We had to count them all.
At Beatles anniversary time, the stories write themselves. “It was 25/30/40 years ago today!” “The act you’ve known for all these years!” “A splendid time was guaranteed for all!” Last week’s 50th anniversary of the U.S. release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the most acclaimed rock album ever and the apogee of the Beatles’ cultural influence in the 1960s, is a time for all those chestnuts and more. But Pepper’s doesn’t make sense if it’s not put in context.
I use the songs on those releases to create this ranking, with some ephemera ignored, with a few other interesting tracks that have dribbled out over the decades added in. 213. “Good Day Sunshine,” Revolver : Paul McCartney was welcome to write all the happy, upbeat, cheery-cheery songs he wanted. But this one is beyond the pale. It’s blaring, received, and strident. Even by McCartney standards the title is inane. It could have been “Yum Food Delicious,” or “Hot Sex Baby,” or any other three random words McCartney took out of his Young Man’s Collection of Positive Synonyms — and note that of these three choices McCartney chose the blandest.
209. “Dig a Pony,” Let It Be : Doggerel from Lennon. The most uninteresting song on one of the band’s least interesting albums. The lyrics are nonsense, but all he wants is you. Boo-hoo. 205. “Not a Second Time,” With the Beatles : You keep waiting for a redeeming melody to rise to the surface, but it doesn’t come. The weirdest thing about the song is how the title words come on a low note that Lennon doesn’t quite hit, a rarity for a band with such vocal precision from the start.
201. “I’ll Get You,” single : Lots of Oh, yeahs here. An intermittently charming and chuggy very early composition, notable only for being the B side of “She Loves You.” You can hear McCartney working it on the bass, though. 197. “Hold Me Tight,” With the Beatles : One of McCartney’s earliest songwriting efforts and accordingly one of the slightest. The backing track is clompy, and we don’t need to hear all the you-you-you-you’s anymore. McCartney doesn’t sound natural singing, either. A simple chestnut from the early days, brought out to fill up the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack.
192. “Don’t Pass Me By,” The Beatles : This was a song that Ringo had been bashing about for several years. You can tell that by lines like these: “Sorry that I doubted you / I was so unfair / You were in a car crash / And you lost your hair.” To Starr’s credit, we have to acknowledge that the words unfair and hair do rhyme, so there’s that. The odd piano sound and aimless violin don’t do anything for it. And that repetitious backing track goes on for nearly four minutes.
188. “Baby’s in Black,” Beatles for Sale : Another of the darker songs that marked a largely uninteresting, transitional album. Not that much as a song, though.A creditable early lead vocal on the Chuck Berry classic by George Harrison, who loved the song. It was a stage favorite that is a little tepid on record. The band loved Berry, of course; Lennon said “Chuck Berry” was another name for rock and roll, and the Beatles played a variety of other Berry songs in their BBC appearances.
183. “For You Blue,” Let It Be : A winsome romp from George Harrison. McCartney and Lennon were tossing half-baked, substandard throwaways onto the band’s later releases. It’s only fair that Harrison was able to do so as well. The overall production values of Let It Be are lousy; Harrison’s voice never sounded so thin and insubstantial. The song ended up being the inferior B side of “The Long and Winding Road,” the group’s last single before they broke up.
179. “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” single : Yoko Ono didn’t break up the Beatles. They broke up for a lot of reasons. But one big cause was John Lennon’s dickish moves. Case in point: Showing up to “The White Album” sessions with new girlfriend Ono, who stayed there for the duration.
175. “I Call Your Name,” Long Tall Sally EP : Another of those early chuggy numbers, Lennon singing lead. There’s a goofy, off-kilter solo. 171. “Devil in Her Heart,” With the Beatles : A Harrison lead vocal and another R&B-cover chestnut from the Hamburg era. One assumes this was a live crowd-pleaser, because its charms are elusive on disc. Of the four Beatles, Harrison was the only one who grew up in a nuclear family; like the others, though, he also grew up with an outhouse, and playing in rubbled lots, the detritus of a terrible war that had given undue attention to Liverpool, a major port.
166. “Rocky Raccoon,” The Beatles : If you’re looking for the point at which Paul McCartney began to give whimsy a bad name, it is precisely here. The song about the meter maid, fine. But we draw the line at animal songs, particularly when the story, pointless to begin with, goes nowhere. McCartney’s “doo-dee-doo” vocalizings are irritating, too.
162. “Old Brown Shoe,” single : As the band’s interior life broke down, bad decisions were made. This is a minor Harrison song, unaccountably added to the B side of “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” Together it’s the Beatles’ worst single release. 158. “Her Majesty,” Abbey Road : A McCartney throwaway that was supposed to be in the middle of the Abbey Road medley. It didn’t fit, and was cut out, roughly — leaving a last burst of sound from the previous song and a half-second or so at the end cut out — and stuck on to follow “The End” after a very long stretch of silence.The verses are not too memorable, and the “peasant” rhyme is dreadful, but there’s a wonderful slide into the chorus. The B side to “I Feel Fine.
153. “Mr. Moonlight,” Beatles for Sale : The band had already written “She Loves You” and “Please Please Me,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “I Saw Her Standing There.” Why were they filling out their fourth album with more R&B covers? This one, by Roy Lee Johnson, is a genuine oddity, partly crooned, party wailed.
149. “The Inner Light,” single : A Harrisong of minor interest, on the B side of “Lady Madonna.” Very Indian, but it lacks the drama of “Love You To” and the grandeur of “Within You Without You.” As with George’s “Old Brown Shoe,” which ended up on the back of “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” you can see how internal quality control was breaking down.
145. “Piggies,” The Beatles : Harrison had a very quick, and very subtle, sense of humor; those who knew him presumably saw a lot of that here, but to me it comes across as moralizing. This is a takeoff on Animal Farm, and anything but subtle. Funny voices, too. 140. “Because,” Abbey Road : This song, powered by a Beethoven-y harpsichord, an extravagant vocal track, and a rudimentary synthesizer, is supposedly not part of the extended medley on the second side of Abbey Road, but its limited lyrics and aimless structure gives it the feel of a fragment. Some people love it, and it’s arguably the group’s lushest vocal moment, but it’s still a fragment.
136. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” The Beatles : Not to be outdone by Lennon in the throwaway department during “The White Album” sessions, McCartney offered this. It’s just as bad as “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide.” Paul shows off some of his funny voices, which he could get away with because, aside from a Starr drum track, he recorded it alone, away from the other Beatles.
132. “I Want You ,” Abbey Road : A tedious workout. It sounded novel at the time, and there’s some good sound, but it goes on for nearly eight minutes. I respect that Lennon is trying to strip down his work to elements, lose his ego, profess his love for Ono, and disappear to be reborn, all that shit. It’s just a little artless. The Stones, led by Mick Taylor, would show how to take an idea like this and do it right in “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” on Sticky Fingers.
128. “Words of Love,” Beatles for Sale : Buddy Holly’s efficient and timeless love songs are a key progenitor of McCartney’s simple love plaints. This is a great song, and the Beatles don’t ruin it. 124. “Glass Onion,” The Beatles : The import supposedly delivered in this song is pointless. Why does John Lennon feel he needs to confide secrets about Beatles songs — and sing as if it all means something, which it doesn’t? This was two minutes and 12 seconds of their lives listeners in the ’60s would never get back. There are an awful lot of bad songs on the two-record, 28-song collection that came to be called “The White Album.
117. “Don’t Let Me Down,” single : Another of the so-so unadorned Lennon songs from the last days of the Beatles. Too many of his songs consist of the title words repeated over and over in the chorus. The case for it is that it’s a naked profession of his love for Ono and a new statement of vulnerability. The band played it on the famous rooftop concert in Let It Be, but it was left off the album. It turned up as the B sideB side of the “Get Back” single.
113. “Taxman,” Revolver : A good, rough, and quite novel guitar sound kicks off this track, which the band thought was good enough to lead off Revolver, one of the most significant rock albums ever made. Sound and music and meaning came together for the band here in a way that it never would again.
108. “Rock and Roll Music,” Beatles for Sale : A crisp and clean take on the Chuck Berry classic. Lennon’s raspy voice is a standout. The band barrels through the verses at top speed, not noticing they are supposed to done herky-jerky style. 104. “I Should Have Known Better,” A Hard Day’s Night : Infectious, unexpected, uplifting, highly tuneful. And it’s one of the more forgettable songs from the movie.
100. “From Me to You,” single : The Beatles’ third U.K. single, famously written in the back of a bus during the band’s chaotic tour as Please Please Me rose to the top of the British charts. The call-and-response chorus is fun, but the track of course lacks the concussiveness of the aural orgasm that was “Please Please Me,” the previous single, and what was to follow in the band’s fourth, a little ditty called “She Loves You.
96. “Getting Better,” Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band : Things are getting better. Better, better, better. The singer used to beat his wife, but things are getting better. Better, better, better. 92. “I’m Down,” single : McCartney essays a Little Richard–style vocal on this Lennon-McCartney composition, not without success. The B side of the “Help!” single.
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