My Beatles Top 30 List:

Introduction:

I’ve decided to take on the difficult and somewhat self-indulgent challenge of ranking what I think are the Beatle’s top 30 songs.  I’ve already identified over 50 songs that belong in my top 30 list and 22 (and counting) that belong in the top 10. Thus, the challenge.  But so instrumental (pun intended) have the Beatles been in my life, that I feel I owe them the effort of writing about their music and what it has meant to me.  So, I’ve posted my list below, starting tomorrow with #30, along with some of my thoughts about each piece.

People younger than about 60 probably cannot fathom how consuming the phenomenon of the Beatles was. Their cultural impact has never been and probably never will be equaled. It wasn’t just the drugs. Well, that was a big part of it, I suppose. Or their hair, or their dress, or their cheeky attitude. But their music has entertained, awed, and inspired upwards of a billion people over the last 55-plus years.  Every album release was an event. I still remember that Where-Were -You-When Kennedy-Was-Shot moment (just walking into the lunch room in 6th grade) when my sister introduced me to the Beatles.  She was and continues to be 4 years older than me, and this proved to be a boon to my musical education.

My folks had a living room that was reserved exclusively for entertaining, which they never did. We kids were generally banned from it, which is why it was the only room in the house with fancy things like Waterford crystal, a dusty bottle of aged apricot brandy, and a small porcelain container of loose Kent cigarettes old enough to crinkle when you rolled them between your fingers. I know this because I stole them occasionally. Against one wall was a stereo system as big as a sofa. Its fake walnut casing housed a record player, an AM radio, and comedy albums by Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, and Allen Sherman.

One afternoon, my sister walked into the house with a package under arm that she soon revealed to be the Meet the Beatles album, and she entered the forbidden room.  Naturally, I was curious.  I had no idea that kids could actually buy albums. That was what parents did.  I stood on the edge of the room, hesitant to break the rules as my sister had just done. Twice.  I watched her remove the plastic, take the black disc out of its jacket and lower the needle onto “Meet the Beatles.” The sound hit me so hard, I was left breathless. It lured me into the forbidden room where I just stared at the spinning record and took in a sound so compelling that I knew I had just made four new friends for life.

They proved early that they weren’t merely one-hit wonders. No other group has come close to innovating and evolving so much in such a short period of time, all while carrying an entire generation on their backs.  I, for one, am still taking that ride.  I’ve got a ticket.

There were some short-term repercussions of that first encounter with my new friends. I immediately joined a rock group that earnestly practiced singing “All my Loving” for at least half an hour before we realized that than none of us, least of all me, had any musical talent.  That’s not entirely true.  One member actually did form a successful band that funded his college education. He performed on a Hammond B-3 organ which he later used as a changing table for his children. Another member evolved into a lounge lizard who still occasionally plays piano until 8:30 p.m. in Country Clubs and Italian restaurants and for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.  If only I’d stuck with my piano lessons…

Even though I gave up my own musical dreams, the Beatles accompanied, or more accurately, led me through the turbulent 60s and my early teens – through awkward backseat gropings, experiments with recreational drugs, and futile attempts at searching for my elusive soul that was not yet well enough developed to be discovered.

I am past the point where I believe the Beatles could do no wrong.  They put out a few perfectly crappy songs.  But hey, even Brad Pitt has the occasional bad hair day. Doesn’t he?  Okay, bad example.  Still, through a more accurate eye than I had in the height of my infatuation with them, I still believe they were the best band ever. 

 #30: And I Love Her

From the Album A Hard Day’s Night. Recorded in 1964

Listen to the song at:      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tc0gLSSU1M

And I love Her made my Top 30 list because it is the best make-out song ever recorded.  It’s a beautiful melody.  You can picture Paul singing the tune, with his dreamy long-lashed eyes seducing the camera while his lips softly graze the mic.  I could not hear the song without imagining being with a girl in our family’s forbidden den. I have the house to myself in this fantasy, of course. She sits on the oversized sofa.  I walk to the huge stereo where the record already sits on the turntable.  I power up the machine, place the needle perfectly between cuts – no skips, no tail end of the previous song as it ends – and then Paul’s voice fills both the room and her heart.  I sit down next to her, we kiss, and she melts into my arms.

That’s about as far as my fantasies went in those days. I had only the vaguest idea of what came after the kissing. I would have been like the dog who finally caught the car, not having a clue what to do next. At that point, I’m not even sure if I wanted a next.

I did have my first kiss at age 12. I don’t remember for sure, but I’m guessing And I Love Her was playing in my head at the time.  It was Halloween night.  Lynn and I were walking the streets and I was armed with matches (for the cigarettes I had stolen from my folks’ den), eggs, and toilet paper, because that was standard issue for Halloween.  We saw a police car and ducked into the entrance of culvert before we were spotted.  We were laughing. I realized I was holding her hand. The entrance was dimly lit by a nearby streetlight.  I leaned forward, and our lips met ever so briefly. And chastely.  I was stunned by how soft and warm her lips were. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the electric jolt I felt was strong enough I remember it to this day. 

Just as I considered going in for another, I was suddenly squinting into a policeman’s flashlight.  He ordered us out and he asked me about the matches, eggs, and toilet paper. I told him we were camping.  It’s all I could come up with on such short notice, and I thought it was a good effort on my part. The policeman good-naturedly confiscated my supplies and let us go free.  The mood was broken though, and I never again kissed Lynn, who died of MS in her 20s.

Back to the music, And I Love Her is a beautiful melody, uncomplicated by musical tricks the lads employed, quite effectively, in later productions.  It employs two guitars, a bass, a couple of percussion instruments and Paul’s voice.  Paul, as I understand it, was largely responsible for this Lennon-McCartney composition.  George, who always shunned the spotlight for his virtuosity, performs a simple guitar solo in the song. He picks his way beautifully throughout the piece except for the bridge, where he switches to strumming chords.  Ringo plays the congas as well as the standout instrument of the song, the claves.  Claves are those short wooden sticks that make a sharp clicking sound when they strike one another.   My one and only musical performance was a song I did with some classmates at morning chapel at our Episcopalian high school.  I was on the claves, the musical equivalent of being banished to right field in Little League.  I wasn’t good enough to be asked to perform again.

But And I Love Her is a plenty good enough song. So, for its lovely melody, the romantic mood it sets, and the memories it evokes, And I love Her anchors my Beatles Top 30 list. 

 #29:  Strawberry Fields

Recorded late 1966, released as a single in February, 1967. It is also on the Magical Mystery Tour album.

Listen to the song at:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8

Strawberry Fields is pure John.  He wrote the song in Spain in 1966, while filming his role in the movie How I Won The War. I think that was the only non-Beatle movie John ever appeared in.  Apparently, he found moviemaking boring.  Too much sitting around, which I would have thought squared with the person some have described as the laziest man on the face of the earth.  That’s no insult; the man just liked to sleep.

The song is touted as a nostalgia number about John’s youth in Liverpool (as is the single’s flip side, Paul’s Penny Lane), but it is a deeply personal piece.  Some of you may remember the long interview that John gave to Playboy Magazine in 1980, shortly before he was murdered.  It was interesting reading and one of the very few examples where I actually bought a copy of Playboy for the writing and not just the pictures. In the article, John talks about being psychic in his youth, an ability which made him feel lonely and question his sanity.  He would see things no one else would see. He had hallucinatory experiences before he was ever introduced to LSD or pot.  As he says in the Playboy interview “Surrealism to me is reality. Psychic vision to me is reality.” One of the many indications of John’s influence is that he encouraged a whole generation and more to see the world through his altered and perhaps heightened vision.  For most of us the Beatles’ music was the inspiration, but drugs were the ophthalmic prescription we needed to adjust our view of the world.

Back in the late-1960s, we were more radically different from our parents than any previous generation had been.  We were Different with a capital “D.” We couldn’t articulate either how or why that was the case, other than the fact that we hated Nixon and the war, but it was a special time, and I pity people who did not experience it. I felt it strongly, even though I was not in the cultural change epicenter.  (I was in high school in Oklahoma at the time.)  I firmly believed that my generation would profoundly change the world in ways people couldn’t imagine.  I kept up that belief until the election of 1972, when the 18-21 year-olds, who had just attained voting rights, voted for Nixon in the same percentages as their parents.  The day after the election, I chopped off my ponytail.

Knowing these things about John makes the song more interesting.  “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see” seems to be a confession that his life wasn’t easy.  It’s also pretty accusatory.  He could have just written “None of you see what I see, so you’re stupid and I’m not,” but that line lacks a poetic gait, so I’m glad he settled with his chosen verse.  He also explains that the line “No one I think is in my tree” speaks to the loneliness his special gifts caused him.  It’s a sad tune that John thought was one of his most honest. 

But John’s words, while confessional, aren’t brilliant, and I find the tune a bit boring.  It’s a complicated recording that took over 50 hours of studio time to capture.  But I think that many of the effects muddy rather than highlight the piece.  The exception is the newly invented Mellotron, a keyboard played by Paul in the song. In my opinion, Strawberry Fields is overrated. But because of its honesty, it still made my top 30, coming in at #29.

#28:  Tell Me Why

Released in June, 1964. On A Hard Day’s Night Album.

Listen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVub1QCUCGc

This was a John Lennon song, which he described as a “throwaway.” He knocked it out quickly for the Hard Day’s Night movie and it was the last song featured in the film. John sings lead vocals on it and plays rhythm guitar. Paul and George sing backup, with George on lead guitar.  Ringo plays the drums, of course, and he is fantastic on this tune.

Some criticize the recording, calling it muddy. Hell, the ancient equipment I played their original records on made everything sound muddy, so I’m fine with that.

Other Beatles band members suggest that the song, of which John was so dismissive, was actually somewhat autobiographical, reflecting fights he’d been having with his then wife, Cynthia. Could it be that in this rare case, John was neither observant nor self-aware?  That would certainly be the exception for him (See #29). 

I’m struck by the notion of being unobservant and self-unaware. It turns out that those were two of primary survival tools during that era, even though I wasn’t aware that they were at the time. (I rest my case.)  I masked them, of course, in cynicism, wit, and coolness – or at least I tried like hell to.  Lack of self-awareness and observational skills aren’t character traits you put on your resume or use to attract girls, which was my primary focus even back then.  Again, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a willing girlfriend at age 12,. Yet it was critically important for me to be liked. Is that unusual? I think not, but it might have been more important to me than to most.  In my teens, enemies, of which I had few, were emotionally devastating to me.  One of the blessings of my later career is that I acquired several opponents, ex-friends, and outright enemies.  I learned to largely take it in stride while presumably strengthening my sense of self.  If we’re very lucky, we get to work on that sense of self every day until we die.  Why is being liked so important? I dunno. Maybe you can Tell Me Why, (clever segue, huh?)

This is simply a damn good, raucous early rock and roll song.  John apparently was shooting for a bit of a Motown feel, which I don’t hear in it. What stands out for me is Ringo’s petulant drumming that kicks off the song and never lets up.  I love the key change in the bridge, which ends again, with Ringo’s drums. Tell Me Why is an upbeat tune and rhythm that masks John’s somewhat brooding lyrics, and I always feel happier and more energized after listening to it. It’s pure rock and roll and their harmonies project their joy and love of music.  I beg John’s forgiveness for rating his throwaway so highly, but maybe it balances out the relatively low score I gave one of his favorites, Strawberry Fields.   Tell Me Why – Number 28 on my list.

#27:  Across The Universe

Written by John Lennon, though like most of their songs, credited to Lennon-McCartney.  The most familiar version was released in 1970 on the Let It Be album, two years after it was first recorded. An earlier version was released on a World Wildlife Fund album the previous year.

Heard at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90M60PzmxEE

 John sings the lead vocals, with Paul and George on backup. John, Paul and George all play various guitars on the song, with Paul also playing piano.  John and the Beatles producer, George Martin, play the organ, and Ringo handles the percussion. For the Phil Spector version on the Let It Be album, several violins, cellos, trumpets and other orchestration were added to the mix.  Across The Universe uses a simple construction with intermingling verses and choruses. There are no interesting chord changes, no bridges to break up the tune. The song doesn’t need them.

The refrain “Jai Guru Deva, Om” is apparently an homage to the Maharishi’s teacher.  Other than that, I have never known what this song means, quite possibly because it doesn’t mean anything.  But the words are so beautiful, so lyrical they just seem to flow from the song (which is how John describes what it was like writing the piece). 

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe

That’s a lovely collection and arrangement of words in my book.  As is this:

Thoughts meander like a restless wind
Inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

Again, I have no idea what it all means.  I did learn that the opening lines about words flowing out like endless rain came to John as his first wife, Cynthia, was ragging on him about something. It’s an inglorious beginning to a glorious song. Although Cynthia’s yammering may not have produced its intended effect, at least it resulted in a memorable piece of music. I hope that’s some consolation, Cynthia.

This is a more hopeful song of John’s than we’d grown accustomed to from him over the years. Titles like Help! and Nowhere Man more than hint at his dark view of the world and his place in it.  But this is an uplifting piece in what was a very troubled period of history.  The Vietnam draft lottery had taken place a few months before the release of the Let It Be album (I was #178 – high enough. Just barely. I got drunk on lottery night with my friends, checking off people we knew from a big list as their birth dates were called). By 1970, my generation had already plummeted from the peak of Woodstock to the dark side of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll at Altamont. Our highs from the 60s were discovered to be unsustainable. The magic between the members of the Beatles that we all found so appealing had vaporized into swamp gas, and we were facing an uncertain future without their leadership. And then John drops this little gem on us. Thanks, John.

John’s darkness still surfaced relative to the song eventually (You can’t keep a bad man up). In 1980, he accused Paul McCartney of subconsciously sabotaging his, John’s, best songs, like Strawberry Fields and Across The Universe.  But the fact that he mentioned it in an interview shows that John was proud of Across The Universe, as he should have been.

The song’s meaningless, though beautiful lyrics gave us all the opportunity to project whatever we wanted onto it.   I projected a hope that the beauty and power of the Beatles would go on and on, all the way Across The Universe.  In a sense it has, despite their breakup over 50 years ago.

Fun fact:  Sixteen-year-old Lizzy Bravo, a native Brazilian, knew the Beatles had stopped touring.  Hoping to still see the Beatles, especially john, her favorite, she moved to London where she worked cleaning rooms and nannying in order to enable her to hang around Abby Road Studios (she was an original Apple Scruffs). See them she did. Frequently.  One Sunday night, the crowd was small and they were let into the studios.  Before long, Paul emerged from a glass door asking if any of the girls could sing. Lizzy and her friend, Gayleen Pease, volunteered, and their voices are heard on the chorus of the remastered version of Across The Universe, the one that is not on the Let It Be album.  Lizzy shared a mic with her beloved John. Lucky girl.

 #26:  Fool On The Hill

From the Magical Mystery Tour album, released November, 1967

Listen to at:        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsRatIMUSu8

Fool On The Hill is Paul’s creation. He sings lead and it’s a great showcase for his voice.  Other songs highlight Paul’s raw, rock and roll, Little Richard style (I’m Down, for one), or his Rudy Vallee crooning skills (Honey Pie). But Fool On The Hill highlights the sweetness of his voice, which I’ve always thought was closest to his core.  The other styles, which I also love, seemed like those of a very skilled performer.

Paul also plays piano and guitar on the song, plus the penny whistle which is featured in a solo. Several flautists were also hired for the recording.

Paul played the song for John shortly after he’d written it. John was uncharacteristically impressed and asked Paul to write down the lyrics before Paul had forgotten them.  Apparently, John knew it was a keeper. It is one of the best tunes on the Magical Mystery Tour album.

I always thought that this beautiful piece was written about the Maharishi and Paul’s disillusionment with him after his time in India.  Although the Maharishi may have provided inspiration the song, Paul wasn’t being critical of him. It was about the Wise Fool, whom no one takes very seriously but is actually quite insightful.  The wise fool archetype appears regularly in literature. Of course, it does; otherwise, it wouldn’t be an archetype.  Shakespeare’s plays are loaded with Wise Fools. The main character in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot is another example. 

As I think about it, our generation was part wise fool.  To outsiders, meaning our parents, we were fools to shun their values like money, traditional families, standard patriotism, suburban security.  They thought we were insane, in addition to being merely stoned. (They were at least half right.) To us, we were experiencing a world they never realized existed – a world whose definition remained just beyond our grasp. We were convinced that we were the wise ones, seeing all the overlooked possibilities in the world.  But lacking definition, visions of that world largely vaporized like dreams so often do upon waking.  And what, I ask, is sadder than forgotten dreams? 

So, for me this song is bittersweet.  It’s a beautiful reminder of how our generation came up short on its moonshot to rebuild a world based on love, peace, and harmony.  Hey, I think I just came up with the definition we needed 50 years ago.  If only I had articulated that earlier.  Maybe I was too stoned.

#25:  Back In The USSR

On the Beatles White Album.

Hear the song at:                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS5_EQgbuL

This song wasn’t only about getting back to the USSR, it was about getting back to The Beatles’ rock and roll roots. Although not one of their best melodies, the song works well as a raucous rock and roll hit that led off the White Album.  

Paul wrote Back In The USSR while he was in India. Among other people who joined them during their time with the Maharishi was Mike Love from The Beach Boys. Paul played an early version of the song for Mike who allegedly quipped “You should write about the girls in Russia, the Ukraine, and Georgia.  So he did (“The Ukraine girls really knock me out… The Moscow girls make me sing and shout.  That Georgia’s always on my … mind.”) By the way, I love that Paul worked in the phrase “Georgia on my Mind,” a clever nod to Ray Charles’ hit.

After writing Back In The USSR in India, the group came back to record it in the studio. There, things did not go smoothly, although they recorded it in only two days.  Tensions among the lads was great enough that Ringo walked out and vacationed in Sardinia with his family on Peter Sellers’ yacht (where he wrote Octopus’ Garden, a pleasant song you won’t find on this or any Beatles top 30 lists).  So Paul, in addition to lead vocals and pounding a mean piano, also played drums on the song.

I always felt that The White Album was a demonstration of the Beatles flexing their musical muscles and flaunting their range. I hear so many other artists reflected in their songs, from the tongue-in-cheek Dylan tune (Rocky Raccoon) to Ricky Nelson (I Will), and so on.  But this one has Beach Boys written all over it.  That’ makes even more sense knowing that Mike Love was with them when Paul wrote it. Paul claims that the song was inspired by Chuck Berry’s “Back In The USA,” But “California Girls” really shaped it.  You can hear the Beach Boys-style harmonies in the backup singers.  It is a very fun and funny product by Paul.

Not surprisingly, the song inspired a John Birch-led Beatles backlash.  I vaguely remember Beatles records burnings, though now that I think about it, they may have been triggered by the comment John made to a reporter about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus.  At that point they probably were. But back then the truth never prevented hateful and dangerous displays of righteous indignation.  I’m so glad we’ve evolved beyond that.

A coda to the protests is that finally, in 2003, Paul got to play Back In The USSR to a live and enthusiastic audience in Moscow’s Red Square.  It was very well-received, to say the least.

Back In The USSR makes my Top 30 list for its hard pounding rock and roll style, its cleverness, and its willingness to reach out to what many people still believed to be the Evil Empire. Here’s to building bridges rather than walls!

#24:  I Should Have Known Better

From A Hard Day’s Night. Released 1964

Listen at:                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5en2JMLA8Z0

 This is John’s song.  He handles the lead vocals and plays the harmonica in a much more sophisticated, blended way than he did in his earlier songs, like Love Me Do.  This is one of the last, if not the last Beatles songs in which a harmonica was used. After this song, Sir George Martin, their brilliant producer, introduced them to orchestral instruments. Some say that the song, and particularly the harmonica use, reflects Bob Dylan’s growing influence on the Beatles, but I don’t hear it.  The song is too tight, too melodic, too polished to be closely compared with Dylan’s work, not to take anything away from Dylan.

John was once asked what the song means, and his response could be seen as Dylan-esque. He said it’s just a song.  Doesn’t mean a damn thing. Maybe he was just being Lennon-esque (Lennon-ish? Lennon-some?)

There are several things I love about this song.  One is the way the following three lines build on each other:

And I do

Hey, Hey Hey

And I do

They climb a ladder until they reach just the right height. So do the vocals as John sings:

Can’t you see?

Can’t you see?

I have long thought that true artists make what they do look easy, no matter how difficult the riff or the shading or the dance move.  It looks like something we all could do if only we’d come up with the idea.  And then I try.  Big mistake.  But in this song, nothing about the vocals seems to come easily for John.  It’s like he’s singing in a higher register than he’s comfortable with, and he strains for every high note he belts.  But the strain in his voice works beautifully in this song.

I didn’t realize how much I liked the Hard Day’s Night album until I started working on my top 30 list.  The album and this song, in particular, reflects a time when the four lads are getting along famously. They were handling the press and the public with a grace and wit never before seen from rock musicians. And they were not just on top of their game but on top of the world.  Us mere mortals cannot imagine the headiness of what they experienced.

In 1964, the glue still held fast.  There is such joy in their music that even John seemed happy. The time would come when the Beatles could barely stand to be in the studio with one another. But for now, in 1964, there was nothing but hope, joy and excitement.  America hadn’t yet been badly scarred by Vietnam or made permanently cynical by Watergate.  We’d recently lost a president to an assassin’s bullets, but the President’s brother and Martin Luther King still lived.  We just passed a landmark Voting Rights Act.  Much more would come from the Beatles following A Hard Day’s Night.  In fact, their best work was yet to be created. But this may have been their apogee when it came to the joy of their journey.  And ours.

#23:  A Hard Day’s Night

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx2TFk0vh1I

I can’t remember which album this single was from. Abby Road? Yesterday and Today?

I already talked about the Hard Day’s Night album in my previous pick, I Should Have Known Better. So, I’ll skip the rehash of my adulation of the album and just make a few comments about this marvelously upbeat eponymous song.

It was written by John overnight and recorded in a little over 3 hours the next day.  The title for the song and the movie came from one of Ringo’s apparently frequent malapropisms. After a grueling recording session, he said in response to a question that it’s been a hard day. Then looking out the window and realizing it was later than he’d thought, he quickly added “night.” There are actually a couple of explanations for the title, but this one’s my favorite, so I’m sticking with it.

The song begins with THE CHORD. George Martin wanted a strong opening to the song and the soundtrack for the movie, and he found it. It is possibly the most recognizable opening of any song in the history of modern music. Academic papers have been published about THE CHORD.  Interestingly, another important Beatles song ends with a powerful and very recognizable chord.  Any guesses? 

After letting the chord marinate for a moment or two, the Beatles launch into the body of the song, which is anchored by Ringo’s surprisingly energetic drumming. John sings the lead, but Paul takes over for the bridge: “When I’m home…” He does so because John couldn’t hit the high notes. It’s almost as if the two of them partnered on a Lennon-McCartney composition.  If only they could have maintained that relationship.

Back to the bridge, as soon as Paul launches it, Ringo switches to a cowbell that really helps set the bridge apart from the rest of the song.  It’s a classic rock song construction perfectly executed. Good enough to earn a spot in my Top 30.

#22:  Lady Madonna

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRiGX3L-kw

 Paul wrote this tune and sang lead for it.  It was released on the Beatles’ White Album. Paul wrote it just before the Beatles’ trip to India.

There are so many things to like in this song it’s hard to know where to begin.  It’s a combination of rock, country, and blues.  The standout instrument is the honky-tonk piano Paul pounds throughout the song. The piano sounds like an old spinet standing on beer-soaked warped floorboards in the corner of a dive bar. No grand Steinway here, folks. Paul’s base also drives the tune.  The sax adds a fullness that counteracts the wonderful tinniness of the piano. One thing I’ve always enjoyed is the short guitar bridge between “See how they run” and the main melody.  They make that transition twice, and the guitar bridge is only in the second transition. You have to listen carefully to hear it.  If there’s one thing I don’t love about the song, it’s that John and George’s backing vocals make them sound like clucking chickens.

This is one of several Paul compositions with a woman playing lead in the lyrics.  He claims he got the title from a National Geographic picture of a Polynesian mother breast feeding a baby while another son looks up at her laughing.  (Remember, guys, when National Geographics were the only place to sneak peeks at breasts?  I was past that stage, barely, by the time Lady Madonna came out. Still, I was impressed that they used the work “Breast” in one of their songs.) I’ve attached the photo below.

The person in the lead role of the song is an everyday woman with everyday worries. While she tenderly cares for her baby, she wonders how she’ll feed the rest, is frustrated that the paper didn’t come, and revels in the fact that another child had learned to tie his own boot laces. Paul’s ahead of his time on this one. Then again, he always was. Is, I suppose, though I don’t know him or his music so well now. Lady Madonna’s overwhelmed woman balancing motherhood and life is portrayed sympathetically, and I think the song could have been an anthem for the woman’s movement, even though it doesn’t pedestal them.

I wasn’t taught by my family to sufficiently value women.  I had to learn to do that from women later in my life who were stronger and smarter than me. There are still old tapes rattling around in my brain that I have to erase or ignore to this day.  I wasn’t clear enough back in the day to see and appreciate how much respect Paul afforded to women. Nor was I insightful enough to realize the ways in which I came up short in that regard.  I was good at masking my shortcomings, often from myself.  No one knew the subtle white man sense of entitlement I felt when I wasn’t secretly marinating in insecurity. Yet I always had a fundamental confidence that is uniquely and unfairly male.   

So, this song should by all rights trigger shame at the way I used to be.  But it’s such a good tune, I can’t help feeling happy when I hear it. 

One final observation about Lady Madonna.  Two years before it was recorded, John had made the infamous remark about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus.  The backlash was swift and severe.  The Beatles received death threats, and they performed their final live concert (other than the rooftop one in Let It Be) in Candlestick Park not knowing whether they would be killed by an angry sniper’s bullet.  In fact, there were bullet holes in the fuselage of their plane when they returned to the airport. Who knows how much that fear led to their ending their days of touring? (In hindsight, it’s ironic that John life was tragically ended by a bullet years later.)  How gutsy was it that a mere two years later, the Beatles produced a song about the Virgin Mary? The Beatles were always courageous musically. But I think Lady Madonna was a pretty damn gutsy subject to tackle in light of John’s Jesus controversy, even if they handled it respectfully.

#21: Don’t Bother Me

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k03IQbaTcxc

Written by George, his first original composition, in 1963.  Appeared in the US on the Meet the Beatles album. 

This song does not appear on most Beatles’ top songs lists. And honestly there’s a chance that I did slightly overrate it.  But there are some unique things about Don’t Bother Me that attract me to it.  Number one, it’s a George Harrison song.  I didn’t realize at the time how unusual it was to feature a George Harrison song, but it turns out the man can write.  His skills were overshadowed for years by the Lennon-McCartney machine.  Yet George had muscles to flex and eventually he would, producing some of the most memorable songs in my lifetime.  Don’t Bother Me doesn’t fully display but rather hints at George’s latent songwriting talent.

Another catchy thing about Don’t Bother Me is its uncharacteristically negative tone.  The song’s narrator is clearly one depressed dude, telling the world to f--- off. It’s in a downbeat, minor key which highlights the song’s moodiness.  Back in the early days, even Beatles songs about lost love seemed happy. Not this one.

The tone may have been influenced by the fact that George was sick in bed when he wrote it.  Or maybe he was tired of the fans’ adulation and just wanted to be left alone.  No one ever accused George of being extroverted.

George claims he didn’t care for the song. But I suspect he’s downplaying the impact Don’t Bother Me had on him.  It was his breakthrough. It opened the door to possibilities he didn’t know existed. He could write songs, damnit. This was proof. It had to expand his psyche.

Most of us, if we’re lucky, have been presented with, or have created, our own potential breakthrough moments. I have. There have been times I found myself with more responsibility that I ever dreamed of.  Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s happened to me more than once.  Sometimes I was up to the task, sometimes I wasn’t.  But I always tried my best, I always worked hard to learn and grow from the experience, and I was always grateful for the doors that had opened.  So, here’s George, suddenly finding himself a member of what was already becoming the most famous band in the world, bracketed by the most formidable songwriting duo in western history, and he writes a hit song.  It’s proof that his participation is the Beatles is not a fluke. He belongs there. C’mon, George! Revel in the moment, will ya? 

  #20: When I’m Sixty-Four

Written by Paul.  Released in 1967 on the Sgt. Peppers album.

Listen to at:        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTunqv1Xt4

This lovely, old fashioned song was written by Paul when he was only 15 or 16 - I’ve seen both ages credited. Regardless, he was damn young to be writing such good music.  The song is so old that the Quarrymen used to play it in the Cavern Club before the Beatles were even born.  Paul’s father turned 64 in 1966, shortly before the Beatles began working on Sgt. Peppers, which may have given Paul the idea to include it on the album.  When I’m Sixty-Four was the first song the Beatles recorded for the album.

I’ve learned a couple of things about the song’s recording.  The final recording was sped up to make Paul’s voice sound higher and younger.  Paul wanted a classical instrument added in order to, as he put it, cut back on the schmaltz factor.  He asked George Martin, their producer, to fit in some clarinets.  So, the classically trained George Martin did, and of course, the clarinets really carry the song melodically. 

I have to digress for a moment to riff on George Martin.  I remember seeing his name on all the Beatles albums, and of course I had no idea at the time what a producer did.  Just down the street from my childhood home in Oklahoma lived my friend, Mike Martin.  His father was named George.  George was nice enough, but he was a beefy oilman.  I pictured the Beatles’ producer as looking like my neighbor, with a face fat enough to make his eyes look beady.  Little did I know that the producer Martin was a very handsome, thin, refined, urbane man of incredible skills.  He scored a lot of the instrumentation on the Beatles’ songs, particularly the ones involving classical instruments.  He introduced classical instrumentation to rock music.

In recent years, I have begun crediting George Martin for converting the Beatles from a very talented band into musical geniuses. You know that game some of us play in our heads of what famous person from the past would you most like to have lunch with?  George Martin always made my top 5 list.  Unfortunately, that will not happen. He died at age 90 in 2016.  Not that it would have happened anyway. But for the way he recognized, helped shape and direct the talent that the Beatles were, my admiration for him is off the charts. Fun fact: as per the song’s lyrics, Paul gave George Martin a bottle of wine for George’s 64th birthday.

When I’m Sixty-Four uses a trick that Paul would later employ, which is projecting into the future and looking at the life he will have had.  In this fantasy, he has already considered not only what his and his future wife’s financial situation will be (can they afford that vacation on the Isle of Wright?), but the names of their yet unborn grandchildren.  Paul’s lyrics are sometimes written off as silly or trivial. Some of his wounds are self-inflicted because frankly, he has written many silly love songs (post-Beatles, I should qualify). But I think he is an incredibly skillful lyricist, and those skills certainly show up in this song.  It is such a sweet tune and has clever enough lyrics to have earned a place in my top 30.

#19: Julia

Written by John.  Released in 1968 on the Beatles’ White Album.

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZip_br_v3w

John wrote this touching memorial to his mother in Rishikesh, India. He wrote, sang, and played the song with no accompaniment from any of the other Beatles. He uses a finger picking style on the guitar that Donovan, who was also in India studying with the Maharishi, claims to have taught him.

John’s parents divorced when he was five.  His mother, Julia, left to live with another man while John lived with his Aunt Mimi. He started growing closer to his mother when he became an adolescent (another example of John doing things differently from most people). They used to dance around the room listening to Elvis and other rock and rollers.  Julia loved music and passed that love on to her son.  Who knew at the time what a gift to the world that would prove to be?

John recalled in a biography how his love for his mother bordered on the oedipal. There was a moment once.  Nothing untoward occurred, but soon afterwards Julia was killed by a drunk driver. 

The loss devastated John. He later said that he’d lost his mother twice: once when he was 5 and again when he was 17.  Her death helped him bond with his new pal, Paul McCartney, who’d also lost his mother. Paul’s mother Mary (whom he sang of in Let it Be) died of complications from surgery when Paul was just 14.

Julia is also about Yoko Ono, whom John later in his life, referred to as “Mother.”  Some of the lyrics reflect Yoko’s inspiration for the song, like the phrase “Ocean Child.” (The Japanese name Yoko literally translates to “Child of the Sea.)  So, Julia is a loving tribute to the two women who meant the most to John. 

He also borrowed some literary allusions from the Lebanese writer, Khalil Gibran, for the song. I remember reading Gibran’s The Prophet, in college, mostly because a girlfriend made me do it. I recall it being packed with dense tidbits of wisdom, all of which I have long sense forgotten. That was one of the required extra-curricular readings among the people with whom I hung at the time.  So was Johnathan Livingston Seagull, about the little bird that could. I remember that book as being an easy read, always a plus in my estimation. It carried a message that it’s okay to be different. Back then, I was fine being different, so long as I was different in the same exact way all my friends were.

John would write about Julia later with the Plastic Ono band in the much edgier song “Mother.”  In it, John uses his primal scream therapy training while begging his mother to come home.  It is a cringeworthy performance in its rawness and honesty. Listening to it, I feel like I’m infringing on territory too private to be shared.  But Julia, in contrast, is such a lovely piece, it makes me feel honored to witness John’s love for and tenderness towards a mother whose love he was denied.  He was never one to shy away from self-disclosure. Just look at the songs, Help, and Nowhere Man.  But he did it in such a beautiful, touching, and melodic way in Julia that it made my Top 20 list. 

 My Beatles Top 30:

#18:  I’ve Got A Feeling

On the Let It Be album, released in 1970

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbKPZd5oihc

This was a true collaboration between Paul and John.  Probably the last one.  Paul wrote the first part about “I’ve got a feeling, a feeling deep inside….” John’s contribution was the middle eight part starting “Everybody had a hard year.”

This is such a muscular song.  That’s the word that comes to mind.  Between Paul’s voice and the lead guitar, I can’t think of a better adjective.

I read somewhere that George Martin once said that Paul was the honey, and John was the vinegar in the partnership.  It was neither a compliment nor an insult to either one. just an observation. Nowhere is that more evident than in I’ve Got A Feeling. Paul’s voice is energetic, powerful, confident. He’s looking forward to great things – the man just has a feeling.  John by contrast, is subdued and clear eyed in his pessimism.  His tone is 180 degrees from Paul’s, and yet, his vinegar mixes perfectly with Paul’s honey.

I recently looked up the song, and this is what the article said John was going through during the Beatles’ famous rooftop concert performance of I’ve Got A Feeling:

“Lennon … had recently divorced his first wife Cynthia and was estranged from their son Julian. Additionally, he was addicted to heroin, his then-girlfriend Yoko Ono had recently suffered a miscarriage, the pair had been arrested for cannabis possession, and his enthusiasm for being a Beatle was at an all-time low.”

Well, not everybody may have had a hard year in 1970, but John sure as hell did.

I graduated in 1970.  It was a time of unlimited possibilities, just having broken free from the shackles of High School. I started college that fall and then promptly dropped out after a semester.  I then had a very productive seven or eight months hitchhiking all over the country. I probably visited 40 states during that time. (I’ve since hit them all – not to brag. Or maybe I am.)  Back then, I was grateful to find a washroom with a bar of soap I could wrap in a soggy paper towel for later use.  I invented ingenious ways of not paying my meal tabs when I was hungry and broke.  The world was big, beautiful and largely undiscovered – at least by me.  I was so much more of a Paul than a John in those days. Still am, I suppose.  Which one were you more like, the optimist or the pessimist? Which one are you now?

That period was a very important time for me. It’s when I met one of the two great loves of my life.  Her name is Montana, and I moved in with her within two weeks after finishing my college degree.  Been here mostly ever since. 

For me, the world held great possibilities in 1970, despite the craziness of the war, Nixon, and other darker factors. I looked towards my future with excitement and hope. Very Paul-like. And my hopes ultimately came true. I found the place where I was supposed to be and the life I was supposed to live. I dunno, I guess I just had a feeling…

#17:  Get Back

Released as a single in 1969 and on the Let It Be Album in 1970.

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKJqecxswCA

This one was mostly Paul’s, but what really carries this Back-To-The-Basics song are John and George’s muscular guitar work and Ringo’s double time repeating 123, 123, 123 rhythm.  Listen closely to the guitar work, especially when it’s not being featured in the solo.  It’s extraordinary. And then there’s Billy Preston’s keyboard solo.  He makes it seem effortless.  He worked the keyboard the way Duane Allman played guitar, complex stuff yet seemingly so simple, clear, and articulate.

I have an association with this song.  One weekend afternoon, I was chatting with my lovely, classy and very proper mother.  She had just returned from what was for her, a trip of a lifetime.  She had flown to Australia to meet an Uncle, who was an Auschwitz survivor.  Then she visited Hong Kong and Singapore. She travelled solo because my father rarely left the city limits (except to go to OU football games, for which he had to drive 20 miles). She was in her 60s at the time, and I never took the chance to tell her how much I admired her courage for undertaking that solo voyage.

She told me that on her return, she was sitting next to a young man who took a couple of pills, which he washed down with several alcoholic drinks. Over what I assume was an increasingly incoherent conversation, he told her that the pills he took were THC capsules (did they even used to make those?). He handed my mother a couple, which she politely pretended to take.   I don’t know about you, but I ALWAYS offer drugs to older women I sit next to on planes.  It was a measure of my mother’s social skills that he felt comfortable doing so.  Or more accurately, it was a measure of how stoned he was.  Regardless, my mother saved the capsules, and when she was home, she asked me if I wanted them.  I don’t honestly know what they were, but I took them that night. And get high I did.  A heavy, body high as I remember, something like a cross between hash and mushrooms (not that I knew much about what either was like back then). The only thing I remember doing that night while holed up in my room was listening to Get Back about a thousand times on my portable record player.  The song gives me a contact high to this day.

So for a great song, I’d like to thank the Beatles, and for some good drugs, I’d like to thank my mother. 

#16:  Dear Prudence

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQA59IkCF5I

Dear Prudence was written in India by John, though I believe it was in collaboration with Paul.  Mostly because I want to believe that.  John sings the lead with Paul and George backing him up.  Paul plays drums because Ringo had left in a huff before they recorded the song. 

The story behind Dear Prudence is already well-known, but I will re-tell it anyway. Several famous people joined the Beatles in India. Donovan was there.  His finger picking style on the guitar influenced John’s play on Dear Prudence, according to Donovan.  Mike Love of the Beach Boys was there, whom I already mentioned influenced Paul’s Back in the USSR.  Mia Farrow was also there along with her sister.  Some of the participants were more into meditation than others.  John and George threw themselves into it heart and soul.  Paul and Ringo, not so much. However, no one was more obsessive about it than Mia Farrow’s sister. She was determined to find her way to God faster than anyone.

She would head up to her room immediately after meals and meditate constantly until she finally had to come out to eat again.  She was so self-isolated that some folks, John in particular, thought she might be either dead or crazy. Her name, by the way, was Prudence.

One morning (I always envisioned it being morning), John and Paul positioned themselves outside her room, or more likely her tent, and played Dear Prudence, asking her to come out and play.   The thought of the two most famous people in the world at the time sitting outside your door in their pajamas (that’s what their Indian clothes looked like), playing a new song they had just written for you asking you to come out to play would be enough to send the most cynical or jaded woman into a fatal swoon.  But our Prudence wasn’t swayed. She’d grown up around famous people, and she was not at all cowed by the Beatles’ presence.  She came to meditate, to find God, and the Beatles were mostly a distraction. 

Prudence went on to teach Transcendental Meditation for several decades after her experience with the Maharishi. She earned her PhD in Asian studies from Berkeley (her dissertation title was “Nadivijnana, the Crest-Jewel of Ayurveda: A Translation of Six Central Texts and an Examination of the Sources, Influences and Development of Indian Pulse Diagnosis.”  Seriously.) Our Prudence was no flake.  She took meditation seriously and devoted much of her life to it.  But she also had the intelligence and stamina to earn her doctorate.  And she was centered enough to avoid turning into a blubbering sycophantic idiot in the Beatles’ presence.  For the record, I’m not that centered.

15:  Blackbird

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo

This will be a pretty short writeup for a song that made it half-way up my top 30 Beatles song list.  Blackbird, from the White Album, shot way up on my list when I found out not many years ago what it is really about.  The lyrics were inspired by the civil rights movement in America. They were meant to symbolize the experiences of oppressed black women and to lift their spirits.  It is typical upbeat Paul to tackle a tough subject with such hope and optimism.  He’s adept at taking a sad song and making it better (that’s not an original line on my part. Just ask Jude.).

“Take these Broken Wings and Learn to Fly,” is a lovely image. And since the time this song was released, many African Americans in this country have learned to fly.  At least when no one’s knee is on their neck.  But race relations in this country is another subject altogether…

Paul claims the melody was inspired by Bach’s Bourrée in E minor.  Interestingly, Ian Anderson plays the first 8 bars of the same Bach piece on Jethro Tull’s 1969 Stand Up album.  I love Jethro Tull’s music, and I think it holds up well after all these years.  Anderson’s voice and skills on the flute are amazing, and he was a hell of a theatrical performer.  But we’re talking the Beatles here, so pardon my digression. But do listen to JT’s Bouree if you get a chance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2RNe2jwHE0)

Blackbird is credited to Lennon-McCartney, but it’s all Paul’s vocals and acoustic guitar. That’s not entirely true about it being all Paul. An actual blackbird, recorded by one of the Beatles’ sound engineers, chirps in at the end. 

Paul excels at the largely solo ballads, like And I love Her, Michelle, and Yesterday. This is one of his best.

#14: I’ll be Back

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJSTBNTac6k

Damn, I love this song! It’s John’s composition and it was the last song on the Hard Day’s Night album in 1964.

The Beatles were flying high in 1964. They’d recently invaded America, and everything they wrote seemed to blow its way to the top of the charts.  But this song (and the next one I’ll write about) does not reflect the self-confidence of someone on top of the world.  It speaks of getting dumped by a woman and later coming crawling back to her, tail (or something else) between their legs.  The singer comes across as hangdog (What’s with all these dog analogies ?).  Maybe that’s one reason I connected immediately with this song. Much as I in my early teens wanted to be seen as suave and confident, like most teenagers, insecurity was my baseline – no matter how hard I tried to cover it up from myself and others. But hey, even the Beatles understand insecurity, so maybe I’m not so bad after all. Right?  (Feedback, please, to help bolster my self-image.  Not really, folks.)

I’m not a musician, but you can feel the changes from major to minor chords like a sudden change in the air pressure.  There’s a wonderful chord change in particular in the fade out. The song has a melancholy feel to it.  There’s no chorus, but it has a couple of bridges.  I don’t love the first bridge except for the way it melts back into the song at the end.  It’s a perfect transition.

John got increasingly raw and honest as his career progressed, but this is one of the first examples of his confessions that not all is wonderful with the world and with his life. And here, he wraps his confession in an absolutely killer tune.

#13:  No Reply

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgFo9STa70E

No Reply is mostly a John composition, and he sings lead on it.  It appeared in the Beatles For Sale album in 1964. 

I’ve always associated the song No Reply with I’ll Be Back, which is probably why I ranked them next to one another.

No Reply perfectly captures the angst of adolescence.  It’s a song about having no power.  It’s about rejection.  You’re on the outside looking in at a silhouette of a woman you love who will no longer answer your calls.  John said it was inspired by the 1957 Ray’s song Silhouettes which was later redone by Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits, the version I remember.

How painful is that image of rejection? Most of us saw of John in 1964 as a confident, intense young man who was on top of his game and on top of the world. But in this song, as in I’ll be Back, John’s unvarnished voice is so strained, you can’t help but feel his pain. In later years, John tended to mask and obscure his voice behind a smorgasbord of studio tricks.  But here, his voice is pure and raw.

I’m just curious, raise your hand if you were ever devastated by a rejection from someone you loved in whatever form love took back then. Remember the pain?  Remember the feeling of not being able to breathe, of the colors washing out of the your field of vision, of wondering how you were going to survive the blow?   Never happened to me, but I hear it’s awful.

The sense of drama in the song is accentuated in No Reply by the simultaneous strike of the crash cymbal and the base drum (which happens 17 times in the song. Count ‘em. I did.)  In between these crashing sounds, which are reminiscent of one’s world crashing down on one’s head, there’s a pleasant, somewhat incongruous Latin beat that Ringo does on the snare’s rim.  The bridge uses hand claps to drive the rhythm. In later years, the Beatles would replace low tech claps with mellotrons, harpsichords, violins and French horns. But in the early years, they made due with simple things like hand claps, killer tunes, and John’s unmodified voice.  What’s not to love?

Speaking of love: yes, I have had my heart broken before. It’s awful.

#12: A Day In The Life

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM

A John song, except for Paul’s “Woke Up…” interlude, and the line “I’d love to turn you on.” The song anchors the Sgt. Peppers album which was released in 1967.

I struggled with this one.  Most people probably put this song in the top 10 of all Beatles hits.  Many consider it to be their best. Obviously, I don’t. I love the song, but I think it’s overrated. Since I represent the minority view, let’s look at the pros and cons of the piece.

Pros:  A Day In The Life has scale, gravitas, power. It’s fucking epic, man! (Sorry, verbal flashback.) It does have the weight and heft of a classic novel, one that has endured many decades for good reason.  It’s tuneful and memorable. It’s tightly constructed with every piece of the song fitting together seamlessly. No drafts.

Cons: It’s gimmicky and self-indulgent.  The voices are altered, lots of studio tricks are employed, and who hires half a renowned orchestra just to make a lot of noise?  The lyrics, while dreamy and reflective of everyday things John happened to be reading in the news (except for the bit about their acquaintance dying in a car crash), are really pretty meaningless. (How many holes to fill the Albert Hall??)

There’s an argument to be made that art takes the ordinary, shines a new light on it, transforms it, and makes people see it with new more appreciative eyes.  By that definition, which is only one of many definitions of art, A Day In The Life is more art piece than song. 

About those lyrics: the vagueness and seeming randomness of the words invite us to fill in our own meanings.  I spent a lot of time in my youth ascribing hidden meanings to Beatles songs, telling myself that I was in on their private jokes.  I wasn’t. They weren’t writing songs for me, they were just writing.  I wasn’t learning great secrets about the universe, women, the human soul from their songs. I was merely projecting my shit on them.  Projecting is something we do for lots of reasons, but for me back then, and probably for many of us, we did it because we weren’t fully formed. And I desperately wanted to be, so I attached to people, things, and music outside myself like I was trying on a new suit.  I’m not beating myself up for this.  Heck, at least I was searching.  And some pieces of the things I tried on fit beautifully, thank you very much. 

But back to the song, there are plenty of things to like about it. I find Ringo’s drums are one of the most memorable things about the song musically. His percussive links between verses hold my attention. I can’t look away before the next verse arrives. And after Paul’s middle eight about riding the buss and having a smoke, Ringo really picks up the pace of the song. His drumming is snappier and carries us on his shoulders to the song’s conclusion.

Okay, I admit I like the two orchestral orgasms in the piece.  Gimmicky as I’ve already pointed out they were, they work.  The first one ends in the oddly timed cymbal crash with Paul’s voice hitting “Woke up…” (I can usually guess the right beat where he comes in). One of my favorite parts of the interlude is Paul’s piano. He uses a honky-tonk style and rhythm that really shines when he’s not singing. The middle eight ends with a powerful blast from a horn section (Daaaa, Da Daaaa, Da Da) immediately going back into the melody, albeit it at a quicker pace.  The last orchestral cacophony is even more powerful. Here’s a quote from George Martin about the build up:

“At the very beginning I put into the musical score the lowest note each instrument could play, ending with an E major chord. And at the beginning of each of the 24 bars I put a note showing roughly where they should be at that point. Then I had to instruct them. ‘We’re going to start very very quietly and end up very very loud. We’re to start very low in pitch and end up very high. You’ve got to make your own way up there, as slidey as possible so that the clarinets slurp, trombones gliss, violins slide without fingering any notes. And whatever you do, don’t listen to the fellow next to you because I don’t want you to be doing the same thing.’ Of course they all looked at me as though I was mad…”

And the song’s ending, one of the most memorable in all of rock music, is a E Major chord hammered on three or four pianos at once and allowed nearly a minute to fade out. 

As I wrap up writing about this song, I’ve very nearly convinced myself that it belongs in the Top 10. Oh well, too late.

#11:  Penny Lane

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rB0pHI9fU

This is Paul’s nostalgic look back at the neighborhood of his youth just as Strawberry Fields was John’s. Penny Lane is a far better song. It was released in early 1967 as a Double-A single, with the other side being Strawberry Fields. Hell of a good 45, if you ask me. Both songs were also on the Magical Mystery Tour album (an underrated album, probably because the film sucked).

As in A Day In The Life, Penny Lane looks at ordinary life and elevates it to art.  But while A Day In The Life looks at events from the comfort, security, or depression of an armchair and a newspaper, Penny Lane is viewed by someone running through neighborhoods, breathing the air, poking fun at the locals.  It’s happy Paul at his happy best teasing bankers, barbers and fireman with love and affection. 

Paul has a thing about nostalgia.  Some of his songs express a nostalgia for things that haven’t yet happened, which is an interesting trick of time.  I’ll write about one of those songs next. (Any guesses?) But Penny Lane is nostalgia in its purest form. Just a young man looking back on his youth and writing about a stop where he would change busses on his way to visit his friend, John Lennon.

The lyrics are drawn sharply enough that no projection is necessary on our parts. We can simply sit back and let the lovely images play in our respective heads.  No pretention in in this song.  I was confused about the particularly British-sounding lyrics “Four of Fish and Finger Pies,” but I found out that “Finger Pies” is a smutty reference to the boys putting their hands down a girl’s bloomers. Clever lads, getting around the censors on that one.

The song uses a lot of instruments and other musicians (including Dave Mason of Traffic fame). Some of my favorite instruments in the song are the flutes and the brass, especially the piccolo trumpet solo and its flourish at the end. 

Penny Lane is a deceptively complex song both musically and emotionally. I can almost make myself tear up longing to see a place again that I’ve never even visited.  I don’t know how Paul did that, but it’s brilliant.

#10:  Things We Said Today

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NItAlTsPuQg

This is another Paul song, an early one from the 1964 Hard Day’s Night album.

Things We Said Today is the tightest of all the early Beatles songs. It is self-driving. It generates its own momentum. No push necessary, just hop on and ride it until its blissful end. It’s the song I believe where the Beatles themselves realized just how good they were and could become.

Things We Said Today contains more somber lyrics than most of Paul’s tunes. It’s done in a minor key which really sets the mood.  The song is about his relationship with his long-time girlfriend, Jane Asher, sister of Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon fame.  If you’re in your late-60s or older, you’ll understand the reference. Paul lived with Jane’s family for a time and wrote some excellent songs while there. Often, he’d consult with Jane’s mother, a classical musician, about his work.

Paul was already a mega-star by the time he wrote Things We Said Today.  Jane, an accomplished model and actor, was on her way up.  The song is about the fact that their respective careers were driving Paul and Jane apart (although though they would stay together another 3 years). That explains the somber tone.

As I mentioned in the previous song, Things We Said Today does a weird thing with time.  It’s a nostalgia piece. Projecting himself into a distant future, he looks back at a particularly poignant time in his life, which happens to be the present.  Preemptive nostalgia? Man, those lads were clever!

I don’t know about you, but when I was in the midst of relationship issues (which occurred for me from approximately age 15 – 45, give or take a few decades), I was so busy wallowing in my pain I couldn’t think about anything but the present moment. I certainly wasn’t able to transform my pain into art, as did Paul with this song.  Who wants to hear a song or see a painting inspired by self-pity?

Things We Said Today has a pretty simple construction; just drums, a couple of guitars, a tambourine, and a bit of piano.  And, of course, Paul’s vocals.  As I said, it’s done in a minor key, which switches to a more rock and roll-ish major key for the middle eight part that begins with “Me I’m just a lucky guy…” (Paul can’t help himself. His sunny outlook emerges even in his darker tunes.) By the way, I had to look that up about the key changes because I don’t know much about music.  But I felt the key changes even if I didn’t fully understand them.  I absolutely love the transition from the middle eight back into the melody. “Love is here to stay and that’s enough to…” and then he’s right back into the heart of the song. It’s seamless and perfect.

Paul also sings the backup on the song, which he obviously did in overdubs.  Usually, he sings the same exact score, but occasionally he harmonizes with himself (a bit of vocal masturbation. Is that even a term?  Guess it is now.). The most hauntingly beautiful example of that is in the last vocalization of “We’ll go on and on.”

So here I am, projected into the future, looking back 57 years ago on Things They Sang Today, and I’m remembering how much I loved that song and that time. It’s enough to make me nostalgic.

#9: Martha My Dear

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXawa90YU2s

A Paul composition included in the Beatles White Album in 1968.

Martha My Dear gets my award for the Beatles’ most underrated song. It just doesn’t get the credit I think it deserves. It’s a song about Paul’s dog, an old English Sheepdog that was his very first pet.  Perhaps the fact that it’s about a dog and not a woman, a love, the state of the world, or getting high is one reason people overlook this gem. But hey, I think writing about a dog you love is a beautiful thing.  The lyrics are fun and meaningless, kind of like the way you’d speak to a dog.   

Paul provides the vocals, plus he plays the piano, bass, lead guitar (getting by with a little help from his friend, George), hand claps, and drums.  The brilliant George Martin (I always feel compelled to precede his name with that word) scored the horns and strings, which were played by a variety of studio musicians.

Martha My Dear is one of my favorite arrangements of all their tunes.   Paul’s piano lead is the perfect hook.  He wrote the piano intro and played it, even though it was more technically challenging for him than most of his piano parts.  After the intro, Paul comes in with vocals backed by strings.  The song really cranks up when the horns come in as he sings “Hold your head up, you silly girl.” There’s a brief instrumental section that has a carnival feel to it. After that, it begins to wind down until we get to the last verse with just Paul’s vocals backed by strings once again – a perfect arc. It ends with five solitary descending notes, a bit of finality celebrating the end of the song.  I bring this up because there’s another Beatles’ song which also ends on five descending notes.  Care to guess which song I’m talking about?  I may or may not be talking about it later.

One winter in 1972, I hitchhiked from Stillwater, Oklahoma to Colorado Springs to see my girlfriend at Colorado College. The visit was a disaster. The herculean effort (at least on my part) to maintain a long-distance relationship was not working as the relationship was clearly rushing towards failure.  I left a day early and hit the road on a particularly bright, sunny day. Even though it was mid-January (January 13th, to be precise) my face got good and sunburned.  My rides petered out as night fell and the storm hit.  I got a couple of lifts that night, none longer than about 30 miles, with a few hours between each ride. The temperature dipped to -15 that night and the wind rarely dropped below 20 mph.  Eastern Colorado and western Oklahoma have no trees, so I was underdressed, completely exposed to the elements, and damn near delirious the whole night.  I got back alive, just barely. That afternoon in the Student Union, Superbowl VII was playing on one of the few TVs to which I had access at the time.  (That’s why I remember the date.) I got one of the last seats on the couch, slept for all 4 hours of the game, and crawled back to my dorm. My temperature was 104 and I had white blotches on my face from frostbite. I laid down on my bed and woke up 16 hours later, in exactly the same position in which I fell asleep, and I never felt better in my life. 

Why do I bring this up?  Because one of the only things that kept me conscious that night in my frozen delirium was singing two songs, Dear Prudence and Martha My Dear.  So, forgive me if I’m a bit biased towards the song just because it may have saved my life.  It’s worth another listen. Trust me on this one.

#8:  For No One

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELlLIwhvknk

For No One was introduced to us on the 1966 Revolver album. It’s another Paul song, with Paul supplying the vocals and playing the bass, piano and clavichord. Ringo’s on drums and tambourine, but neither John nor George play on the song.

I don’t have a lot to say about For No One except that it is one of the most beautiful melodies the Beatles ever wrote.  Paul’s voice in the song, though not showing the full range of which it’s capable, is still exceptional. And there’s a killer French Horn solo and later accompaniment to Paul’s last verse.  This song is so good, even John admitted to liking it. 

Paul’s sunny outlook is a given.  Yet, I’ve pointed out several exceptions to that trait.  For No One is another exception.  He wrote the song about an impending break up with Jane Asher while on vacation with her in Switzerland. It’s a sad topic with sad lyrics, like “A love that should have lasted years.”

Paul and Jane were the original power couple. You just had to root for them. She was polished, beautiful, smart, and talented.  He was just as beautiful and more talented (no knock on her). They were our version of Camelot.

To be honest, I’m applying hindsight to their situation, since I didn’t know much about her or their relationship at the time. But breakups, any of them but especially one between two such apparently flawless people, are sad.  Thankfully, they both went on to enjoy seemingly happy and successful lives. 

For No One was surely not intended as such, but it foreshadowed a much sadder split that was to come in a few years.  Paul’s lyrics for the song could have just as honestly included the line “A band that should have lasted years.”

#7:  While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Listen to at:        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI8P6ZSHSvE

A George Harrison song on the 1968 White Album.

The first time I heard the song, I knew it would become a classic. It’s full of power and drama. With a slow and deliberate pace, the song is carried by some excellent drumming by Ringo, George’s emotion-packed voice, and of course, amazing guitar work by George’s good friend, Eric Clapton. I felt vaguely cheated when I learned that it was Clapton rather than Harrison on the lead guitar.  I wanted to start a petition to change the name of the song to “While His Guitar Gently Weeps.” I’m over it now. I recently learned that George and Eric collaborated on several songs, including one of my favorites, Badge, by Clapton’s band Cream.

The story about While My Guitar Gently Weeps goes that George, sitting in his mother’s home shortly after his visit to India, was meditating on the seeming randomness of things.  He opened a book, deciding he would write a song about the first words he saw.  His eyes happened to land on the phrase “gently weeping,” and the rest is history.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps marks George’s coming into his own.  Some critics pointed out that the song rivals some of Lennon-McCartney’s best compositions, and they’re not wrong.  It’s complex, mature, and enduring. 

George took the Transcendental Meditation thing in India way more seriously than did the other Beatles. John was into it until he soured on the Maharishi. But the whole Indian experience launched George into a passionate pursuit of the spiritual realm that became more important to him than the Beatles was. Or so I hear.  That realm is reflected in the lyrics, melody, and feel of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Just as George was coming of age, so was a generation of people like me who evolved with the Beatles.  I was still only 16 at the time and a very late bloomer in lots of respects, so I’m giving myself too much credit.  But the world had begun to drag us back to reality. 1968 was a tough year, perhaps the toughest since 2020.  Vietnam raged on with the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre. Student protests were erupting at campuses across the country. It was the year of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, tragedies it still hurts to think about. And as if all that wasn’t enough, Nixon was elected.   The stars were quickly falling from our eyes, which is a part of coming of age.  And it all happened so quickly. The Beatles continued to be an anchor for me, and for a lot of other people, during this period. Their music helped smooth the transition from blind optimism to a more tempered view of reality. No longer did their music consist of just silly little love songs. It had evolved light years beyond where it had started, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps is a good example of that evolution.

In 1968, the Beatles were still a life raft to which I clung in the stormy violent political and societal waters our country was navigating. That raft would sink a mere two years later, having done its job by delivering us to somewhere else than where we started.  But it’s hard to overstate the importance the Beatles music played in that turbulent time.

6: Let It Be

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYfEBY9NM4

Let It Be was released as a single and as a song on the 1970 Let It Be album.

This is another Paul Song. It was inspired by a dream he had about his mother, who died from cancer when Paul was just 14. Paul was apparently more deeply troubled by the Beatles’ impending break-up than he let on to the rest of us.  All we saw was his happy face. But the break up was a BFD for him as well as the rest of the world. He says that he went to bed one night, and his mother, whose name was Mary, appeared to him in a dream. Her brief message to him was “Don’t worry. Everything will work out.” He awoke joyous from the dream visit and the emotional burden it had lifted from his shoulders.  So he wrote the song about it.

Let It Be starts with a Piano lead-in by Paul. It’s more somber and not as complex or catchy as his piano intro on Martha My Dear, but it’s still memorable. The version of the song released as a single is notably different from the one on the album, the latter being produced by the late Phil Spector.  The album cut has a more prominent guitar solo towards the end of the song, and I think it is my favorite version.  Although, my favorite is probably the last one I happened to have listened to at any given time.

Some critics weren’t wild about Let It Be. They said it was formulaic, a less artistic version of Hey Jude.  John said it was a knock off of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and basically the kind of shit that could have come from Paul’s next band, Wings.  For the record, they’re all wrong. It’s a beautiful and enduring piece that is probably one of the Beatle’s most played tunes to this day.

A lot of people ascribe religious significance to the song, no doubt because of the phrase “Mother Mary.” Paul told people in interviews to help themselves and attach any meaning they want to the song. Not that I would ever project any of my shit on the Beatles’ songs (which is all I’ve been doing for the past 24 songs), but I think Let It Be has such a calming, mystical feel about it that I want it played for my funeral someday in the distant, distant future.  I’ve already told my wife, but please take note if any of you happen to find yourselves in charge of my funeral arrangements.

#5: Yesterday

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrgmdOz227I

Yesterday was first released in the U.S. as a single and then later included in the 1965 album Yesterday and Today (in the U.S.).  It is often incorrectly attributed to Paul McCartney.  The truth is that it was probably written by God. 

The tune came to Paul in a dream.  He woke up with the melody in his head, convinced he had plagiarized it from some famous classical piece he couldn’t identify. He dashed to the piano to play it before it vaporized like dreams often do.  He ran the tune by Margaret Asher, his virtual mother-in-law at the time. She was a classical musician who appreciated Paul’s talent, and she assured him that as far as she could tell, it was original.  See what I mean about being divinely inspired? It has an other-worldly feel to its beauty.

The lyrics were another matter altogether.  You may have heard that in the beginning, he substituted the words “Scrambled Eggs” for Yesterday. In fact, the best he could do for a while was opening with the lines “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t think those lyrics do justice to the beauty and power of the melody.  No divine inspiration there. You want to talk about a challenge?  Try writing suitable lyrics to a tune as beautiful as Yesterday.  Eventually, he succeeded.  The final lyrics are pensive, wistful, evocative, lovely, and unforgettable, just like the melody.

This song could easily have been my number 1 pick.  The 2019 movie Yesterday really bumped up the popularity of the song, and listeners to the Beatles Channel on Sirius (Channel 18), rated Yesterday their favorite in 2020. How many of you have seen the movie Yesterday? It has its flaws, mostly because it dissolves into a simple-minded rom-com at the end.  But the idea of reintroducing the Beatles to a world unfamiliar with them, and imagining the world’s reaction to their music today after hearing it for the first time is so brilliant that I’ve watched the movie 4 times already.  I can’t sit through the scene without crying when he first plays Yesterday for his friends.

Paul has composed several beautiful ballads, such as And I Love Her, Michelle, I Will, and Let it Be. Yesterday is my favorite of them. Guess it helps to have God on your side.

4:  In My Life

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBcdt6DsLQA

This was mostly a John song that appeared on the 1965 Rubber Soul album. I say it is mostly John because there was some disagreement over the degree to which Paul contributed to it. John says Paul contributed to the harmonies as well as to the middle eight, which no one can quite identify. Paul Says he developed the musical structure of the song.  I don’t know what that means.  I’m crediting John with the song, but in the end, who cares?  It is a masterpiece.

John called In My Life his first real major piece of work, partly because the lyrics were about his life, not just about love and heartache and dancing and holding hands and shit. I somewhat disagree with his assessment because Help and Nowhere Man, both also recorded in 1965, did a pretty good job of putting his fears and insecurities on display for literally the whole world to see.  John was often an overly harsh critic of his own (and Paul’s) songs, though not this one. He felt that In My Life was proof that he could write a melody with the best of them.  And boy, was he right.

The brilliant George Martin (there I go again with the brilliant adjective for him) contributed the wonderful piano solo that is a hallmark of the song.  Until recently, I thought it was a harpsichord.  It’s apparently a difficult part to play, so George, whose instrumental skills did not match his musical genius, had to play it slowly.  It was then sped up to match the tempo of the song, which makes it sound like a harpsichord. Or maybe like a piano on helium.

This is a nostalgia song, somewhat like Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. You can tell this from the opening line, “There are places I remember…” It’s interesting to speculate why John and Paul both indulged in nostalgia. On the one hand, of course they would draw on their experiences for the material for their songs.  But I think a driving factor is the fact that they went from kids growing up in post-war Britain in working class neighborhoods in mother-less families (both lost their mothers while they themselves were in their teens) to the most famous and beloved people on the face of the earth, in an incredibly short period of time. Their childhood was severed from their lives in ways none of us could ever understand. That would make almost anyone miss and idealize a life they would never experience again. Their rise was meteoric, and the faster their past shrank in their rear-view mirrors, the more they probably longed to connect with it.  So, Paul wrote about firemen and barbers, while John conjured up the people and things he still could recall. 

Bottom line is I think this beautiful, heartfelt, melodic song is John’s best piece and the fourth best song the Beatles produced.

3:  Here Comes The Sun

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQetemT1sWc

Here Comes The Sun leads off Side Two of Abby Road, 1969

When Here Comes The Sun came out fifty plus years ago, I didn’t think of songs as being Paul’s or John’s. I certainly didn’t think of them belonging to George. They were just Beatles’ tunes.  But this one is all George, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we (and Paul and John) had vastly underrated George all those years ago. George Martin (the Brilliant George Martin!), who knows a thing or two about music, said Here Comes The Sun was “in some ways one of the best songs ever written.” At last check, it was both the most covered and the most downloaded of all Beatles’ songs, which is saying a lot.

Here Comes The Sun raises my spirits more than any other song on the planet. Just the images alone are so uplifting - the end of a long cold lonely winter, the return of light, the melting of the ice, the cycle of the seasons. I had a revelation a while ago that what drives a lot of people to pursue the creative process is the hope of raising people’s vibrational level.  Good art elevates. By that standard, Here Comes The Sun is great art.

 I read one description of the song as being “a graceful anthem of hope amid difficult realities.” Those are better words than I found to describe the feeling the song always gives me, and I was looking hard for the right words.  For George Harrison, the difficult times involved the painfully tedious business realities of Apple Records, realities that were draining the band’s creativity. So, one day George played hooky. Screw the lawyers and accountants, he decided. He left the offices, went to the house of his friend, Eric Clapton, and wrote Here Comes The Sun on acoustic guitar while strolling the garden.  

For me, the song leaves behind more than just a cold winter or the soul-sucking aspects of a job. 1968 had been a tough year for the world, but especially for the United States. We were involved in a deeply unpopular and immoral war. Still smarting from JFK’s assassination five years earlier, we also lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy to assassins’ bullets in 1968. And then we elected Nixon. It felt like hope died, or rather been murdered. It was a tough period for me personally as well. I was a senior in High school in 1969-1970. My two older siblings were off at college, and I was left behind in a household choked by depression, financial worries, and a host of other dysfunctions that were never mentioned. The darkness was palpable but never acknowledged. I wallowed in the company of my friends, smoked pot when I could get it, and I made it through just fine, thank you very much (I haven’t liked pot in decades). But I was desperate, more than I realized at the time, to find a life raft of hope to which I could cling.  And then Along Comes Mary. Ooops, wrong song, wrong band. Along comes Here Comes The Sun, and it seemed to light a path to a brighter future, which I eventually realized.  This song was a very timely gift to a world, for which I will always be grateful.

#2:  Abby Road, Side 2 Medley

Listen to the vocals only recording of the medley at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dkj6vKVqd4 (the vocals start about 27 seconds into the recording)

From Side 2 of Abby Road, 1969

I know, this is a total cop-out on my part.  It’s not a song, it’s a medley.  But it’s the expression of the Beatles at the absolute peak of their creative talents.  (One of you wrote earlier that I’d include the medley in my top 10, so I’m not the only one who thought of this.)

The Beatles wove song fragments into such an incredibly rich tapestry that I have to remind myself that there is a second side to the Abby Road with some pretty good songs on it. So enthralled was I by the medley (which was preceded by one of the best songs ever – Here Comes The Sun, #3 on my list), that I never listened to Side 1. Okay, I would occasionally listen to an individual song or two.  But the second side always had to be listened to in its entirety. You didn’t so much listen to Side 2 as you committed to it. Time and time again.

George Martin agreed to produce Abby Road as long as the Beatles were disciplined in their recording work as they had been in the old days.  At least three of the Beatles put on their big boy pants and set aside the rancor of their recording sessions on the not yet released Let It Be album. George Harrison later said they finally performed like musicians again for Abby Road. Paul and Ringo claimed to have enjoyed the recording sessions. John apparently remained pissy, not without some justification. He and Yoko had just survived a nasty car wreck that, among other things, kept him from participating in the recording of Here Comes The Sun.  Yoko, who was pregnant at the time, was injured worse than John and was prescribed a regimen of strict bedrest.  Adding to the weirdness of the Beatles racing towards their final breakup, John had a bed installed in the studio so that Yoko could stay for the recordings, lounging like a wounded empress over the proceedings.

There are so many highlights on the medley that it’s hard to pick out a few. But the incredibly rich and complex harmonies on Because, the way Paul’s vocals range from pure sweetness and light in the deceptively bitter You Never Give Me Your Money to edgy and muscular in Golden Slumbers, the first and only Ringo drum solo in The End, and that song’s dueling guitar solos are but a few. Listen to the link I provided of the vocals only performance of the medley to get a sense of the mastery that the Beatles achieved here under George Martin’s direction.

The Daily Telegraph once called Abby Road the Beatle’s last love letter to the world. Again, when I think of Abby Road, I think only of Side 2.  It’s sad to consider that Abby Road ended up the swan song of the greatest rock group in history.  But who among us doesn’t want to go out on top of their game? There were some flashes of greatness that followed the boys in the early days of their post-Beatles careers – like the peal of a bell lingering after it’s been struck. But none of them ever achieved the perfection of Side 2 of Abby Road.  No other band has either. Let us all be grateful for their final love letter.

#1:  Eleanor Rigby

Listen at:             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gluNoLVKiQ

From the 1966 Revolver album. Also released as a single with the completely unremarkable “Yellow Submarine” on the flip side.

This song is as close to perfection, lyrically and melodically, as any song I’ve heard in any genre.  Lots of superlatives in that last sentence, but Eleanor Rigby merits them.  

From the opening notes, you feel the immediate sense of drama/tragedy radiating from the song.  And then it just gets more poignant and sad.

Paul is largely credited with the song, but he had lots of help. It started off as a tune that came to Paul in the house of his girlfriend, Jane Asher. As was the case with Paul’s Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby was then a majestic tune in search of worthy lyrics. The female lead in the song’s story was originally Miss Daisy Hawkins, until Paul pieced together names from a nearby store and a friend to come up with Eleanor Rigby (which is also the name of an obscure woman buried in a Liverpool cemetery in 1939. Coincidence? Paul swears he never saw her grave before coming up with the song.). 

The minister in the song was originally named Father McCartney, but that placeholder was a little too close to home for Sir Paul, who searched a phone directory to find the name McKinzie. It was Ringo’s suggestion that Father McKinzie be darning his socks in the night. The refrain about looking at all the lonely people apparently came from George. John also pitched in with some of the lyrics. But this is still essentially a Paul McCartney song. 

Eleanor Rigby is densely packed with pathos. Paul, with the aforementioned help from his friends, paints a vivid picture in stunningly few words.  Take a look:

“Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been.” From the very first line we already know this sad, lonely woman well. She’s poor, desperate, hungry, and alone. No place to go but the church, where even there she’s invisible. Our hearts already ache for her.

“Father McKinzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear. No one comes near.” This poor, poor man is wasting his life in a perhaps heartfelt pursuit that helps no one. A life wasted without impact. A silent howl in the empty night. A tree falling in the forest.  It’s tragic. But wait, it gets worse.

“Eleanor Rigby died in the church (where else could she go?) and was buried along with her name.” My God, she didn’t just die, she took her whole family line with her. A complete erasure of a life with no trace left behind.  And as if that weren’t tragic enough, Paul follows up with something even sadder: “Nobody came” to the funeral. 

Father McKinzie didn’t fare much better as he was “wiping the dirt from his hands as he walked from the grave,” a sad enough image. But Paul follows the jab with a fatal uppercut. “No one was saved.” This not just an example of brilliant lyrics, it’s brilliant literature. The vivid, powerful, tragic images Paul conjures up in the song are created from a mere handful of lines. 

Paul was only 24 when he wrote them. Twenty-four.

The melody is as evocative as the lyrics.  George Martin’s score for the strings is a masterpiece.  Often the strings deliver their tune in brief, stabbing notes that penetrate rather than soothe.  The descending strings played while Paul sings about Father McKinzie “darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there” are the most mournful notes I’ve ever heard.  Listen closely to them and appreciate their beauty and evocative nature. They are the sounds of heart strings being pulled.

The song ends in five descending notes that add a tragic finality to both the song and these two sad lives. Father McKinzie doesn’t actually die in the song, but perhaps he wishes he could. Another Beatles’ song ends in five descending notes very similar to this one. It’s Martha My Dear, song #9 on my list. But in that song, the five notes safely deliver you to the timely conclusion of a lovely song. Here, they have the effect of a concrete slab being drug over a cold cement coffin in an unmarked grave.

I was told by a friend that Eleanor Rigby doesn’t deserve the #1 spot because it’s not really a Beatles song. It’s a Paul song.  I don’t care who wrote it. I don’t care that the Beatles didn’t play the instruments for the song. I don’t care that George Martin (the brilliant George Martin!) scored the strings. None of that matters to me. What does matter is that the brilliant lyrics and evocative melody and instrumentation make it my top Beatles song, in fact my top song, period. 

Thanks for hanging in with me on this journey.

Conclusions:

I made a point not to summarize the list until I was done with it.  But here are a couple of things I discovered, some of which surprised me:

Of the Top 30 songs, 13 of them were mostly Paul’s creations, 12 were John’s, 3 were George’s, and 2 were truly collaborations.  I was surprised and pleased how close John and Paul were in the count because it seemed like I wrote about Paul more often. 

In songs 21-30, the bottom third, John wrote 5 and Paul wrote 4.  In songs 1-10, Paul wrote 5 and John only wrote 2.  Even though the listing is by preference rather than chronology, I think this indicates that Paul perhaps evolved more as a songwriter than did John. That’s not to diminish John’s contributions, it’s just speculation based on the qualitative data I put together.  George had 2 songs in the top 7, so he might have evolved the most, though he had a lot farther to go than did John or Paul.  George also put out the best post-Beatles album in All Things must Pass, in my opinion.  Yes, we all underrated him.

The White Album leads the way with 7 picks in the Top 30. Not necessarily fair since it was a double album.  Next is A Hard Day’s Night (a bit of a surprise) with 6 picks. Let It Be had 4. Three came from Magical Mystery Tour, 2 each came from Sgt. Peppers, Revolver, and Abby Road. And 1 each came from Yesterday And Today, Rubber Soul, Meet The Beatles, and Beatles For Sale.

I would have guessed that more songs would have come from Sgt. Peppers, since that was one of the most influential albums of all time. Even though the albums are somewhat similar, I tend to draw the line between early and later Beatles between Rubber Soul and Revolver (Rubber Soul was the Pot album and Revolver was the LSD album according to biographers.) In reality, there should be at least 3 or 4 phases of their work.  Regardless, 11 of their songs, a bit over a third, were early Beatles tunes according to my arbitrary cutoff. 

The Beatles put out some decent solo albums, particularly right after their split.  The aforementioned All Things Must Pass and Paul’s first album, McCartney, are both very good.  But their lingering magic tended to fade as I’ve said before like the peal of a bell after it’s been struck.  Some of that may be an indication of how important George Martin was to them.  It’s also not an entirely fair assessment on my part because I stopped following them closely after their break up.  They were undeniably at their best when they were together, and at their best, they were the best that ever was. 

It’s been an interesting journey reliving the Beatles’ songs and my life as I was being introduced to them.  I recalled stories about myself I hadn’t thought about in decades.  I’m grateful to the songs for evoking so many memories. And I’m grateful to people who weighed in with their comments.  The Beatles touched many people, and I was lucky to be able to hear from some of them this past month. Thanks again for following my ramblings, and keep listening to them!