paul does during “each one believing that love never dies…”

In closing, this song will always have a special significance for me.  It was the first song my Mom told me to go listen to when, at the age of 12 having already inhaled both of the Beatles Greatest Hits album and asked her “what else do they have?”  I listened to it on my Mom’s old mono vinyl album with pops and clicks, but it’s not exaggerating to say that I heard that song and I was in love.  I don’t think I listened to anything else for a week.  Just that one song.  Over and over again.  I hadn’t heard any pop song that beautiful before.  I didn’t know what I was listening to.  Didn’t know about the Beach Boys influence.  Didn’t know how unusual the intro was.  Didn’t even fully appreciate the instrumentation.  I just know I loved those vocals.  It hit me right in the heart.

Here, There and everywhere

64 List Rank: 59

64 List Voters/Points: 15/316

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (15, 18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

I had this at #60

 

[Zegras11]

The Long And Winding Road (Naked Version / Remastered 2013)
2022 Ranking: 23
2022 Lists: 20
2022 Points: 283
Ranked Highest by: Rob (1) Daughter (4) Son2 (4) @PIK95 (5) @otb_lifer (6) @falguy (6) @Tom Hagen (7) Michael (7) @ekbeats (12) @neal cassady (13) @pecorino (13) @Gr00vus (14) @FairWarning (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 65/4/45

Getz: Or is this the song that moved up the most in 2022?  Depends on how you want to define it, I guess. Ob-La-Di moved up 68 slots. Road moved up 42 slots.  It went from 1 vote to 13, 10 points to 154. Winding Road went from 4 votes to 20, and 45 points to 283.  That’s an increase of 238 points, which is 84 more points than “dot” increased.  So which one moved up the most?

The four votes in 2019 ranged from #12 to #18.
In 2022, Winding Road had EIGHT votes in the Top 7. There are five songs yet to be posted that can’t make that claim.

So Get Back was a major influence on this countdown, except for one song. I’m wondering why this song had the greatest impact on the list? Hope that can be discussed.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  104

2019 write-up:

The Long and Winding Road (Let It Be, 1970)

My view of the Spector-ing of this song is completely the opposite of what I posted above about "I Me Mine."  In this instance, if I were forced to rank the Spector-ed version, it would be in my bottom 20 songs.  I hate what he did on this one that much - to me, it feels like he made it into a Disney song or the part in a particularly schmaltzy rom-com where the two leads run across the screen finally landing into each other's arms.  I also especially despise the "Yeah yeah yeah" from Paul at the end.  I realize some people prefer the Spector version, and I'm not saying those people are all murderers or rapists in their spare time, but that they are not people I'd feel safe being in the same room with.

On my side in the "Spector or no Spector" argument on this song I have some pretty good company - Paul McCartney.  Paul was absolutely livid about Spector being brought in to remix the album, which was done without informing either him or George Martin.  It seems to have been an idea coming from John and Allen Klein (the hiring of whom was another source of huge rancor between Paul and the others), and George and Ringo didn't object.   But Paul's ire was particularly strong in terms of what they did to this song, especially the addition of a female choir, which Paul said never should have been a Beatles record.  In typical nice Paul fashion he later said, "I don't think it made it the worst record ever, but the fact that now people were putting stuff on our records that certainly one of us didn't know about was wrong," but at the time, he was more direct:  God how I  Paul's letter to Allen Klein about this.

Unfortunately the letter didn't do any good.  Nor was George Martin's suggestion accepted that the liner notes should read "Produced by George Martin, over-produced by Phil Spector."

So, I'm evaluating the "Naked" version instead, which is what I've linked above - by the way, I was a little worried about googling "long winding naked" but it all turned out OK.  Listening to that one, what I love most about this song is Paul's voice.  It just might be my favorite Paul vocal in all of Beatledom; it is so pure, tender, and vulnerable.  The problem is that I just don't connect with the rest of the song that well.  Maybe it's just PTSD from the Spector version.  I don't find the lyrics bad, but they also don't do anything for me.  The music is just OK to me - John flubs the bass quite a bit, and I actively dislike some of the piano accompaniment.  But because I love that vocal so hard, I still find this song hauntingly beautiful and count it as a favorite.  Well, a top 100-ish favorite.

Mr. krista:  "The naked version is a lot better, but it’s still not any good.  It just seems so maudlin and affected.  There’s a pomposity about it.  The strings and all that had been the focus of my ire, but hearing it without all that…what I like best are John Lennon’s ####ed-up bass notes."

Suggested cover:  As you'd expect, there are a lot of good covers of this song.  Since Paul said he wrote this song with Ray Charles in mind, and Ray said he cried the first time he heard the song, seems most fitting to post his cover.  Plus, he's Ray Charles.

2022 Supplement:  In 1966, Paul bought a farmhouse on the Mull of Kintyre, a remote retreat from which he could see in the distance a twisting road that would take him to Campbeltown.  Two years later, he developed this song, which became the Beatles’ last #1 hit in the US, reaching that position on June 13, 1970.

Paul has said that what he loves about the song is that it resonates with people in powerful ways:  “For those who were there at the time, there seems to be a double association of terrific sadness and also a sense of hope, particularly in the assertion that the road that ‘leads to your door / will never disappear’.”  He says that he likes to disappear in the writing of his songs, pretending that it is being written or recorded by someone else (as he did with Ray Charles in this one), because “the last thing I’d want to be writing is a Paul McCartney song.”  By putting on a mask, it frees him up and takes away any anxiety, and then at the end, the song takes on its own meaning, with the road leading “not to Campbeltown, but to somewhere you never expected.”

Guido Merkins

One of the most controversial recordings from the Beatles is The Long and Winding Road from the Let It Be album.  Paul brought the song in during the Twickenham sessions in January 1969.  When the idea of a live concert was dropped it was decided that some of the songs could be studio recordings, so at Apple Studios they worked on the song.

Once the album got shelved, John and George brought in Phil Spector who added all kinds of things to the recordings.  The most embellishments were placed on the Long and Winding Road, a harp, heavenly choirs, lots of over the top strings and brass.  After initially approving the mix, Paul began to resent what was done to the song (not sure when he changed his mind or if originally he just went along to keep the peace.)  In any event, this song was front and center in the lawsuit, Paul claiming he would never have done that to the song.  In fairness, however, horns and strings were first suggested by Paul and George during the original sessions. 

I find this song frustrating because there has never been, what I call, a truly satisfactory version of this song released.  The one on the original Let It Be album has too much of the Spector enhancements.  The one on Let It Be Naked is a totally different version, which is not quite as good as the finished version without the enhancements.  The one on Anthology 3 has no enhancements, which it kind of needs a little bit of and it has an annoying spoken word section by Paul.  The best version, I think, is the live one on Wings Over America.  

I like the song a lot, but it’s a shame that the lack of communication and the lack of will near the end resulted in a good song never realizing it’s potential.

The Long and Winding Road

64 List Rank: 58

64 List Voters/Points: 10/322

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 3 (6, 6, 7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 4

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

So this is the song I talked about early on while taking votes.  This song was #23 on the 1-26 Countdown.

We had 23 voters send in 1-64 lists.

The first FIVE did not list this song.

I listed it #64 as the sixth voter.  1/1 138th place at the time.

After 10 votes in: 2/28, 119th place

After 12 votes in: 3/39, 118th place

After 15 votes in: 4/98, 90th place

The last 8 voters voted for it six times,  for 224 points. That included a 6th and 7th.

 

[Zegras11]

She’s Leaving Home
2022 Ranking: 63
2022 Lists: 12
2022 Points: 109
Ranked Highest by: @Uruk-Hai (8) @Oliver Humanzee(dad)(12) @ManOfSteelhead (15) @Binky The Doormat (15) @Shaft41 (15) @pecorino (17) @Encyclopedia Brown (19) @John Maddens Lunchbox (22) @Dr. Octopus (23)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 103/2/15

Getz comments:  One of the 2019 songs that moved up the most in 2022, 40 spots.  Ten more votes and 94 more points. Only one Top 10 vote though. First song with over 10 votes.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  133

2019 write-up:

She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

I dunno...a lot of you guys seem to love this song, including tim who raved about what a beautiful ballad John wrote.   But the version I've heard, by Paul, doesn't do a lot for me and seems painfully earnest, except...I absolutely adore the string arrangement and one particular lyric.  So much so that this ranks at #133 almost solely on the basis of these two things.  When I hear this song, I'm entranced by the strings and tune everything else out, which is good since I don't enjoy much else of it, especially especially the "Greek chorus" over what I find a weak Paul vocal.  The "parents" singing as the Greek chorus and the "byyyye byyyye" make me cringe every time.

This is a song where Paul is a bit John-esque in that he based it, loosely, on something he'd read in the paper, rather than coming up with a fictitious world all his own as he often did.  In this case, Paul read a story about a girl named Melanie Coe who had run away from her posh home, to the befuddlement of her parents.  Interestingly, Ms. Coe enjoyed the song for some time without imagining it was about her; it was only years later that her mother put it together for her after seeing an interview with Paul.  In part she had never imagined it was her because she didn't leave with "a man from the motor trade."

The string arrangement is perhaps my favorite in a Beatles song, which is interesting since it's one of the only arrangements not by George Martin, who was too busy at the time and (unwillingly) ceded to Mike Leander.  I find the arrangement tight and not extraneous in any way as Martin's sometimes were.  The second thing I love about the song is one lyric in particular:  "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years."  Obviously the girl in question was not living literally alone, so the implication is devastating but possibly familiar to anyone who has felt that distance with those to whom we're physically closest.  It's one of my favorite single lines in a Beatles song.

Fun fact:  Coincidentally, Ms. Coe won a lip-synch contest at which the Beatles performed and Paul presented the award a few years before the song was written. 

If you think I have it too low, at least I like it more than Mr. krista does:  "So ####### boring.  She leaves a comfortable life for more comfort.  Oh, she’s bored, so she gets to go have fun.  That’s the whitest #### ever.  And her parents are bummed.  Who gives a ####.  The stakes are so pitifully low.  'Oh, I’ve like to have more fun, so I guess I’ll leave.'"

Suggested cover:  One of my favorite covers of any Beatles song, Billy freaking Bragg

2022 Supplement:  Paul has later said that, in addition to the news story, he was influenced in writing this by the broadcast by the weekly television series The Wednesday Play, of a play called “Cathy Come Home,” directed by Ken Loach, which was a play about homelessness and was viewed by a quarter of the UK population on its initial broadcast.  He viewed the recording as almost a script for this play, with a narrator describing the protagonist’s actions along with a mini Greek chorus.  Paul isn’t sure a song like this could be written now, except in musical theater, which was a genre he says John hated with one exception:  West Side Story.  John and Paul had seen that one together, including the film, and thought it “ballsy enough” for them both.    

Guido Merkins

George Martin had been involved in everything the Beatles had done.  But in 1967 during the sessions for Sgt Pepper, Paul was inspired and ready to work on a new song called She’s Leaving Home, but Martin was unavailable.  So Paul called another arranger to help him with the strings and, for the first time, going around George Martin.  Martin was hurt, but got over it and produced the session.

She’s Leaving Home is the brother of Eleanor Rigby in that it is strictly using strings and none of the traditional Beatles instruments.  There was also a harp on the recording, Sheila Bromberg, the first female to play on a Beatles record.  Alse interesting is the difference between the stereo and mono mix of the song.  The mono is much faster, and therefore at a higher pitch than the stereo version.  

Paul wrote the song inspired by a news story of a girl running away from home.  I like the line about “meeting a man from the motor trade.”  I also like Paul singing and John singing as the voice of the parents (we gave her most of our life….)

I like the song, but it feels a bit forced when compared to Rigby.  Of course, Rigby is one of the Beatles best songs, so that might not be a fair comparison. 

She's Leaving Home

64 List Rank: 57

64 List Voters/Points: 9/326

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (8)

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (13, 15, 17, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

 

[Zegras11]

Eight Days A Week
2022 Ranking: 58
2022 Lists: 13
2022 Points: 133
Ranked Highest by: Shaft41(Son1) (5) @landrys hat (5) @PIK95 (9) @fatguyinalittlecoat (14) @Dennis Castro (17) @whoknew (17) @Alex P Keaton (18) @Encyclopedia Brown (20) @ConstruxBoy (22) @AAABatteries (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 55T/6/60

Getz comments:  YT is all Shea Stadium film. I had this at #25 in 2019. 

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  74

2019 write-up:

Eight Days a Week (Beatles for Sale, 1964)

The title to this song has been varyingly attributed by Paul to being either a Ringo-ism (as in "hard day's night") or coming from a chauffeur driving Paul out to John's place who, when asked how he was, said he was working hard, eight days a week.  The song was first intended to be a potential title song for the movie that eventually became Help!, but it was relegated to this album instead once John came up with the title song, "Help!"  My favorite part of the song is also the portion that was groundbreaking at the time:  that fade-in.  It was one of the first times (or possibly the very first time) a fade-in had been used in a pop song, and I love the way it builds the excitement around the song.  Oooooo, what's happening here?  What's going to happen next?  The way the song kicks in the vocal so dynamically after the fade-in is exhilarating, and the harmonies on the bridge and the unison singing elsewhere are infectiously happy.  Love the chiming guitars at the end!  I might usually lean toward downer songs and rock songs, but I can also love a perfectly charming pop song like this.

Mr. krista:  "Eight days a week is another great phrase.  I like all of it.  I like that it fades in.  Nothing sounds like that.  That’s neat up and down."

Suggested cover:  The Dandy Warhols

2022 Supplement:  This was a truly shared work between Paul and John, with Paul coming up with the title, working together on most of the lyrics, but John taking the lead vocal.  Paul has used this song as an example of how he and John worked together so well because if one of them were stuck for a line, the other would magically be able to finish it:  “We could suggest the way out of the maze to each other, which was a very handy thing to have.  We inspired each other.”  So when Paul showed up with nothing more than the title, John was inspired to have that starting point.  Unlike in later years when they would “audition” their songs more individually, Paul and John together brought this one to the others, and within 20 minutes had taught it to them.

Love this song, and my favorite part continues to be the cool and revolutionary fade-in.  To hear it as a merely very good song, without that fade-in and lacking some of the energy of the final version, check out this earlier take that was released on the Anthology series:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS0GMbqhNU

Guido Merkins

Sometimes the years can play tricks on the mind.  Paul at one time attributed Eight Days A Week to one of Ringo’s malapropisms (like Tomorrow Never Knows or A Hard Day’s Night.)  Later Paul attributed it to a chauffeur and that seems to be the correct story.

So Paul is being dropped off somewhere by a chauffeur and says something like “you working hard.”  The chauffeur says “feels like I’m working eight days a week.”  Paul loves that line and writes a song around it.  Later on, the Byrds were looking for a number for a song and liked the Beatles use of the number eight, so they called their song Eight Miles High.

Eight Days a Week is notable in that it seems to be the first time a song was faded in.  It started life with the Beatles singing “Ooooo” at the beginning (you can hear this on Anthology 1), but ended up with the guitar riff intro that they fade in which was George on the 12 string Rickenbacker (the outro is the same.)  

John was known to not like the song.  Not sure what Paul’s opinion is of it, but it is interesting that the Beatles didn’t play the song live, and that’s despite it being a #1 hit in the US.  

Eight Days A Week

64 List Rank: 56

64 List Voters/Points: 15/347

64 List Top 5: 1 @landrys hat

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

 

[Zegras11]

With A Little Help from My Friends
2022 Ranking: 44
2022 Lists: 13
2022 Points: 172
Ranked Highest by: Alex (6) @Just Win Baby (6) @Dinsy Ejotuz (8) @Ilov80s (9) @jwb (9) @Gr00vus (11) @Yankee23Fan (11) @Pip's Invitation (13) 
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 33/12/119

Getz: Had this at #19 in 2019. Didn’t make the cut this time. Last song to not get a Top 5 vote.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  48

2019 write-up:

With A Little Help From My Friends (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

As much as I love Ringo, and I even like his singing, we can probably all agree that he doesn't have the greatest voice.  This song was written specifically for him and therefore is perfect for his limited range, with one exception:  that last note, far out of Ringo's range.  The vocal was recorded at the end of a long session, and after finishing the backing tracks, Ringo started up the stairs to leave.  Paul called out to him that they should do the vocals first, and unfortunately for Ringo, who said he was "knackered," the rest of the band agreed.  Knowing how nervous Ringo was about the vocal, the other three, In a sweet show of friendship, gathered round him just behind the microphone, (silently) cheering him on.  But that last note was a challenge, and the other Beatles encouraged him through several takes, with George gently telling him he could do it and John giving more blunt advice to "just throw your head back and let 'er rip!"  After a few tries, Ringo hit it, to much cheering and then a celebratory scotch-and-Coke toast.

Ringo sings this so sweetly, and the song gently glides along with great pleasantness.  I love the call-and-response and as-always beautiful harmonies - especially for some reason love the lines, "What do you see when you turn out the light; I can't tell you but I know it's mine."  I don't know what those lines mean, though I've read Paul say it might have been about self-love, but maybe that open interpretation is why I like the lines.   The most essential, superb part of the song for me, though, is Paul's bass line, which is as smoothly melodic and fluid as any he recorded with the Beatles.  This is a song with a simple structure but elevated to another level for me by its sweetness...and that bass line.

Badfinger alert!  The song was initially titled "Bad Finger Boogie," which is the source of the band's name after changing it from The Iveys.

Fun fact:  originally the second line was "would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me" instead of "walk out on me."  In a rare instance of assertiveness, Ringo put his foot down on this, worried that people would actually throw tomatoes on stage at that line, much as they had thrown jelly beans and other items in earlier shows.

Mr. krista:  "It is so much better than that…[five-minute discussion of how much we hate the Cocker version and how it’s about selfishness] I really like the song so much more than that.  He made a really great song suck."

Suggested cover:  Oh hell no I'm not posting that one.  I'd rather listen to John Belushi's parody. 

2022 Supplement:  At the time this was composed, Paul and John were more often working on their own songs rather than the close collaboration they had in the early years.  So this song was sort of a throwback to that time, with them coming together to write for Ringo.  They pulled lines from a recent airing of Julius Caesar on the telly (“lend me your ears”), threw in one of their usual “in-jokes” about drugs (“I get high with a little help from my friends”), and mined the familiar territory of trying to say something dirty without actually saying it.  I’ll let Paul tell that one:  “The line I liked best in it was, ‘What do you see when you turn out the light?’ … You’re talking about your genitals; that’s what it is.  … But I couldn’t say, ‘What do you see when you turn out the light?  your ####.’  It just doesn’t scan.”

As I discussed in 2019, this song was a rally around Ringo, and part of what I love about it is that it is evidence of the entire group working together – in fact the session last all night – in a way that was becoming increasingly uncommon.  Emerick called the session “a touching show of unity among the four Beatles.”  Ringo has closed all of his shows with this song since 1989.  Here’s a seemingly ageless Ringo still sounding in good voice just a dozen years ago (Jim Keltner sighting!):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19C5l_keLJU

Fun fact:  “Billy Shears” or “William Shears” was one of the names that “Paul is dead” conspiracy theorists came up with as the person who allegedly replaced Paul after his fatal car accident in 1966.

Guido Merkins

Ringo was, in many ways, the Beatle that the others rallied around.  In the 70s, it was Ringo who worked with every member of the band.  The Ringo album was the closest we ever got to a Beatles reunion with John, Paul, and George all contributing (albeit separately.)  So, it’s hardly surprising that when John and Paul wrote a song for Ringo on Sgt Pepper that they would hit on this theme and pen With A Little Help from My Friends.  The song perfectly sums up Ringo’s role in the Beatles and really his entire career.

The song started life as Bad Finger Boogie (John played it on piano with a bad finger) which eventually was the name of the band Badfinger.  John and Paul wrote the song mostly together and it had a limited vocal range, except that last note, which Ringo was very nervous about (but he nailed it.)  

The lyrics have some interesting things.  “What would you see when you turn out the lights?  I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine” is meant to suggest something dirty. Also the original line was “would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me” instead of “would you stand up and walk out on me” which Ringo insisted on changing because George once admitted to liking jelly beans (jelly babies in Britain) and they got pelted with them on stage.

I absolutely love the harmonies on this song.  John and Paul doing some of their best work around Ringo’s imperfect voice is just one of the most magical moments on any Beatles song.  If you think about the breakup too much, then listen to this song, it can make you emotional (well, for me anyway.)

Joe Cocker did one of the most famous of all Beatles covers with this song which was a hit single for him and was the theme for The Wonder Years.

With A Little Help From My Friends

64 List Rank: 55

64 List Voters/Points: 15/348

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (13, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

I had this #26

 

[krista4]

With A Little Help From My Friends

64 List Rank: 55

64 List Voters/Points: 15/348

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (13, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

I had this #26

Hmmmm, that's one I thought might benefit from the expanded lists.  But I'd forgotten it was ranked pretty high to begin with.

 

[Zegras11]

Hmmmm, that's one I thought might benefit from the expanded lists.  But I'd forgotten it was ranked pretty high to begin with.

9 of 13 after #26 votes were #41 or later.   15 of 23 lists is not bad at all.

 

[krista4]

9 of 13 after #26 votes were #41 or later.   15 of 23 lists is not bad at all.

The one I remember being struck the most as "might do better" is Blackbird.  We'll see!   

 

[Zegras11]

The one I remember being struck the most as "might do better" is Blackbird.  We'll see!   

It finished #52 recently.  We shall see.   

 

[Zegras11]

All My Loving (Live At The Festival Hall in Melbourne) 6/17/64
2022 Ranking: 48
2022 Lists: 18
2022 Points: 160
Ranked Highest by: @Eephus (4) @krista4 (13) @Ilov80s (13) @John Maddens Lunchbox (14) @jwb (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 58/6/55

Getz:  This song got quite the surge when after about 60% of the votes were in, when 11 of the next 25 voted for this song. First song to have 18 votes, yet 17 of them were after #12.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  12

2019 write-up:

All My Loving (With the Beatles, 1963)

If I have a guilty pleasure among my top songs, I guess this would be it.  It's notable historically as being the first song that signaled that Paul was stepping out of John's shadow to become a co-leader of the group, and of course for being the first song The Beatles sang on their iconic Ed Sullivan Show appearance.  It's not lyrically interesting, and the structure isn't complex or ground-breaking  I love it, though, because it's loads of fun.  I can sing along with those fabulous harmonies, and the rhythm guitar lines get me happily bouncing and swaying more than any other Beatles song.  George's first Chet-Atkins-style solo is terrific, and I looooove Paul's walking bass part.  Even surly John loved this one:  "'All My Loving' is Paul, I regret to say.  [laughs]  Because it's a damn good piece of work.  [sings] All my loving... But I play a pretty mean guitar in the back."

Turn it up, sing and dance along, and have a blast!

Mr. krista:  "The breaks are key.  Surprised at how countrified the guitar solo is.  It’s great.  Guess it’s really a country song.  It’s neat.  It’s funny how much you internalize these songs without really listening to them."

Suggested cover:  The good singers (such as Amy Winehouse) turned this into a ballad, which loses everything I love about it.  Please enjoy this cover by Paul himself instead:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdGOYo_fsE

2022 Supplement:  Hanging in at #13 (down one spot) in my 2022 rankings, this is still my “guilty pleasure” song.  It’s not the most clever nor the best sung (Paul sounds slightly uncomfortable in the low ends of the range), but it makes me bounce along happily. 

Paul came up with these lyrics while on a tour bus on the “Moss Empires circuit,” a package tour with several other bands (including Roy Orbison) to various music halls owned by Moss Empire company.  He called these lyrics a reflection on where the Beatles were at the time, leaving behind loved ones to experience new adventures.  When the bus arrived at the next stop, he put together the chords of what he described as initially being a “straight country-and-western song.”

John’s triplets on the guitar – the most distinguishing feature of the song – were a last-minute idea that Paul acknowledged transformed the entire song and gave it the driving rhythm that propels the song and matches its theme of travel and motion, going on a trip.  Paul describes it as another “letter song” in the vein of P.S. I Love You.

Of course, this became the song that opened the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, and after it became the first song that the US public saw the Beatles perform.  Soon they had the top five songs on the Billboard charts.  Paul uses this song to illustrate how quickly everything moved for the band at this stage:  “ ‘All My Loving’ helped us go from the Moss Empires circuit to conquering American in a little over six months.  And a few months later I turned twenty-two.”  

Guido Merkins

The first time an American audience heard the Beatles on TV, they heard “Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles………….Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you…)  Yes, the Beatles led off the Ed Sullivan performance with an album track!!!!

All My Loving was written by Paul with the words coming first and the music after, something Paul said he hardly ever did again.  Although the song was not released as a single in the UK or the US, but received significant radio airplay.  It was the Beatles first GREAT album track.

In 1963, albums were a single and a bunch of substandard material.  The fact that the Beatles had a song of such quality as All My Loving and stuck it on the With the Beatles album is, once again, proof of an embarrassment of riches.  All My Loving announces itself with John Lennon strumming amazingly fast triplets on his guitar (if you think it’s easy, you try it for 2 and a half minutes).  The song also has a great country and western style guitar by George.  Most of the song has Paul singing a double tracked vocal, but I love the end when Paul goes to the high harmony and George sings the lead.  John said he was the “invisible guitarist” and George was the “invisible singer.”  This is proof of that.

All My Loving

64 List Rank: 54

64 List Voters/Points: 12/351

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (13, 13, 17, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7 

I had this #44

 

[Zegras11]

Can’t Buy Me Love
2022 Ranking: 49
2022 Lists: 15
2022 Points: 156
Ranked Highest by: @Encyclopedia Brown (6) Krista(Doug) (7) @PIK95 (8) @falguy (8) @whoknew (9) @wikkidpissah (11) @DocHolliday (14) @Dinsy Ejotuz (16) @AAABatteries (17)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 51/8/67

Getz:  I had this at #21 in 2019. Didn't make the cut this time. Live YT with 24m views.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  58

2019 write-up:

Can't Buy Me Love (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

Composed and recorded while on their Paris tour in January/February 1964, this is one of the six straight #1 songs that the Beatles had in 1964.  Amazingly, that streak also included a date in March in which the top five songs on the charts were all Beatles songs (this one, "Twist And Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," and "Please Please Me"), which is a record that's never been broken, and a date in April on which they held 14 of the top 100 spots.  

The song was composed entirely by Paul, using a piano they'd had brought to their hotel room so they could work in between shows.  The recording session in Paris, where they also recorded the German versions of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You," was the group's only recording session outside of London.  Paul has said he intended do a bluesy song, and originally he conceived of his lead being joined by George and John with backing vocals to sound like the Motown girl groups.  In fact, such backing vocals were recorded but didn't make the final cut of the record.  As a result, this became the first song released as a Beatles single that featured only one singer, as the song includes only Paul's voice double-tracked.  Once again, George Martin contributed a crucial idea to the song, which was to start with the chorus in order to catch the listener immediately. 

It's a buoyant, bouncy, bubbly song with enormous energy.  To my ear the song has a lighter touch than the bluesy song Paul first intended; in addition to scrapping the backing vocals, by the final version Paul's vocal doesn't have the bluesy inflection that he had originally contemplated.  Most of all I hear an infectious pop song.  Love George's guitar solo; the sound of the overdubbing with the quiet solo in back was actually a mistake based on technical limitations at the time, but I think it adds a nice feel.  

Speaking of mistakes, for many years there were questions surrounding an unnamed mystery drummer that had, according to EMI records, been paid for one session of the Can't Buy Me Love overdub tapings back in London.  In Geoff Emerick's book, he cleared up the mystery.  After the master tape was brought from Paris to London, "perhaps because it had been spooled incorrectly, the tape had a ripple in it, resulting in the intermittent loss of treble on Ringo’s hi-hat cymbal.  There was tremendous time pressure to get the track mixed and delivered to the pressing plant, and due to touring commitments The Beatles themselves were unavailable..."  So George Martin enlisted the help of the engineer, Norman Smith, who "headed down into the studio to overdub a hastily set-up hi-hat onto a few bars of the song, simultaneously doing a two-track to two-track dub."  All of this was done without ever telling the Beatles themselves!  

Mr. krista:  "I love Beatles rave-ups, especially John Lennon. [Narrator:  I tell him this is a Paul song.]  They’re all really good when they play 12-bar blues really fast.  And they’re such good lyricists that there will also be a good turn of phrase.  And they put it right up front with the chorus so you know what the song’s about."

Suggested cover:  Ella Fitzgerald

2022 Supplement:  John and Paul thought of themselves as “Lennon and McCartney” from their early days, trying to pattern themselves after the songwriting pairs they listened to such as Leiber and Stoller.  Paul describes a time in which he and John were just churning out songs.  It wasn’t just for the money but for the pure joy of creation.  But, they also thought that hey, if they could churn out hits like Goffin and King were doing, they might not buy love but at least could get a car.  The demands on them for original songwriting became increasingly strong, with Brian Epstein directing that they “take a week off” and write an album.  Paul says they wrote at least a song a day during those times, meeting at one of their houses with a couple of guitars, pads of paper, and pencils.

This song was written, as described in my 2019 write-up, under very different circumstances.  In addition to doing two sets a day in Paris, they were in the recording studio for their German versions of their two biggest hits, and at the same time being told to come up with more new songs.  Paul says that there was some irony in the fact that, while they were writing about there being more to the world than material possessions, they were surrounded by opulence.

This song was written as a standard 12-bar blues, and I actually prefer Paul’s vocal and the guitar solo in this earlier version (but do not enjoy the weird backing vocals):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS0Tf7fY4xw  

Guido Merkins

Beatles stereotypes have John as the rocker and Paul as the sappy balladeer, but the fact is, both were very adept at writing rock songs.  Paul wrote I Saw Her Standing There, Back in the USSR, Helter Skelter, and 1964’s Can’t Buy Me Love from the A Hard Day’s Night album.

Can’t Buy Me Love is fairly straight forward rock and roll song, a 12 bar blues, which was not something the Beatles usually did.  George Martin suggested starting the song with the chorus to immediately draw in the listener, so that’s what they did.  The earlier takes had a much bluesier lead vocal from Paul (think of She’s A Woman) that you can hear on Anthology 1.  It also had some strange echoing background vocals that they dropped (thankfully.)  So what was left was a rocking Paul vocal, a great solo by George, and Ringo laying it down.

The part in the movie with the Beatles running around in a field was originally going to feature I’ll Cry Instead, but Can’t Buy Me Love was a far better, and more energetic choice.  That part of the film is so influential.  Lots of music movies had segments were music was being played.  Usually the artist standing there pretending to play or sing the song.  Can’t Buy Me Love is just the Beatles acting silly in a field while the music plays.  There are quick edits, slow motion, blurry shots, shots from different perspectives….in other words, everything you would associate with a music video is here.  It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking and the fact that the Beatles star in it and have this great song to go along with it adds to the experience.

Can't Buy Me Love

64 List Rank: 53

64 List Voters/Points: 12/359

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (8)

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (16, 17)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

I had this #29

 

[krista4]

All My Loving

64 List Rank: 54

64 List Voters/Points: 12/351

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (13, 13, 17, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7 

I had this #44

 

 

[Zegras11]

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

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

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  33

2019 write-up:

Happiness Is A Warm Gun (White Album, 1968)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suggested cover:  The Breeders

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

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

Guido Merkins

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

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

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

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

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

64 List Rank: 52

64 List Voters/Points: 9/365

64 List Top 5: 1 @turnjose7 (2)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 6 (11, 14, 17, 20, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

Last song to not get 10 (of 23) votes. Started out very well and then just continued to fade.

 

[Zegras11]

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
2022 Ranking: 55
2022 Lists: 14
2022 Points: 139
Ranked Highest by: @whoknew(7) @Wrighteous Ray(hub)(9) @Yankee23Fan (10) @DocHolliday(11) @lardonastick (16) @Ilov80s (18) @JustWinBrady (18) @ConstruxBoy (21) @John Maddens Lunchbox (24) @heckmanm(24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 36/7/106

Getz comments: The first of three songs today that take a pretty decent hit from 2019 in the rankings. Despite getting seven more votes and 33 more points.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  62

2019 write-up:

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

This is a song that used to be a "skip" for me most of the time; once I had the benefit of being forced to listen to it for this project it just kept growing on me.  I think what's turned me off in the past is mostly John's vocal on it, and I'm still not a huge fan of the tone of it, though I like the mellow dreaminess.  But I love the dreamy quality of the song as a whole, love the bass line, love the drum part that kicks everything up a notch into the chorus, and love the 6/8 to 4/4 and back tempo changes between the verses and chorus.  More than anything else, love that Mellotron opening.  Some of the lyrics are nonsense, but somehow they still paint a vivid picture for me.  And I'm not even taking LSD at the moment!

The belief that the song was about LSD caused it to be banned by the BBC, but John has insisted (and is backed up by Paul) that this was not about LSD and instead is based on this drawing that Julian did of his friend Lucy O'Donnell.  When John asked what the drawing was, Julian said was "Lucy in the sky with diamonds."  John also has said that the imagery was inspired by Alice in Wonderland, though Paul recalls bouncing psychedelic phrases off each other at John's house.  The line "plasticine porters with looking glass ties" appears to have come from The Goon Show, which John loved.

Fun fact:  Probably the only song to have 3.2-million-year-old skeletal remains named after it.

Mr. krista: "I like how it started with descending, falling down a staircase, Alice in Wonderland stuff going into psychedelic, like every teenager’s introduction into fantasy or surreality, suspending disbelief.  Wish the record had started out with this song; it’s sort of playful but there’s a real menace as well, much like Lewis Carroll’s work.  It’s also disorienting and impossible."

Suggested covers:  Elton John  Black Crowes  Bono & Secret Machines  And, of course, we can't talk about the song without this classic:  William Shatner

2022 Supplement:  I still struggle with this song sometimes and should have knocked it down a bit on my 2019 rankings.  Everything I loved about it then I still do, except the dreamy quality, which is I think where my ambivalence lies.  Sometimes it’s just a bit too much psychedelia for me.  Never having dropped acid must have its downsides.

Lucy Vodden, the childhood friend of Julian Lennon about whom he drew the picture, died of lupus in 2009.  A few months later, Julian released a tribute song, “Lucy,” with a portion of the proceeds going to two lupus-related charities:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IoW4EFQZf0 Love me some Julian.  Say what you will about John’s abilities as a father to Julian, but he sure did end up with an outstanding son.  Two of them, actually, as Sean is by all accounts a fantastic person as well.

Guido Merkins

John really disliked people trying to read things into his lyrics.  Case in point, one day Julian comes home from school with a drawing of a girl floating in the clouds surrounded by stars.  John asked what it was, Julian said “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”  Lucy was one of Julian;s classmates.  John thought it was beautiful and writes a song around it.  The record comes out and somebody notices that the letter spell LSD.  I’ve seen pictures of the drawing and Lucy was a real person, she died a few years back and Julian talked about it.  John wrote plenty of acid songs and usually admitted it, but was adamant that Lucy was not an acid song.

John was into Lewis Carroll and the song is inspired by Alice In Wonderland.  The lyrics are surreal.  Newspaper Taxis, Plasticine Porters, Looking glass ties, tangerine trees, marmalade skies are just some of the images in the song.

The song is interesting in that the verses are in ¾ time and the chorus is in 4/4 time.  Paul’s bass part is almost the lead instrument along with the organ.  George plays a great guitar part though a Leslie speaker.  Ringo coming in on the 4/4 chorus is also a highlight.  Lennon’s vocal is just stunning.  This is another song that is slightly different in mono and in stereo.  The mono version has some flutter on Lennon’s lead vocal.

Lennon was having issues coming up with material, but Lucy is so spectacular that people forget about that.  It’s definitely one of the highlights on Pepper.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

64 List Rank: 51

64 List Voters/Points: 12/367

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (11, 12, 16, 23, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7

 

[Zegras11]

I’m Only Sleeping
2022 Ranking: 65
2022 Lists: 9
2022 Points: 99
Ranked Highest by: @landrys hat(2) @Guido Merkins (9) Krista(Craig)(9) @Westerberg(9) @Binky The Doormat (16) @rockaction (20) @zamboni (21) @Pip's Invitation (24) Krista(TJ/Michael)(24)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 75/2/30

Getz comments:   These guys sure seem tired all the time.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  29

2019 write-up:

I'm Only Sleeping (Revolver, 1966)

Sleepy lead vocal.  Sleepy guitar. Sleepy backing vocals. Even a sleepy bass fill.  Anyone who's read part of the GMTAN might know that I've had chronic insomnia my whole life, and it colors a lot of my days.  I think that's part of the reason that two "sleep" songs (the other being "I’m So Tired") reach my top 30.  Of course, this one was inspired by John's having exactly the opposite experience than I do, which is that he was an A-1, top-of-the-charts, champion sleeper.  Paul often had to wake him up for their afternoon writing sessions, and in the same article that caused the "more famous than Jesus" uproar, John also reacted to the statement that could sleep indefinitely and was "probably the laziest person in England":  "Physically lazy," John said. 'I don't mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more."

I love that this song perfectly sets this dreamy, soporific mood.  I get pulled into the intimacy of the song by the vocal but then lulled into its lethargy from everything surrounding it.  Setting aside the obviously languorous vocals, every aspect of the song also seems perfectly calculated to achieve this mood.  The guitar solo offers a hazy, distorted vibe from the effects described in the next paragraph.  The ethereal harmonies seem to emphasize the dreamiest lyrics -  "float upstre-eam," "sleeeee-ping."   Ringo plays as if he's simultaneously finishing a chess game with Mal Evans.  The drowsy bass part sounds like Paul was just awakened from a nap.  He and John seemingly drift in and out of consciousness with the rises and falls of the melody, sudden urgency followed by deep pauses, which is also punctuated by little guitar riffs I love from George (an example is at 0:45-0:47).  Even the vocal parts that seem like they're going to crescendo and crash into the line, "I'm only sleeping" instead pull the chords back down into a comfortable yawn.  In all, the song makes sleep sound full and luxurious, which it would be to me.   

Speaking of a hard day's night, Geoff Emerick describes the recording of this song as being particularly tedious, since George was dead set on having a backwards guitar solo on it.  This groundbreaking idea came from a mistake, when someone accidentally threaded a practice tape backwards, and Paul excitedly asked, "My God, that is fantastic! Can we do that for real?"  But George didn't just want to play it and have it run backwards; he had a specific notation of how he wanted it to sound when reversed, which involved George Martin then taking the forward notation and reversing it so that George could get the sound he wanted.  Actually they recorded not just one backwards part, but two:  one with fuzz guitar and one in normal sound, to be superimposed upon each other.  For six hours, George played the same eight-bar solo, so many times that the assistant engineer's arms were sore for days from turned the heavy tapes over and over.  

In addition to setting to tape the first backward recorded guitar solo ever to be released, the lads continued to experiment with other devices on this track, including varispeed.  In this case, the rhythm tracks were slowed down in the final mix, while the vocal tracks were sped up, leading not just to a deeper, more somnolent sound on the backing, but actually changing the key of the song, resulting in that strange E-flat-minor. 

Fun fact:  you can hear Paul yawn ~2:01.

Mr. krista:  "Song kills it.  I think part of the dreamy quality is that they played it at twice the tempo and then slowed it down, and then that’s what the vocals are recorded over. Then the slightly noodly solos played backwards…  All these disparate-seeming elements fit together seamlessly.  Even listening intently like we are now, nothing seems jarring.  Everything has a purpose."

Suggested cover:  Haven't found one I consider great, so I'll offer this live version from Jeff Tweedy simply because it was recorded at one of the best small concert venues in the US, Lounge Ax in Chicago (RIP).

2022 Supplement:  This one just missed my top 25 again this year, and now as I write this up I wish I’d made space for it.  So many cool things going on here, which I see I already described in tedious detail a few years ago.  Even without the special effects on the guitar and otherwise, you can hear how solid the core of the song was based on the Take 1 acoustic version that was released in the Anthology series:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjeMxLm0vCA

Similar to “If I Fell,” which we might or might not have seen yet, John grabbed whatever he had handy when writing this song.  In this case, he wrote the lyrics on the back of a demand letter for payment of a “radiophone” bill: https://imgur.com/cIElrg4   https://imgur.com/QRB7eFG The letter/lyrics were put up for auction in 2005 but failed to meet their reserve, then were re-auctioned in 2010 for an expected price of £350,000.

Guido Merkins

One of my absolute favorite Beatles songs is I’m Only Sleeping.  I think it’s because it’s a really good song, mostly, but also, there is an emotional attachment to that song.  I’ll never forget sometime in the mid 80s, I discovered that the Revolver released in the UK had 3 extra songs. I had only ever heard the US version.  I was very excited when I found the UK version at my local record store.  For some reason, I’m Only Sleeping struck a chord with me.  I’ve loved it ever since.

It’s a song about Lennon sleeping his life away featuring a drowsy vocal, backwards guitars, great bass and great harmonies.  George was meticulous when recording the backwards solo.  Instead of just playing something and reversing the tape, he would play a small section, listen to it backwards to see what it sounded like, make changes if he wanted, play if backwards.  Once he was satisfied with his note selection, he played it on two parts.  One fuzzed guitar and one not fuzzed guitar.  It took hours, but is a testament to how hard George worked and his work paid off, because it’s brilliant.  Perfectly capturing this feeling of dozing and waking up and maybe being a little fuzzy.  

To aid in making John sound drowsy, they slowed the tape down.  If you want to hear what it would have sounded like without that, there is a demo on Anthology 2 with John on an acoustic that is one of my favorite demos of his.  It’s just lovely.  Like I said, one of my favorites.

I'm Only Sleeping

64 List Rank: 50

64 List Voters/Points: 11/373

64 List Top 5: 1 @landrys hat (2)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (21, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Here, There and everywhere

64 List Rank: 59

64 List Voters/Points: 15/316

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (15, 18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

I had this at #60

64, because of Krista‘s write up, even though she didn’t rank it herself. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

The Long and Winding Road

64 List Rank: 58

64 List Voters/Points: 10/322

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 3 (6, 6, 7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 4

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

So this is the song I talked about early on while taking votes.  This song was #23 on the 1-26 Countdown.

We had 23 voters send in 1-64 lists.

The first FIVE did not list this song.

I listed it #64 as the sixth voter.  1/1 138th place at the time.

After 10 votes in: 2/28, 119th place

After 12 votes in: 3/39, 118th place

After 15 votes in: 4/98, 90th place

The last 8 voters voted for it six times,  for 224 points. That included a 6th and 7th.

86. I do like it, I just like other stuff better.  This is not the last time that I will have a highly esteemed song on my 65-96(98) list.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

She's Leaving Home

64 List Rank: 57

64 List Voters/Points: 9/326

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (8)

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (13, 15, 17, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 4

90. More evidence that Pepper is better than the sum of its parts. This is a very good part, but I just happen to like 89 songs better.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Eight Days A Week

64 List Rank: 56

64 List Voters/Points: 15/347

64 List Top 5: 1 @landrys hat

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

43. Another one I remember from when I was very young.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

With A Little Help From My Friends

64 List Rank: 55

64 List Voters/Points: 15/348

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 2 (13, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 13

I had this #26

I am the highest ranker this time at 13. The best Ringo vocal showcase and it’s not close.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

All My Loving

64 List Rank: 54

64 List Voters/Points: 12/351

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (13, 13, 17, 21)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7 

I had this #44

Unranked, same fate as other Paul songs that seem “too easy” to me (You Won’t See Me, I’m Looking Through You, etc.)

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Can't Buy Me Love

64 List Rank: 53

64 List Voters/Points: 12/359

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (8)

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (16, 17)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

I had this #29

76. My esteem for it went up (Binky: down) when I had the live radio broadcast on of Knebworth 1990 and Paul just slayed it.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

64 List Rank: 52

64 List Voters/Points: 9/365

64 List Top 5: 1 @turnjose7 (2)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 6 (11, 14, 17, 20, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

Last song to not get 10 (of 23) votes. Started out very well and then just continued to fade.

95. Probably wouldn’t have considered it at all if not for all the praise when it was revealed in the countdown of the 1-25 lists.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

64 List Rank: 51

64 List Voters/Points: 12/367

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 5 (11, 12, 16, 23, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7

70. Was a big favorite when I was first discovering psychedelic music, but other things have eclipsed it over the years.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I'm Only Sleeping

64 List Rank: 50

64 List Voters/Points: 11/373

64 List Top 5: 1 @landrys hat (2)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (21, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

I am third-highest at 24.

 

[BobbyLayne]

I love the Beatles first four albums. I also love how they evolved a lot as a band. It's interesting to look solely at how much time they spent in the studio for each album:

1. PPM - 26.25 hours (includes EMI test, singles recordings, overdubs - the bulk of the album was completed in one marathon day lasting from 10am to 10:45pm)
   
2. WTB - 53.25 hours
   
3. AHDN - 65.25 hours
   
4. BFS - 57.08 hours
   
5. H! = 66.58 The two studio albums and two soundtracks that followed the debut have a fairly consistent level of effort. It should be noted that up to this point, George Martin often dictated the arrangements. They wrote the songs, but largely left it up to the producer to decide how they should sound. The lads really took control of the control room after this.
   
6. RS - 98 hours
   POST 1965 ALBUMS TOOK MUCH LONGER TO RECORD
   
7. R - 280.91 hours
   
8. SPLHCB - 333.75 hours
   
9. MMT - 348.51 hours (includes the five singles on Side B of the U.S. release which were not part of the soundtrack.)
   
10. TWA - 709.17 hours (30 songs - all the other albums except YS are 11-14 tracks, until AR with 17, 8 of which are the Long One aka Medley)
    
11. YS - 106 hours (only 4 new songs)
    
12. Abbey Road - 379.42 hours
    
13. LIB - 127.74 hours
    

 

[simey]

These are also on my list:

14   Happiness Is A Warm Gun
30   I'm Only Sleeping
38   The Long and Winding Road
44   Here, There and Everywhere
47   With A Little Help From My Friends
54   Eight Days A Week
60   Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds

 

[simey]

The Long and Winding Road

So this is the song I talked about early on while taking votes.  This song was #23 on the 1-26 Countdown.

Did it drop the most because some of the 1-25 voters didn't vote this time, or because more people voted for it, but the higher number of lower number votes pulled it down more? Does that make sense? I didn't vote for it in the 1-25, but I did rank it at #38 this time. It's the beautiful song that makes me so sad. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, because taking a bath in a pool of tears can help cleanse the soul.  

 

[Zegras11]

Did it drop the most because some of the 1-25 voters didn't vote this time, or because more people voted for it, but the higher number of lower number votes pulled it down more? Does that make sense? I didn't vote for it in the 1-25, but I did rank it at #38 this time. It's the beautiful song that makes me so sad. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, because taking a bath in a pool of tears can help cleanse the soul.  

I'm going with more 1-25's didn't vote fir it.  The top 3 from the 1-25 were all friends or family.  And then it only got 10 votes out of 23 this time.

The ranking this time is more in line with the 2019 ranking, which I think was 65.   So I guess it got shafted in the 1-25, then shafted again in the 1-64. LOL

 

[Shaft41]

I'm going with more 1-25's didn't vote fir it.  The top 3 from the 1-25 were all friends or family.  And then it only got 10 votes out of 23 this time.

The ranking this time is more in line with the 2019 ranking, which I think was 65.   So I guess it got shafted in the 1-25, then shafted again in the 1-64. LOL

I will give this one the shaft every day and twice on Sunday.  

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Siri is playing the Beatles on the trip home. My son started drumming along to Here Comes the Sun.

The deepest track we’ve probably gotten so far is Here, There and Everywhere.

 

[MAC_32]

I will give this one the shaft every day and twice on Sunday.  

Same. Never cared for the song. The vocals just don't...hit right. 

 

[Zegras11]

I will give this one the shaft every day and twice on Sunday.  

I love it when parents dis their kids on a Sunday.

 

[landrys hat]

I think these are all mine so far:

2. I'm Only Sleeping

5. Eight Days a Week

12. I'm So Tired

24. Octopus's Garden

25. Tell Me What You See

27. Happiness Is a Warm Gun

34. I'm Looking Through You

39. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey

43. The Night Before

46. The Ballad of John and Yoko

47. Hello Goodbye

49. Savoy Truffle

50. Lovely Rita

53. Things We Said Today

54. You Won't See Me

59. Lady Madonna

60. Here, There and Everywhere

61. Can't Buy Me Love

62. All My Loving

64. Back In the USSR

 

[AAABatteries]

I understand how this works but there is LITERALLY NO ####### WAY this song is their 155th best song.  It’s just impossible.

94. From Me To You

THANK YOU!

I rest on your face......I mean I rest my case.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

After about three hours Siri figured if we’d stuck out this long she would play deep tracks, so she gave us I’ve Got a Feeling, For You Blue and Dig a Pony.

Or maybe she thinks Let It Be songs are no longer deep tracks because of Get Back. 

After our break, my wife told her to play country music. 

 

[simey]

After our break, my wife told her to play country music. 

Does she listen to the pop country? I think that would make me car sick.

 

[Zegras11]

Does she listen to the pop country? I think that would make me car sick.

I felt really bad for the kid just reading that.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Does she listen to the pop country? I think that would make me car sick.

Yep. The kid likes it too. He has ADHD and loud music bothers him, so the Beatles is the best I can do.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

But at least she asked for Brad Paisley. I like his guitar playing.

 

[simey]

Yep. The kid likes it too. He has ADHD and loud music bothers him, so the Beatles is the best I can do.

Maybe you can turn it to Willie's Roadhouse. I like that Classic Country, and whatever channel plays Americana/Alternative Country or Country Folk. It is the Pop Country I don't care for.  

 

[simey]

But at least she asked for Brad Paisley. I like his guitar playing.

He can play a guitar, and so can Keith Urban.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Maybe you can turn it to Willie's Roadhouse. I like that Classic Country, and whatever channel plays Americana/Alternative Country or Country Folk. It is the Pop Country I don't care for.  

We don’t have Sirius XM, we have her phone pulling from Apple Music.

 

[Zegras11]

I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
2022 Ranking: 60
2022 Lists: 13
2022 Points: 122
Ranked Highest by: @Murph (6) @jamny (6) @Pip's Invitation (7) @zamboni (7) @shuke (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 72/4/34

Getz comments:  Getting to the point where it's going to be hard to @ everyone in every song that voted. Very solid increase from 2019 on the amount of voters and points. Hope this makes my 64 list.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  75

2019 write-up:

I Want You (She's So Heavy) (Abbey Road, 1969)

This is the prime example in Beatledom of a song I admire more than love.  If I were to do a list of "best" songs, this would probably be in the top five.  I think everything about it is brilliant, especially the bass lines.  I also think that, among all the Beatles catalogue, this song is the one that could most likely fit right into music today.  Not saying it's a single that [insert name of popular singer right now since I am old and have no clue] would release it, but it could slide right into alternative rock.  It's just that, if I'm going to listen to Beatles music, there are 54-94 songs I'll probably put on first.

I don't feel like I'm going to do this song justice in my write-up, so I'm hoping that someone who has it in their top 10 can step in and talk about it instead.  This is my friend Jane's favorite Beatles song; maybe I should ask her.   

Mr. krista:  "It’s a really good song that reminds me of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins's 'I Put a Spell on You.'  [Sings.]  Paul McCartney’s bass line is the rock star in there.  The song is such a dirge.  [Sings bass line and plays air bass.]  I like the Moog freak-out at the end.  I had a Moog app for a while and thought I could make noise music.  I couldn’t."

Suggested covers:  This makes sense:  Flaming Lips This makes less sense:  Sarah Vaughan  Thanks, munga!:  Umphrey's McGee

2022 Supplement:  Hey!  Here’s one where I really fell down on the job in 2019, so I have a chance for redemption.

This song, like many from this time, was a love song for Yoko.  John wanted to see how far he could go in expressing himself with an economy of words:  “In 'She's So Heavy,' I just sang, 'I want you, I want you so bad, she's so heavy, I want you,' like that.”  He described his ultimate goal as writing a “perfect” song using only one word; Yoko had made this drawing in 1964 that contained only one word:  https://www.moma.org/collection/works/127491 . 

The sound of this song is among the heaviest the Beatles ever recorded, with layers and layers of overdubs and use of a variety of new playthings, including the Moog synthesizer, to give the massive sound that the band wanted.  John’s desperate, increasingly distressed vocal flows perfectly from whisper to scream, with the tempo changes to match, and the punctuation of his lines with the guitar imitation of the vocal is brilliant.  Other standouts to me are Paul’s wandering bassline and Ringo’s unusually heavy and deranged drumming.  The ending might be a “love or hate,” but I love it.  At that point John has worked the band (and the listeners) into such a frenzy that the abrupt silence seems perfect.  Geoff Emerick has said that he thought it was going to fade out, but “suddenly John told me, 'Cut the tape.’ I was apprehensive at first: We'd never done anything like that. 'Cut the tape?' But he was insistent, and he wound up being right.”

We got a bit of rehearsal of this song in the Get Back documentary:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHjxNCYgahA  and a longer audio-only version of an early, funkier jam session of the song can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00yc9deNrL0

Guido Merkins

By 1969 John was totally in love with Yoko.  Like it or not, most of the material he was cranking out, had to do with his relationship with Yoko.  One of those is I Want You (She’s So Heavy) which closes out side one of the Abbey Road album.

The song is unusual for several reasons.  It’s length, almost 8 minutes.  The minimalist lyrics.  The time signature changes.  The laid back sections of I Want You contrasted with the shouting of the She’s So Heavy sections.  That one section of I want you that almost goes into a Latin rhythm.  And while most people try to avoid white noise on a record, John asked for it and got it, louder and louder at the end until you can’t stand it anymore, then it just cuts off abruptly.  When I first got the cassette I thought it was defective.

I Want You(She’s So Heavy) is another of those songs you can play with joy to people who call the Beatles “not rock” or “bubblegum.”  It’s an extremely heavy record that predates even Black Sabbath by a few months.  Also notable is Ringo’s drumming and Paul’s bass runs which is in between verses.

I Want You (She's so Heavy)

64 List Rank: 49

64 List Voters/Points: 12/373

64 List Top 5: 1 @DocHolliday (4)

64 List Top 10: 2 (7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (15)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

 

[Zegras11]

And I Love Her
2022 Ranking: 45
2022 Lists: 13
2022 Points: 172
Ranked Highest by: @zamboni (5) Krista(Craig)(6) @wikkidpissah (6) Shaft41(son1) (8) @simey (8) @ManOfSteelhead (11) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (13) @rockaction (16) @neal cassady (18) @krista4 (21) @MAC_32 (21) @Tom Hagen (23)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 79/3/27

Getz: Jumps up (binky down) 34 spots in 2022, with 10 more votes and 145 more points. Eight Top 12 votes carried this one.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  23

2019 write-up:

And I Love Her (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

Another deceptively simple but stunningly gorgeous composition by Paul, but let's give George an assist for coming up with that four-note intro and playing all of the guitar parts so beautifully.  It's those four notes that draw me in and make me give a little gasp and swoon as soon as this song comes on.  With all the Beatles much more famous riffs in mind, I still count this as possibly my favorite.  Incredibly, this song was originally recorded with an electric guitar; I simply can't imagine not having those amazing acoustic strums.

When I think of George's guitar work, the word "tasteful" always comes to mind.  I feel a little Andrés Segovia vibe from this song (it also wouldn't feel out of place in an Ennio Morricone-composed soundtrack), but George never goes further with that than he should.  His solo is where I most strongly get that feel, and I love it; that chord change in the solo s devastating in a good way.   

Even though I find George the star of this particular Paul show, I don't want to understate Paul's contributions to...errrr, his own song.  Paul sings with warmth but without syrup.  The repetition of the lyrics might seem a negative to some, but to me it works to emphasize the plaintive melancholy of the song.  I find these lyrics every bit as evocative as those of "Yesterday"; while they seem cheerful read separately, they also seem to be expressing a loss through the mournful melody.  If these lyrics were sung to a different composition, I'd likely dismiss them (and the song) as silly; it's this tension between those lyrics and the sorrowful presentation of them that makes the song intriguing.  What happened to her?  Paul, by the way, pointed out a different subtle aspect of the song that he thought was quite clever and important to the lyrical structure:  "The 'And' in the title was an important thing, 'And I Love Her.'  It came right out of left field; you were right up to speed the minute you heard it.  You would often go to town on the title, but this was almost an aside, 'Oh...and I love you.'"

Also there are bongos and claves.

Simple, but magical and majestic.

Mr. krista:  "It’s a great song.  Harmonies are beautiful.  Lyrics are simple and perfect and don’t #### themselves up trying to be more complicated.  Everything does its job well.  Finished lines and started lines – if you have something good, just play it again. It’s a rock song, not a novel. You don’t need to jam it full of ideas. You have one great musical idea so just use it.  It’s evocative, but also substantive.  It’s satisfying on its own.  Nope, that’s delicious.  And everything served that phrase really well."

Suggested cover:  Paul's favorite cover of this song is from Esther Phillips.  I'd also like to make a public plea here that we will one day soon be able to add the @wikkidpissah cover here.

2022 Supplement:  I recall that in 2019 this song garnered perhaps the most “D’oh, how did I forget to put that on my list” reactions from the other rankers.  The fact that I’m writing it up when I am (about halfway through?  I don’t know and am afraid to look) makes me worry that this happened again, though Getz has kindly somewhat mixed up the songs to keep everything a surprise for Guido and me.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve been relying on Paul’s book The Lyrics for some of my updates this year, since this wasn’t available in 2019.  Most songs, if he addresses them at all, get a page of his thoughts.  This song was awarded nearly three full pages of type, so I suspect it must have been one of Paul’s favorites.  And he’s no dummy; he’s right. 

Paul wrote this one in 1963 in Jane Asher’s family home.  Paul had first met Jane in the spring of 1963 when she interviewed him for Radio Times.  They’d seen her picture before, but only in black-and-white, and the Beatles were surprised by her bright red hair.  Paul and Jane quickly began a relationship and, knowing that Paul was dissatisfied with the stark cold of his Mayfair flat that Brian Epstein had provided, Jane asked if he’d like to have a room in her family home.

Paul says he had never before seen this class of people, “except maybe on the telly.”  Brian Epstein was classy, “but not this kind of classy.”  These people “knew all about art and culture and society,” which Paul had never experienced.  He also missed having a mum, as his had died several years earlier.

One night while they were at the theatre, Paul, still not used to the press, was surprised when several paparazzi started snapping photos of them during an intermission.  He says that is was there that he wanted to tell her that he loved her, and it served as the impetus for this song.

Paul gives George full credit for that distinctive opening guitar hook, in fact even for the idea of an introduction.  Just as they were to begin recording, George suggested an intro and played that four-note riff.  And he likewise credits George Martin for the pleasing chord modulation in the solo, the two Georges together giving the song its strength.

Guido Merkins

For all I know, Paul gave George compliments all the time, but just judging from how their relationship played out, I doubt that’s true.  So years later, after George was gone, somebody asked Paul about And I Love Her.  He said something to the effect of “I had the chords and the lyrics, but then George plays doo-doo-doo-doo………that’s the song.  I didn’t write that.”

Paul is absolutely correct.  And I Love Her is one of Paul’s most enduring ballads, but what would it be without those 4 notes?  It IMMEDIATELY identifies the song.  And I Love Her is from the A Hard Day’s Night film and is a beautiful acoustic ballad.  Paul on bass and lead vocal.  John on the jumbo Gibson.  George on a classical guitar.  Ringo on bongos and claves.  John helped out with the middle (a love like ours….) I especially like the arpeggio George plays starting on the 2nd verse.  I also like how it changes key going into the solo.  Kind of gives it a lift at exactly the right place.

Anthology 1 has an earlier take of the song with drums and electric guitars.  In this case, the Beatles were right to go acoustic.  In the film, they are shown playing the song rehearsing for the show and as the camera goes around Paul it catches the lights from the set and then silhouettes Paul’s face.  It’s something that makes the whole segment go up a level.  So artsy and cool.

And I Love Her

64 List Rank: 48

64 List Voters/Points: 13/381

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 4 (11, 21, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

 

[Zegras11]

She Said She Said
2022 Ranking: 75
2022 Lists: 9
2022 Points: 81
Ranked Highest by: @worrierking(2) @Binky The Doormat(8) @landrys hat(10) @ProstheticRGK(17) @rockaction(22) @Oliver Humanzee(24) @Ted Lange as your Bartender(24) @Westerberg (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 49/6/73

Getz:  So WorrierKing and Westerberg have their first song posted and we are down to three left. And that Binky thing ….  Four songs in-a-row, his 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th choices. And six songs in the last seven posted. 
2 --BinkyTheDoormat---746.5

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  1.  27

2019 write-up:

She Said She Said (Revolver, 1966)

Guest write-up by Oliver Humanzee:

I have no idea why this is Krista's favorite Beatles song of all time.  Personally, I wouldn't place it higher than 27 or so, but, as you've all seen by now, Krista isn't terribly bright.  Nonetheless, I am honored to be asked to compose this final write up.  And by "compose" I mean "copy and paste huge swaths of text from Wikipedia".  

So with little guidance and a daunting task ahead, I shall commence randomly listing things that occur to me about this song:

Ringo's drumming starts out with one of those backwards-### fills that begins with the kick-crash.
  
Song is in 4/4, 3/4, half-time 3/4 and half-time-double--time 4/4 during the fade-out because this is what happens when some geniuses enthusiastically take acid.
  
Krista just said aloud "I've been spelling 'languorous' wrong this whole time," which could have been a missing "She Said She Said" lyric.
  
The line "I know what it's like to be dead" came directly from 60's-Gump Peter Fonda who ghoulishly followed the profoundly acid-soaked Beatles around a party in California while showing off his bullet wound.  Pretty on-brand for Fonda, who would go on to bore the hell out of thousands of people on acid with the release of Easy Rider a couple of years later. 
  

The song is in B-sharp Mixolydian mode with John's Hammond organ providing the single-chord tonic and simply fading in and shut up nobody cares nerd.
  

George Harrison played the bass part because Paul didn't wanna take acid, apparently.  Paul would've murdered that bassline. 
  

Harrison's raga exploration, the LSD influence, the odd time shifts, and lyrics that are both surreally cold and uncomfortably personal make this a dense, information-rich composition, any single component of which has been conspicuously seized upon by paisley-clad opportunists making a few bucks of off "psychedelia" while turning what were unique structural elements to "She Said She Said" into something that could easily be mistaken for a collection of trivial "far-out, man" signifiers.  I know, I know.  Every art is eventually co-opted.  So let us smash the capitalist impulse into dust comrades, and wrest from the plutocrats our senses of wonder.  Let us reclaim truly weird and personal music from the Mamas and the Zappas and the like.  Because when we were boys, everything was right.
  

Mrs. Humanzee will now attempt to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

Mrs. Humanzee:  "RINGO!!!!!!"

Suggested cover:  [Intentionally omitted.]

2022 Supplement:  I don’t think I can improve upon that.  Guido, take us home!

Guido Merkins

Everyone wanted to impress the Beatles in the 1960s.  That includes a pre Easy Rider Peter Fonda who saw Lennon at a party and was high on acid and whispering in Lennon’s ear “I know what it’s like to be dead.”  Lennon, having a good time, didn’t want to know what it was like to be dead, but he started writing a song called He Said He Said.

Eventually the title was changed to She Said She Said and it had lines like “She said, I know what it’s like to be dead…….and she’s making me feel like I’d never been born.”  And “who put all those things in your head.”  Obviously the song is referring to the acid experience at the party.  John also had a part “when I was a boy, everything was right”, which was another song.  John and George mostly completed the song as Paul apparently got into a fight with John and walked out, so this is one of the few Beatles songs without Paul.

The guitars and drums are the highlights of the track.  Along with Rain, this is among Ringo’s best songs.  George and John’s guitars attack from the very beginning  making it a very very heavy song.  Since George was involved, there were changing time signatures as well.  George also plays a very good bass part.  

IMO, this might be the Beatles most “grunge” record along with Yer Blues. 

She Said She Said

64 List Rank: 47

64 List Voters/Points: 14/412

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 3 (12, 24) and 26/27

64 List 26-64 votes: 11

1-64 really helped this one!

 

[Zegras11]

I Want To Hold Your Hand - Performed Live On The Ed Sullivan Show 2/9/64
2022 Ranking: 21
2022 Lists: 22
2022 Points: 295
Ranked Highest by: Doug (1) @fatguyinalittlecoat (1) @whoknew (3) @DocHolliday (4) Holly (6) Slug (7) @Eephus (8) @Getzlaf15 (10) @AAABatteries (10) @John Maddens Lunchbox (12) @lardonastick (13) OH Dad (13) @Dinsy Ejotuz (14) @ProstheticRGK (15) @BobbyLayne (16)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 22/12/153

Getz: Had it at #11 in 2019, #10 in 2022. Moved up on the count down one slot also!
Just a timeless Beatles classic. Love everything about it. Our first song with two #1 votes!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  19

2019 write-up:

I Want To Hold Your Hand (single, 1963)

"I Want To Hold Your Hand" knocked "She Loves You" off the top spot on the UK charts, selling over a million copies in advance of its release!  While Beatlemania was in full swing in the UK, it hadn't blossomed much yet in the US.  Maybe everybody knows the background of this song, but in case someone wandered into the thread from Mars or Mississippi...  An interview with the Beatles and story about their UK success was aired on CBS News on December 10, 1963, and a teenage viewer named Marsha Albert wrote to Carroll James, a DJ in DC, asking him to play something from the Beatles.  James secured a copy of the song in advance of its official release and asked Albert onto the show to introduce it, which she did with the now-famous words, "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are The Beatles singing 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.'"  Soon the song was being played by DJs around the country, and Capitol advanced its release to accommodate the overwhelming response, selling over a million copies in ten days.  It quickly became the first Beatles song to hit #1 in the US, coincidentally being replaced by "She Loves You" after a seven-week run.  

It's hard to imagine now how monumental it was at that time for a British band to maintain this kind of presence on the US charts, but it just didn't happen before that.  Even for the Beatles, three singles - "Please Please Me," "From Me To You," and "She Loves You" - had previously been released mostly to yawns.  The Beatles were in the midst of their Paris shows when word came in that they had hit #1 in the US, and Paul said they all jumped on Mal Evans and tried to ride him around the hotel room while, as Ringo described it, they “all just started acting like people from Texas, hollering and shouting ‘Yahoo!’”  A US tour was quickly organized, including the iconic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show that had more than 73 million viewers!  There were only like 73.5 million people in the US at that time, meaning more than 99% of Americans were watching, including infants and prisoners.  Sure, I totally made that up.  But holy hell, 73 million was a lot of viewers in 1963.

As their works tended to be at the time, this was a true collaboration between Paul and John - "eyeball to eyeball" as they termed it.  It was so well-crafted by the first time they brought it into the studio that Geoff Emerick thought to himself how much time they must have put into writing and rehearsing it, and though they made 17 takes, the Beatles were on point from the very beginning, sounding polished and confident.  George even laid down his guitar licks to everyone's immediate delight.  Emerick described the atmosphere during this recording as joyous, such as when they recorded the handclaps:  "As I watched the four Beatles gathered around a single mic, clowning around as they added the part, it was apparent to me how much fun they were having, how much they loved doing what they were doing."  

That intoxicating energy exudes from this song, as does the dollop of confidence they'd gain with their success in the UK market.  The song is best enjoyed for me as just a "feel," to get swept up in the excitement and fever and not think about it too deeply.  But since I am still me, I'll note a few things I particularly love.  Like several of my highly ranked songs, it starts with an infectious hook and then builds excitement, though this one is unusual in that respect; though it's hard to imagine not knowing what happens after those opening guitar licks, for just a second try to put yourself in the place of someone who's never heard this song before.  Where is it going?  How do I dance to this?  It's only ~5-6 seconds in that the song starts to resolve itself and give you an idea where it's going.  Like "She Loves You," it gives me the feeling of having been plopped into the middle of something wondrous that I don't yet quite understand.

The verses then start out normally enough, with some melodic unison singing punctuated by fun handclaps, until we get to that last line, where suddenly there's a break into an extremely high harmony for "I want to hold your hand," followed by - oh my god it's another reference to a drum fill but here we go - a phenomenal little drum fill.  Things turn normal again for most of a line in unison, whew, until again the vocal breaks into an unexpected harmony that descends in a staggered pattern.  What just happened here?  I don't know.  Luckily, we then go into a mellow bridge, and all is right with the world until oh my god there are those harmonies again and they're getting kind of loud and aggressively ascending and why are they shouting "I get high!" at me??  Relax, they're actually saying, "I can't hide," though Bob Dylan misheard those lyrics as "I get high" until the Beatles corrected him.  (I did not make that part up.)  Then we settle back into some verses and another bridge and everything goes fine because the harmonies are more consistent and we get to that "ha-a-a-a-a-and" part that all seems perfectly normal and is in waltz time and so no, mom, they are not bad boys, they are nice because look they are in suits and flicking their heads around cutely and that was 3/4 time and so you see this is all perfectly safe and you needn't worry and screeeeaam shrieeeeeek I'm gonna die if I can't make babies with them RIGHT NOW.  

Mr. krista:  "That’s a song that has gone up in my estimation. I love the chords that open it. I’m not 100% sure the rest of the song lives up to it, since it seems like something overwhelming is going to happen but it’s just 'I want to hold your hand.'  I feel like that’s a substitute phrase for something desperate and full of pathos."

Suggested cover:  Al Green

2022 Supplement:  As I mentioned in 2019, the type of success this song had in the US was previously unheard of for a UK artist.  The band had always seen US popularity as their goal but also largely a fantasy.  As John pointed out, Cliff Richard, a huge star in the UK, “went to America and died. He was fourteenth on the bill with Frankie Avalon.” So the scene I described in my prior write-up, when they learned they had hit #1, was one of pure joy.  And they didn’t just go to #1 with the song; they smashed sales records.  250,000 sold in the US in the first three days.  3.4 million in the first three months.  The hunger for a new generation of rock-and-roll was evident, and the historical significance of this release can’t be overstated. 

There are a crap-ton of live versions available of this song, and I’ll be interested to see which one Getz chooses.  Notably and surprisingly, though, Paul has never played this at any of his post-Beatles shows.  I should text him about that.

Fun fact:  This was the first song to be recorded by the Beatles on four-track recording equipment. 

Guido Merkins

Everything that made She Loves You so great is present on I Want to Hold Your Hand.  For us Americans, it was I Want to Hold Your Hand that broke the Beatles, but as we know, She Loves You had already made them superstars.

So why was Hand the one that broke America?  I think it was just because it’s the one that followed She Loves You.  It so happens that She Loves You had made them such stars that the next record would start to make inroads in America, whereas the others had not.  Hand has slightly less energy than She Loves You, but still a lot of energy.  Great intro that grabs you by the throat immediately.  Nice guitar licks.  Great drumming.  Great bluesy vocals.  John and Paul singing in harmony.  A great middle that kind of brings it down into a minor feel before “I can’t hide, I can’t hide” brings it back up.  Also on the word “understand”, the way it goes from Em to Bm is the chord that made the whole thing according to John and Paul.  When Paul hit that Bm, “John said ‘that’s it, do it again.’”  It’s an unusual movement to go from Em to Bm in that key, but once again, they were going with what sounded good, not with what was “correct”  

Like She Loves You, I’m not sure you can get a whole lot better than I Want to Hold Your Hand.  It’s a perfect expression of what rock and roll would be in the early 60s and it sounded like nothing else on the radio.  She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand combined was like the Big Bang.  Everything after was forever changed.

I Want To Hold Your Hand

64 List Rank: 46

64 List Voters/Points: 10/429

64 List Top 5: 1 @DocHolliday (4)

64 List Top 10: 3 (7, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 7 (13, 20, 22, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 3

What is wrong with you people?   Last song to get under 50% of the votes.  I had this at #7.

 

[Zegras11]

For No One
2022 Ranking: 53
2022 Lists: 14
2022 Points: 145
Ranked Highest by: Shaft41(Son1) (3) @Shaft41 (6) @landrys hat (11) @neal cassady (11) @Ilov80s (12) @krista4 (12) @simey (16) @Binky The Doormat (17) @pecorino (18) @Alex P Keaton (20) @turnjose7 (23) @jamny (25)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 32/10/121

Getz: Another song today taking a sharp downturn from 2019.  Down 21 spots. And Krista4 has her first song appear!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  8

2019 write-up:

For No One (Revolver, 1966)

For all my inconsistency, there's one thing I believe I've been consistent on, which is that I much prefer Paul's more personal songs to those about fictitious worlds.  It's fitting that the two purely Paul songs in my top 10 (I'll give him 85% of the Abbey Road medley) fit this category, and in fact that are opposite ends of the same spectrum, from first moments of love in "I've Just Seen A Face" to the end of love in this song.  When he's not just spitting out perfect pop songs - when he stops being polite and starts getting real (hey, I love terrible reality TV) - he writes lyrics that are as deeply affecting as John's or anyone else's.

While there's much to love about this song, I have to start there, with the lyrics, because those are the main reason this song is propelled into my top 10.  I think "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You" have some devastating lyrics, but they fall more into bitterness than deep sorrow, and none of them compare to the misery of these:

And yet you don't believe her when she says her love is dead

You think she needs you

Or:

You stay home, she goes out

She says that long ago she knew someone but now he's gone

She doesn't need him

Or, the most devastating part:

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

To repeat:  "cried for no one."  She has erased you completely. I love how Paul wrote this in the second person, to pull us even more strongly into the story and make us relate to what is occurring.  It feels as if it's just happened to me.  Good god, it practically brings me to tears simply reading the lyrics.

This song is so despondent that it could have slipped into maudlin in the hands of someone not named Paul, John, or George.  Paul is clearly too brilliant to let that happen, so instead of cheesing it up with a bunch of orchestration or backing vocals, he kept it very simple with single-tracked vocals with no harmonies, little reverb, subtle hi-hats, and piano and clavichord on the verses, then bringing in light bass and tambourine beginning with the chorus.  Neither John nor George played on this song, though John frequently referred to this as one of Paul's best works, "superb" even.  Just Paul, Ringo, and Alan Civil, the French horn player.   

I adore the piano parts on the choruses, and as a piano player I always air play them when they come on, which can be a problem since I'm usually driving when I hear this.  Love the use of the clavichord, too, and Paul's vocal is gorgeous, with a cold affect that works to cast him as the narrator of someone else's pathos.  The change from major to minor keys from the verse to the chorus accentuates the most despairing lyrics, and the transition back into major through the addition measure at the end of the choruses is a lovely, unexpected touch.

What's special about the instrumentation of this song, though, is obviously that French horn.  Paul had loved the French horn as a child and wanted to use it here, so George Martin arranged for Alan Civil, formerly of the London Philharmonic and at that time the principal horn player for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, to join the session.  When Martin asked Paul what he wanted Civil to play, Paul tried to sketch it out as a vocal.  As Martin wrote it out, he came to the end and explained to Paul that the high E was the furthest the French horn could go, not the F that Paul wanted.  Paul was not dissuaded:  "We came to the session and Alan looked up from his bit of paper: 'Eh, George? I think there's a mistake here – you've got a high F written down. Then George and I said, 'Yeah,' and smiled back at him, and he knew what we were up to and played it. These great players will do it. Even though it's officially off the end of their instrument, they can do it, and they're quite into it occasionally."  Geoff Emerick describes Martin as having played a bit of a middleman between the two generations - the "kids" like Paul who didn't understand any limitations, and the more staid generation of Civil and Martin who weren't quite sure how to relate to this new type of musician, but appreciated being included in it.  

The solo that Civil laid down was extraordinary, including that high F, somehow expressing a loss even deeper than that suggested by the lyrics.  Sometimes music can suggest what mere words are insufficient to express.  As much as I love the solo, I'm even more entranced by the way the horn reappears in the last verse, softly repeating a portion of its solo on top of Paul's vocal, as if one last memory of this love affair appears and then fades away.  It's magical.  I also love the ending of this song...if you hadn't heard it before, you might expect a resolution, an additional note to get you back down into the home key, but instead the last note floats out there and it just...ends.  That's it, life sucks, sorry, g'bless.

Mr. krista:  "Was that a real song?  I mean, was it when he broke up with Jane Asher or something?  It’s really cold, and the ending is cold.  What’s the JD Salinger short story?  Seymour Glass is the protagonist.  It’s a couple at a resort, and then the guy walks off the elevator and kills himself.  It seemed like that.  Where it only hinted at loneliness and despair, then it makes it explicit. Ended just like that song ended."

Suggested covers:  Much like Otis Redding, if there's an Emmylou Harris cover you can be guaranteed I'm going to post it.  Good chance I'll always post a Diana Krall cover (this one with James Taylor), too.

2022 Supplement:   If you think I’m reading all those paragraphs to see what I already said, you’re sorely mistaken.  This song slipped out of my top 10 this year, but today I might put it right back up there.  It’s simply brilliant and simply brilliant.

In The Lyrics, Paul described the breakdown of his relationship with Jane Asher as having “little bits of the jigsaw [that] weren’t quite fitting.”  He couldn’t put his finger on it, as he’d been with her for several years and expected to marry her, but little things didn’t match up.  It was only when he met Linda, after he and Jane split, that he thought, “This is more me.  And I’m more her.”  He describes this song as one that came to him a bit out of the blue, where certain words just presented themselves and then he told the story around it.  As with many of his lyrics, certain phrases had a double meaning, such as “your day breaks” meaning both that the day has begun and that it is broken, or “she makes up” referring both to cosmetics and reconciliation.  He described this composition as a magical place of just grabbing the bits that the cosmos gave him because there is a need to explain something to someone, beginning with yourself.

Guido Merkins

Paul was peaking in 1966.  Here, There and Everywhere was one of his best ballads.  One ballad like that on an album is plenty, but to then write For No One on the same album is just unreal.

For No One is one of the rare McCartney songs that Lennon praised liking the music and the lyrics.  It’s not a typical Paul ballad in that it’s about the breakup of a relationship so it has a melancholy to it not typical of McCartney.

Paul and Ringo are the only Beatles that play on the song, but it’s most distinguishing characteristic is a French horn part played by Alan Civil, who received the rare credit on a Beatles album.  Civil recalled that, at first, he thought the song was called For No. 1.  He also remembered that the song was written between B and B flat, so it made tuning difficult.  He turned in a great performance.  George Martin recalled that Paul was initially unimpressed with the take that Civil turned in and asked him to do it again.  Civil said something like “I’m sorry, I can’t do it any better than that” with Martin admonishing Paul (Good God man, you can’t ask him to play that again.”  They kept the take.  There is also a note that is technically outside the range of the French horn.  Of course, Civil could play the note….and he did.

Apparently the song was initially even darker than the finished version and was called Why Did it Die?  

For No One

64 List Rank: 45

64 List Voters/Points: 14/429

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 0

64 List 1-25 votes: 7 (11, 12, 17, 18, 18, 20, 23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7