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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:

134. “I Call Your Name”

133. “It’s Only Love”

132. “If I Needed Someone”

131. “Another Girl”

130. “Dig A Pony”

129. “Love Me Do”

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It’s hard to judge this song fairly and not get caught up in its sentimental value. Though the public at large remained relatively unimpressed (hence the #17 chart position upon its original UK release), history shows that these guys were in fact The Beatles, and that they would, subsequent to this modest beginning, conquer the world. So in retrospect, people should have noticed, right?

Well, maybe not based solely on the merits of “Love Me Do.” Whether in its single form or on the album version found on Please Please Me, the song is so humble and unassuming that it’s impossible to dislike and also impossible to love. You just sort of shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, isn’t that swell?”

At the time, The Beatles resisted George Martin’s efforts to have them record a pre-written song called “How Do You Do It.” You can hear the Beatles version of this song on Anthology 1. It’s far more accessible than “Love Me Do,” but also far more grating. The group was right to stand firm and stick with the Lennon/McCartney number, because “How Do You Do It” might have irreversibly stigmatized them as lightweights.

Ringo yielded to session drummer Andy White for the single version, settling instead for banging a tambourine that you can scarcely hear on the finished recording. When John Lennon’s harmonica was emphasized in the studio, that meant that Paul had to take lead vocal, and you can hear him struggling a tad with the lower notes in the bridge.

But, truly, “Love Me Do” resists any probing analysis. It was the first public utterance of The Beatles, just good enough to get them a crack at a second. For that reason alone, its position in the hearts of Beatles’ fans is secure.

128. “The Night Before”

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According to Shakespeare, “Frailty, thy name is woman.” According to Paul McCartney, you can add fickleness to that moniker as well. At least according to this bouncy concoction from the Help! soundtrack, you can.

The electric piano, which did the group no favors in other songs, is an asset with John doing the honors. Other than that slightly funky touch, it’s your basic meat-and-potatoes McCartney mid-tempo number, where Paul sinks his teeth into a tasty hook and keeps after it until it’s gnawed to the bone.

In “The Night Before,” Paul bemoans a one-night stand that turns into a day-after nightmare. He also lets in the possibility that he might have had his love goggles on (“Was I so unwise?”), which may have clouded his judgment to a degree.

There’s nothing too much to write home about here. It’s just another example of a song that would have been a signature track for any number of lesser bands, but for The Beatles, is just one more on the pile.

127. “Mean Mr. Mustard”

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John Lennon’s heart never really seemed into this song, whether it was the demo version found on Anthology 3 or the finished version crammed into the middle of a medley on Abbey Road. Give credit to Paul here though: his fuzz bass and perky harmonies help to lift it out of the doldrums and give it some life.

Lennon loved to do these little character sketches of people who’d been marginalized by society. Paul did too, but McCartney tended to empathize with his creations. John, on the other hand, often leered at them with an uneasy combination of disgust and fascination, refusing to pretty them up for public consumption. You can imagine John getting a kick out of this particular crackpot shouting obscenities at royalty.

Note how John changed the name of the sister in the song from “Shirley,” in the demo version, to “Pam,” on the finished track, which, since the next track in the medley is “Polythene Pam,” provides a little continuity to the storyline. And, considering the fact that “Pam” would be portrayed in the next song to be a kinky sex-freak, it yields some revelatory context to the line, “She’s a go-getter.” It was John’s small concession to the construction of the album, construction that was largely McCartney’s doing.

The quality of the songs in the medley that kicks off Side 2 of Abbey Road improves from first to last, which means “Mean Mr. Mustard” works better as a slightly deranged transitional piece than it does on its own. Which is odd, because it’s hard to imagine this character ever getting along with others.

126. “Get Back”

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Another example of the unrestrained excess of the Let It Be project, “Get Back” mowed its way to its #1 status on the strength of its effortless groove and catchy refrain. Too bad the rest of it suffers from the over-rehearsed yet underdone feel that mars the entire album.

Once again with this project, the problems emanate from the foolhardy idea that by ad-libbing and improvisation, the band could somehow muscle songs into life. Not even The Beatles could create such sleight of hand.

You can tell how hard they tried here by the endless amount of bootlegs of this song that exist (ironic since they were trying for an off-the-cuff feel), including a few with some unfortunate stabs at social commentary on immigration that can easily be misconstrued. The lyrics on the finished project are the kind of obvious wink-wink, nudge-nudge stuff (”California grass,” get it?) that might have given the band the giggles but just seems less funny each time you hear them.

Maybe I’m so hard on “Get Back” because, as I said earlier, it had such great potential. Billy Preston’s contribution is undeniable here (he even received a credit on the single) and Paul does some great rock and roll singing throughout. John famously joked that he hoped that the song would help the band “pass the audition.” They might have passed the audition with “Get Back,” but not with flying colors.

125. “Michelle”

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Raise your hand if the only phrase you know in French to this day, despite several years of bumbling through the subject in high school, is “Son les mots qui von tres bien ensemble,” thanks to “Michelle.” OK, maybe some of you got “Sacre bleu” from Pepe Le Pew cartoons as well.

And how funny is it that a song that Paul carried around for years as a joke to play at parties ended up winning the Grammy award for Best Song of 1967. (Never mind that it was released in 1965; that’s just typical Grammy logic.) It goes to show you that McCartney just oozes melody. He just can’t help it.

Alas, the song is a tad repetitive. The bridges (supposedly Lennon’s contribution and inspired by a Nina Simone song, yet another example of the group’s egalitarian musical taste) supply a little bit of variety and emotion, but the main parts do betray the song’s origin as art-song parody. You can even hear Paul having a bit of a laugh with the way he exaggerates the pronunciation of “ensem-ble” the last time. It’s hard to take too much rooting interest in the relationship at the core of the song when even Paul seems pretty cavalier about it.

“Michelle” ranks very high on the list of Beatles’ songs in terms of educational value. If, of course, you ever have the rare opportunity to break the phrase “these are words that go together well” into everyday conversation. Maybe on the French version on Wheel Of Fortune?

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