My Beatles Top 20 Countdown
The Beatles are universally considered the greatest act in pop music history. Sure there's people who don't care for them but you are gonna find that with anything. The Beatles broke so much ground so quickly between 1963 and 1969 that it feels like people are still trying to play catch up. Every year kids "discover" The Beatles and any musicians who likes to use "melody" in their songs owes a debt to the Beatles whether they know it or not. Acts as disparate as Soundgarden and Katy Perry are avowed Beatles fans who's music may be different from one other but both acts would claim the Beatles have influenced them in some way. Now this brings up the interesting conundrum with The Beatles, because their music means so much to so many different people and is so diverse that it is actually hard to find a genuine consensus on what their very best songs are.
The Beatles' catalogue is practically bullet proof with only a few songs that are generally considered weak (Mr. Moonlight comes to mind), but try asking 20 different people what their favorite Beatles songs are and you'll get 20 very different lists with 20 very different reasons as to why they picked certain songs. Sure there will be overlap and there will be a few songs that seem to standout from the pack, but there's not a general consensus about what their best music and songs are unlike say Nirvana. I should know because I created a Beatles challenge several years ago where I asked as many friends and family as I could to compose their own personal lists of their favorite Beatles songs and put the reasons for why they picked those songs. It was good fun and it showed how people connected with The Beatles on very different levels from each other. All this is to say that most people might love the Beatles, but they may not love the songs that you love by the Beatles. I know for me I didn't connect too deeply to their love songs because as a gay man I never felt those songs were for me from a lyrical stand point. The love songs I liked were more because I liked the melodies, or instrumentation or the music in general. The songs who's lyrics I did like were more about escapism or journeying into different worlds. Living in the closet like I was for so long, music provided a sense of escape for me so I gravitated toward songs from The Beatles psychedelic period more than say Hard Days Night.
So here is my list. Even though I do like most of their music and I think all their albums are worthwhile my favorite songs by them start with the Help album, when they began transitioning away from the early Beatlemania sound and started experimenting more in the studio with both songwriting and production. My list is completely my own just like everybody's Beatles list. I can guarantee you that no one has the same 20 songs on their list of favorite Beatles songs that I have on mine. This is the appeal of the Beatles as well because everyone can like them but have their own specific reasons for liking them. This helps make The Beatles music feel more personal to whoever is listening to them despite The Beatles being a commonly shared experience at the same time. Please feel free to comment as usual and I am definitely interested in what your lists for your favorite Beatles songs looks like.
20. Birthday
I petition we get rid of the actual birthday song and replace it with this one because the actual birthday song is uncool and this song ROCKS! Good interplay between John and Paul here. It feels like one of their only joint efforts on the White Album. The rest of the songs sound like the band members getting ready to launch solo careers but Birthday feels like The Beatles as we once knew and loved them before things started to crumble.
19. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Legend has it that this song was written about Brian Epstein the Beatles manager who was also gay. If you've never read the graphic novel/comic book The Fifth Beatle by Vivek TiwaryI I highly recommend you do so. Vivek delves deep into Brian Epstein's life and struggles as a gay man in the closet who found his purpose by managing the Beatles. In the book you see that Brian is closest to John who kind of flirts with him from time to time and it seems like John wrote this song as a response to Brian's "affection" for John. The Fifth Beatle is a really great read for anyone who is into comics, the Beatles or is LGBTQ. The song itself is one of the Beatles most endearing songs due to it's stripped down directness. It feels influenced by Dylan and acts like a preview for their next album Rubber Soul. Also who doesn't love that flute at the end.
18. Norwegian Wood
Speaking of Rubber Soul here we have a song that is most remembered for it's brillaint use of the sitar but people kind of forget what the song is about. It's actually quite clever how John ties "Norwegian Wood" together throughout the song and the ending is kind of shocking. I'm not gonna give away the ending here. Go listen to the song again and really pay attention to the story being told this time.
17. Mother Nature's Son
The white album is an album of extremes and for Paul you have him at his most rocking with Back in the U.S.S.R. and the proto heavy metal song Helter Skelter. Mother Nature's Son is on the opposite side of those 2 songs and is probably his most quiet contribution to the album. In fact it's so quiet I kind of missed it for years whenever I would listen to the White Album. Like most great double albums the White Album is not something you can digest easily or quickly, it's pleasures reveal itself over time. One day Mother Nature's Son came on shuffle and I was just so taken with it. It had a feeling of beauty and quiet grandur that moved me once I was paying close attention to it. The subtle use of horns is a real nice touch too. A hidden gem, or at least as hidden as any Beatles song can be.
16. Martha My Dear
Another quiet gem from Paul off the White Album. The piano feels very ragtime to my ears which shows you how much rock music used to pull from genres older than rock when it was still relatively new. The fact that this song is about Paul's dog makes it a lot more endearing.
15. The Night Before
Now here's a real good example of a Beatles song where I glossed over the lyrics and just focused on the melodies and hooks. My friend Emily is the one who explained that this was about a one night stand where the next day the girl has already moved on and doesn't care for Paul anymore. Me I just liked that Paul was dragging out the vowels throughout the song for hooks. Nobody drags out vowels for a hook better than the Beatles. That shit gets me every time.
14. Hey Jude
The sing along to end all other sing along songs. It's not my favorite Beatles song but it was definitely the high point of Sir Paul's concert. If you have never seen Paul live (and the clock is very much ticking at this point) then you need to if only to experience Hey Jude live. As I wrote on my last post seeing Hey Jude performed live was one of the single most moving moments of my life. There really is nothing else like it and if you get to see Paul perform it live it will be an experience you will never forget.
13. She Said, She Said
Revolver era Beatles is the one that seems to most influence alternative rock bands. 1966 is when the Beatles were at peak "coolness." Now by that I don't mean popularity because early Beatlemania was much more all consuming nor was it as life changing as 1967 when they became the voices of the counter-culture. No by cool I mean just how they dressed, looked and the music they played. The stuffy suits of the early years were gone but they had not become long haired hippies yet either. John's glasses during this period are cool in a very iconic way. The Beatles music also had a lot more of an edge by this point but they were still firmly based in guitar rock for the most part unlike a lot of their music in 1967. She Said, She Said has one of the best rock riffs in their catalogue and the hook involves John stretching out the vowel in "She Saaaaaaaaaid" and as I have pointed out I am sucker for that kind of thing. Really Oasis' entire sound, look, attitude and aesthetic can be linked to this era and this song specifically.
12. Ticket to Ride
My Dad's favorite Beatles song and I can hear why. It sounds very much like The Byrds, who back in 1965 had completely changed the game by mixing folk and rock together. Listen to most of the big acts of 1965 and you will hear a heavy Byrds influence in a lot of the music from that year. The Byrds also sang pop songs that went beyond boy and girl relationships that had dominated pop music and rock & roll up to this point. To quote Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth rock music in the 60s was no longer just a sexual awakening but a group awakening where people really began to look around at themselves, each other, and the culture at large and decided that maybe there was more to life than they had originally been taught. That's the part of the 60s that resonates with me the most as a gay man. The 60s is the moment when people outside the mainstream (AKA anyone who wasn’t a White Straight Christian Man or any men who didn’t relate to mainstream masculinity at the time. Basically the kind of mainstream male that Mad Men captured so perfectly) decided they were going to have their voices heard and their stories told. For me Ticket to Ride, while still a love song about a girl, is the moment the Beatles start to become more than just a widely popular rock band who wrote great love songs. This is when the Beatles are about to change the rules of music every year for the rest of the decade, which would influence culture, fashion and politics for the rest of the decade. These huge changes that happened during the second half of the 60s would help create a world where maybe a gay man like myself could live in a culture that was accepting of me. This is the moment the Beatles have my full attention.
11. You Won't See Me
What can I say I love the piano on this one and Paul is dragging out those vowels again and that's enough to get this one up to 11. Plus I used to have this song placed after Drive My Car on a music timeline mix I made on Itunes where I arranged my 1000 favorite songs in chronological order. So whenever I hear Drive My Car I automatically wait to hear this song come up next. Paul also performeed this one live when I saw him which was pretty cool since it's a Beatles song I love that not everyone else knows about.
10. Drive My Car
So of course I had to have Drive My Car right next to You Won't See Me. This is just a fun rocker with one of their most memorably vocal hooks ever. You know the one "Beep beep, beep beep YEAH!" I remember hearing that hook on the oldies station anytime they did traffic and it was one of the first songs played at my wedding. It's just a really fun rock song.
9. Get Back
So I really like this song but I feel like I might be the only one but that can't be true. When I did the Beatles challenge I was the only person who had this song on their list. No one else I know really loves this song, but I hear it all the time on the radio and it hit #1 on the pop charts. So someone else has to like it. It may be the case that people don't realize this is The Beatles. When I heard 1 for the first time I recognized Get Back immeadiately, but I had never known it was The Beatles. It also sounds like 70s classic rock more than 60s pop, which is also probably why classic rock radio plays this one a lot. I don't know but I like it.
8. Hello Goodbye
As I wrote in my last post this was the song that got me into the Beatles and it's simply because it's extremely catchy. As I said before love songs by The Beatles appealed to me more on a surface level and this song is pretty much all surface and no depth at all but what a surface it has! This song is a master class on how to make a song as catchy as humanly possible. It has so many ear worms that can get stuck in your head for days. This song shows off why Paul is one of the all time great melody makers to ever grace music.
7. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Now here's a song where I do care about the lyrics. Right from the start I can picture the whole scene in my head that this song is depicting. I can see the tangerine trees, the marmalade skies, rocking horse people eating marshmallow pies and the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. The song reminds me a lot of Alice in Wonderland which I love. Like Alice in Wonderland it transports you to a world beyond our wildest dreams where anything is possible as long as you have the imagination to accept it. Every single time I hear this song I feel like I am no longer here on our world but somewhere beyond this mortal coil. For a kid like me struggling in the closet that was a powerful feeling to have every time I listened to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
6. Penny Lane
Another transportive song from the Beatles that is also a master class in how to craft melodic hooks. Penny Lane is the kind of song most artists spend their entire careers trying to write, but for Paul it was just another day at the office. Still we can't discount George Martin, who I have not even mentioned yet in this countdown. George Martin is the one who was able to flesh out the songs by Paul and John and give them the best production possible. Penny Lane is just as much as showcase for George Martin's production skills as it is for Paul's melodic songwriting.
5. Hey Bulldog
Now here's a song that many people don't know exists due to the fact that it's on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, which only had 4 new songs by the group and the Hey Bulldog sequence was cut from the film Yellow Submarine. I didn't know of this song until college when one of the people I had just become friends with was playing this off his computer one night when we were hanging out at his dorm. When this came on everyone knew it but me. They sang all the parts, they even did the barking and Lennon's manically laughing. Well I had to get the song after that. I think this one is just so much fun. The guitar riff is one of their best harder edged riffs, the piano makes it so danceable, great guitar solo and the call and response at the end is fun and over the top. This is the Beatles song I introduce to Beatles fans my own age because most of them don't know this song but usually love it after I play it for them.
4. In My Life
This is the Beatles song I have heard at weddings, graduations and other important life ceremonies. Somehow it's a song that gets to heart of what a gift it is to be alive. Yes nothing lasts forever but the people you have met, loved and cared for leave a lasting impression that stays with you for life. That is what life is about. Life is about people and while there will be ups and downs it is still a blessing to form connections and bonds with other people during our short time on this planet. The song also has an amazing keyboard solo that really helps elevate In My Life to an all time Beatles classic.
3. Dear Prudence
Dear Prudence is a song that connected with me the first time I heard it. The song is about a girl who decides to hide in her room instead of going out and experiencing life. This feeling of self-imposed isolation hit me hard. I heard this song in college after I had been out of the closet for almost a year. The feelings of hiding in the closet were still fresh for me and this song really spoke to me and those feelings. On top of that I love the subtle but important build this track has. It starts very stripped down but it slowly puts layers upon layers of instruments and production on to the song until the climax where it sounds like we have finally gone out into the world with the sun shining bright on our face. It's a beautiful song with a beautiful message that gets me every time.
2. A Day in the Life
Once upon a time this was my #1 but it's still an amazing piece of music. This is where the Beatles and George Martin reached their peak in the studio as a collective unit. The juxtapositions between Lennon's more depressing verses and McCartney's bouncy verse is striking and amazingly effective. The horror movie string build up is still breathtaking to this day and gives me chills. In fact a lot about this song gives me goosebumps including the part where John interrupts Paul's verse singing "Ahhh." That always gets me. It may be the most monumental song ever by The Beatles who are the most monumental pop act of all time. Kids this is where Iconic comes from.
1. Tomorrow Never Knows
A Day in the Life is amazing, but lately this is the song that I have been turning to more and more. To call Tomorrow Never Knows a song does it a disservice because it's more of an experience that has absolutely no peer whatsoever not even within the Beatles own catalogue. It's a song that could have only come out in the 60s and yet it doesn't feel tied to the 60s or any other decade for that matter. Tomorrow Never Knows exists outside the time stream and is on a whole other plane. There's a reason it's been sampled so much over the years including Setting Sun by the Chemical Brothers. In 3 short minutes it feels like we have traveled to a whole new world beyond human comprehension. Listeners & musicians are still exploring & discovering the world that lives inside Tomorrow Never Knows. It was also the perfect Beatles song for Mad Men to use because the song effectively demonstrated how out of touch Don Draper was with the younger generation and the new world order that was on the horizon. Tomorrow Never Knows continues to fascinate and baffle me in a way few songs are capable of. It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a blanket of the unknown. If you have not explored Tomorrow Never Knows yet do so today, but be warned you may never want to come back. Side note: Ringo's drumming on Tomorrow Never Knows is some of his best and a huge reason this song works as well as it does.
