Category Archives: List

Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 29 “Come Together”

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‘Come Together’ changed at the session. We said, ‘Let’s slow it down. Let’s do this to it, let’s do that to it,’ and it ends up however it comes out. I just said, ‘Look, I’ve got no arrangement for you, but you know how I want it.’ I think that’s partly because we’ve played together a long time. So I said, ‘Give me something funky and set up a beat, maybe.’ And they all just joined in. „
—John Lennon, 1969

“ On the new album I like ‘Come Together,’ which is a great one of John’s. „
—Paul McCartney, 1969

Wikipedia:

A-side “Something”
Released 6 October 1969 (US), 31 October 1969 (UK)
Format 7″
Recorded 21–30 July 1969, EMI Studios, London
Genre Blues rock, hard rock
Length 4:18
Label Apple
Writer(s) Lennon–McCartney
Producer George Martin

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 30 “Julia”

Julia-White-Album

Julia was written by John Lennon for his mother, she died in a traffic accident in 1958. It is also the only solo Lennon recording in The Beatles’ song catalogue.

“The only solo Lennon recording in the Beatles’ catalog, “Julia” was the final addition to the White Album, recorded just three days before the album was sequenced. His original demo, recorded in May, had included harmonies from McCartney, but this version was just Lennon’s voice and guitar. “Julia was my mother,” Lennon said. “But it was sort of a combination of Yoko and my mother blended into one” — the “ocean child” in the lyrics refers to Ono’s name, which is Japanese for “child of the ocean.” To the end of his life, he often called Yoko “Mother.””
– Rolling Stone Magazine

They did 3 takes to perfect the guitar track, which was recorded onto four-track tape. The third track was the chosen one for “The Beatles” (aka “The White Album”)

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 31 “Yesterday”

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I just started playing it and this tune came, ‘cuz that’s what happens. They just, sort of– they COME, you know. It just came and I couldn’t think of any words to it, so originally it was just, ‘Scrambled Egg.’ It was called ‘Scrambled Egg’ for a couple of months, until I thought of ‘Yesterday.’ And that’s it. True story.
—Paul McCartney, 1968

‘Yesterday’ is Paul completely on his own, really. We just helped finishing off the ribbons ’round it, you know — tying it up.
—John Lennon, 1966

Wikipedia:

“Yesterday“was originally recorded by the Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. Although credited to “Lennon–McCartney”, the song was written solely by Paul McCartney. At the time of its first appearance, the song was released by the Beatles’ record company as a single in the United States but not in the United Kingdom (for further details see below). Consequently, whilst it topped the American chart in 1965 the song first hit the British top 10 three months after the release of Help! in a cover version by Matt Monro. “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 Pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone.

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 32 “Blackbird”

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“We were totally immersed in the whole saga which was unfolding. So I got the idea of using a blackbird as a symbol for a black person. It wasn’t necessarily a black ‘bird’, but it works that way, as much as then you called girls ‘birds’; the Everlys had had Bird Dog, so the word ‘bird’ was around. ‘Take these broken wings’ was very much in my mind, but it wasn’t exactly an ornithological ditty; it was purposely symbolic.”
– Paul McCartney (Mojo, 2008)

“It’s such a beautiful piece of music, perfect in composition and performance, and in its lyrics and in the range of his voice. Just learning that song made me a better guitar player and gave me a better appreciation of songwriting. To me it’s just musical bliss.”
– Dave Grohl (Q Magazine)

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 34 “Hello Goodbye”

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beatles-hello-goodbye

“Hello, Goodbye was one of my songs. There are Geminiani influences here I think: the twins. It’s such a deep theme in the universe, duality – man woman, black white, ebony ivory, high low, right wrong, up down, hello goodbye – that it was a very easy song to write. It’s just a song of duality, with me advocating the more positive. You say goodbye, I say hello. You say stop, I say go. I was advocating the more positive side of the duality, and I still do to this day.”
– Paul McCartney (Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now)

So often, simplicity is mistaken for “being easy”. McCartney’s pop jewel is not easy, it is pop-music perfection.  It’s infectious, catchy and clever beyond what initially meets the ear but that’s hard to pull off. Lennon was more than annoyed about this, he was angry about McCartney’s ability to churn out these perfect “pop-ditties”. It happened with this single as it had happened before with Strawberry fields/Penny Lane single. Talk about duality, Lennon and McCartney.

The song belies its simplicity, it sounds like a young man in a hurry. The “calm” lyrics and the insistent  melody, it is a paradox.

It is a masterpiece!

Wikipedia:

“Hello, Goodbye” was released as a single in November 1967, and topped the charts in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Norway. The song also was a number two hit in both Austria and Switzerland.

Single by The Beatles
B-side “I Am the Walrus”
Released November 24, 1967
Format 7″
Recorded 2 October – 2 November 1967, EMI Studios, London
Genre Pop rock
Length 3:27
Label Parlophone (UK), Capitol (US)
Writer(s) Lennon–McCartney
Producer(s) George Martin

Number of takes: 21
Oct 2, Oct 19, Oct 20, Oct 25, Nov 1 and Nov 2

Written by Paul McCartney.

“Paul marched me into the dining room, where he had a marvellous old hand-carved harmonium. ‘Come and site at the other end of the harmonium. You hit any note you like on the keyboard. Just hit it and I’ll do the same. Now whenever I shout out a word, you shout the opposite and I’ll make up a tune. You watch, it’ll make music’…

‘Black,’ he started. ‘White,’ I replied. ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Good.’ ‘Bad.’ Hello.’ ‘Goodbye.’

I wonder whether Paul really made up that song as he went along or whether it was running through his head already.”
– Alistair Taylor (Epstein’s  personal assistant and later the GM of Apple Corps.)

The Beatles – Hello, Goodbye:

“I remember the end bit where there’s the pause and it goes ‘Heba, heba hello’. We had those words and we had this whole thing recorded but it didn’t sound quite right, and I remember asking Geoff Emerick if we could really whack up the echo on the tom-toms. And we put this echo full up on the tom-toms and it just came alive.”
– Paul McCartney
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