Beatles from worst to first 7 (100-76)

I’ll do 25 today, and 25 today, which will get us to the top 50 for the weekend. Today, the emphasis is strongly on the middle and late periods, with five tracks from Sgt. Pepper alone, and only six from everything pre-Rubber Soul.

100. From Me to You from Past Masters, Vol 1

One of their first big songs, in their pre-Beatlemania days. It’s a pretty simple love song (well, as simple as you can expect from the Beatles). It’s written to “you” to emphasize the closeness to the fans. It’s got the great harmonies. It’s the sort of song that can really make you understand why pretty much every teenage girl in the world fell in love with these guys.

99. Old Brown Shoe from Past Masters, Vol 2

I never really liked this song that much while I was growing up but I’m starting to come around on it. It’s got a great beat, and the lilting piano gives it a fun, almost loping sound. When’s Paul’s bass enters into the fray, with it’s quick-paced variation on the same theme, it makes for a great, almost oval-shaped sound, if that makes any sense. This song, more than any other, probably fared the best in my final results compared to my initial thoughts. Since I still have trouble thinking of it as anything other than a throwaway tucked on the end of the second Past Masters, I was amazed to discover that it comfortably beat out some songs I’ve loved for years.

98. Michelle from Rubber Soul

It’s so schmaltzy and beautiful and…how did this end up on a rock record? Perhaps my favorite thing about this song is that perfectly toes the line between parody and genuine affection. Is it schmaltz or ironic schmaltz? Is it French or faux-French? Is it serious? Whatever it is, I love it.

97. If I Needed Someone from Rubber Soul

Great riff. One of George’s better songs, though also one of his least unique, in that it doesn’t sound all that much different than a Lennon/McCartney song from the time.

96. Any Time At All from A Hard Day’s Night

Oh, George, how you can make the 12-string guitar sing! That, and the bridge “there is nothing I won’t do…” is what makes this song for me. Most bands would kill to write a song this good, and we’re still barely breaking the top 100. Think about that.

95. It Won’t Be Long from With The Beatles

Now THIS is how you kick off an album. And have I mentioned John’s voice recently? Lord almighty, he could sing. I also love the call-and-response “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”s and that descending guitar riff. As for the lyrics, there’s always been some ambiguity for me. Did she dump him or did she just leave physically (like, on a trip or something)? Either way, I like it.

94. Fixing A Hole from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

One of the interesting things about Sgt. Pepper (as I alluded to when discussing “When I’m Sixty-four) is that most of the songs aren’t anything particularly cutting-edge on their own. However, because each song is so inextricably tied to the album (and its mythology) that they grow into something more when heard in context. Read simply, this is just a song about discovering that it’s perfectly easy to live a happy, satisfied, and complete life without going out into the world or doing anything “important.” Read another way, it’s a song about heroin (the junkie “fixing a hole”) or it’s about the counterculture and “dropping out” from society. Absent its place on Sgt. Pepper, this song would probably be a lot lower. But here, perfectly placed between “Getting Better” and “She’s Leaving Home,” all of the things I might never have heard are made clear. Maybe that means I’m buying into the Sgt. Pepper hype. If so, oh well, I’m just going to enjoy it.

93. Please Mister Postman from With The Beatles

John really can sing, can’t he? This song is ranked this highly purely based on his vocal performance. Not that there’s anything wrong with the music or the backing vocals or anything; there’s just nothing really special there. John’s vocals, however, are almost to-die-for. Wow.

92. Get Back from Past Masters, Vol 2

The first question is which version. I very slightly prefer the one on the Past Masters disc, mostly because the outro is a lot of fun (though I do love “I hope we’ve passed the audition” from the end of the version on Let It Be). To be honest, I can’t really detect much a significant difference other than that. As for the song itself, it’s always been one of those that I felt like should be really high up there but just never seemed to listen to that much. Great song, just not one of my all-time favorites. I also love the Simpsons episode with the Be Sharps parody of the Beatles, where after they play a rooftop show, George drives by and says “it’s been done.” And Homer ends with “I hope we’ve passed the audition,” everyone laughs and Barney says “I don’t get it.”

91. Day Tripper from Past Masters, Vol 2

I’ve mentioned that the boys, for all of their great songs, didn’t really have many good guitar riffs. Well, this is the mother of all the exceptions. One of the very best riffs out there. It kicks off the song, and ties it together the whole way through. I know I’ve got it ranked relatively low, but if you told me this was your favorite Beatles song, I wouldn’t really have any reason to argue. It’s not EXACTLY my cup of tea, but it really is a great song.

90. Magical Mystery Tour from Magical Mystery Tour

I like this one a little more than perhaps I ought to. It’s a bit of a throwaway, and it’s not really all that interesting musically. Still, it just puts me in the right mood. The percussion (particularly as the song slows down for those 15 seconds in the middle), and Paul’s voice on “the magical mystery tour is coming to take you away…” just gets me pumped up to listen to the rest of the album. As a standalone song, it would probably fare worse, but since its pretty inextricably tied to the rest of the album in my mind it does just fine.

89. I’ll Be Back from A Hard Day’s Night

The list that inspired me to do this project has this one ranked as the #2 Beatles song, which frankly astonished me. I had never even thought this would be in someone’s top 20, much less #2. Still, I gave it a few more listens, trying to see what I had missed, and discovered that it really is a pretty good piece of music. I had never quite given it the attention it deserves, tucked all the way at the back of the album there. It’s an almost perfectly crafted piece of two-minute pop. Heartache, love, and the way it makes us all go crazy — typical John sentiments — have almost never been expressed so clearly. It’s sad with just enough of a hint of happiness to explain why we keep coming back for more.

88. Helter Skelter from The White Album

The mythology of this song is expansive. There’s the origin story (Paul read a review of The Who’s “I Can See For Miles” describing it as the loudest, wildest music ever made and wanted to prove them wrong), the appropriation of the song by Charles Manson (including writing it in blood at one of the murder scenes…yikes), the credit given by many to this song as part of the birth of heavy metal, the original 27-minute version, the multiple fadeouts. All of that makes it interesting as a cultural artifact, but it would still be a great song on its own merits. Loud, devastating, and raucous, ended perfectly with yet another aborted fadeout and Ringo screaming “I got blisters on my fingers!”

87. Girl from Rubber Soul

Achingly beautiful, filled with sadness and pain. This is a much more mature song (both lyrically and musically) than their standard fare from even a year earlier. It also is a (somewhat) rare example of John single-tracking his voice. Listening to this one, it’s not difficult to understand why he often chose to double-track. His voice here is so raggedly tender that it would never work on some of the more upbeat numbers. But here, it’s perfect

86. Think For Yourself from Rubber Soul

Great fuzzed-out bass layered on top of the regular bass track here. It’s really the focal point of the song. This is one of George’s best Beatles songs. It does sound a bit like George trying to write a Lennon/McCartney song, but there are enough Harrison elements here to make it clearly his own.

85. Yellow Submarine from Revolver

This is the only song I ever learned how to play on the piano. And was among my very favorite songs when I was 10 or 11. And I really do love the Yellow Submarine movie. And I love Ringo. The first really great concert I ever went to was to see Ringo and his All-Starr band when I was 13 or 14. And he played this song and it pretty much made my day. It’s obviously nothing complicated, but it just serves as yet another example of the ease with which the boys could transgress musical boundaries. It’s like the had a checklist of genres they needed to cover: “Rock, check. Indian, check. Psychedelic, check. Classical, check. Ballad, check. Children’s song, eh? Hey Ringo, come on over, we’ve got a song for you.” And that is all JUST on Revolver. As Alan Pollack says: “Could anyone other than the Beatles get away with this? Try to imagine “Yellow Submarine” as the first or second song of a no-name group.” Indeed.

84. Cry Baby Cry from The White Album

This is a bit of a weird one. The King and the Queen, the Duke and the Duchess, what these have to do with the chorus beats me. And what ANY of it has to do with anything else in the world, I also have no idea. And the music is a little crazy, too. It’s incredibly thick, with that piano drenching the whole track, and assorted other instruments keeping the background sounds at a constant. Still, there’s a very sweet melody underlying it all, and John’s vocals have the perfect ghostly feel.

83. Lovely Rita from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

What is this here? A rock song on Sgt. Pepper? Who would’ve thought? This one is, like many of Paul’s songs, a vignette, a slice of not-quite-everyday life. In this case, about not quite making it with an attractive meter maid. While it doesn’t rock out like “Helter Skelter” or anything, it adds some much-needed oomph to the middle of side two.

As a sidenote, one of the great things about that album is the way they managed the peaks and valleys of the “rock” quotient. After a long section at the close of side one and beginning of side two, they kick off a three-part section where they amp up the voltage in preparation for the climax in the reprise and the denouement of “A Day in the Life.” I have no idea if I only think the song order is perfect because it’s Sgt. Pepper, but I really can’t imagine it working nearly as well any other way.

To digress (again), this one and “When I’m Sixty-Four” were the two songs that would have been cut had “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields” not been kept separate as singles. It’s certainly true that these are the two least essential songs on the album, but I think it would have lost some of its playfulness without them.

82. I’ve Got A Feeling from Let It Be

There’s a lot to be said for the early-era version of the Lennon/McCartney collaboration, when they wrote much more in tandem. But, to be honest, I think they were at their very best when they produced almost-complete songs on their own, and then let the other tweak around a little bit. Songs like this one go one step beyond, turning two completely separate song fragments into one whole song. There’s really no reason to think the songs should go together except that it fits so perfectly. When John starts in with “everybody had a good year,” it’s like a drink of cool water in the middle of Paul rocking out. And when they’re each singing their own song at the same time–it’s as good as any harmony. In my mind, this is what Let It Be was supposed to be about–their more mature selves making the rock album that they never could have imagined at the age of 22.

81. Mother Nature’s Son from The White Album

For what is at heart a very simple song, this one is intricately layered. The acoustic guitars, the light touch of brass, mild percussion, a bit of drumming buried deeply. This is clearly one of the tracks written in Rishikesh, with its themes of nature and unity with the world. It also shows just how powerful a little bit of humming can be, when it’s done right.

80. Getting Better from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Two things to love about this one. First, and most obviously, the absolutely perfect distillation of what made the John/Paul partnership so perfect. Paul sings unambiguously “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better” and John returns: “it can’t get no worse.” Put together, and it’s profound in its simplicity. Second thing to love: the bass, which really takes off on the second verse. It frames the song so well that it sounds remarkably full and “rocking” despite its rather leisurely pace.

79. I Feel Fine from Past Masters, Vol 1

Here is another counter-example to my claim that The Beatles didn’t have all that many great guitar riffs.. This song has one of their best. And that feedback to kick off the song is pretty amazing. Ringo really pounds the drums. And the “I’m so glad…” section just sends shivers down the spine.

78. Baby You’re A Rich Man from Magical Mystery Tour

I said earlier that “Blue Jay Way” might be their only song that is unable to transcend the era in which it was recorded. However, there is an argument to be made that this song might be another. But this might require a question of what it means for a song to transcend its origins. Sure, it’s a hippie song for a hippie time, both musically and lyrically. Still, where “Blue Jay Way” was boring, this song is playful. It is a product of the 60s in a way that makes that era come alive even now. All those crazy instruments, lyrics about finding true meaning in life…

I first listened to Magical Mystery Tour on an incredibly scratched record. On all the other songs, this was an annoyance but nothing more. On this one, though, there was a divot that meant I got to listen to the 1.8 seconds of John saying “beautiful people” at around the 52-second mark on repeat until I got up and pushed the needle along.

77. With A Little Help From My Friends from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
76. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

You pretty much have to put these two songs together. For all the talk of Sgt. Pepper as a “concept” album, the concept only extended to these two songs (and the reprise). “Sgt. Pepper” is a fantastically tight rocker, with Paul’s screaming vocals and churning bass line stealing the show. Also, the use of “crowd noise” is done expertly to heighten the anticipation of the arrival of Billy Shears at centerstage, and to make the segueway into “With a Little Help From My Friends” seamless. That song is the #2 Ringo song on this list (sandwiched in between two songs about being underwater). I actually remember hearing the Joe Cocker version of this song first, somehow (that’s what growing up in the 80s watching “The Wonder Years” will do for you), and still appreciate that one greatly, but you just can’t beat Ringo. He sounds so plaintive, so honest. Once again, the bass dominates this song (a sign of things to come on the rest of the record). As a final note, once again the arrangement of the tracks on Sgt. Pepper is perfect. The campiness of these two songs is a great way to ease the transition into to the crazy genre-bending to come. And it just gets you feeling good.

All entries:
Beatles from worst to first 11 (the top 10)
Beatles from worst to first 10 (30-11)
Beatles from worst to first 9 (50-31)
Beatles from worst to first: Interlude
Beatles from worst to first 8 (75-51)
Beatles from worst to first 7 (100-76)
Beatles from worst to first 6 (120-101)
Beatles from worst to first 5 (140-121)
Beatles from worst to first 4 (160-141)
Beatles from worst to first 3 (175-161)
Beatles from worst to first 2 (190-176)
Beatles from worst to first 1 (206-191)
Beatles from worst to first: Introduction