First off, the riff in this song is awesome. I remember when I was a teenager and I must have gone a few months not listening to Rubber Soul because I distinctly remember thinking I had come up with my own brilliant riff for one of my own songs in my head before finally re-listening to said album one day and naturally uttering an inner "Doh!". The rest of "I'm Looking Through You" is greatness as well, one of Paul's more bitter jabs at his near ex-girlfriend Jane Asner. Also, more clever Macgyver-esque percussion from Ringo, this time using a matchbox AND his knees.
"Don't Bother Me" is more remembered as George Harrison's first released and first successful stab at songwriting than a memorable Beatles song. Even Harrison himself thought so. It was never performed live or talked about in many interviews, just kind of coming and going instead as an experiment to see if he could pull something album-worthy off. I have always been most fond of it though. It is not even my lowest song by the Quiet Beatle on this list. Ringo's Latin grooves stand-out pleasantly for one thing and the minor-flavored melody is one of the more interesting moments on With the Beatles.
Many a source seems to point to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as the song that broke the camel's back during The Beatles (White Album) recording session. Paul McCartney insisted on recording about roughly forty-seven thousand takes of the song, trying every conceivable arrangement under the moon and stars before John Lennon presumably stormed off calling it Paul's "granny music shit". Which would have been a brilliant alternate title BTW. He later smoked some green, came back, and hammered away the famous piano intro to the song and demanded they do it THAT way. Which they did, thankfully so.
Relatively hidden by the hits, "Little Child" is a damn stand-out on With the Beatles. It is one of the closer of the band's songs to sound like ones that they did in their old sweaty, upper-fueled, nicely-toasted, all night jam sessions in Hamburg, Germany. Meaning that it is pretty rip-roaring. Originally written as an early songwriting attempt between John and Paul, the dynamic duo were going to hand it off to Ringo, but Mr. Starr instead tackled the previous Stones giveaway "I Wanna Be Your Man". This worked out well as both of these songs are successful toe-tappers.
I love Eric Clapton. I would have to be some kind of demon not to. That said, I rather prefer the Anthology released, acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" featuring just George and his axe with nothing more. There are two reasons for this. One, I always like acoustic ballads anyway and two, the original started to go the route of "Back In the U.S.S.R." and "Get Back" as Beatles songs that I just thought were good and not great. Ergo in my eyes, they were not deserving of the constant radio bombardment that they have always received. It is still pretty great regardless, even though it is one of several Beatles songs that any jamoke at an open mic or in a shitty bar band can bust out to cover. That said, Prince rather gloriously destroyed the guitar solo when he had a go at it.
Long and still suspected to be a song about Paul McCartney's own English Sheepdog, "Martha My Dear" is most likely once again also about Jane Asner, who is also known to Vincent Price fans as "that girl that was in Masque of the Red Death". A number of lines can be interpreted either way, which is a big part of the song's fun. "Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you" could either accurately describe what a large K9 would do when left alone at a banquet table or what a bitter ex-fiance would help themselves too before making the split all official and permanent. The song contributes to the excellence of The Beatles (The White Album) either way.
I have always fancied the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" compared to the perhaps more famous one that opens that iconic album. It starts with possibly Ringo's most famous and defining drum beat, (which the Dust Brothers got the jump on sampling for the Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique album). Also, it has some of the band's heavier guitar sounds. I cannot listen to "A Day In the Life" really without bumping this right before it, as the segue is most perfect. Then again I generally listen to all of Sgt. Peppers from front to back anyway, as it was clearly meant to be heard.
Alright, back to The Beatles (The White album). Another song that is less than two minutes long and one that was originally conceived of in Rishikesh, India, "I Will" features zero George Harrison and mostly Paul and Ringo, with John supplying the percussion. More "We're the Beatles, we do what we want" creativeness is present in the "mouth bass" that McCartney supplies, because why use a real bass all the time one logically has to ask? Also nice is the galloping hooves sound that runs throughout, as well the very last "I wiiiiiiiillll" high note.
Alright, now back to Sgt. Pepper's. Just as "Eleanor Rigby" was a success in featuring only voice and orchestra with no actual Beatles musicianship, "She's Leaving Home" goes the same route. It is unique though still for a number of reasons. George Martin did not arrange the string section as he always had done before and would continue to do until that nasty Phil Specter business on Let It Be. Instead, Mike Leander did it and does a rather swanky job no less. Paul wrote the verses and John the chorus and they each sing lead on each section respectively. I have always adored the melody in "She's Leaving Home", a very lush and sweeping moment on Pepper's indeed.
Here is a very successful John Lennon attempt to write a doo-wop song for the Hard Day's Night album. "Tell Me Why" was recorded in eight takes in a single day in February of 1964, which pretty typical of the time. It still blows my mind that so many beyond legendary Beatles songs were written, tracked, and then released usually in a period of a handful of weeks or months at the most. Maybe that is because it always takes most mortal bands years to get around to doing much of anything. The opening drum fills are great, the high harmony in the middle eight is great, the drum break is great, and especially that chorus is early era Beatles just killing it on all cylinders.
The Ringo Rises! Ringo's second, last, and very much best solo contribution to a Beatles album was the Abbey Road highlight "Octopus's Garden". Since that album is one of nothing but highlights, this is saying something that Ringo got a piece of the pie as well. A fitting sequel to "Yellow Submarine", this time Mr. Starkey is singing his own words about living not in a brightly colored sea vessel, but instead in the sea itself. It is intentionally childish, lighthearted, and infectious as all get out. George helped his drummer flesh out the chord changes to fit the vocal melody and his lead guitar playing is rarely better than here.
George Harrison's only opening track to a Beatles album was Revolver's viscous, funny, and brilliant "Taxman". It may be one of the most "no room for interpretation" songs that the band ever cut as it pretty much wears its prime objective on its sleeve; "paying taxes sucks". George rambles off two British party leaders by name, (Harold Wilson and Edward Heath), and the line "one for you, nineteen for me" sung from the "taxman's" point of view is not an exaggeration. Not to take a thing away from Mr. Harrison of course, but Paul is a beast on this song. The guitar solo is his and I would put this in the top five best bass performances that he ever gave as well, which says much indeed.
"Julia" is John Lennon's one and only solo Beatles performance on record and it may be the most personal song that he ever penned whilst in the group. John's mother Julia was killed by a drunk driver when he was 17 and the indecent scared him for life. Also at this time though, Yoko Ono was in the picture and the line "Oceanchild calls me" directly references her transcribed first name of "child of the sea". Lennon learned the finger picking style used for the song from Donovan whilst the band was transcendental meditationing it up in Rishikesh, India where a huge bulk of The Beatles (The White Album) was written. It is a beautiful moment to close the first half of the greatest album ever made.
John Lennon called "If I Fell" his first attempt at penning a proper ballad and it is so effortlessly gorgeous and etched into all of our brains that it is hard to imagine the song has not just always existed. Then again, there are a good number of Beatles songs one could say this about. I quite like how the song starts before the "one" with vocals, plus John and Paul's harmonizing is chill-inducing. It is also a funny moment in the Hard Days Night film when John basically sings it directly to Ringo to cheer him up before yelling that he needs "more bang!" on the drums when they are done. One has to love that movie.
Just like how I put Superman in the lower half of my Favorite Comic Book Characters list and The Exorcist in the lower half of my Favorite Horror Movies list, now I present you with "Yesterday" in the lower half of my Favorite Beatles Songs list. Though do not get me wrong; I have nothing but loving praise for this song. Paul famously composed his very most famous and covered tune while stumbling out of bed and onto the piano, singing "Scrambled eggs" until he came up with the proper words. This was after he played the melody for everyone he knew, convinced that he heard it somewhere else before. When finally giving up that it was his own, the Beatles first solo performed single and record was made as well as music history in the process.
Out of the many, many revolutionary musical innovations we can thank The Beatles for, the invention of doom metal few people would consider one of them. Enter "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" into the discussion though and you could make at least a relatively fair argument. At nearly eight minutes, this was as long as a Beatles album track ever got. There are only fourteen words in it, only two sections it bounces between, it has one of John's greatest screams is in it, and it intentionally ends abruptly, presumably to make you think that your record player stopped working. For a meandering song exclusively about Yoko Ono, there is certainly a whole lot of awesome going on up in here.
The second track off of Help! is "The Night Before" and it is McCartney's first of numerous fantastic moments on said album. John Lennon makes a rare appearance on just electric piano with both Paul and George laying down the lead guitar. Paul's lead vocal with George and John's call back background accompaniments sounds stupendous as always. Plus Ringo spices it up during the middle eight with some Latin-esque accents again. The Beatles have so many masterpieces with ingredients similar to this that it is almost like shooting fish in a barrel with coming up with your very favorites. Am I complaining though? Heavens no.
The only instrumental that I am having make an appearance on this list and one of the very few Beatles instrumentals to ever be released at that is Magical Mystery Tour's "Flying". This is also just about the only song floating around that all four members of the group share equal writing credit on. Mystery Tour is a high album and far, far higher film, so "Flying" fits the free-loving, do all the drugs thou wilt, tied-eyed hippy spirit of both. It also features my favorite instrument ever built, the mellotron which John plays throughout. There is nothing much to it arrangement wise as it is just the same part looped around a few times. It ultimately makes me wish that The Beatles had some more such mellow jams in their catalog though.
More doo-wop inspired, call and response and harmony vocal magic on the Help! track "You're Going To Lose That Girl". Which is only sung as "You're gonna lose that girl" the entire time, but that is neither here nor there. This one is kind of funny due to Lennon basically being a dick and threatening/bragging about how he is going to steal an acquaintance's girl from him rather easily if he does not "treat her right". We never hear the other side of the story and you are right, it does not matter. There is some mighty fine bongo playing in this one and it has one of George's best solos. Also, the studio sequence in the film Help! is as memorable as a pre-MTV music video ever was.
The only really somber moment that can be found on the otherwise jovial Hard Day's Night album is in the closer "I'll Be Back", at least musically. It is certainly still an excellent way to send said album home. A mostly John Lennon song, with a side of Paul throwing in a thought or two, "I'll Be Back" features no real chorus and no electric guitars. Similar lyrically to "You Can't Do That" in the fact that the verse here is semi-threatening, bordering on stalker-esque, the minor chords help in giving it just a smidgen of a sinister edge. As is the case with every Beatles song, I love the melody and the "IIIIIIIII thought that you would realize" part can also do no wrong. I could really put every song from this album on here and just about did.
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