Best of the Beatles

Like I said elsewhere, I was a Beatles guy. And a Ford guy. And a Pepsi guy. Like that. But mainly a Beatles guy. I saw and heard them play on Ed Sullivan and within a few months I was in a rock 'n roll band.

1. A Day in the Life, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band (1967). What a concept. An album with not 1 but 2 apostrophes in the title! And as everybody knows, "A Day in the Life" was really 2 songs, 1 by John Lennon, another by Paul McCartney, that magically fit together into 1 magnum opus: Lennon's a dirge about the death of an acquaintance ("he blew his mind out in a car/he hadn't noticed that the lights had changed"), McCartney's a more upbeat reminiscence of...what, exactly? "Found my way upstairs and had a smoke/Somebody spoke and I went into a dream."

And then there's the recurring  line, "I'd love to turn you on." So, yes, it's a drug song.  Then there's the trippy orchestral crescendo between the 2 big sections of the song, and the final piano chord that is allowed to resonate for over 40 seconds before fading away. All taken as the Beatles' effort to appeal to stoned listeners which, of course, it did. Wikipedia calls it "one of the most famous final chords in music history."

Sgt. Pepper's is generally regarded as the Beatles' greatest album. But for "A Day in the Life," however, it wouldn't even be in the conversation.

2. Penny Lane, B-side single (1967). Recorded in the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, "Penny Lane" was however released as the B-side of "Strawberry Fields Forever" in early 1967 and was later included on the LP Magical Mystery Tour. Penny Lane is a street and a neighborhood near John Lennon's childhood home in Liverpool, and the song is a series of vignettes, a kaleidoscope of people going about perfectly mundane day-to-day activities, though the images are surreal and contradictory. It's a beautiful summer day "beneath the blue suburban skies" one minute, then the next a "fireman rushes in from the pouring rain/Very strange." Sort of "A Day in the Life," as it were, but in this case one that leaves a peppy, positive and uplifting impression. The song is remembered also for the piccolo trumpet solo by David Mason (not that Dave Mason).

3. All My Loving, from With the Beatles (1963). (In the U.S. the song was on Meet the Beatles [1964].) It's a pretty simple, straight-ahead pop-rock song with a great little guitar solo and (mostly) a typical soaring, enthusiastic Paul McCartney vocal. See, not all of their best music is from 1967.

4. I Will, from The Beatles (the so-called White Album, 1968). OK, a warning. I'm not just a Beatles guy, I'm a McCartney guy. Among my top 10 Beatles songs, 6 were written by McCartney, 2 by Lennon, and just 2 were true Lennon-McCartney collaborations. This 1 is a pretty, laid-back love song that proved a quarter-century later to be particularly well-suited to the voice of Alison Krauss.

5. I Want to Hold Your Hand, single (1963). (Released in the U.S. on Meet the Beatles.) A girl I knew invited me over to her house one Saturday morning to hear this record she'd bought. She put it on the turntable and left the tone arm (remember the tone arm?) in the up position, so the song just kept playing over and over and over again, who knows, maybe 30-40 times all together. Wow. What a sound. Guitars jangling, then rumbling. Today it's a quaint sound, but do you know what guitars sounded like before this? The hand claps. Perfect. But mostly, of course, there were theses great vocals with that flying leap up to the high note on the word "hand." This, a true Lennon-McCartney collaboration, is the song that changed everything.

6.  In My Life, from Rubber Soul (1966). John being sentimental. He of course went through his angry, anti-sentimental periods, but nobody could be more sentimental when he wanted to be. Well, McCartney. "In my life, I loved them all/(But) in my life, I love you more." There have probably been more great covers of this than any Beatles song though Judy Collins' version is easily the best, better even than the Beatles.'

7. I've Just Seen A Face, from Help! (1965), except in the U.S. it was withheld from Help! and released on Rubber Soul (also 1965). This was a breakneck-paced love song with a strong country or bluegrass lilt to it, so that many of the early covers of it were in fact by country and bluegrass bands. Another great, enthusiastic vocal by Paul.

8. Fixing A Hole, from Sgt. Pepper's. "Fixing A Hole" is a rather laconic, laid-back song that got lost in the shuffle of the flashier material on Sgt. Pepper's, meaning, you know, "With A Little Help from My Friends" and "Lucy in the Sky" and like that. But it's a pleasant little ditty by Paul, and a slightly more insistent chorus provides just the dramatic tension the song needs.

9. All You Need Is Love, from Magical Mystery Tour (1967). A Lennon composition, this is of course 1 of the Beatles most famous songs, expressing their political philosophy about as directly as it was ever expressed. A reporter once asked why the Beatles didn't write songs against the war and Lennon said, "All our songs are against the war."

10. Yesterday, from Help!, though in the U.S. it was withheld from that LP and released later on Yesterday and Today, which featured a variety of songs from the past several U.K. LPs but that had been withheld from the corresponding U.S. releases. The fact that this song was featured in the LPs title is indicative of the song's immense popularity. It of course topped the charts in 1965. In 1999 and 2000 it was voted as the top pop song of the 20th century by the BBC and selected as the #1 pop song of all-time by MTV and Rolling Stone. It is among the most--if it is not the most--covered songs of all-time with 2,200 versions. Another McCartney composition, it's a dreary little story of lost love. "Why she had to go/I don't know, she wouldn't say/I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday." It's bad enough that she's gone, but it's my own damn fault. "I said something wrong...." Jacob Marley's chain, indeed.

11. The Night Before, from Help! Another (broken record) McCartney tune, only this one rock's and it features that more soaring type of Paul vocal, as distinguished from the less frequent and overall less appealing ("Yesterday" to the contrary notwithstanding) morose, broken-hearted type of song. But while Paul wrote and sings, part of what makes this song special is Lennon's (not George Martin) piano accompaniment. It also features a cool call-and-response format with Paul singing a line and then George (not John) singing "Ahhh, the night before."

And what an incredibly fabulous collection of songs was Help!, by the way--meaning of course the U.K. version with 14 great songs, 12 Beatles originals (2 by George) and 2 covers. The album's greatness was of course unappreciated in the U.S. where Help! included just half of those songs along with 6 insipid instrumentals from the movie soundtrack.

12. Hey Jude, single (1968). Another song with 2 quite distinctive sections, the 1st featuring Paul's heartfelt vocals. It was originally titles "Hey Jules" and was written as a consolation to Julian Lennon at the time of his parents' divorce. The standard verse/chorus sections are followed by the 4-minute long coda with a cast of thousands chanting ("Nan-na-na..."). At more than 7 minutes, it was the longest single ever to top the British charts, and it topped the U.S. charts for 9 weeks, longest ever at that time. It sold more than 8 million copies.

13. Martha My Dear, from The Beatles. Another light-hearted McCartney "silly love song," this one is about his sheepdog, but makes equally perfect sense if it had been about a woman.

14. She Loves You, single (1963). Described as the Beatles' theme song, at least to U.S. audiences in early 1964, this had been a record-setting single in Britain in 1963. In 1964 it was 1 of a record-setting 5 Beatles songs rated #1 through #5 in April 1964. It was somewhat eclipsed in the U.S., however, by "I Want to Hold Your Hand." In Britain "She Loves You" had been released previously to "I Want to Hold Your Hand." In the U.S. they came out in the reverse order. In any event, "She Loves You" had that early Beatles sound with the jangly guitars, the peppy vocals and the overall positive attitude of the pre-war years. It was never released on a U.K. album, but was included on the so-called The Beatles Second Album (1964) in the U.S.

15. Please Please Me, from Please Please Me (1963). These were the Beatles 1st single, which made #1, and 1st album in the U.K. The single was also released in the U.S. but did not chart. It was released again a year later and peaked at #3. It was never included on a U.S. LP.

16. Your Mother Should Know, from Magical Mystery Tour. Another McCartney gem, a totally overlooked song at the time but with an utterly irresistible melody once you give it a chance.

17. Dr. Robert, from Revolver (in the U.K., but Yesterday and Today in the U.S.). Apparently a genuine Lennon-McCartney collaboration, this light-rocker is about a Dr. Feelgood character, a doctor who prescribed uppers to any and all comers.

18. I Need You, from Help! The rare George Harrison contribution, this is a fairly straightforward light-rock love song but George's guitar and vocal distinguish it from Lennon's and McCartney's songs and lend a unique quality to it. It was then and is now a nice change of pace among Beatles songs.

19. Good Day Sunshine, from Revolver. Another gem of a song and vocal by McCartney, characterized by a rising, optimistic, up-lifting vocal melody. "I was alone, I (melody leaps upward) took a ride/I didn't know what I would find (melody takes big leap upward) there," and so on.

20. With a Little Help from My Friends, from Sgt. Pepper's. A song that drew attention to itself thanks to what were widely taken to be drug references, and also because of Joe Cocker's incredible cover. But with Ringo singing, this is just a nice understated song which, taken at face value, has a nice positive message about friendship. I like it better at that level.

21. I'm So Tired, from The Beatles. One of John's better efforts from his morose period, with a great contrast between an understated verse and a more intense chorus.

22. This Boy, B-side single (1963). Included on Meet the Beatles in the U.S. Pretty standard boy-band fare, it could as easily have been done by Kids on the Block a quarter-century later, and it still would have had its youthful appeal.

23. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, from Sgt. Pepper's. Get it. Lucy in the sky? With DIAMONDS?! (Lucy Sky Diamonds...LSD?!)

24. We Can Work It Out, single 1965. Another of the lost-love songs, but this 1 was written by Lennon and McCartney together, and it has a tougher sound than many of Paul's such songs. The harmonium also gives the song a unique sound.

25. Got to Get You into My Life, from Revolver. Another by Paulie. Another one with a pop, not rock, sound, but tougher than the rest thanks in part to the punchy horns. Another of those rising melodies that Paul loved to write and sang so well.

26. Golden Slumbers, from Abbey Road (1969)
27. I Should Have Known Better, from A Hard Day's Night (1964)
28. Strawberry Fields Forever, from Magical Mystery Tour
29. Across the Universe, from Let It Be (1970)
30. Flying, from Magical Mystery Tour

31. If I Needed Someone, from Rubber Soul
32. Getting Better, from Sgt. Pepper's
33. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, from Help!
34. The Long and Winding Road, from Let It Be
35. Things We Said Today, from A Hard Day's Night
36. Another Girl, from Help!
37. You're Gonna Lose That Girl, from Help!
38. Fool on the Hill, from Magical Mystery Tour
39. Every Little Thing, from Beatles for Sale (1964)
40. Oh Darling, from Abbey Road

41. For No One, from Revolver
42. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, from The Beatles
43. Here Comes the Sun, from Abbey Road
44. Revolution, the single version (1968)
45. Blackbird, from The Beatles
46. Two of Us, from Let It Be
47. Cry Baby Cry, from The Beatles
48. Lady Madonna, singe (1968)
49. Get Back, from Let It Be
50. I'm Looking Through You, from Rubber Soul

Best Beatles LPs

These are based on the original English song collections. The U.S. version of Help! was completely different than the English, however, and so in the case of U.S. releases Sgt. Pepper would be the obvious #1.

1. Help!
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
3. Magical Mystery Tour
4. The Beatles
5. Revolver
6. Rubber Soul
7. Abbey Road
8. Please Please Me
9. A Hard Day's Night
10. With the Beatles