Top 5/Bottom 5: The Beatles

If you’re anything like me, you love to listen to, talk about, and even argue about music. In that spirit I’ve decided to embark on a little project. In this series I’ll be listing and writing about my top 5 and bottom 5 songs from an artist or band that I love, or at least like. Disagree? Let me know, that’s half the fun.

The Beatles are the greatest band in the history of recorded popular music.

Top 5:

·      “Eight Days a Week”: I really wanted to put one of the early, pre-psychedelic Beatles songs on this list because I think this period is easy to overlook for modern fans. The critical consensus is that the Beatles’ music got more and more interesting as time went on and as they evolved as people, musicians, and songwriters; I agree, but it is absolutely astonishing how gifted they were from the very start of their recording career. Every time I hear this particular song I’m blown away again at how perfectly all the elements fit together. It’s got a fantastic intro (something very few songwriters including myself do anymore); it’s got great vocal harmonies and a great vocal breakdown; and it’s just a super-fun song. Listen to that bouncy rhythm, those chiming guitars, and that catchy yet sophisticated melody and see if they don’t instantly lighten your mood. If the lyrics are slightly dopey, well that’s pop music for you. Who cares as long as it feels good?

·      “Tomorrow Never Knows”: Regarded by many as the finest Beatles album, Revolver closes with the first song recorded for the album, “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Though the Beatles had already been pushing the art of recorded music in many ways by introducing new (to rock) instruments like the sitar and playing with recording speeds to get effects like the pseudo-harpsichord solo on “In My Life,” “Tomorrow Never Knows” was their boldest sonic leap yet. Inspired by acid, contemporary avant-garde music, Timothy Leary, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, this song is also one of the more compelling arguments for the use of drugs as creative stimulant.

Written by John Lennon as a sort of drone chant song, the song’s recording was one of the more inspired collaborations between the members of the group, producer George Martin, and engineer Geoff Emerick. Ringo contributed a fantastic drum groove, which Emerick made sound massive through the use of tape speed manipulation and a Fairchild limiter; Harrison contributed the droning sitar; Paul contributed tape loops that Emerick and the band manipulated in the studio, using faders to bring multiple loops in and out in a manner Emerick described as being like an early sampling synth; and John’s vocal was put through a Leslie rotating speaker to help achieve a trippy sound akin to “the Dalai Lama chanting from a mountain-top,” as Lennon famously described the effect he was looking for. “Ahead of its time” and “mind-blowing” are just a couple of the clichés that apply in spades to this song. DJ Shadow, the Chemical Brothers, and many other artists owe an obvious debt to this song in particular, and to state another true cliché, it sounds as amazing now as it did when it was released.

·      “A Day in the Life”: What can I say about this song that hasn’t already been said? Probably not much. The greatest Beatles song? The greatest pop song of the twentieth century? Quite possibly. It’s a song that still sets the standard for what an epic pop song can be, encompassing dream-like musings, the tedium of the day-to-day, and reflection on the alienation and strangeness of modern life. And that’s just the lyrics. Musically it pushed the boundaries of what was possible in the recording studio at the time, and paved the way for the sophisticated studio pop of the seventies and beyond.

Let’s talk about the arrangement: From the moment it fades in from the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” reprise with strummed acoustic guitar and piano, every element is perfectly placed and performed. Ringo’s drums first offer fills that answer John’s vocal, giving the song just a little push and excitement as it builds on the initial piano and guitar foundation. Paul’s bass playing is masterful as always, and the easy but forward-moving groove he and Ringo establish along with the piano drives gently but firmly to the alarm clock bridge that takes us to Paul’s domestic scene interlude. That second part of the song grounds the listener in the day-to-day before allowing us to float away again on a bed of strings and hazy singing until we land back in John’s dream vision of modern England. John’s vocal is one of the greatest vocals ever recorded, one that almost never fails to send a shiver down my back each time I hear it. And of course, “A Day in the Life” also features the greatest closing chord ever recorded. This song is beyond a masterpiece.

·      “Don’t Let Me Down”: Recorded during the Get Back/Let it Be sessions and issued as the B-side of “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” is a classic example of a composition that was primarily Lennon’s being released as the B-side of a seemingly more commercial McCartney composition, and arguably overshadowing the A-side. Its simple arrangement is in my opinion the most successful of the stripped down Let it Be sessions, allowing Lennon’s soulful belting to shine along with Billy Preston’s supremely tasteful electric piano playing. The straight-forward message of emotional need and newly discovered love is all the more powerful for not being couched in metaphor or flowery language, and Lennon sells the song through pure vocal expression.

·      “Here Comes the Sun”: One of the great later Beatles songs from my favorite Beatle, the Quiet One. As overplayed as any Beatles song at this point, it still somehow makes me feel good pretty much every time I hear it. The arrangement is an absolute masterclass in how to tastefully layer an acoustic-based song with interesting elements without overshadowing the melody and feel. There are strings, multiple guitars, perfect bass and drums, and (then very new) synthesizers, and yet the purity of the song isn’t compromised in any way. Listen to the recent remix/remaster on good headphones, I guarantee it will blow your mind.

Bottom 5:

·      “Something”: Considered by many to be one of the Beatles’ greatest love songs, and by Frank Sinatra to be one of the greatest ever, this song just doesn’t do it for me. In my opinion it’s not even the greatest song written about George Harrison’s then-wife Pattie, which is of course “Layla,” Eric Clapton’s wailing declaration of love for his friend’s lady. For whatever reason, though I’ve heard it far too many times, “Layla” doesn’t make me reach for the skip button as quickly as “Something.” There’s also the question of whether the Beatles’ version is even the best version of the song, with Joe Cocker’s version arguably besting it just as his “With a Little Help From My Friends” is arguably the definitive version of that song. Speaking of covers, Sinatra’s version of “Something” does offer us the classic comedy of a completely gratuitous “Jack” inserted into the line, “Stick around [Jack], it might show.” The Chairman also allegedly credited Lennon and McCartney as the song’s writers initially, though he did give Harrison proper credit in later performances.

·      “What Goes On”: Generally speaking, the Ringo Starr features are not the highlight of a Beatles album. Nevertheless, some of them are all-time classics (“Octopus’s Garden” included, I don’t care what anybody says). This is not one of the classics. It’s a throwaway country song on one of the Beatles’ most important albums, not helped by its sequence position as the opener of side two ahead of “Girl.” I’ll admit I have my own axe to grind with this song, stemming from the time I played it on a friend’s fancy surround sound stereo system to thoroughly underwhelmed response. This was before the Beatles catalog had finally been digitally remastered for CD and streaming, and I had recently obtained high quality audio files of some of the best mono masters then available. I had never listened to the Beatles in mono to that point, and I realized listening to them that this was in fact the way the music had been made to sound. Raving about this to my friends, I wanted to play them some of the songs so they could hear the Beatles as they were meant to be. I started with “What Goes On” because it was one of the few songs I felt we all wouldn’t have heard a million times, a decision that backfired spectacularly as I had to admit it sounded underwhelming on that very modern sound system in a loft studio. That was the end of that particular listening session.

·      “Dig a Pony”: Let it Be is a flawed album by Beatles standards that is nevertheless still great because it features several incredible songs and it’s still the Beatles. Much of the album feels a little half-baked, though songs like “Get Back” and “For You Blue” are fun and well-enough written that they are carried by the musicianship and energy of the world’s greatest band playing together. By contrast, “Dig a Pony” just doesn’t have enough going for it. It does feature a very cool guitar arpeggio intro, but from there it just drags, with the pseudo-nonsense wordplay of the verses not doing it any favors. Not every lyric has to be deeply meaningful of course, but lyrics like, “I-a-hi-hi, a-hi-hi do a roadhog/Well you can penetrate anywhere you go” don’t really suit the dramatic style of their delivery here. What’s more, the song just isn’t very interesting sonically past that intro–the rhythm guitar is barely in tune and dull in tone, the vocals are dry and lifeless, and it’s all just a little flat. John Lennon reportedly called the song “a piece of garbage.” He was famously dismissive of a lot of his and the Beatles’ work, but in this case he’s pretty much right.

·      “Revolution 9”: This one’s pretty obvious, I admit. As much as I admire artistic experimentation, sometimes a little goes a long ways. At nearly twice the length of any other song on the White Album, this track just goes a bit too far. Besides, the Beatles had already incorporated tape loops and found sounds to much greater effect in songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” It’s a rare occasion I don’t reach for the skip button about halfway through this one. I will say that if you can make it through the whole thing it does serve as a nice setup for the album-closing lullaby of “Goodnight.”

·      “Magical Mystery Tour”: It feels kind of unfair to compare this song to other Beatles’ songs seeing as it was composed as more of a TV special theme song than a standalone piece. Nevertheless, it is the title song of an album that also contains “The Fool on the Hill” and “I Am the Walrus,” next to which it obviously doesn’t stand out. It’s a fun enough piece, but you’ve pretty much gotten the whole idea by the time it’s about halfway through. I don’t mind it at all and actually like it well enough, but this is the Beatles we’re talking about; if you haven’t noticed, they didn’t put out a whole lot of clunkers, and something has to go in this spot.