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To most Beatles fans, choosing between the songs of the Fab 4 is a bit like choosing between children. But, on the JamsBio exclusive, Playing The Beatles Backward, one intrepid fan dares to rank the original songs of The Beatles and give his reasons why in a worst-to-first countdown. Check back each day for the next five songs on the list, prepare to hit the message boards to defend your favorites, and follow the countdown all the way to Number 1.

The complete list to date.

The Last Five:

184. “Revolution 9”

183. “Honey Pie”

182. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”

181. “Yer Blues”

180. “Good Day Sunshine”

179. “Ask Me Why”

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It’s always tempting to romanticize the early Beatles’ records without actually taking an in-depth look at their quality. More often than not, the songs from those halcyon days do withstand intense scrutiny. Even at that early stage, the songcraft of Lennon and McCartney was close to impeccable, honed from years of playing together and strengthened by their ability to take all of their musical influences and honor them without sounding like direct copies.

But, every once in a while, a clunker squeaked by. You have to remember that they were producing music at a ridiculously fast rate back then (two albums and a handful of singles per year), so the thought that every one of those songs could be a gem is unrealistic, even for John and Paul. The strength of the band’s performance and their enthusiasm usually carried them through the rough patches in these songs so that you couldn’t notice too much.

“Ask Me Why” is just such an example of one of those, how shall we say it, less-than-inspired numbers. It was meant to sound like Motown but it came off more like some bizarre bossa nova. And the lyrics, well, let’s just say that “I love you because you tell me things I want to know” makes relatively simple stuff like “She Loves You” sound like Faulkner.

Coming as it did on Please Please Me, which was basically just a reproduction of their live act at the time and included songs that they had playing for quite some time, the rush-job excuse doesn’t quite hold water here. Chances are that “Ask Me Why” was forgotten about by the Fab 4 not too long after it was recorded. And, a rarity among Beatles songs, it’s just as easily forgotten by those who have listened to it.

178. “Long, Long, Long”

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It’s not so much the song that’s the problem here. This George Harrison composition is just a simple, I would say inconsequential, ode to a lover (or God) whose been lost and then found again. The melody, which George claimed came from chord patterns borrowed from Bob Dylan’s “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands,” is OK, and that bizarre fade-out fits in well with the overall spooky vibe of The White Album.

My main problem here is that I always think that I’m going deaf when this song comes on. Hot on the heels of the rip-roaring “Helter Skelter,” “Long, Long, Long” is practically silent. I suppose that was a decision made by the group to highlight the contrast in material, but it’s still annoying. I can hear the high-pitched noises meant for dogs at the end of Sgt. Pepper’s almost as well as I can hear this song.

Even when you turn it up, the mix seems off. Ringo’s drums are way up and George’s voice seems lost in the wilderness somewhere. It’s a disorienting effect, and if you’re trying to distinguish the words without the lyric sheet handy, good luck with that.

I used to love listening to headphones and falling asleep with Beatles albums playing in my head. Especially on the later records, that made for some colorful dreams, let me tell you. But I couldn’t do that with The White Album, and it’s all “Long, Long, Long”’s fault. Every time it would end, and the heavy guitars of “Revolution” would kick in, I’d be startled awake. So “Long, Long, Long” has cost me many hours of sleep, probably taking years off my life in the process. I’m holding a grudge.

177. “Little Child”

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You have to give “Little Child” some credit. It manages to cram a whole bunch of early-60’s Beatles cliches into it’s 1 minute and 45 seconds of existence. Let’s go down the list, shall we: Dance-hall setting? Check. Prominent harmonica? Bingo. Lots of “Oh, yeahs” and “Come ons”? You got it. Some general whooping and hollering for effect? Put it in the books, baby.

As such, it’s very hard to distinguish this song from any number of Beatle hits. Before I listened to it again, I tried to imagine the song in my head, and it kept morphing into “Please Please Me” or “Twist and Shout” or “I Saw Her Standing There,” until I finally gave up in frustration and put the damn thing on.

Am I implying that the Beatles were trying to rehash some of their earlier efforts in an attempt to recapture that success? Why, that would be downright cynical of me. No, I just think they were pressed for time and came up with this one in, oh, I don’t know, about 7 minutes or so. George Martin probably stepped out to work on his diction (seriously, how did this man never end up with voice-over gigs?) and, when he came back, voila, an album cut was all done.

“Little Child” is harmless enough, but it lacks the spark of inspiration that usually accompanied even their (relatively) minor works. And so it finds a place in the bottom 10 of our list. Sad and lonely indeed.

176. “Old Brown Shoe”

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I’ve got a few issues with this song, a relatively obscure George Harrison B-side the band recorded during their tumultuous final year together in 1969. Number one issue: the vocals. George sounds like he’s trapped in a well with a large object on top of him constricting his breathing. I can’t be certain that was the effect he was looking for, but I’m guessing that’s a big fat no. As such, it betrays an indifference to recording the song that doesn’t make me all that keen to listen to it.

The other issue is that someone in The Beatles camp thought it prudent to include this song on a few Beatles compilations, where it generally failed to measure up to the songs around it. I can sort of accept it being on Hey Jude, a compilation that was essentially a repository for singles and B-sides from the later years that weren’t available on any LP.

But, as a kid, it always infuriated me that “Old Brown Shoe” was included on Greatest Hits 67-70. To paraphrase the old SNL skit, who was the genius that came up with that? Keep in mind that I had this album on 8-track tape, which did not allow fast forwarding or skipping tracks. If you wanted to hear a song again, you had to wait until the whole “program” was over and then skip until you were back at the start of the desired cut.

It was an unwieldy process that younger listeners may not understand, but let’s just say that I endured “Old Brown Shoe” far too often just to get to classics like “Something” or “Let It Be.” This song was meant for a B-side. Any ambitions for it greater than that were foolish.

175. “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)”

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The Beatles were inherently funny guys. It’s well-known that one of the first things that drew both Brian Epstein and George Martin to them was not their musical ability, but their sense of humor. When they came to America, the quick wit they displayed in press conferernces helped to show the media what the teenagers already knew: these guys were something special.

And yet, when they overtly tried to be funny, the results were often disastrous (case in point: the Magical Mystery Tour movie). “You Know My Name (Look Up My Number)” certainly falls into the forced whimsy category. John and Paul are trying so hard to sound off-the-cuff in this nightclub act parody that they end up sounding off-their-rockers. The truly funny thing was that John thought enough of this craziness to consider it as a single for his Plastic Ono band before the Fab 4 officially called it quits. Had he gone through with that plan, he might have inadvertently sabotaged his solo career right off the bat, in which case remaining a Beatle might have seemed much more palatable to him.

This song gets points for trivia’s sake (yes, that’s Brian Jones doing the sax solo) and for Lennon’s female voice anticipating Terry Jones in drag with Monty Python (seriously, close your eyes during that part of the song and imagine John shouting “Who are the Britons?”), but it’s never near as funny as the participants seem to think it is. I guess you had to be there.

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