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

Getzlaf15 said:
Rain

64 List Rank: 22

64 List Voters/Points: 15/661

64 List Top 5: 3 @Oliver Humanzee (1) @otb_lifer (4) @Pip's Invitation (5)

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

64 List 1-25 votes: 9 (14, 16, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

Huge '64 jump from #42!  This was in Top 10 for a long time counting the votes. I had it at #14.
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Yes!  This was one my mom hadn't ranked before, and I don't think she'd even listened to it, and then upon listening she put it at #7!  I thank her in particular for the jump in rating.  It was also my #6 and OH's #1.  Yay, team 4!

 
Invest in Our Planet sounds a little too capitalist and low effort but hey, 193 countries signed off on it so what do i know.

The first Earth Day came 12 days after Macca announced the breakup of the band.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Don’t Let Me Down
2022 Ranking: 25
2022 Lists: 23
2022 Points: 270
Ranked Highest by: @shuke (3) @Westerberg (4) @zamboni (6) @heckmanm (10) @ProstheticRGK (10) @Oliver Humanzee (11) @Wrighteous Ray (12) @Gr00vus (13) @prosopis (14) @falguy (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 43/6/89

Getz: Get Back influence strikes again and we get 19 more votes and 181 more points than in 2019, and into The Top 25, moving up 18 slots.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  49

2019 write-up:

Don't Let Me Down (single, 1970)

Originally submitted during the Get Back sessions but omitted by Phil Spector from Let It Be, this instead became the b-side to "Get Back."  This is the last song I'll be ranking that was played at the London rooftop concert, and the penultimate song they ever played live as a band (the last was a final version of "Get Back").  To me the highlight is John's raw and desperate vocal, countered by Billy Preston's soulful electric piano.  His switches between the vulnerability of verses to the passionate intensity of the choruses is sublime.  John explained his screams:  "When you're drowning, you don't say, 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me.'  You just scream."   The rest of the band is exactly on point here, too, from Paul's superb bass line to George's descending guitar lines during the verses that set up a compelling counter-melody.  Ringo is a standout in keeping up with the frequent tempo changes and odd meters, such as the addition of an extra beat during some measures of the solo parts (e.g., "nobody ever loved me like she does").  The only slight downside of this song is knowing his obsession was with icky Yoko.  Below, Mr. krista explains the interesting composition better than I do.

Mr. krista:  "I like this song.   That is a really strange Beatles tune.  It’s unlike almost everything.  It’s the Bach contrapuntal side.  There’s an ascending and a descending part on each of the lead guitar.  And Billy Preston plays it different on each verse. And in the last one it sounds like the bass is the lead instrument.  Man, they’re a really ####### good band.  It’s a counter-melody played in the same key but in different octaves so everything stands out.  It’s just really good.  It also sounds like John Lennon is giving a command but he’s really vulnerable, like please please really don’t let me down."

Suggested cover:  Ben E. King   It occurred to me the thread needs more mullets:  Hall & Oates

2022 Supplement:  Welcome to my top 25, “Don’t Let Me Down”!  This song took a significant upward (Binky, downward) movement in my rankings this year.  Yes yes, in part that’s due to watching the Get Back documentary, but it’s also a song I knew I had misranked in 2019, when it should have been mid-30s.  This year it weighs in at #19 on the basis of John’s vocal and Billy Preston’s electric piano. 

John’s performance here is one of his best, alternating between soft pleas and shouted desperation.  He wrote the song just after Yoko had experienced a miscarriage, heightening his feelings for and devotion to her.  Paul has characterized this song as a genuine cry for help:  “John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that as much as it excited and amused him, at the same time it secretly terrified him. … It was saying to Yoko, 'I'm really stepping out of line on this one. I'm really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down’.”

Interesting to see from the documentary that they worked on some cheesy echoing harmonies from Paul and George but dropped them:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yaf4K_9fmeI In that clip, the idea of a keyboard part was first floated, with John suggesting Nicky Hopkins.  Later in the documentary, you see how integral Billy Preston became to the success of this song, not just for the piano part itself, but for the energy in the room.  In this clip, they’re all smiles again as the song develops:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=385eTo76OzA   I can’t get enough of stuff like this.  Peter Jackson, please give me more!  

John’s original demo of this song is particularly sweet (“That’ll do”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMXZFIWBAQs

Guido Merkins

One of the great mysteries to me is this….why was Don’t Let Me Down not put on the Let It Be album?  The rooftop performance of Don’t Let Me Down was one of the best songs they did on the roof.  Let It Be Naked fixed this mistake and put the rooftop performance on the album, editing together two versions to fix Lennon’s vocal gaffe on the 2nd verse.

The coolest thing about Don’t Let Me Down is the vocal by Lennon.  Urgent on the chorus, sweeter on the verses, and outright  sentimental in the middle (I’m in love for the first time…)  Also, the countermelody during the middle between John’s vocal and Paul’s bass and George’s guitar is a cool moment.  There is also a very cool electric piano played by Billy Preston.

Don’t Let Me Down was released as the B side of the Get Back single, which was #1.  Another brilliant B side that easily could have been an A side.
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Don't Let Me Down

64 List Rank: 20

64 List Voters/Points: 19/698

64 List Top 5: 1 @shuke (3)

64 List Top 10: 1

64 List 1-25 votes: 10 (11, 11, 13, 15, 19, 19, 20, 21, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

I had this #51

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

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

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  28

2019 write-up:

Two Of Us (Let It Be, 1970)

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

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

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

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

Suggested cover:  Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

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

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

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

Guido Merkins

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

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

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

64 List Rank: 19

64 List Voters/Points: 19/714

64 List Top 5: 1 @heckmanm (2)

64 List Top 10: 3 (6, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 9 (12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) 26/28

64 List 26-64 votes: 10

I had this #6 (would be #3 now)

Moves up from #41

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Yesterday

64 List Rank: 21

64 List Voters/Points: 16/662

64 List Top 5: 4 @lardonastick (2) @Tom Hagen (2) @falguy (4) @AAABatteries (4)

64 List Top 10: 6 (6, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 10 (15, 19, 23, 23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

Down from #10.

This happened to a few of the classics. Without the pressure to fit it into a prior Top 25, a few of these songs took big hits down to the 40's and 50's, and in some cases, were not even ranked.

I had this at #57.
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Interesting. #'s 2-4 shift depending on the day, but this one is and always will be a part of that bubble.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
2022 Ranking: 19
2022 Lists: 29
2022 Points: 355
Ranked Highest by: @DaVinci (2) @Eephus (3) @Gr00vus (5) @whoknew (5) @Tom Hagen (6) @Dennis Castro (7) @prosopis(7) Son1 (8) @Encyclopedia Brown (9) Holly (10) @fatguyinalittlecoat (10)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 16/18/181

Getz: 29 votes is a high for the count down so far. Only slots #1, #4, #18 and #24 failed to get a vote for this one.  We enter a much greater tier in the countdown as this song had 49 more points than the #20 song. Eleven Top 10 votes is the first song to crack double digits. The rest will all do this.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  21

2019 write-up:

You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (Help!, 1965)

C'mon.  I realize some Beatles songs are love/hate, but this has to be one that nobody hates, right?  Every person in the world sings along starting with that "Hey!", don't they?  C'mon.

Everybody knows this was heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, but did you also know that it was banned in Lilliput because the line "feeling two-foot small" was deemed offensive to the island's inhabitants?  Well of course not, because that's just dumb.  C'mon.

Back to Dylan, though.  The musical influence of Dylan is obvious, from the (nearly all) acoustic nature to the folky feel; perhaps even John's sometimes off-key vocal are an homage?  In addition to the music, though, we can hear Dylan's influence on John's lyrics.  While John had started to explore more personal themes on a few songs in this same time period (such as "I'm a Loser," also influenced by Dylan), this song seemed like the most significant break from the lighter lyrics on earlier works, becoming more introspective and delving much deeper into John's personal pain.  Some of the themes seen in many of John's later works - isolation, bitterness, vulnerability - seem to have first been explored here.  I guess I should mention that some have speculated that this was about Brian Epstein, or about John's alleged tryst with Epstein, but none of that has ever been confirmed.

As @Nigel Tufnel pointed out, this song is simpler than many that I have rated lower than it.  As a result, I don't have a ton to say about the musical style or structure.  What I love about it is more the overall feel; it hits some unidentifiable magic for me.  I love the folk ballad style in 3/4 time.  I love that the lyrics are evocative rather than obvious.  I love John's slightly off-key and subdued vocal performance that then gains strength in the later verses, and I love that in this case there aren't harmonies or double-tracked vocals that would detract from the gravelly lead.  I love the gradual addition of more percussion and other instrumentation, from the tambourine to the maracas to, of course, those flutes.  To me the most musically interesting part of the song is that final verse, which is all instrumental and acts as the finale to the song instead of going into another chorus; that was a bold and unexpected step at the time.

Fun fact:  This was the first Beatles song to feature a session musician, flautist Johnnie White.  (I pretend the Andy White session on "Love Me Do" did not happen.)  "Flautist" is a fun word to say.  Fla-u-tist.  Flau-tist.

Mr. krista:  "Obviously I really like it and especially what Lennon does with his voice, in that lower register like Alex Chilton in the Box Tops. Cool anthemic quality.  Singing in that register means everybody can sing that song.  All folk songs should be in that key."

Suggested cover:  Since @JZilla just rejoined the thread, this is a good time for Eddie Vedder.  So many covers by him of this song, but I guess this is "official"?  I like this live version quite a bit.  

2022 Supplement:  Falling out of my top 25 this year for no particular reason, this song is still one of my favorites.  What to say, what to say?  Let’s re-read my 2019 write-up…  Dylan influence?  Check.  Almost entirely acoustic sound?  Check.  Possible affair with Brian Epstein?  Check.  Hmmm…how about a fun fact?  Apparently the line “feeling two foot small” was originally “feeling two foot tall,” but John, as usual, mis-sang his lyrics and decided to keep it in because pseudo-intellectuals would love it, which I don’t exactly understand, but I do like the line better, so now I’m wondering if I am one.

Say, how about an alternate take of the song?  Take 5, released on Anthology 2, starts out adorable, with John riffing on Paul’s accidentally breaking a glass, and proceeds to a lovely, slightly slower version with a fantastic John vocal that might be better than the released version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS4WmUVq51o  No fla-u-tist, though.

Guido Merkins

John, once again, channeling Bob Dylan as he did on I’m A Loser and comes up with a song called You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.  It’s mostly an acoustic song, except for Paul’s bass.  The song is also notable that it’s the first time since Love Me Do, where an outside musician (other than George Martin) performed on a Beatles record.  Love Me Do had Andy White on drums with Ringo playing tambourine.  This was when Ringo first joined and George Martin was still unsure about Ringo.  On You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, a session musician named Johnnie Scott played tenor and alto flute.

My favorite version of the song is actually on Anthology 2 and, once again, I ask myself why they re-recorded it.  I love the Lennon vocal more on Anthology 2, not that the recorded version is bad, but you wonder what they hear that makes them re-record songs.

So what is the song about?  The most scandalous version is that it’s about John and Brian Epstein’s supposed affair in Spain.  John denied that it ever got physical, but others have said otherwise.  We’ll never know since both men are gone.  John never really said what the song was about other than he was in his Dylan period so it was certainly written about something specific.  Maybe it was like Norwegian Wood and it was about an affair he was having.  
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You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

64 List Rank: 18

64 List Voters/Points: 20/724

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 1 (6)

64 List 1-25 votes: 8 (11, 12, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20) 27/27/28/28/28

64 List 26-64 votes: 12

First song with 20 votes (of 23). I had this at #55.

16 - 19 - 18 - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Ticket To Ride The Ed Sullivan Show September 12th 1965
2022 Ranking: 16
2022 Lists: 26
2022 Points: 387
Ranked Highest by: @Uruk-Hai (1) @Murph (2) @Encyclopedia Brown (3) Holly (5) @DocHolliday (5) @Getzlaf15 (6) @landrys hat (6) OH Dad (7) @heckmanm (7) @Eephus (7) @Dennis Castro (8) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (8)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 12/18/253

Getz comments: I had this at #2 in 2019, #6 in 2022. The John and Paul harmonies are killer. This was on five Top 15 lists and just missed. @Encyclopedia Brown become the first to have all of his Top 10 posted.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  16

2019 write-up:

Ticket To Ride (Help!, 1965)

IT'S A RINGO SHOWCASE BINGO!  I'm not surprised at anyone guessing this as my #1 or in my top 10, what with it being A RINGO SHOWCASE! and all.  It missed out only because there are so many ####### great Beatles songs.

John described this song as one of the first heavy-metal songs, and he took credit for all but the drum parts on it, while Paul saw it as more of a 60/40 collaboration favoring John.  I don't know who's correct, though with Paul contributing not only the drum arrangement but the bass, backing vocals, and the guitar solos, he certainly contributed significantly even if not in the songwriting.  And I don't know that I'd call it "heavy metal," but the drums, the guitars and the overall fullness of the sound were certainly heavy for the time.  I just know it's in my top 16 for being A RINGO SHOWCASE!

I don't want to downplay all the other great stuff going on in this RINGO SHOWCASE!  There's some great guitar work by Paul on this song in the solos on the bridges and especially in the fade-out, and I love Ringo's shimmering tambourine that ends the solo on the bridge.  I love John's cold, dry vocal, and Paul adds some amazing harmonies that fittingly lack the sweetness of earlier works; there's a little "ahhhh" that John does ~2:30-2:31 that ####### melts me.  The coda at the end is marvelous, bringing in a new element in double-time with the "my baby don't care" line that hadn't been heard before.  But what makes it A RINGO SHOWCASE! starts at the very beginning, with a short fill and then that crazy syncopated drum pattern that fills the verses.  His overdubbed tambourine on the second and fourth beats serves to enhance how unusual the drumbeats are. Then in the bridge, the drums switch to a standard beat and Ringo utilizes the hi-hat for the first time, with a double-time tambourine also by Ringo in an overdub (actually coming in one beat early on the first bridge but not the second), offering a dramatic contrast to the syncopated verses.  And - again with the fills - Ringo has a series of fills in which he never plays the same fill twice!  Truly (all together now) A RINGO SHOWCASE!

Mr. krista:  "I love how seamlessly he goes right to that hi-hat.  If you watch the YouTube, you can see how boring and dumb that song would be otherwise. Watching reminds me of how everybody I know writes a drum or bass part, but he made something interesting in service of the song.  He came up with a beat that was uniquely him and also makes the song.  It’s not the same song without that beat, and it’s very instructive.  You have to listen to a lot of rock to see the standard way, but when something deviates from that, it’s like describing a void – they didn’t do xyz.  I love that song.  It’s one of the main reasons why Ringo is the best, a fantastic drummer."  (Obviously he knows this is A RINGO SHOWCASE!)

Suggested cover:  Take a heavy song and make it heavier?  Nice!  Hüsker Dü

2022 Supplement:  I still marvel that this song was recorded in early 1965; in fact, it was the first song that the boys laid down in their recording sessions for Help!.  To my ear, it still sounds fresh today.  It’s easy to forget how unbelievably heavy this song was in 1965 compared to what else was out there at the time. And even the little bits like the fade-out that introduces a new lyric to the song were groundbreaking.  I’m flabbergasted that they were able to perform this song live!

Paul tells a sweet story of how he and John used to like to hitchhike, and one time John got £100 as a birthday gift from his uncle, so he and Paul set off for Spain by way of Paris.  But once they got to Paris, they felt like they’d taken in and learned so much that they could write novels just from their one week there, so they never made it to Spain.  The phrase, “She’s got a ticket to ride” referenced these trips together, but it also specifically referred to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where Paul’s cousin and her husband were running a pub.  Paul and John would hitchhike down to Ryde and wrote the song as a memory of this and their other trips together.

Guido Merkins

In an interview, John claimed that Ticket To Ride was the first heavy metal song.  I’ve always thought that was a bit overstated, but there is no doubt, Ticket to Ride is a heavy record for 1965.  Totally different than anything else going on.

Great lead guitar by Paul. Also love the intro which is, I think, on a 12 string.  Also, a very unusual drum pattern, suggested by Paul, but of course, totally Ringo.  Part of it slightly behind the beat, which gives it a swing. My other favorite part is the ending.  The Beatles did this quite often in their career where they kind of do something totally different at the end that gives it a lift.  Almost doing a totally different song within the song (Hello Goodbye is similar).  Very very unique.  McCartney’s harmony throughout is also cool and once again, John and Paul are doing this thing where it’s sometimes difficult to tell who is singing lead.  I also love the difference between the verses and bridge (“don’t know why she’s rising so high”), especially the way the drums change, then lead flourish by Paul and back into the verses.  

If you go watch the movie Help, notice the sequence of them skiing set to Ticket To Ride.  This part of the film is like 15 years ahead of it’s time…fast cuts, out of focus, Beatles clowning….yep, it’s a music video before that thing had even been invented.  Once again, pushing the boundaries set to a Beatles soundtrack.
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Ticket To Ride

64 List Rank: 17

64 List Voters/Points: 20/725

64 List Top 5: 2 @Uruk-Hai (1) @DocHolliday (5)

64 List Top 10: 4 (6, 7)

64 List 1-25 votes: 8 (13, 15, 17, 18)

64 List 26-64 votes: 12

I had this at #13

12 - 16 - 17 - Ticket To Ride

 
The next song.....

After 12 lists were in, we were down to only two songs that were on every list.

it stayed that way until 21 lists were in. Which I thought was incredible.

So after 21 lists, everyone had voted for those two songs, and then Binky didn't.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
And Your Bird Can Sing
2022 Ranking: 31
2022 Lists: 17
2022 Points: 235
Ranked Highest by: @heckmanm (2) Worth (3) @krista4 (5) @Alex P Keaton (5) @Oliver Humanzee (7) @Wrighteous Ray(hub) (8) Sharon (9) @landrys hat (9) @Tom Hagen (10) @Encyclopedia Brown (14) 
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 41/8/96

Getz: Every time this song started to fall counting the votes, someone would come in and rank it high.  Four Top 5 and Nine Top 10 votes.  More than doubled votes and points from 2019 and went up ten slots. The last song in the countdown to not get 20 votes.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  5

2019 write-up:

And Your Bird Can Sing (Revolver, 1966)

“I don't think that "casual" Beatles' fans appreciate "And Your Bird Can Sing" enough. 

Musically speaking, my own personal crank is turned primarily by a particular kind of combustion (not occurring entirely in rock music, though mostly that is where it happens) that has little to do with the "pop" aspects of music that most folks seem to respond to.  That is to say, I truly don't give a fig about a song's "catchiness", its "tunefulness", or whether or not one can bop one's painfully Caucasoid head along to it while driving.  "Danceability" is hahahaha, whatever chief, people manage to dance to Stravinsky and I look like a raccoon drunk on fermented crabapples when I try to perform a movement more artful than "walk briskly in a straight line".  

That said, "And Your Bird Can Sing" burns in the ways that the best rock music does:  it is funny and spiteful and is built around a seemingly endless, hall-of-fame caliber riff as good as "Black Dog" or "Supernaut".  

And Christ if it isn't "catchy" and "hooky" and "fuzzy" and two minutes of absurdly radio-friendly pop music from one of the best bands on the planet at the height of their powers. 

I mean, The Posies, Guided By Voices, Cheap Trick, Game Theory and that whole LA "Paisley Underground" spent whole decades trying to achieve that kind rock/pop/art synthesis and it has just been hanging out there on side B of Revolver this whole time. 

The hell.  Why aren't all of you "power pop" music aficionados jabbering about this song so ceaselessly that I have to mute you on Twitter?  Why the hell do you all keep jabbering about Weezer?  (I mean, I assume.  That's what you were all jabbering about when I muted you on Twitter.)” 

I've bumped Mr. krista's prior post on this song; between that post and his comments below, he covers much of what I have to say about why I love the song, plus some.  One thing he doesn't mention is that this has one of those blast starts that I've mentioned in several of my top 25 Beatles songs, immediately launching you into the ride, and the ride remains energetic and ebullient throughout.  The vocals, both lead by John and the harmonies from Paul and George, are outstanding.  And as Mr. krista references below, the lyrics are fantastic, with plays on words throughout; in addition to the one he mentions, John also cycles through double meanings on the senses of sight ("you can't see me") and hearing ("you can't hear me") to emphasize the absence of understanding and empathy.

Both "She Said She Said" and "Ticket To Ride" have been mentioned as the most Beatle-y Beatles songs, but I'd like to throw this one in the mix for consideration as well.  I can't wait to hear @fatguyinalittlecoat rock our faces off by simultaneously playing both George's and Paul's guitar parts!

Mr. krista's earlier comments:  "What I love most in rock music is a good riff, though I don’t know how to describe what makes a riff better than other riffs. But that is The Good Riff. [instructs me to use initial caps there] A great riff.  Unlike a lot of riffs, it’s ascending, and it goes over two bars. But it’s fuzzy.  The tempo is really fast.  It’s really tough to play a good riff that fast.  The best metal riffs are slowed down.  It’s very fast but unhurried.  Says a lot about what a great drummer Ringo is.  Everything could go off the rails easily, but he keeps it together. While the riff ascends, Lennon’s vocals go down.  The lyrics are incredibly good – you’ve seen seven wonders but a total inability to empathize (“but you don’t get me”).  Double meaning of “you don’t get me”?  It’s like a really happy ####-you song.  Gleefully being pissed off.  Not explicit but smarter – #### you."

Suggested cover:  Not in the same league (how could it be), but adequate:  The Jam

2022 Supplement:  Hanging tight in the #5 slot for me, and a top 10 finish on Mr. krista’s list as well. 

In a recent interview, Paul said that the guitar solo was Celtic in nature:  "We're Liverpool boys and they say Liverpool is the capital of Ireland, so it's likely the solo is influenced." Now I can hear that every time I listen to this song.

Paul has cited this Byrds-ian, giggly, whistly earlier take of the song as one of his favorites in the Anthology series:  “One of my favorites on the ‘Anthology’ is ‘And Your Bird Can Sing,’ which is a nice song, but this take of it was one we couldn’t use at the time. John and I got a fit of the giggles while we were doing the double-track. You couldn’t have released it at the time, but now you can. Sounds great just hearing us lose it on a take.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf22VR71ags  I’m with Paul – love it!

Guido Merkins

One of the most speculated upon songs in the Beatles catalog lyrics wise is And Your Bird Can Sing from Revolver.  John had a very low opinion of the song and never shared what the lyrics are about.  I’ve read speculation as wide ranging as referring to a clock with a windup bird in a cage she gave to John.  Or it was written about Frank Sinatra and had something to do with his penis and being able to have any woman he wanted.  Marianne Faithful thought it was about her and Mick Jagger (bird is British slang for woman).  So who knows what the song is about.

John had a low opinion of this song for some reason, but the bottom line is that this song was extremely influential mostly for the harmonized lead guitar.  Guitar harmony was not used much in 1966, but just a few short years later, metal bands and Southern rock bands built their entire careers around what they first heard on And Your Bird Can Sing.  I also love the way the guitars kind of explode out of the speakers at the very beginning of the song.  A funny story about the guitars is that Joe Walsh, with great effort and lots of time, finally figured out the lead guitar part of And Your Bird Can Sing.  Walsh became Ringo’s brother in law because he married Barbara Bach’s sister and told Ringo how long he had worked to master that solo. Ringo informed him that “George and Paul played that together.”  So Walsh may be the only person in the world who can play that part alone, including George.

And Your Bird Can Sing started off very much influenced by the Byrds.  On Anthology 2 you can hear an early verison that makes this very clear before it went to much more rocking electric sound.
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And Your Bird Can Sing

64 List Rank: 16

64 List Voters/Points: 21/754

64 List Top 5: 2 @heckmanm (1) @krista4 (5)

64 List Top 10: 6 (6, 7, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (12, 17, 19, 22, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 10

First to have 21 votes. The last two voters didn't vote for it. We have a 22 and a 23 coming up.

Moved up from #31

I had this at #56

 
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I think since no one is ever here on the weekends, I'm going to finish today. I've been posting 5 in the AM, and 5 in the PM for awhile.  I'll just post five around 1, 4, 7pm MT.

 
Two of Us and Don’t Let Me Down screaming up the charts from 2019.  Get Back bump?

And Your Bird Can Sing…I’m so proud of us for this one coming in so high!

 
Getzlaf15 said:
And Your Bird Can Sing

64 List Rank: 16

64 List Voters/Points: 21/754

64 List Top 5: 2 @heckmanm (1) @krista4 (5)

64 List Top 10: 6 (6, 7, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (12, 17, 19, 22, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 10

First to have 21 votes. The last two voters didn't vote for it. We have a 22 and a 23 coming up.

Moved up from #31

I had this at #56
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My wife bought the game "Seven Wonders" last weekend for our family, and we've played a few games this week.  At this point, every time we've played, and in the hours after, I've had "And Your Bird Can Sing" in my head since it mentions the seven wonders.  Not only is the game fun (although I haven't won yet 😡), but I get a great song in my head every time.  

 
Some more goners...

12   You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
24   And Your Bird Can Sing
28   Two Of Us
32   Don't Let Me Down
36   Ticket To Ride

 
krista4 said:
Two of Us and Don’t Let Me Down screaming up the charts from 2019.  Get Back bump?
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I still haven't seen Get Back yet, so it didn't bump anything for me. However, your mom's story of what she associates with the "Two of Us" does give the song an extra feel good vibe to it for me. 

 
Getzlaf15 said:
I think since no one is ever here on the weekends, I'm going to finish today. I've been posting 5 in the AM, and 5 in the PM for awhile.  I'll just post five around 1, 4, 7pm MT.
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I read in a thread yesterday that you are getting over Covid. How are you feeling today?

 
simey said:
I read in a thread yesterday that you are getting over Covid. How are you feeling today?
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I'm doing well.  Thanks!!   Got it Thur 4.14.  Had very rough days last Fri and Sat.  I home tested negative Fri am. So didn't think I had it.  Sun AM. Same home test was super positive. Went to Urgent Care. Got some Paxlovid anti-viral. It was very fast working and effective and eliminated coughing attacks, headaches and fog..  Guidelines say I'm ok to go out with a mask now. I feel fine, except I'm tired all the time.  That's slowly going away.   Unfortunately gave it to my wife also. Very mild for her as she's having no coughing attacks. Very happy to have taste and smell working fine.  

 
Getzlaf15 said:
I'm doing well.  Thanks!!   Got it Thur 4.14.  Had very rough days last Fri and Sat.  I home tested negative Fri am. So didn't think I had it.  Sun AM. Same home test was super positive. Went to Urgent Care. Got some Paxlovid anti-viral. It was very fast working and effective and eliminated coughing attacks, headaches and fog..  Guidelines say I'm ok to go out with a mask now. I feel fine, except I'm tired all the time.  That's slowly going away.   Unfortunately gave it to my wife also. Very mild for her as she's having no coughing attacks. Very happy to have taste and smell working fine.  
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glad to hear you're feeling better.  :hifive:

 
Getzlaf15 said:
I'm doing well.  Thanks!!   Got it Thur 4.14.  Had very rough days last Fri and Sat.  I home tested negative Fri am. So didn't think I had it.  Sun AM. Same home test was super positive. Went to Urgent Care. Got some Paxlovid anti-viral. It was very fast working and effective and eliminated coughing attacks, headaches and fog..  Guidelines say I'm ok to go out with a mask now. I feel fine, except I'm tired all the time.  That's slowly going away.   Unfortunately gave it to my wife also. Very mild for her as she's having no coughing attacks. Very happy to have taste and smell working fine.  
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great news! glad your wife is getting through it ok.

had it almost exactly two years ago and thankfully had mild symptoms. a lot of my (younger) friends from church got it around   the same time - fm a super spreader event the day after lockdown - & had it way, way worse.

 
BobbyLayne said:
great news! glad your wife is getting through it ok.

had it almost exactly two years ago and thankfully had mild symptoms. a lot of my (younger) friends from church got it around   the same time - fm a super spreader event the day after lockdown - & had it way, way worse.
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glad yours was mild.    I picked up a nasty virus on a plane ride back from New Orleans six years ago and coughed with every ounce of my body for four days. Turned into pneumonia. This cough was exactly the same so I never got too worried. If it had gotten worse than that, trip to ER. Also had the booster so I wasn't worried about a hospital trip. 

 
Getzlaf15 said:
I'm doing well.  Thanks!!   Got it Thur 4.14.  Had very rough days last Fri and Sat.  I home tested negative Fri am. So didn't think I had it.  Sun AM. Same home test was super positive. Went to Urgent Care. Got some Paxlovid anti-viral. It was very fast working and effective and eliminated coughing attacks, headaches and fog..  Guidelines say I'm ok to go out with a mask now. I feel fine, except I'm tired all the time.  That's slowly going away.   Unfortunately gave it to my wife also. Very mild for her as she's having no coughing attacks. Very happy to have taste and smell working fine.  
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I'm glad you're doing better, and your wife has it mildly. Next Thursday starts the Merlefest, and I hope I don't get it there. Last year you had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to get in, but this year you don't. Most of the stages are outdoors, but I caught a stomach bug there back in 2019, and two people that were with me caught it too.  I hope for healthiness.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Strawberry Fields Forever
2022 Ranking: 13
2022 Lists: 34
2022 Points: 495
Ranked Highest by: @Binky The Doormat (1) @ekbeats (1) Craig (1) @Guido Merkins (2) @zamboni (2) @worrierking (3) @BobbyLayne (3) @krista4 (4) @Dwayne Hoover (4) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (5) Slug (5) @Westerberg(6)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 13/20/249

Getz: Next tier here we come. 86 more points than the #14 song. First song to have a vote in each of the Top 6 slots. Eleven Top 5 and 18 Top 10 votes are both new highs for the countdown. #13 in both 2019 and 2022.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  11

2019 write-up: 

Strawberry Fields Forever (single, 1967)

This feels like a song I shouldn’t write up, since it’s so beloved by music critics and actual humans alike.  What could I possibly add?  

Like The Song That Shall Not Be Named that is the other a-side of this single, it’s a look back at scenes from the writer’s childhood.  But it doesn’t wallow in nostalgia; instead it uses those memories as a means for self-reflection.   Oh man, I really can’t do it.  I can’t speak eloquently or interestingly about such a masterpiece.  

Here are some things I love, in no particular order:

The lyrics.  John called the song “psychoanalysis set to music.”  Though Strawberry Field was a real place that John played in as a child, “nothing is real” here and the song addresses deep feelings of alienation and feeling different (“No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low”).  The lyrics, as in “Nowhere Man,” seem like a conversation John is having with himself, working through his ambivalence in real-time within the lyrics:

Living is easy with eyes closed

Misunderstanding all you see

It's getting hard to be someone

But it all works out

It doesn't matter much to me

…

Always, no, sometimes think it's me

But you know I know when it's a dream

I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes

But it's all wrong

That is I think I disagree

Though this not my favorite John vocal if heard in isolation, his tone perfectly fits the mood of introspection.  There’s a sense of longing in there but it’s partially masked by an element of detachment, as if he’s so isolated that he can’t quite let himself go.  He imagines a place that doesn’t exist to replace the isolation, a place where he’s understood.

As I stated earlier, Ringo’s fills here are one of my three favorite Beatles songs.  Yeah, we talk about his fills a lot, but try for a second to imagine this song without them. It’s impossible.  Add in the backward cymbals parts and this is one of Ringo’s best performances.  George's guitar work is more subtle but fabulous, and George Martin's cello orchestration is phenomenal.

The Mellotron!  There are a lot of interesting technical aspects to this song that nerdier people than I could discuss better (backward cymbals), but the most interesting to me is the use of Mellotron, a new instrument that contained various tape loops, and if you hit a note it could mimic other instruments.  In this case Paul used it in the “flute” setting starting with that beautiful intro and continuing throughout the song. 

One other interesting technical aspect of the song is that the finished product is actually two very different takes spliced together.  John had decided that he liked the first half of one take but the second half of another, which had been recorded in a different key and at a different tempo! John was never concerned with the technical details and left it to George Martin to figure out how to give him the version he wanted.  Martin and Geoff Emerick finally figured out that if they sped up the first one and slowed down the second, they could get the pitch and tempo to match.  Then they had to figure out where to make the edit. If you listen closely around the one-minute mark, as John sings the beginning of the second chorus, you can hear the edit on the word “going” – “let me take you down ‘cause I’m going…” 

Mr. krista:  " “I like the song.  I think it’s great.  John kind of singing like Paul, a quality I like in this.  It’s so smartly done.  I like songs that paint an otherworldly picture.  Maybe it’s a bit on the nose.  The fills are killer.  The drums sound incredible, really heavy, and all those fills grab you and pull you into this world they created.  I like the complicated melody.  All the horns and all that kitchen sink stuff they put in there seem essential, embedded into the music instead of slapped on."

Suggested covers:  Didn't do much new with it, but the vocal is perfect:  Ben Harper.  Of course:  Richie Havens at Woodstock  Richie Havens polished version

*John loved this song and talked about it a lot.  I’m copying a few of his explanations of the lyrics through the years, in case anyone is interested.

“In ‘Strawberry Fields’ I’m saying, ‘No, always think it’s me,’ and all that bit, and ‘Help!’ was trying to describe myself, how I felt, but I wasn’t sure how I felt.  So I’d be saying, ‘Sometimes, no always, think it’s real but…’ but I’m expressing it haltingly because I’m not sure what I’m feeling.  But now I was sure: ‘Yeah, that was what I’m feeling – it hurts, that’s what it’s about.’  So then I could express myself.”

“So the line says, ‘No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.’  What I’m saying, in my insecure way, is ‘Nobody seems to understand where I’m coming from.  I seem to see things in a different way than most people.'”

“It’s a bit of messing, let’s get away to Strawberry Fields.  Certain parts of the song are fantastic to me, especially when you’re doing it, but then after that; you listen to it objectively.  ‘Living is easy…misunderstanding all you see.’  It still goes, doesn’t it?  The awareness apparently trying to be expressed.  Let’s say, in one way, I was always hip.  I was hip in kindergarten.  I was different from all the others.  I was different all my life.  The second verse goes, ‘No one I think is in my tree,’ well, I was too shy and too doubting.  ‘Nobody seems to be as hip as me,’ is what I was saying.  Therefore I must be crazy or a genius!  ‘I mean it must be high or low,’ the next line.  It was scary as a child, because there was nobody to relate to.  Neither my auntie nor my friends nor anybody could ever see what I did.  It was very, very scary, and about the only contact I had was reading about Oscar Wilde or a Dylan Thomas or a Vincent Van Gogh, all those books that my auntie had talked about their suffering because of their visions.  Because of what they saw, they were tortured by society for trying to express what they were.  I saw loneliness.”

2022 Supplement:  Finally an upbeat story to be told in my rankings, as this little song is my big mover-and-shaker this year, moving from “outside looking in” at #11, and (perhaps rudely) skipping over other deserving songs all the way to #4.  And this little guy did it without benefit of a documentary about him, just using his John-given grit and determination.  Impressive!

In 2019, I waxed not-at-all poetic about the technical aspects of this song that I loved, but what’s continued its upward trajectory over the past few years is the lyrical masterpiece that I consider it to be.  Maybe it’s hard in isolation to see something like “I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes / But it’s all wrong /That is I think I disagree” as mastery, but the way John compounds his thoughts on this song hits a deep, mostly hidden part of me.  I’ve realized over the course of the last few years how scared I am of not being heard, or not hearing others correctly.  It’s not that I, like John, think people do misunderstand me, but that I’m afraid that they might.  And that if they do, they’ll take something I say differently than was intended, perhaps be offended by it, perhaps feel bad about it, perhaps have any feeling that is different than what I wanted to convey.  On the flip side, I’ve also found myself trying to understand specifically what someone else means with a greater ferocity than might be necessary…or even healthy.  Is it the uncertainty that we’ve all faced the past couple of years what’s brought this to the fore?  I think it’s possible that the sense of isolation John expresses is more meaningful to me in that context. 

Whatever it is, I find myself, when this song comes on the radio, stopping whatever I’m doing, rewinding it,* and listening to it over and over, more and more loudly each time.  

*One of the greatest inventions of all time is the ability to rewind the radio.  You can have your printing press or cotton gin or whatever.

Guido Merkins

Strawberry Fields Forever was written by John over a long period of time while he acted in a movie called "How I Won the War."  He wrote it on acoustic guitar and Strawberry Field was a place near John's house that was an old Salvation Army place.  John and his friends would go to Strawberry Fields to play.  John wanted to write a song about his childhood and used Strawberry Field as a sort of colorful image.  The lyrics had nothing whatsoever to do with Strawberry Field.  John wrote the song as a very personal song reflecting on his childhood within himself.

Strawberry Fields Forever is unique in that there are a vast wealth of demos and outtakes that allows you to trace the song from conception until final recording.  John brought the song in and played it on acoustic and George Martin commented that he was "mesmerized" by the song and wishes he had just recorded it with just John.  It had this very dreamy quality that was unusual for John at the time.  Then they go through a bunch of recordings.  First take with a slide guitar and mellotron.  Then getting a little heavier with drums and guitar.  Then finally a scored version with VERY heavy drums and George playing a swarmandal.  John liked a little of the lighter version and the last part of the heavier version so George Martin sped one down and slowed one down and they somehow met in the middle and worked.  John, in interviews, said he was never happy with the recording.  Most everyone else, thinks the recording is an absolute masterpiece.

Notice a few things.  First, John kind of didn't know what he wanted to do with the song musically. John was great with lyrics and melodies, but the sounds he could get, he was always a little lost and certainly with technology, he was lost.  He would describe things about how he wanted it to feel like to George Martin instead of saying "I think it needs strings", for example.  Second, the melody is on just a few notes, not very rangy.  Third, the chord progression has some quirkiness like the 5th chord on this song being a minor chord, which is almost never done.  Fourth, John writes from his own experience.  He uses Strawberry Field because he likes the imagery of the name, not because he is trying to tell a story about Strawberry Field.  He tells a story about his childhood, but from his own experience and about himself

Strawberry Fields Forever along with Penny Lane are, IMO, the greatest single the Beatles every released (and maybe the greatest anyone’s ever released) so it went straight to #1 in the UK, right?  Nope, the first single since Love Me Do to not reach #1.  Englebert Humperdink’s Release Me, of all things, kept this unbelievable single at #2.  Strange but true facts.
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Strawberry Fields Forever

64 List Rank: 15

64 List Voters/Points: 19/773

64 List Top 5: 3 @Binky The Doormat (2) @BobbyLayne (3) @krista4 (4) 

64 List Top 10: 5 (8, 9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (11, 17, 17, 20, 22, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

I had this at #41

13 - 13 - 15 - Strawberry Fields Forever

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Across The Universe
2022 Ranking: 18
2022 Lists: 23
2022 Points: 363
Ranked Highest by: @whoknew (1) @Man of Constant Sorrow (1) @krista4 (2) @jwb (4) @ProstheticRGK (5) @ManOfSteelhead(6) @Oliver Humanzee (6) @turnjose7 (6) @simey (7) @DocHolliday (8) @Uruk-Hai (9) @pecorino (9) @ekbeats (10) @shuke (13) @landrys hat (15)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 23/11/153

Getz: 15 Top 10 votes out of 23 votes cast is quite impressive. Moves up five slots in 2022.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  2

2019 write-up:

Across The Universe (Let It Be, 1970)

There’s no reason I should love this song so much.  I can’t connect with the spiritual vibe of “Jai guru deva om” (approximate translation is “Victory to God divine”), and I don’t get some soccer-mom-faux-empowerment feeling from the “nothing’s gonna change my world” part.  And yet, if I could hear the right recording of it, it would probably be my #1 song.  Something in there just scratches my musical itch.  What do I mean by the right recording?  Well, there are four officially released versions, not to mention any bootlegs, and each of them has something that I wish were slightly different in order to make it my “perfect” version.  

I’ll get to the issue of the recordings below, but first here’s what I love most about the song:  John’s vocal, the meter, the phrasing, and the lyrics.  On the not-messed-with recordings, his voice sounds delicate and gentle, intimate and as beautiful as it’s ever sounded.  As for the meter, I love the breathless propulsion and then dramatic slow-down resulting from John’s only singing one note for every syllable in the verses until each time he gets to “universe,” where he gives it a little trill.  And finally, there are the lyrics and phrasing.  My favorite non-Beatle songwriter is legit-poet Leonard Cohen, and the lines in this song are to me as stunning a work of poetry as some of Cohen’s best works.  The imagery is stunningly evocative, and the internal rhymes are sublime.  The verses are every bit as masterful when read simply as poetry as when committed to song:

Words are flowing out

Like endless rain into a paper cup

They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe

Pools of sorrow waves of joy

Are drifting through my opened mind

Possessing and caressing me

Images of broken light

Which dance before me like a million eyes

They call me on and on across the universe

Thoughts meander like a

Restless wind inside a letter box

They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

Sounds of laughter, shades of life

Are ringing through my opened ears

Inciting and inviting me

Limitless undying love

Which shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe

The lyrics came to John as he was lying in bed with his first wife and irritated with her for some reason, but they quickly turned into a “cosmic song” for him:  “They were purely inspirational and were given to me.  I don't own it, you know; it came through like that. I don't know where it came from, what meter it's in, and I've sat down and looked at it and said, 'Can I write another one with this meter?' Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It's not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. It's like being possessed; like a psychic or a medium. The thing has to go down. It won't let you sleep, so you have to get up, make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep.”  John considered these possibly the best lyrics he ever wrote, and this time I agree with John – they’re perfectly breathtaking.

As to those recordings…  The song was originally recorded in early 1968 and intended as a possible single, but it was shelved in favor of “Lady Madonna” and others.  On these first recordings were John on vocal, George on a sitar for the intro and tambura elsewhere, John and Paul on acoustic guitars, and Ringo on svaramandal.  Take two of these recordings was released on Anthology 2 in 1996.

As the band continued to record and re-record the song, Paul decided to step outside the studio and ask a couple of the Apple Scruffs to join the newly harmonized chorus on backing vocals.  Two teenage girls then joined as singers on the chorus, and the group also added the wah-wah guitar part, maracas, and Paul on piano.  The first officially released version was based on this version and released in December 1969 on a charity album for the World Wildlife Fund. But before release, the sounds of birds and children playing were added, and the song was sped up a semitone from D to E flat.

The next version to be released was the Spector-ized version on Let It Be in 1970.  For this version, Spector slowed the song back down, all the way to D flat, stripped out the existing backing vocals, and added a 50-piece orchestra and a choir. 

In 2003, the Let It Be...Naked version was mixed and released, stripping out from the Let It Be version all but John’s vocal and acoustic guitar and George’s tambura. 

Or something like that.  Whew.

What we ended up with, then, were wildly different versions of the same song, all with different tempos and feels.  John loved the Spector version, calling it one of his best songs, and he even went so far as to accuse Paul of having sabotaged the earlier versions (for instance, by bringing in girls from the street to sing backing vocals).  I, as usual, don’t enjoy the Spector-ization at all.  But I also am not a fan of the WWF version due to all the bird noises and faster tempo, which I think makes John vocal sound wrong.  That leaves me with the naked version, which I find too stripped down, and the Anthology version, which ends up as my favorite but I really want that wah-wah guitar and some other elements on there.

Ideally, this is what someone needs to do for me:  take the version recorded for WWF before the birds and #### were added and it was sped up, then also strip out the crappy girls’ voices and add the sitar from Anthology 2.  Or, take the Anthology 2 version and add the backing harmonies from Paul and George, the maracas, the bass, and the wah-wah guitar. Get to it!

Fun fact: In 2008, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of this song and NASA’s 50th anniversary, the song was transmitted into space, toward the star Polaris, 431 light years from Earth, becoming the first song ever intentionally transmitted into deep space.

Mr. krista:

[Regarding naked version.]  “That’s definitely what John Lennon sounds like.  He doesn’t sound like that in the other one.  

[Regarding Let It Be version.] It’s slowed down, so it sounds like a lower key.  There’s all that reverb because that’s how Phil Spector could make it sound dreamy, because he’s a hack.  Listen to all that whoo-ooo-ooo part.  

 “Obviously I really like that song.  The naked version is the best version.  Really not digging Phil Spector version.  Seems like the studio stuff they’d done before was for joyful experimentation or to make a point on the record, and this is just tricks and hacks and Phil Spector’s trying to justify a paycheck.  That orchestration is how you’d orchestrate an Esther Williams dream sequence in a Hollywood production, which is where he’s at. It’s a lovely song.  I like the straight eighth-notes, because it seems breathless since the end of the line is the beginning of the next line.  It’s strange that more people don’t recognize it as one of the best Beatles songs, and that they seemed so unsatisfied even though they recorded it 500 different times.”

Suggested covers – Rufus Wainwright  Fiona Apple  David Bowie

2022 Supplement:  This song remains my second favorite but is still a “what else could have been” for me, due to the issues with the various versions of this song, none of which were exactly finished to the point where John would have liked them.  It had the potential to be one of few songs that I would deem “perfect.”  But good news!  Amazingly enough, in addition to the four versions I linked in 2019, we have several more to choose from as well:

There’s Take 6, which was released in the 50th anniversary edition of the White Album (despite not being on that album):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-kDjCi5DP4  This is now my favorite!

There’s Glyn Johns’s 1970 mixing of what sounds like the same take, which was released last year as part of the super-deluxe 50th anniversary set for Let It Be:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auTzvaAbpVs   Not sure why this one was rejected.  Sounds great to me.

There’s Giles Martin’s 2021 re-mixing that was issued in the same anniversary set:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqUzU552X8A    He toned down the Spector but not enough for me.  Sounds pleasantly lush, though.

And, there are various electric snippets that we’ve seen now due to the Get Back documentary:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtAzE3izng  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZfn1Wm5E74   :lmao:

And more audio only of those sessions here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdRk31viNgg

Please, Peter Jackson – I want more!  I’ve asked nicely twice now.  Next time might not be so nice, if you know what I mean.  [NARRATOR:  No one, in fact, knew what she meant.]

Guido Merkins

John expressed dissatisfaction with the way some of his Beatles songs were recorded.  One such some was Across the Universe.  Across the Universe, for my money, is John’s best set of lyrics being poetry set to music.  The vivid imagery of “words flowing out like rain into a paper cup” or “limitless undying love that shines around me like a million suns” are first-class rock lyrics.

There are 2 released versions of Across the Universe and an outtake on Anthology 2, plus a reworked version on Let It Be Naked.  The first released version was given to the World Wildlife Fund and you know it because it has the female vocals on the chorus.  The 2nd released version was from the Let It Be album with John on an acoustic guitar with Phil Spector’s choirs and strings.  They slowed it down, so to my ears, John sounds stoned.  The version on Let It Be Naked is the same version as the one on Let It Be, except they sped John’s voice back up and removed the Spector stuff and added some Leslie speaker effect to John’s guitar.  This is my favorite version.  My second favorite version is the one on Anthology 2, which is different entirely with sitar, tambura and swarmandel.  

Once again, I am actually not sure why the version that is on Anthology 2, which I think is the earliest version, was not released.  I don’t like it as much as the Naked version, but if they had released it, the Naked version wouldn’t have existed and I wouldn’t have known the difference anyway.
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Across The Universe

64 List Rank: 14

64 List Voters/Points: 19/779

64 List Top 5: 1 @krista4 (2)

64 List Top 10: 8 (6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (20, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

Only one in Top 30 I didn't vote for.

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Eleanor Rigby (From "Yellow Submarine")
2022 Ranking: 12
2022 Lists: 33
2022 Points: 497
Ranked Highest by: @heckmanm (1) Son2 (1) @Binky The Doormat (2) @Getzlaf15 (2) Daughter (2) @jamny (3) @Ilov80s (4) Rob (5) OH dad (6) @DocHolliday (7) @Wrighteous Ray hub (7) @MAC_32 (7) @AAABatteries (8) @Just Win Baby (8) @Shaft41 (9) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (9) @BobbyLayne (10) Slug (10)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 7/22/319

Getz: I had this at #1 in 2019. #2 in 2022. Not quite the voter and point total increases other songs have seen recently, so it falls from #7 to #12 this time. “Strawberry” had a vote in each of the #1-6 slots, “Rigby” had a vote in each of the #1-11 slots, for 21 of its 33 total votes.
Alice Cooper

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  36

2019 write-up:

Eleanor Rigby (Revolver, 1966)

I've mentioned several times here that I'm a sucker for cello in a rock song, and this is no exception.  Except maybe it's not really a rock song, but that's OK.  Of Paul's made-up worlds, this is the one I find most interesting, if a bit cruel.  Paul's vocal is gorgeous and pure, and the string arrangement is flawless.  Using the strings in place of the drumbeat in a rock/pop song was brilliant.  If I were ranking songs I found most impressive or "genius" by the Beatles, this would rank with "A Day In The Life," "Tomorrow Never Knows," and others near the top of the list. There's nothing I don't like about this song; it just leaves me a little cold.  Maybe it's supposed to - after all, it's a song about loneliness and isolation. The melancholy description of lives of futility brings me down, but at least it's in a particularly beautiful and poignant way.

After Paul strummed the idea of this song out on acoustic guitar, it was (unsurprisingly) George Martin's idea that the only accompaniment to the vocal be a double string quartet.  Paul actually was skeptical at first, worried that the song would sound too "Mancini," so while he agreed he directed he wanted the strings to sound "biting."  I think they successfully created that "biting" feel, to the horror of the string musicians.   Unlike traditional set-ups where one mic would be placed high over the musicians' heads, for this composition the mics were placed within an inch or two of each instrument, much to the musicians' discomfort.  In each take, one could hear the sound of the musicians moving their chairs back away from the mics, until George Martin told them to stop!  While it wasn't to the musicians' liking, this approach ultimately gave the song that biting yet lush sound on the strings.

Paul has said that he made up the name "Eleanor Rigby" based on Eleanor Bron, the lead actress in Help!, and then digging around for a last name he liked until he saw the shop name "Rigby & Evens" near the Bristol theater where Jane Asher was performing.  But there was a real Eleanor Rigby in Liverpool, born in 1895 and died in 1944.  If you're a crazy person, you can visit her tombstone in Liverpool as part of your Beatles fandom.

Mr. krista:  "That’s a troubling song.  First, it’s a very beautiful song.  I was trying to listen without listening to the lyrics, which bug me. That’s not how you evoke loneliness. But the strings sound so raw.  Not played with vibrato, it’s just ununununun. Like if Kraftwerk programmed a string quartet.  The mic is just picking up everything that happens.  But also cold, which really does evoke that kind of loneliness.  It’s not an easy song.  People must have thought, 'Where the #### are the Beatles.' Like, where’s the guitar?  The vocals are complex.  It’s like Schubert."

Suggested cover:  This is Paul's favorite cover of the song, and who am I to argue?  Ray Charles  Also, via excellent suggestion by @Ted Lange as your Bartender:  Wes Montgomery.  

2022 Supplement:  So only a “crazy person” would visit the Eleanor Rigby tombstone?  Obviously.  [Scribbles out entries in July 2022 itinerary.]

Paul grew up with a lot of old ladies around, in part due to the odd jobs he would do like mowing a lawn.  He says that this song was based on one old lady he got along well with, with whom he would go around and just chat, and later delivered groceries to her and listened to her stories.  He can’t remember her name now, which he says is the trouble with history:  “Even if you were there, which I obviously was, it’s sometimes difficult to pin down.”  Ah, if only he admitted this about his often-inconsistent retellings of the Beatles’ stories.  Paul has also said that there is a connection between the ”stabbiness” (OK, my word, not his) of the strings in this song and the mummified mother in Psycho, connecting her to Eleanor as another “elderly woman who had been left high and dry.”

Whoever he had in mind, Paul definitely had the obvious theme of loneliness when he crafted the song.  He points out the vague idea of a woman picking up the rice after a wedding – she isn’t necessarily a cleaner, but whoever she is, she is ruing the idea that she is at most an observer, with no hope of having a wedding of her own.  Paul sees this song as a breakthrough for him, lyrically, and cites no less than Allen Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs – the latter having marveled at how much story Paul got into three verses – as admirers of the poetry of the song.

Fun fact:  Paul was thinking of “Nivea” cold cream when he mentioned the face in a jar by the door, because it was his mum’s favorite and is still something he uses to this day.  Now if I could only figure out what Ringo uses for his youthful appearance, I might (appear to) live forever.

Guido Merkins

Paul has a reputation, in some ways justified, of not putting a lot of thought into lyrics.  Hello Goodbye and Let Em In are kind of examples of this.  However, Paul can come up with some really great lyrics full of meaning and pathos when he chooses.  Yesterday is a good example, Eleanor Rigby is a better example.

Apparently Paul was vamping on an Em chord on a piano at Jane Asher’s house and started making up this melody which, eventually, became Eleanor Rigby.  The story of this name is quite interesting as Paul claims he used Miss Daisy Hawkins, which he didn’t like because it sounded made up.  So he used Eleanor from Eleanor Braun, the female lead in the Help film and Rigby from the name of a store he saw.  Only later was a headstone discovered in the Woolton Cemetery only steps away from where John and Paul first met with the name Eleanor Rigby and the name McKenzie on another stone close by.  So perhaps it was something stuck in his subconscious, but that tombstone has become a popular tourist attraction in Liverpool, even though Paul claimed to not use that as inspiration.

Anyway, the theme of the song is about lonely people.  Phrases like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been” and died in the church and was buried along with her name” and “nobody came” and “darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there (Ringo contributed this) and “ah, look at all the lonely people (George) fits in with this theme of loneliness.  Jane Asher turned Paul onto Vivaldi, hence the Vivaldi like strings, a double string quartet.

This song announces itself as the type of song that will be around long after there is any living memory of the Beatles.  Just sounds like a classic, something that’s always been around. Stuff like this wasn’t expected from rock and roll bands before the Beatles.  Eleanor Rigby is a great example of the Beatles widening the playing field for bands.  I can’t prove it, but I don’t think you get to Bohemian Rhapsody without Eleanor Rigby.  Not because they are alike, but more because I’m not sure anybody would assume opera was fair game for a rock record, until Rigby.
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Eleanor Rigby

64 List Rank: 13

64 List Voters/Points: 19/789

64 List Top 5: 4 @Getzlaf15 (3), @heckmanm (5), @Binky The Doormat (5) @MAC_32 (5)

64 List Top 10: 8 (6, 6, 7, 😎

64 List 1-25 votes: 13 (14, 21, 23, 25, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

 
Getzlaf15 said:
I’ve Just Seen A Face
2022 Ranking: 14
2022 Lists: 26
2022 Points: 409
Ranked Highest by: @landrys hat (1) @Murph (1) @DaVinci (3) @Ilov80s (3) @fatguyinalittlecoat (3) Sharon (4) @Shaft41 (4) @Dennis Castro (5) @turnjose7 (5) Michael (6) @Wrighteous Ray (7) @krista4 (8) @heckmanm (9) Son1 (9)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 27/9/141

Getz: And yet another song making a huge jump in 2022. Up 13 slots with 17 more voters and 268 more points. Like TNK, nine Top 5 and 15 Top 10 votes.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  4

2019 write-up:

I've Just Seen A Face (Help!, 1965)

At the other end of the spectrum from "For No One," this time Paul describes the breathless feeling of the first inklings of falling in love.  It's a simple song in comparison to many of my other favorites, but it's perfect in the way it propels you through, with that fast tempo and the lyrical cascades expressing the insistent nature of these feelings.  I love the all-acoustic nature (first time recorded for a Beatles song, though later that day "Yesterday" became the second), beginning with those falling, double-tracked triplets that make me feel like I'm actually, y'know, falling.  Then the song moves into a folk, almost-Bluegrass sound, with no bass and with only Ringo joining the guitars by brushing the snare.  

The first verse is sung without Paul's having taken a breath, adding to the urgency and excitement he's expressing; he's able to repeat this on the fourth verse as well.  The choruses feature Paul harmonizing with himself, and his vocals in these sections even outdo what he accomplishes in the verses.  This song ranks high on the "can I sing along to it" scale, as I can sing both of the vocal parts (not at the same time) just as Paul did, albeit not with quite that same skill.  Paul's acoustic accompaniment and George's 12-string work, in particular his solo, are excellent, and Ringo adds the perfect C&W feel with the brushed snares and maracas.

The lyrics are simple on their face, but, when combined with the propulsion of the tempo and the cascades, they perfectly capture that sense of head-over-heels infatuation.  I love the internal rhyme schemes as well, which give more texture to the verses' vocal that doesn't jump around on many notes.  For instance, on these lines, note how the three sets of rhymes often come mid-measure:  "I have never known the like of this I've been alone and I have missed things and kept out of sight but other girls were never quite like this."  

Pure pop/C&W/folk/bluegrass perfection from Paul.

Mr. krista:  “I love that song.  First, the guitar part in the beginning is really fine playing, not pretentious.  Song is so fast, with that anticipatory feeling of falling in love that you really believe him.  Kind of repeats himself, in that feeling of lalala, you know what I’m talking about because I’m a dude whistling to get laid.  Not many love songs invoke that feeling of falling in love, that excitement and anticipation.  Kind of a master song writer thing."

Suggested cover:  Leon Russell intensified bluegrass version.  Brandi Carlile does a decent cover, but only live, with crowd noise that I find too distracting to link any of them.

2022 Supplement:  This song moved down a few (editor add: binky many) notches in my rankings this year through no fault of its own.  Recently I’ve just been listening to a couple of others more often. This song generates the same kind of bouncy excitement in me now as it always has.  Seeing Paul sing this one live in 2019 was the highlight of the entire show for me.  I knew that it had been interchanged with “We Can Work It Out” in some of the prior shows, and I held my breath when we came to this spot in the setlist.  When he started this song, I nearly cried.  Or maybe I did cry, a little.

Fun fact:  Paul played an instrumental version of this song on the piano at his Auntie Gin’s house.  She loved it so much that that early composition was called, “Auntie Gin’s Theme.”  George Martin reworked “Auntie Gin’s Theme” into an orchestral work for his instrumental Help! Album:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x8zx6TZqqc 

Paul has loved performing this throughout his post-Beatles career, so I was surprised to find he didn’t discuss it in The Lyrics.  Here he is performing it during his groundbreaking Unplugged show in 1991:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKfILIsyEP8

Guido Merkins

Paul is known well for his skills as a singer and as an instrumentalist.  He often is not given enough credit for his skills as an acoustic guitarist.  Blackbird, Yesterday are two such examples.  I’ve Just Seen A Face is another.

I’ve Just Seen a Face is a song Paul must have thought a lot of in that it’s one of the few Beatles songs that he played live with Wings.  It’s a very country/folk flavored song with a great acoustic guitar figure in the intro.  The song almost sounds like a blue grass song.  There is no bass on the track, so it is very much an acoustic/country type song.

The song’s lyrics are kind of about love at first sight and the beauty of that.  “I’ve just seen a face I can’t forget the time or place where we first met” is the first line and kind of lays out the theme of the song.  I also love the “bridge” “falling, yes I am falling.” 

Interestingly, the Capitol Rubber Soul starts with I’ve Just Seen a Face which makes the US Rubber Soul much more the “folk” album that it has a reputation for being than the UK version which is more mixed in terms of content.  As an album, the Capitol album is quite good as Capitol albums go, although still inferior to the UK version.
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I've Just Seen a Face

64 List Rank: 12

64 List Voters/Points: 18/806

64 List Top 5: 3 @landrys hat (1) @Wrighteous Ray (4) @turnjose7 (5)

64 List Top 10: 6 (8, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 13 (11, 11, 12, 13, 13, 20, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 5

I had this #32

 
Getzlaf15 said:
A Hard Day’s Night (live)
2022 Ranking: 15
2022 Lists: 29
2022 Points: 403
Ranked Highest by: @rockaction (1) @Wrighteous Ray(hub)(1) Worth (1) @Uruk-Hai (2) @Eephus (2) @Dennis Castro (4) @Getzlaf15 (4) Doug (5) @whoknew (6) @AAABatteries (6) @ConstruxBoy(6)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 21/13/165

Getz: EIGHT Top 6 votes. And then 21 votes between #11 and #25. Moves up six slots from 2019, with 16 more voters and 238 more points. I had it at #6 in 2019, and moved it up to #4 in 2022. For me, this and Help! Are the two signature Beatles songs. Turn it up every time.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  30

2019 write-up:

A Hard Day's Night (A Hard Day's Night, 1964)

John and rock music don't start off any better in the rankings today than they did yesterday.  I was hoping Mr. krista would take this as one of his two guest write-ups, because he loves this song even more than I do.  Alas, he decided to challenge himself instead.  When I asked him why he has this one so high on his list, he said only, "That chord."  Is this the second most iconic and well-loved chord in the Beatles catalog?  You know which one is first.  

The title comes from a Ringo-ism, of course:  "I used to, while I was saying one thing, have another thing come into my brain and move down fast.  Once when we were working all day and then into the night, I came out thinking it was still day and said, 'It's been a hard day,' and looked around and noticing it was dark, I said '...'s night!"  Each Beatle tells the story a little differently, but all agree that it was a brilliant Ringo-ism.  Once it was selected as the title of their next film, John set about to write a song around it, which he completed in the space of that same evening.

A few days later, the Beatles went into the studio to record the song, which they accomplished in only three hours of session time, but not without some issues.  First, they had to deal with an unwelcome guest in that Richard Lester, the director of the film, showed up and tried to direct the recording as well.  While the group mostly ignored his constant, odd suggestions ("Tell them I need it more cinematic!"), he was responsible for the fade-out after requesting a "dreamy" segue into the movie's first scene.  That fade-out riff, alternately major and minor chords, is a perfect counterpoint to the blast start of the song.  Another issue during the recording was that George had a lot of trouble with the guitar solo, and who could blame him since he was expected to play it immediately after being introduced to it.  Eventually the solution was found:  George would play the guitar solo at half tempo while George Martin simultaneously paralleled the notes on an upright piano.  Despite his initial troubles with the solo, George's work on the song turned out beautifully, especially the jangly parts during the fade-out.

Back to That Chord.  George Martin always wanted something to hook you in immediately at the beginning of an album, such as the count-ins on the first songs of Please Please Me and Revolver, and this album was no different:  "In those days, the beginnings and endings of songs were things I tended to organize.  We needed something striking, to be a sudden jerk into the song.  It was by chance that John struck the right one.  We knew it when we heard it."  Music nerds can join plenty of debates about exactly what that chord is, though it's never been settled.  To me the technical specifications of the chord are unimportant; all I care about is that it brilliantly bursts the song open as a harbinger of all that's to come.

The vocals on the song might seem simple on the surface, but I love the rise and fall, with Paul chipping in high harmonies on the verses and then taking over the lead on the bridge since he could hit the high notes that John couldn't reach.  The change into the minor chord on that bridge helps Paul's vocal attain an aggressiveness that matches John's vocal on the verses.  And lest I forget Ringo, he seems to attack the drums with an especially high level of excitement on this track, and the open hi-hat work keeps everything fiercely rocking.  

This song is so great I didn't even have to mention all the cowbell!

But by the way, there's cowbell.

Mr. krista:  "Cowbell on the bridge.  That’s a universal indication of party down, but this time it’s a universal indication to get back to work.  Dig that ditch, dig it out.  Great bridge. "Hard day’s night" is like a line in a Wallace Stevens poem.  Like, 'It was evening all afternoon.'"

Suggested cover:  There are few guarantees in life, but here's one:  if Otis has recorded a cover, that's the one I'm going to post.

2022 Supplement:  Paul has said that the Ringo-ism in this title was an apt description for the craziness of the lads’ lives at this time.  They were still so young – mostly early 20s – but already world famous.  Though later they got worn down by the screaming and the lack of privacy, at this point, they still found it very exciting:  “We’d been hoping beyond hope that people would ask us for an autograph.  I practised.  We all practised.”  Buying their parents a house, getting a nice guitar, to be young, rich and famous in a way that had been beyond their dreams, was still exciting, but they were all “knackered,” so Paul found this title phrase to be a perfect summation of their state of being at the time.

At the same time, this record showed their songwriting going in a more adult direction, more experimental, using, as Paul said, “a certain amount of jiggery-pokery.”  I was just about to deem this a “Paul-ism” but googled and found that it is actually a real term!  Well will you look at that!  Anyway, a component of this jiggery-pokery was to have George play the guitar solo a little too fast, and then George Martin would slow it down in the recording.  It was one of the first forays of the Beatles into the kind of technical creativity that they would show in later albums. 

By the way, Paul claims that he still doesn’t know what that opening chord is.

Guido Merkins

Rock and Roll has many mysteries.  What are the lyrics to Louie Louie?  Who’s so vain? One of the greatest ones, however, is this:  What chord begins A Hard Day’s Night?  It has been a question for years.  George claimed it was an Fadd9, but he wasn’t sure of Paul’s bass note.  In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwfH9oAiPH0 it is suggested that Paul is playing a D on the bass and John is playing a Dsus4.  The result is pretty close, but I still think George Martin put something with the piano on top of all of that.  In any event, it’s the most famous, yet the most disputed chord in rock and roll.

As far as the rest of the song, the story goes that Ringo, after putting in a hard day’s work said “It’s been a hard day….” but noticing it was now night time added “...’s night.”  The other 3 Beatles fell about laughing, but thought it was a good title for the movie.  So now, they had a write a song called A Hard Day’s Night

The song is probably mostly John’s, but Paul sings the middle “when I’m home….” because John couldn’t hit those notes.  The song, especially with the opening chord, was a perfect way to begin the movie with the chaos of the Beatles running away from a crowd to start the movie.  My favorite parts are the intro, the solo (George on 12 string and George Martin on piano) and the outro (George on 12 string.)  Also, Paul tends to give everything a lift that he comes in the middle and sings on and this might be the first example.
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A Hard Day’s Night

64 List Rank: 11

64 List Voters/Points: 20/812

64 List Top 5: 3 @Uruk-Hai (2) @Getzlaf15 (5) @ConstruxBoy (5)

64 List Top 10: 4 (6)

64 List 1-25 votes: 12 (12, 13, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 22) 27/27

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

Happy to see this move up from #15.

 
Taxman 11

Helter Skelter 12

Hey Bulldog 40

Rain 5

Yesterday 80

Don’t Let Me Down 30

Two of Us 35

You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away 63

Ticket to Ride 42

And Your Bird Can Sing 22

Strawberry Fields Forever 57

Across the Universe 29

Eleanor Rigby 79

I’ve Just Seen a Face 72

A Hard Day’s Night 56

 
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Getzlaf15 said:
Across The Universe

64 List Rank: 14

64 List Voters/Points: 19/779

64 List Top 5: 1 @krista4 (2)

64 List Top 10: 8 (6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (20, 25)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

Only one in Top 30 I didn't vote for.
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#7 for me, and John speaks to me here. 

since a very dark day 44 yrs ago, he's always been there. 

 
simey said:
I still haven't seen Get Back yet, so it didn't bump anything for me. However, your mom's story of what she associates with the "Two of Us" does give the song an extra feel good vibe to it for me. 
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That reminds me that I have still not found the time to watch Get Back either.   I really need to make that happen.  

 
krista4 said:
And Your Bird Can Sing…I’m so proud of us for this one coming in so high!
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One of my new favorite Beatles songs since we did the rankings this year.   I have always liked the song but now I love it and can’t listen to it often enough.  I ranked it at 12 but should have made it top 10.  It is an incredible upbeat song.   

 
DocHolliday said:
That reminds me that I have still not found the time to watch Get Back either.   I really need to make that happen.  
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I don't have the Disney channel, and decided not to get it briefly since the DVD was coming out soon, but then it got delayed, and I check weekly to see when the new release date is, but I have found nothing so far.

 
8    Across the Universe
11  Strawberry Fields Forever  🍓
13  I've Just Seen A Face
25  Eleanor Rigby
41  A Hard Day's Night
 

 
simey said:
I don't have the Disney channel, and decided not to get it briefly since the DVD was coming out soon, but then it got delayed, and I check weekly to see when the new release date is, but I have found nothing so far.
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 the library is always a great way to go with DVDs

we got Disney, ESPN+ and Hulu through some kind of deal through the last phone deal my wife made

but our library system basically kicks ### - it's great

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Let It Be
2022 Ranking: 8
2022 Lists: 40
2022 Points: 598
Ranked Highest by: @Yankee23Fan (1) Daughter (1) @falguy (2) @Dinsy Ejotuz (2) @Wrighteous Ray (2) @prosopis (3) @Murph (4) Holly (4) @MAC_32 (4) @ekbeats (5) @Just Win Baby (5) @BobbyLayne (6) @Shaft41 (7) Son2 (7)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 8/20/306

Getz:  Beat (binky massaged) the “Wood” out by one point for 8th.  Only RingoBingoTN on my list. I had it at #5 in 2009.
Double the votes and almost double the points from 2019, yet stayed #8 again.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  38

2019 write-up:

Let It Be (Let It Be, 1970)

There's nothing I need to say about what I love about this song, since pretty much every other human loves it, and many musicians have described it as a perfect song.  It's such a beautiful vocal; one of my favorites from Paul.  The build on the chorus is gorgeous and compelling; I love how a new texture is added with each repeat.  The backstory is sweet, with Paul having written it during the White Album sessions when his mother came to him in a dream to let him know that things would be all right even though they were ####ty at the time:  "One night during this tense time I had a dream I saw my mum, who'd been dead 10 years or so. And it was so great to see her because that's a wonderful thing about dreams: you actually are reunited with that person for a second...  In the dream she said, 'It'll be all right.' ... I felt very blessed to have that dream. So that got me writing the song 'Let It Be.' I literally started off 'Mother Mary', which was her name, 'When I find myself in times of trouble', which I certainly found myself in."

The reason it's not as high for me as it is for most people is that the lyrics don’t do it for me like they do for others.  As someone who's not religious or spiritual, I don't connect with the lyrics on that level, nor do I feel the encouragement or self-help notions from them that Paul was expressing.  The words "let it be" don't do anything for me.  As a result, while I think it's a beautiful song, it doesn't grab me or move me at all.  Another downside to the song for me is the guitar solo, which sounds cheesy to me and doesn't compare favorably to the guitar parts in other Beatles songs.  Finally, it's a tiny quibble but I dislike the way Paul swallows the "l" about half the times he says "Let it be," after the "speaking words of wisdom" or "whisper words of wisdom" parts (two turns of phrase that I do like, though).  " 'et it be."  Hurts my ears.

That last paragraph makes it seem like I don't enjoy the song; obviously I do for it to rank this highly.  I simply don't enjoy it as much as others, since I fully expect it to be in the top five of the consensus.   

Mr. krista:  "[After playing him the naked version]  I like guitar solo a lot in that version. It was more kind of mrar-mrar, a little more rocking.  It just doesn’t do it for me the way it does most of humanity.  It’s just a fantasy, like if you just wait an answer will come. Mother Mary doesn’t whisper things to do.  People search for answers.  Whisper words – such a lame line.  I’m sure it meant something to Paul McCartney."

Suggested cover:  Does it matter?  Does anything really matter anymore now that I've gone and done this?  

2022 Supplement:  One of the rare instances where hearing a song in the Get Back documentary didn’t vault it into my top 25, but still I gained a renewed appreciation for this song hearing Paul tinkering with it seemingly unnoticed in the background, and then John singing his own version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2F1p5id8w8  Damn, what a ####### song.

Paul has said that Sting told him this song wasn’t appropriate for Live Aid because it implied inaction when action was required.  Paul said that, to the contrary, this song is not complacent but “about having a sense of the complete picture, about…the global view.”  Paul recalls that the song was written in a time of stress, as the band was heading toward a breakup, and it was taking its toll on all of them.  But being “northern lads,” they just bottled it up and let it go.  “Grin and bear it,” they said.   Then he had a dream about his mother, saw her “beautiful, kind face,” and “immediately felt at ease, loved and protected.”  Just her visage in a dream brought him to a peaceful and comforting place, brought his spirits up, as she told him that would everything would be all right, and he could “let it be.”

:cry:

As to the religious overtones, Paul understands them, but as someone who is not religious in any conventional sense, they aren’t intended.  He does, however, believe is some sort of helpful higher force, and acknowledges that “this song becomes a prayer, or mini-prayer.  There’s a yearning somewhere at its heart.  And the word ‘amen’ itself means ‘so be it’ – or ‘let it be’.”

Guido Merkins

On the Let It Be album John announces, “now we’d like to do Hark The Angels come…” before Paul starts singing the hymn like Let It Be.

People hear the words “Mother Mary” and they assume Paul is talking about the Blessed Mother, but in reality, Paul is talking about his own mother, whose name was Mary and who had died when Paul was 14.  He had a dream one night where his mother appeared to him and told him to “let it be.”  The gradual disintegration of the Beatles was weighing heavy on Paul, who was always, IMO, the Beatles biggest advocate.  It is well established that John and George were losing interest after the touring stopped for various reasons.  By 1968 and the sessions for The Beatles album, tension was at its height.  Around this time, based on the dream Paul had, he wrote Let It Be.  Paul found his mother’s message to be very comforting and so this song was very personal to Paul.

Let It Be has a very similar chord progression to Pachabel’s Canon.  Lots of songs do, actually.  Look up “Pachelbel Rant” on youtube for a funny demonstration of this phenomenon.  Let It Be is a classic piano ballad that seem to flow out of McCartney effortlessly (Hey Jude, Maybe I’m Amazed, Back Seat of My Car, My Love, etc).  There are a few different versions of this song out there.  The main difference between them is the guitar solo.  Let It Be, single, and Let It Be Naked all have different versions.  I’m not the biggest fan of the strings and such by Phil Spector on the Let It Be album, but it’s still my favorite version because of the smoking guitar solo by George.  Comparatively speaking, the other two’s solos are rather boring.  If I could put together my dream version, it would be the single version with the solo from the album.   
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Let It Be

64 List Rank: 10

64 List Voters/Points: 20/827

64 List Top 5: 2 @falguy (2) @Wrighteous Ray (2)

64 List Top 10: 6 (7, 7, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 11 (11, 14, 16, 18, 23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 9

I had this #11

8 - 8 - 10 - Let It Be

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Hey Jude
2022 Ranking: 4
2022 Lists: 42
2022 Points: 628
Ranked Highest by: Holly (1) OH dad (2) @BobbyLayne (2) Doug (2) @ConstruxBoy (2) @prosopis (2) Rob (3) @Yankee23Fan (3) @lardonastick (4) @Dinsy Ejotuz (4) Son2 (5) @Wrighteous Ray (5) @pecorino (6) @Alex P Keaton (6) @PIK95 (7) @John Maddens Lunchbox (7) @jamny (7)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 11/18/271

Getz: Received a vote in all 25 slots, except for #22.  I had this at #18, down from #10 in 2019. #24 and #25 votes by DocHolliday and WorrierKing were the three points needed to place this in 4th place. 24 more votes and 357 points led this to a rise from #11 in 2019.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  14

2019 write-up:

Hey Jude (single, 1968)

I initially placed this in my second tier, with notes that read in part, "Why is half the song nananas?  Did Paul McCartney look into the future and just see himself as a 78-year-old man who didn’t want to have to sing at his shows and could just turn it into a sing-along?  Does anyone actually listen to the whole song?  Pleasurably?  Needs 50% fewer "nanana"s".  Then I forced myself to keep listening to the song over and over, and it kept moving up my rankings despite the "nanana"s and later because of them (more on that below).  Paul actually did not intend for the "nanana"s to go on so long, but said he was having so much fun that he just kept going.  

As everybody knows, Paul wrote this song for Julian Lennon while Julian's parents were in the midst of the divorce; the song was initially written as "Hey Jules."  Paul came up with the song as he drove to visit them:   "I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge and tell them that everything was all right: to try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were.... I started singing: 'Hey Jules – don't make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better...' It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian..."  John acknowledged the song as "one of Paul's masterpieces," and though he knew the song had been written to Julian, he also saw another meaning:  "I always heard it as a song to me.  If you think about it, Yoko's just come into the picture.  He's saying, 'Hey, Jude - hey, John.'  I know I'm sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me.  The words 'go out and get her' - subconsciously he was saying, 'Go ahead, leave me.' ...The angel inside him was saying, 'Bless you.'"

Listening to the song as if both Paul and John were singing directly to Julian gives it a sweetness that launches it into my first tier solely by virtue of that fact.  Layering in the emotion that John describes above, where he believes Paul is giving him a blessing, makes their vocals even more meaningful and touchingly beautiful.  I feel a warmth and generosity in John's vocal in the song that he didn't often show.  While John credits Paul wholly with this song, John did have one significant contribution:  when Paul first played it for John, he said he would be changing the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder" because "it sounds like a parrot."  John thought it was the best line in the song, though, and convinced Paul not to take it out, saying, "I know what it means - it's great."  That encouragement from John continues to affect Paul:  "Then I could see it through his eyes.  So when I play that song, that's the line when I think of John and I sometimes get a little emotional during that moment."

Luckily someone else has already done a thorough analysis of the song's lyrical structure, so I can skip that part.  As mentioned above, one of my favorite aspects of this song are the vocals, which I think Paul and John imbue with such warmth and richness as to expand the song from "buck up, kid" to a grander vision of how good life can be.  It's like the optimism of "Here Comes The Sun" x 1000, swollen into a pure joy that was rarely seen from the band at this point (or from John at any point).  Another aspect I particularly love about the song is the way it builds, which to me makes all this optimism believable.  It starts softly, with Paul's voice sounding warm and hopeful but not yet fully convincing.  At each verse and then the bridge, additional instrumentation or vocal comes in - first the guitar and a light tambourine, then the drums, then the backing vocals, then the harmonies.  With each addition, Paul's voice becomes stronger and more confident, moving from hopeful to insistent that everything is going to be all right, not just for Julian or John, but more broadly for the world as a whole.  By the "nanana"s, the band has reached a state of jubilation, and the "nanana"s extend for so long because they were so exhilarated that they didn't want to stop.  With that background, I found a whole new appreciation for the "nanana"s.  

I'm tempted, as always, to do an analysis of the structure of the song or the various ways in which the musicality is stunning.  But I don't think this song is best enjoyed that way.  I think you just have to let it envelop you, let it transport you to this euphoric, blissful place that it establishes.

One fun note about the recording is that Paul started the final take without realizing that Ringo had gone to the bathroom:  "...while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, boom boom boom, his timing was absolutely impeccable. So I think when those things happen, you have a little laugh and a light bulb goes off in your head and you think, 'This is the take!'  And you put a little more into it. You think, 'oh, ####! This has got to be the take, what just happened was so magic!'"  

After the recording was done, George Martin tried to get the band to cut down the length of the song, saying at over seven minutes it would not be played on the radio.  The band won out, and guess what?  It was still played on the radio.  A lot.  "Hey Jude" sold 10 million copies and had a longer run at #1 - nine weeks - than any other Beatles song.

Fun fact:  listen first for an "oh" ~2:56 and then a "####### hell" ~2:58 that was left in the mix.  John claimed this was Paul, but the more believable story is that it was John's reaction to flubbing a lyric just before that.

Mr. krista:  "That song just keeps going.  How long do you think they were in the studio nana'ing before they gave up the ghost and quit?  How many more nananas did they actually do before the fade out?  Like 15-20 minutes?  They nanana for so long you forget it’s a cheer up song for John Lennon’s kid after John Lennon abandoned his family.  Then he had nothing to do with Julian, after beating up his mom.  Man, your heroes will disappoint you every time.  What I’m saying is I don’t like it much."

Suggested cover:  Wilson Pickett

2022 Supplement:  The biggest question here will be, does fatguy like this song any better than he did in 2019?  My sources say no.

Paul has said that what I consider the only less-than-perfect part of the song, the endless nah-nahs, were not meant to go on so long, but they were having so much fun in the studio that they just kept improvising and extending it.  The song that had started of one of concern for Julian became, in the lyrics and then in the recording, a “moment of celebration.”

Oh!  Paul has also clarified that the swearing midway through was indeed him after he flubbed the piano part, not John as some people claimed.  My bad, John.

However, I was right about why Paul still sings this one at his shows, which is that he loves the communal aspect of the sing-along.  Wait…after reviewing the tape, it appears I actually claimed he did it because his voice needs a break after being weakened through the years.  Close enough.

Shortly after mixing, Paul slipped this song to a DJ at the Vesuvio Club, on a night when Mick Jagger happened to be there, too.  After it played, Mick marveled that, “That’s something else!  It’s like two songs!”  Yes yes, it was.

I assume Getz will have linked the live version of this from the David Frost Show :yes: , so let’s all take a moment to marvel again at how dreamy Paul was then.

Pic of Paul with Julian, 1968:  https://imgur.com/kekDE2j

Guido Merkins

In 1968, things were not going well for the Beatles.  Brian Epstein died and suddenly the pressure of business started to intrude on their relationship as friends and bandmates. Further complications in their private lives, like John going through a divorce with his first wife, Cynthia also didn’t help.

Paul loved John, but also loved Cynthia and John’s son Julian.  So Paul got in his car and went to visit Cyn and Julian.  As he’s driving over, these words start coming to him “Hey Jules, don’t make it bad….” and so was born, perhaps, the song that became the Beatles biggest hit ever, Hey Jude.

Hey Jude is interesting for many reasons, but mostly for the long sing a long at the end that fades out and makes the song over 7 minutes long.  When they were done recording George Martin said something like “it’s great, but it’ll never get played on the radio because it’s too long.”  John’s response was “they will if it’s ####### us…”  Truer words were never spoken Mr Lennon.  John, never one to dish out too much praise was effusive in his praise for Hey Jude.  He felt that the lyrics were written by Paul in a moment of true pain and that they were real.  John especially liked the line “the movement you need is on your shoulder” which Paul thought he’d have to change, but for once John surprised him by loving that line and telling Paul to keep it.  The other cool thing is the “####in’ hell” at around the 3 minute mark after Paul hit a bad note on the piano.  It’s mixed so low it’s hard to hear, but it’s there.  

When I first got into the Beatles, Hey Jude was one that I loved, especially the fade out.  I remember trying to remember the melody to that before I owned the song on any kind of physical media.  Once I heard it on the radio, I can remember fumbling around for a tape and a tape recorder so I could record it and never forget it again.  So for a bit, all I had was the fade out because I had caught the radio station when the song was almost over.  One of my favorite YouTube videos is of the Beatles performing the song on the David Frost show in 1968.  The interaction between John and Paul is always good, but here John forgets to sing and Paul looks at him and John kind of rolls his eyes.  Then when John comes in correctly the second time, Paul has a big grin.  Love it.  Watch it all the time.
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Hey Jude

64 List Rank: 9

64 List Voters/Points: 20/835

64 List Top 5: 3 @lardonastick (4) @ConstruxBoy (4) @Wrighteous Ray (5)

64 List Top 10: 5 (9, 9)

64 List 1-25 votes: 13 (14, 14, 15, 16, 16, 17, 19, 23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 7

I had this #16

11 - 4 - 9 - Hey Jude

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Something
2022 Ranking: 7
2022 Lists: 41
2022 Points: 606
Ranked Highest by: @ProstheticRGK (2) Son1 (2) Alex (2) Michael (2) @John Maddens Lunchbox (3) @jwb (3) Slug (3) @turnjose7 (4) @Just Win Baby (4) @Alex P Keaton (5) @DaVinci (5) @neal cassady (5) @Uruk-Hai (6)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 9/17/282

Getz:  Moves up two slots from 2019 with 24 more votes and 324 more points. Finished one 4th place vote from #4.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  26

2019 write-up:

Something (Abbey Road, 1969)

Guest write-up by Oliver Humanzee

I have a hard time believing that the pie-faced painted stick named Pattie Boyd managed to inspire not just this fantastic song by one of the greatest bands of all time, but also many terrible songs by wealthy racist and hall of fame parent Eric Clapton.
  
Boyd apparently dumped George when he decided that he needed concubines to fulfill his spiritual growth, which was coincidentally when Eric Clapton was making advances.  And despite marrying and divorcing two bajillionaires, her divorce from Clapton left her nearly broke.  She devoted many words of her memoir (entitled, barftastically, Wonderful Tonight) to her adventures in learning how to use public transportation.  Thus proving herself to be as intelligent as she is beautiful.
  

While George was fleshing out the lyrics, John would frequently sing either "a cauliflower" or "a pomegranate" instead of "no other lover" and honestly I prefer those to the lyrics that made it on the record. 
  

The guitar solo is measured and, as Krista would say, languorous, without being plodding or self-conscious.  It neatly propels the song into one of the greatest middle eights in the Beatles' catalogue.
  

And rather than being vague or incomplete, describing his lover's attractive qualities as "something" embraces and wonderfully expresses the ineffable, pre-conscious mystery of human attraction.  Or something. 
  

Krista has more to say about this song than I do, and agreeing to write about it was "something" of a mistake.  It has taken me like 8 hours and the best I could do is crap all over Eric Clapton after reading many excerpts of Boyd's memoirs.  You gotta be fuggin' nuts to do 200 of these.  I'm going to go to bed.

Mrs. Humanzee:  "Frank Sinatra said this was the best love song ever written.  I don't much favor the introductory verse of it, but my three favorite Beatles songs are, in no particular order: (1) the bridge in 'Something,' (2) the drum fills in 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' and (3) the last 23 seconds of 'Polythene Pam' leading into the first 47 seconds of 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.'  So I guess I'm saying I both agree and disagree with The Chairman of the Board.  So moved."  

Suggested cover:  George's favorite cover of the song was from James Brown.

2022 Supplement:  As discussed in 2019, it’s all about a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JKoFCUaUbY

Guido Merkins

I would love to know what John and Paul were thinking, for real, when George’s All Things Must Pass was such a monumental success upon their breakup.  Was it like “Holy crap, what did we do?”  Was it “where did that come from?”  In reality, however, everyone should have seen it coming.  George’s material on The Beatles and Abbey Road was top notch.

So top notch, in fact, that one song, Something became the first A side on a Beatles single written by George Harrison.  Something announces itself as a classic love song from the first note.  Frank Sinatra called it the greatest love song ever written and “the greatest Lennon and McCartney song ever.”  Poor George.  Always struggling for respect and recognition…..at least until he wrote Something.

It’s kind of cool that I get to do that after the Get Back documentary so that I can talk about stuff like George not knowing what to do for the line “attracts me like……” and had been putting in “attracts me like a pomegranate” until he came up with the phrase “attracts me like no other lover.”  We know George’s wife Pattie inspired Eric Clapton’s Layla and it was assumed Something was also written about Pattie, but George was always a bit evasive on that, so I’ll say undecided on that.

So what do I like about the song.  It’s a gorgeous melody, first and foremost.  And that guitar solo is absolutely lovely.  Can’t picture another thing in that song other than that solo.  Geoff Emerick claimed that George actually recorded that solo live onto tape in one take along with the orchestra.  Not sure if that;s true, but if it is, it shows how confident George had become as a guitar player by that point.  

Something and My Sweet Lord are probably the two songs that George is known most for now.  It is a stone cold classic that belongs with the absolute best that John and Paul or anybody else wrote.  
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Something

64 List Rank: 8

64 List Voters/Points: 21/836

64 List Top 5: 4 @Tom Hagen (4) @turnjose7 (4) @lardonastick (5) @BobbyLayne (5) 

64 List Top 10: 6 (6, 😎

64 List 1-25 votes: 13 (12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 22)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

9 - 7 - 8 - Something

I had this #59

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Norwegian Wood
2022 Ranking: 9
2022 Lists: 37
2022 Points: 597
Ranked Highest by: @whoknew (2) Craig (2) @Gr00vus (3) @Dennis Castro (3) @Man of Constant Sorrow (4) @wikkidpissah (4) @pecorino (4) @Dr. Octopus (5) @worrierking (6) @John Maddens Lunchbox (6) Worth (6) @Ilov80s (6) @AAABatteries (7) @Ted Lange as your Bartender (7)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 6/25/332

Getz: Just 31 points from 4th place! That’s one first place vote and one 19th vote away from finishing in 4th place (628 pts). Or two 10th place votes. 20 votes from the #6-11 slots.

This song got off to an incredible start while tabulating the ballots.

Jan 21 - 25 votes in - had 17 votes/293 points. FIVE points from being in 1st place. 68% of all ballots at that time. It was a clear three horse race at that moment.

Jan 25 - 35 votes in - 22 votes/357 points. 4th place at this time, but all four songs are so close, that every list that comes in changes the #1-4 order, and each of the four songs is in the #1 spot a few times after each new list changes the order. At this point, I was thinking #1 was a possibility.

Feb 9 - 59 votes in - 34 votes/544 points. 12 votes in the last 24 and still holding down 4th quite well.

Feb 13 - 71 votes in(final) - 37 votes/598 points. Only three of the final 12 vote for it. (a 7th, 8th, and 9th) In those final 12 ballots, it slowly fades all the way to 9th.

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  7

2019 write-up:

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Rubber Soul, 1965)

It’s my favorite song about an affair and my favorite song featuring arson, but only my second favorite Beatles song with “bird” in the title!  

This song hooks me immediately with that opening lyric, one of my top Beatles lyrics: “I once had a girl or should I say she once had me.”  Though John later acknowledged the song was about an affair, he claimed not to remember its being about any specific woman; he also stated that he had no idea where the title of the song came from.  Given that this was written in John’s self-described “Dylan phase,” it’s not surprising that the lyrics are more abstract and ambiguous in a Dylan fashion. John also made the lyrics purposefully cryptic so as not to upset his wife about the subject matter.  As a result, though, Beatles fans have spent 50+ years debating the meanings of each line, including the “I lit a fire” line, which some people believed referred to starting a fire in a fireplace or lighting up a joint.  But Paul has confirmed instead that it indeed meant the protagonist burned everything to the ground as an act of revenge. 

Musically this song is most notable for George’s sitar work, the first time a Beatle played a sitar on one of their songs.  Inspired by a Ravi Shankar record, George had bought a poor-quality sitar from a local shop and started messing around with it.  When they’d finished the backing track for this song, the guys thought it still needed something, so George pulled it out.  It’s hard to imagine now how a sound so crucial to this song was basically an afterthought.  And as with so many other groundbreaking ideas from the band, once the Beatles did it, everyone else did, too.

This is a song I love not for any one element but overall atmosphere and mood.  While it’s all beautiful – this is one of my favorite melody lines, and the harmonies switched to a minor key on the bridge are gorgeous – it’s also feels furtive and slightly off balance.  The waltz time ( @rockaction alert!) would suggest a more straightforward narrative, but instead the lyrics make the song’s ambience allusive.  On top of that impressionistic atmosphere are placed unusual elements such as the sitar, adding to the uncertainty.  It’s extraordinarily mature and complex songwriting for such an early time in their careers, and the musical presentation of the ideas is perfectly.

Mr. krista:  "Clearly an amazing song.  Hardly any English language did that.  It’s no wonder Haruki Murakami wrote a whole novel about it.  For such a song that was his straightest, least weird novel.  Everything works in accord with one another.  You couldn’t pull one aspect out and have it still remain.  It all seems necessary."

Suggested cover:  Lots of jazz artists have covered this one, which makes sense.  I like this Kurt Elling version.

2022 Supplement:  That title?  Well, John never said what it was all about, though as mentioned above the song was about an affair, but Paul has given an explanation:  “So it was a little parody really on those kinds of girls who, when you’d go to their flat, there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was pine really, cheap pine. But it’s not as good a title, ‘Cheap Pine,’ baby. It was completely imaginary from my point of view, but in John’s it was based on an affair he had. This wasn’t the decor of someone’s house, we made that up. So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek.”  The subject of the affair in question is thought to be either Sonny Freeman or Maureen Cleave.

Since the time of my last write-up, I learned that, when Ravi Shankar heard this first use of sitar on a Beatles record, he was wholly unimpressed, comparing it to “an Indian villager trying to play the violin when you know what it should sound like.”  George admitted he had just been learning at the time, and of course his sitar work grew and improved immensely throughout his career, including by learning from and collaborating with Shankar.  I still dig it in this song, since I don’t know much better.

Take one of this song was released in the Anthology series and sounds pretty darn good, though the sitar way up in the mix is too much for me:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuJZYI5qomk

Guido Merkins

It is no secret that all of the Beatles, but especially John Lennon, were fans of Bob Dylan.  John started channeling Dylan as far back as I’m A Loser on 1964’s Beatles For Sale album.  Dylan was a primary influence on John beginning to write more autobiographically.

So in 1965 John wrote a song called Norwegian Wood which is about an affair he is having.  But he writes the song in kind of a hazy style to obscure the fact that he is cheating on his wife.  The song is just a standard Dylan type song, but it needs something.  So George Harrison, who had discovered Indian music, decided to try a sitar on the song.  So he finds the notes he’s looking for and they add it to the song and what results is a first.  The first time a sitar is played on a rock record.  Now this is in dispute a bit because other groups used Indian sounds on a record, like the Kinks and Yardbirds both using sitar-like sounds, but not actual sitars.  So Norwegian Wood is the first to use an actual sitar, but others used Indian music before the Beatles.

In any event, the sitar changes the record from just a standard acoustic song to something slightly exotic and strange.  My favorite parts are the sitar, obviously, and the lead and harmony vocals.  Also I love the ambiguity of the lyrics, What is Norwegian Wood, exactly and what does it have to do with the song.  The parenthetical title This Bird Has Flown is said in the final verse, so that makes some sense.  Bird being British slang for woman.  But John loved to play around with words and I’ve heard it suggested that he was, in his own jumbled up way, saying “Knowing she would.”  But that’s just speculation and as far as I know, nobody ever asked John.  Also, when he “lit a fire”, was he relaxing by her fireplace, or did he decide to burn down her house because she left him hanging?  Once again, nobody ever asked John that I am aware.

Final note, there is an outstanding version of Norwegian Wood on Anthology 2 that is, to my ears, every bit as good, if not better than the version on Rubber Soul.  It’s in a different key and features the sitar more prominently.  Why they decided to re-record it, I’ll never know.
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Norwegian Wood

64 List Rank: 7

64 List Voters/Points: 19/853 (#12 to #7 separated by 46 pts)

64 List Top 5: 0

64 List Top 10: 5 (7, 8, 9, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 13 (11, 11, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, 24)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

I had this at #21

6 - 9 - 7 - Norwegian Wood

 
Getzlaf15 said:
Help! [Blackpool Night Out, ABC Theatre, Blackpool, United Kingdom]
2022 Ranking: 11
2022 Lists: 40
2022 Points: 511
Ranked Highest by: @Getzlaf15 (3) @whoknew (4) Doug (4) @AAABatteries (5) @Uruk-Hai (7) @falguy (7) @Ilov80s (7) @Murph (8) @Yankee23Fan (8) @fatguyinalittlecoat (8) @Westerberg (8) @Tom Hagen (9) @DocHolliday (9) @ekbeats (9) @John Maddens Lunchbox (10) @krista4 (10) @Just Win Baby (10)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 10/21/272

Getz: First song to receive votes from at least 50% of the voters. I had it at #4 in 2019, and moved it up to #3 for 2022. Love the Paul and George harmonies.

No first or second place votes, and only four Top 5 votes, but it did get 17 votes for slots #7-11. How odd!

Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  15

2019 write-up:

Help! (Help!, 1965)

"Help!"  What an amazing blast start!  Even more amazing is that, while John literally screamed for help over and over in this song, it wasn't until later that any of his bandmates actually recognized it as a genuine cry for help, nor did John himself:  "When Help! came out, I was actually crying out for help. ... I didn't realize it at the time... The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension.  I was eating and drinking like a pig, dissatisfied with myself, and subconsciously I was crying out for help.  So it was my fat Elvis period. ... And I am singing about when I was so much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was.  Anyway, I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help"  I guess the upbeat nature of the music disguised the genuine anguish of the lyrics in this, probably the first song of self-reflection that John wrote for the Beatles.  Later John mentioned to May Pang that, of all his songs, this was probably his favorite but also the one he also wished he could do over:  like "Please Please Me" the Beatles had sped up the tempo on this song to make it more commercially viable, and John would like to have re-recorded it as a slower, more soulful, emotive ballad.  I'd love to have heard that.

Though this is a "John song," my favorite aspect of the song was contributed by Paul, which are those glorious countermelodies, in my opinion the best in any Beatles song.  Having heard the song hundreds of times, I'm still fascinated every time by where they choose to go and the way in which they're delivered.  As mentioned in the first word of this write-up, I love that immediate panicked "Help!" to start the song, with John's vocal following in an increasingly desperate manner but balanced with those disarmingly cool, calm backing vocals.  Chord change nerdiness!  The initial minor chords combine with John's screams on the first few lines to give a feeling of urgency or even panic, while the harmonies then join to drive the chords back down into a major tone, giving the sense that the panic is being assuaged.  The backing vocals themselves offer beautiful harmonies in a backward call-and-response style, taking the lead as "call" as often as they do the "response"...sorta.  They weave in and out and at times feel like they're stabbing into the lead vocal, almost ridiculing him and taking the song in a seemingly frenetic direction, but with the sneering feel of the vocals lending a dark air at the same time.  The drum fills and descending arpeggios on the guitar add to the agitation of the first verses and choruses, until we're launched into a third verse that suddenly takes us down into a place of relative peace, with only John on acoustic guitar and soft bass notes from Paul.  The sense of peace is belied by John's increasingly intense vocal, though, and so it's no surprise when the instruments join again for a final chorus that vehemently increases the sense of panic and desperation, but lands on that odd chord change to emphasize the final word, "me."

Of course, you could also just listen to this song as if it were the title track for a James-Bond-style film.  It's great as that, too.  

No discussion of this song would be complete unless I linked the video for it, which I can never get enough of.  John and George know how to play to the camera, Paul is being greasily eager, and Ringo...ah, Ringo.  Just take one run-through watching nothing but Ringo when he's onscreen.   

Mr. krista:  "What a burner, what a great way to open a record.  Help?  12-string is so pretty.  It’s clear they’ve gotten better.  Is this when he started getting his Rickenbacker?  The drums sound particularly good too, especially the snare which had sounded weak and flabby.  Just a monster song.  Grabs your attention and is like over, done."

Suggested covers:  If you don't like this you can't be my friend:  Dolly Parton.  Also there's this:  Lil Wayne.  And also this:  The Damned.

2022 Supplement:  Another new entry this year into my Top 10, sliding into the last spot on the strength of the desperation in John’s vocal.  Really.  Everything else is phenomenal, but the energetic despair is what propels it.  It probably also “helped” that I watched that silly-but-pleasing movie “Yesterday” in the interim, and the treatment of this song was a highlight.

As we know, the band developed the song around the title of the movie, oddly enough, instead of the other way around.  The director, Richard Lester, wanted to use the name “Help” but was told that they couldn’t for copyright reasons.  After Ringo’s suggestions, “Eight Arms to Hold You,” briefly became the working title, someone came up with the ingenious but legally questionable idea that, by putting an exclamation point at the end, they could avoid the copyright issues.  Someone check with a real lawyer about this.

In any case, it seems that the title given to John ended up fitting his mental state, for better or worse.

Guido Merkins

Fortunately, days before John Lennon was shot, he had a lengthy interview with Playboy where he went through his entire catalog, including Beatles, and gave his memories on the songs.  As you may know, John’s memory wasn’t always the greatest and he gives different answers sometimes whether his mood fit or not.  However, the interview in 1980 was his last word and although there are a few things that don’t add up, it’s a great document on his mindset right before we lost him forever.

One of his strongest statements is something to the effect of “Help and Strawberry Fields Forever are his truest songs.”  Both of these songs were obviously very personal to John and he elaborated on these two more than most of the others.

He claimed that Help was written almost subconsciously about the fact that this was his “fat Elvis period.”  He felt overweight and lost and was crying out for help, hence the song.  “Now these days are gone and I’m not so self assured” and “my independence seems to vanish in the haze” and “every now and then I feel so insecure” are some of the key lines that indicate John’s mindset at that time.  I think we tend to think how awesome it would be to be famous and adored by the world, but if you know anything about the Beatles lifestyle at that time, it was almost “be careful what you wish for.”  Paul’s grandfather said it perfectly in A Hard Day’s Night “I’ve seen a train and a room, a car and a room, and a room and a room.”  John was definitely feeling the pressure with Beatlemania going on it’s 2nd year and showing no sign of slowing down.

I love the call and answer style of background vocals and the very cool descending guitar lines by George.  Like Strawberry Fields Forever,  John wanted Help to be recorded differently.  In the case of Help I think he wanted it slower to match his feelings when he wrote it, but in this case, I think John was wrong.  In Help, he sounds downright desperate, especially at the end with the “Help me, help me” lines.  This is captured perfectly in the film Yesterday when Jack Malik does kind of a punk rock version of Help and really goes Kurt Cobain on the “help me help me” line at the end.  I remember reading somewhere that John tried to rework Help for one of his solo albums, but gave up when he had issues translating it to the piano.  I can’t find references to it online, so either I dreamed it or I read it and it never happened.  Godsbrother might be able to help out with that one.
Click to expand...
Help!

64 List Rank: 6

64 List Voters/Points: 22/925

64 List Top 5: 2 @Getzlaf15 (4)  @AAABatteries (5)

64 List Top 10: 8 (7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10)

64 List 1-25 votes: 14 (11, 14, 16, 17, 19, 19)

64 List 26-64 votes: 8

Only one needs Help!

10 - 11 - 6 - Help!

 
Getzlaf15 said:
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
2022 Ranking: 5
2022 Lists: 39
2022 Points: 625
Ranked Highest by: @Dinsy Ejotuz (1) @ProstheticRGK (1) @Ilov80s (1) @Just Win Baby (1) @ConstruxBoy (1) @Pip's Invitation (2) @rockaction (2) @AAABatteries (2) @MAC_32 (2) @zamboni (3) @FairWarning (4) @BobbyLayne (5) @Tom Hagen (5) @Yankee23Fan (5) @prosopis (6) @lardonastick (7) @worrierking (7) @turnjose7 (7) @Westerberg (7)
2019 Ranking/Lists/Pts: 3/28/428

Getz:  Finished one 22nd pick from #4, four points. I had it at #11, down from #3 in 2019.
This is the song that kept climbing when “Wood” kept falling. Six of the last seven voters ranked this 2/1/4/7/6/8. 
With 8 lists left to be counted, “Wood” was #4 and Weeps was #9. “Weeps” was #11 after 35 ballots had been counted.
Fave all time cover of mine - Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, Dahni Harrison and others


Krista4
My 2019 ranking:  20

2019 write-up:

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (White Album, 1968)

George's inspiration for this song began with a notion he gleaned from I Ching:  "In the West we think of coincidence as being something that just happens...  But the Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there's no such thing as coincidence - every little item that's going down has a purpose....I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book – as it would be relative to that moment, at that time.  I picked up a book at random, opened it – saw 'gently weeps' – then laid the book down again and started the song."  I likewise decided to write a song based on this inspiration, so just now opened my favorite book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, stabbed my finger in without looking, and got:  "Mongolian" and "cheese."  I'm not sure I'm going to get the same masterpiece out of these two words, but I'll do my best.

The introduction to this song is one of my favorites in any Beatles composition; there's something about the way it builds that's like no other.  (Yes, I did that.)  Those sometimes-doubled piano notes begin a driving tempo, with the guitars and hi-hat adding to this progression toward what we know is going to be exciting.  While I love the groove of the verses, my favorite part of the song is that bridge, especially the double-tracked soaring vocals and the organ on those high notes.  I think the transitions on this song are especially good, especially the last note of the second verse becoming the first note of the guitar solo.  With each transition, the song seems to become fuller and more infectious, as more instrumentation is added and the energy increases, building to that wonderful moaning fade-out.  George's vocal sounds more confident and wildly more expressive on this song than I hear in his prior work; to me, with the possible exception of "Here Comes The Sun," he's never sounded better on a Beatles track.  

I expect that what many people love here is the guitar solo, but I'd find the song just as appealing without it.  Though I don't feel as strongly about it as Mr. krista apparently does (below), I would love this song even more if it were George on the lead guitar.  I'm just such a fan of George's style and manner of expressing himself through his guitar, and I'd like to have heard the entire song as being an extension of George's emotions instead of what I find so on-the-nose as to be a little wan and colorless.  George did initially try to do a backward guitar solo himself, such as he'd pioneered in "I'm Only Sleeping," and during earlier sessions also had John on electric guitar instead, but he wasn't satisfied with any of these early recordings, in part because he (likely correctly) thought the others weren't taking the song seriously or giving much effort to it.  A bit bummed out, George had an idea while driving into London with Eric Clapton, and he asked Clapton to perform the solo instead.  Clapton recorded the solo in one take, with a bunch of flanging added later at his request to make it sound more Beatles-y.  Credit to him, then, for giving George some encouragement when the other Beatles weren't; he also lifted the spirits of the group generally during the otherwise tense sessions.  Paul recalls Clapton being nice, accommodating, and allowing them all to have "good fun" for a while. 

Dozens of recordings of this song were made and scrapped with a variety of instrumentation, different line-ups, different almost everything.  I usually don't post any of these early versions in my write-ups, mostly because I'm already taking so much time and valuable FBG space with each one, but the first take of this song, with only George and Paul, is special. George's vocal is spectacular!

Mr. krista:  "The weeping guitar is just the cheesiest effect. And I feel like bringing Clapton in gives this veneer of professionalism that makes it so boring.  Outside of Cream and the Yardbirds, he is just so ####### boring. They bring him in just to en-boring something.  I don’t know, this is rough-edged and exciting and seemed to express the artist. Let’s just spread wax over it all and look, I’m making the guitar weep.  Mememememe.  Listen, it’s like weeping.  ####### hack. I wish he’d fallen out the window."

Suggested cover:  Aw, you know I'm not going to post anything but this.  

2022 Supplement:  This song moved out of my top 25 this year, mostly to make way for nearly all of Let It Be.  :lol: It’s still one of my tip-toppiest, though, with the introductory piano part pulling in as strongly as ever. 

I was excited to share the Anthology 3 acoustic version of this song in this supplement, and then saw I already did that in 2019.  blahblah I don’t read my own posts blahblahblah  Really, it’s worth a listen.

Guido Merkins

It’s no secret that at some point between 1966’s Revolver and 1967’s Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, George Harrison had kind of lost interest in the guitar.  He discovered Indian music sometime in 1965 and he became obsessed with it.  He started sitar lessons with the great Ravi Shankar and began to focus his time on mastering the complex instrument.  His contribution to Pepper was Within You Without You, which was an Indian piece and his other song It’s Only A Northern song was rejected.  Sometime between Sgt Pepper and the White album, George decided that he would never be a great sitar player, so he started spending time with the guitar again.

Armed with the lessons he had learned with forays into Indian music, he began to write pop songs again and one of the best, and his best up to this point was a song called While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

On Anthology 3 there is an acoustic version of the song where George is using a fingerpicking style that all the Beatles picked up in India from Donovan (Julia and Blackbird).  But, as usual, George felt that John and Paul were not really taking the song seriously, but George knew it was a good song.  So then enters Eric Clapton.  George invites Eric to come and play on this song because he knew that having another person in the studio would make the others “behave.”  Despite Eric’s protests of “nobody plays on the Beatles records except the Beatles”, Eric showed up and the song took a much different path.

I love the piano intro to the song (Paul’s idea).  I love the harmonies (Paul again).  Of course the guitar playing throughout.  Clapton insisted that they change the sound on the guitar to make it sound more like the Beatles, so you get this wonderful flutter on the guitar, which was Automatic Double Tracking applied during the mixing stage.  This song was the first George Harrison song that would be considered a staple of the Beatles and it was played alongside all the John and Paul songs on classic rock radio throughout the 70s.  
Click to expand...
While My Guitar Gently Weeps

64 List Rank: 5

64 List Voters/Points: 20/933

64 List Top 5: 6  @ConstruxBoy (1) @Pip's Invitation (2) @AAABatteries (2) @MAC_32 (3) @BobbyLayne (4) @Tom Hagen (5)

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

64 List 1-25 votes: 14 (12, 14, 20, 23)

64 List 26-64 votes: 6

Only song to have a vote in all of the Top 5 slots.

I had this #12

3 - 5 - 5 - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

 
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