Featured Stories

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:

164. “You Like Me Too Much”

163. “Maggie Mae”

162. “Tell Me What You See”

161. “Thank You Girl”

160. “I’ll Cry Instead”

159. “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey”

LISTEN HERE  

We delve back into the wild and woolly White Album Disc 2 for this one, a raucous, firebell-laden raver courtesy of John Lennon. It seems like it’s more of an idea than a fully realized song, but Lennon gives it his all, scream-singing the lyrics with an abandon that feels positively cathartic.

It turns out the song may have indeed been a way for John to blow off some steam, as he later claimed that he was indeed referring to himself and Yoko and how the rest of the world had gone crazy around them, yet they remained blissfully oblivious. (And for the rest of the world, you can read that phrase as codename for a certain trio of bandmates whose names rhyme with Saul, Blorge, and Schmingo.)

I’m not quite buying Lennon’s claims of love-induced euphoria throughout these notoriously tense sessions. Maybe on the day he recorded the song he felt “such a joy,” but I get the feeling that he was as fidgety as everybody else during this time. Why else would he and Paul jokingly refer to the band around that time as “Los Paranoias”?

While many could read way into it and see “monkey” as a drug reference, I think John was innocent on that count. This song is too much of a throwaway to be sinister, so let’s take it at face value. It’s a shade more than two minutes worth of unhinged rock silliness, and it’s nice to hear The Beatles could have a little fun even in the darkest days.

158. “One After 909”

LISTEN HERE  

Delving back into their distant past, The Beatles unearthed, for Let It Be, one of the first songs that John Lennon ever wrote. They tried to record “One After 909” in an early 60’s sessions in an attempt to turn it into a possible single, but it never came together. You can hear these futile tries on Anthology 1, and you can understand why the song was shelved.

On Let It Be, with little to lose at that point, the group ripped into it and turned out a much better version than they ever could have in the early days. Those initial stabs at the song depict four youngsters trying awful hard to get everything just so, and that effort snuffs all the life out of it. But, by 1969, they were working with the confidence that seven straight years of unprecedented success had bred. They get inside the song and inhabit it, pulling it here and there instrumentally while Lennon and McCartney barrel through the harmonies.

That said, I’ve always been of the opinion that Billy Preston’s musical contributions were negligible at best. While it can’t be denied that his presence helped keep the band from engaging in steel-cage bitch sessions in the studio, his organ, to me, left a lot of the songs on which he played with a dated feel, and this song is an example. I actually think that in the haste to assemble Let It Be as all parties began to go their separate ways in 1970, Phil Spector and co. left many of Preston’s finer efforts on the cutting-room floor (like his soulful work on the unused version of “The Long And Winding Road.”)

As for “One After 90,” it certainly sounds like it was written by a 17-year-old. (I think the song may have been the main parodistic target of Spinal Tap’s “All The Way Home,” a train song that was the alleged first songwriting effort of the fictional band.) But it is powerful to hear The Beatles, on the verge of severing, revisiting a song they played when what they eventually accomplished was still nothing more than a dream. That’s why Let It Be, originally meant as a celebration of roots, instead unintentionally became a sad portrait of dissolution. There would be no getting back from this.

157. “I Want To Tell You”

LISTEN HERE  

Leave it to George Harrison to write a song about not having anything good to say. “I Want To Tell You”, found on Revolver, has George at a loss for words whenever he gets near the object of his affection. But this isn’t merely schoolboy shyness. You get the feeling here that what George has roiling inside of him is far too deep for anyone to convey.

That stuttering, indecisive approach to the lyrics would be mimicked by John Lennon a year later to much greater effect on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” There it mirrored Lennon’s feelings of disconnectedness with society at large; on “I Want To Tell You,” the effect is almost too overbearing for such relatively trivial subject matter.

The whole song has an unsteady vibe to it, which may be what the band intended. The dissonant piano chords produce a kind of hypnotic effect, but they don’t really gibe too well with the rest of what’s going on. And George’s vocal is a bit spacey, as if he couldn’t be bothered whether or not he ever accurately expresses his emotions.

But Harrison deserves credit for being at the forefront in the exploration of new territories that the band likely never would have otherwise encountered. If “I Want to Tell You” doesn’t quite gel, it’s unwieldiness still proves fascinating.

156. “Don’t Bother Me”

LISTEN HERE  

Let’s survey the titles of some of the songs written, recorded, and released by The Beatles in 1962 and 1963. “Love Me Do”: Oh, how sweet. “Thank You Girl”: Very polite. “She Loves You”: Well, thanks for letting me know, friend. “P.S. I Love You”: Right back at you, sugar dumpling.

“Don’t Bother Me”: Whaaaat?

George Harrison snarled his way through this number on the band’s second album, With The Beatles. It represented his first solo songwriting effort to make the cut, and suddenly there was a totally unique perspective in town. Amidst all the flowery sentiments and charming little ditties, George penned an ode to the desire for solitude.

Now, when you listen to the lyrics, the song does reveal itself to be a tad more straightforward in that the singer’s Garbo-esque request is spurred on by his true love being away from him. Still, from the downbeat melody in a minor key to a chorus that simmers with disgust rather than exploding with joy, this was a sharp left turn for the group, and George was at the tiller.

Though Harrison would later dismiss the song as a poor first try at songwriting, it holds up OK if you’re into a more bluesy approach. And who knows? Maybe that bit of surliness inspired Lennon and McCartney to break from their own happy-go-lovey rut and expand their songwriting horizons.

Whatever the case, “Don’t Bother Me” is essential as the first utterance from the quiet Beatle. Who knew, at the time, he would have so many revelatory things to say?

155. “Sun King”

LISTEN HERE  

Woe to the enterprising fool who tries to glean some meaning from the foreign languages spouted by The Beatles in the latter stages of “Sun King,” the opening part of the first medley on Abbey Road.

The band just smashed up random words from a variety of the Romance languages. All attempts at a coherent translation will prove futile.

Nor did John have the legendary King Louis XIV in mind when he wrote the song, even though the French regent also was known as the Sun King. It turns out Lennon was just strumming along here with no particular purpose other than maybe to induce a pleasant mood. All those warbly guitars and Ringo’s thumping bass drums provide a soporific effect that’s quickly shattered on the album by the opening bars of “Mean Mr. Mustard.”

The pretty harmonies, evident throughout Abbey Road, and those hilariously nonsensical foreign phrases are the best parts of this song, which otherwise drifts into the ether. George Harrison once said that the band was trying to create a vibe similar to what Fleetwood Mac was doing at the time. I’m not sure the Mac, hearing this aimless finished product, would have been flattered.

Comments (3)