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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:

109. “All Together Now”

108. “Paperback Writer”

107. “I’ll Get You”

106. “I’ll Follow The Sun”

105. “From Me To You”

104. “Martha My Dear”

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It’s never quite clear whether Paul McCartney had a relationship, a muse, or a sheepdog in mind when he wrote “Martha My Dear.” There is no doubt though that the star of the song is its elaborate structure and captivating melody, two McCartney strong points that shine through even on a subdued track like this one.

The song‘s subtlety and nuance stand out among the more blunt musical experimentations on The White Album. The charm of “Martha My Dear” is the way it seamlessly carries listeners through twists and turns in tune and tempo, so that, by the end, it’s not clear which part is which, nor does it really matter that much. They’re all nice places to be.

As for the lyrics, I’ve always tended to lean toward the theory that Paul was indeed referring to the family pet, even though he’s given indications otherwise since. Calling her a “silly girl” and telling her, when she finds herself in a jam, to “help yourself to a bit of what is all around you;” it all sounds like the loving exhortation of a pet owner who can’t stay mad at his pup. Maybe Paul used the dog as a kind of jumping-off point and the lyrics strayed a bit from that point into other subconscious areas.

But any time spent debating this matter ultimately detracts from the pleasures of the song, from the sprightly piano to the oompah horns to Paul’s understated delivery. This gentle gem may be out of place on The White Album, but it’s so good-natured that I can’t imagine that the other songs minded one bit.

103. “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”

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John Lennon famously found inspiration for this song in an old poster, from which he took the lyrics almost verbatim. So he plays the role of carnival barker, and the stellar production tricks push this song into another dimension. It keeps in line with the rest of Sgt. Pepper’s, where seemingly everyday experiences, like a circus coming to town, explode before your ears and take on much deeper meaning.

The simple verses are almost like a means to an end here, as John recites those trite poster advertisements. Although he did a nifty job of re-purposing them to fit the meter and the rhyme, John can’t make the lines into anything more than the advertising slogans they are. These days you can hear these kinds of exclamatory promises on a run-of-the-mill radio ad for a monster-truck rally.

But once we get to the musical interludes, Mr. Kite’s show becomes something entirely new. Those organs sound as if there being played by someone trying to keep from falling off a speeding train. The long outro really goes crazy; all those disparate sound effects make it appear as if the circus has caught fire. But John stays calm, deliberately playing the main melody on the organ while chaos runs rampant all around him.

You can sort of understand Lennon’s ambivalence to the song in later interviews, since he didn’t really put much of his own spin on this material. Give George Martin and his inspired production ideas all the credit for putting a proper Beatles’ tent on this 19th-century circus.

102. “Revolution 1”

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“Revolution 1” is like the middle child of the Revolution family. You’ve got the overachiever, which is the “Revolution” single, and then you’ve got the ne’er-do-well, which is “Revolution 9,” and then you’ve got the forgotten sibling, “Revolution 1,” tucked onto The White Album because its father, John Lennon, didn’t want it to feel left out.

The other three Beatles were right to insist that John speed up the lugubrious pace of this version to make the single. I assume John felt that the slower version would put more emphasis on the lyrics. Just the opposite, in fact: The fire-brand rock’n’roll and impassioned belting on the single brought more attention to Lennon’s overtly political statements.

The version here seems like the afterthought it really was. How else to explain the incongruous “shoo-bee-doo-wop” backing vocals? Or uninspired brass touches that sound like they were included because the session musicians from “Got To Get You Into My Life” two years earlier had gotten lost in Abbey Road studios and reemerged just in time for this session?

The most notable thing about “Revolution 1” is Lennon adding the word “in” to the line “When you talk about destruction/Don’t you know that you can count me out.” It’s a bold admittance of his uncertain feelings about such troubling issues, whether you agree with them or not. But the better forum for that statement would have been the single. Whether the other three Beatles, who were a tad skittish about the song anyway, balked at this or whether Lennon himself made the choice to include it here, the truth is that it doesn’t add a whole lot.

For all of these flaws on the perimeter, there’s still a pretty amazing song at the core of “Revolution 1.” But, alas, it lives up to the old middle-child cliché by not fulfilling its potential.

101. “Ballad Of John And Yoko”

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John and Paul put aside their burgeoning differences to hastily record this single, which made #1 status in England. (George and Ringo are nowhere to be found on the track.) That the song relates Lennon and Yoko Ono’s attempts to get married in 1969 makes the collaboration even more remarkable, considering that Yoko’s constant presence in The Beatles’ world was a source for much of the friction between the two men.

That camaraderie really carries the song. It’s such a literal retelling of events that it could easily be misconstrued as John stroking his ego by foisting his travails on the world. But the geniality he shows throughout douses any of those thoughts. It’s a hoot to hear his matter-of-fact depiction of events that had most of the public thinking that he was daft (“eating chocolate cake in a bag”). You can tell that Lennon understood their confusion and didn’t have much problem with it. He was happy to play the fool if it meant it also got people thinking.

I also the love the subtle dig at the hypocritical reporters at song’s end. After they’ve vilified the married couple throughout the song, they finally welcome them home (“It’s good to have the both of you back”). No news is never good news to the press, and John and Yoko always kept them supplied with plenty of newsworthy craziness.

Maybe parts of it come off like a glorified travelogue, and the song is so topical that it could never have hoped to hold its luster very long, much like an old headline. But, as a snapshot of a time when John and Yoko had the entire world watching every move with, depending on the perspective, either incredulity, admiration, or disgust, “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” is an invaluable document.

100. “Girl”

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We break into the top 100 with this mellow Rubber Soul track that finds John Lennon pining over the titular female that he can’t live with or without. (I wrote that sentence fourteen different ways, and still I couldn’t help dangling that preposition. So sue me.) Returning to the languid (maybe a bit too-languid) acoustic setting of “Michelle” from the same album, The Beatles throw enough quirks into the mix to distinguish this song from the oodles of others written about the same subject.

Two of those quirks are right in your face as you listen: John Lennon’s exaggerated and amplified breath intake before he sings each refrain, and Paul McCartney and George Harrison’s singing “tit-tit-tit” as the backing vocals in the middle eight. I must say that I’ve always been a bit distressed about these little tics in this song. (I said “tics”, not…oh, get your mind out of the gutter!) While they are certainly distinctive, I would argue that they’re so overt that they overwhelm the very thing they’re meant to complement.

And that’s too bad, because Lennon’s lyrics are precise here. I mean, his descriptions match the kind of haughty girl we’ve all met, don’t they: “When you say she’s looking good/She acts as if it’s understood.” The final verse might be biting off more than it can chew, what with an attempt to link the girl’s hurtful ways with the Catholic idea that suffering precedes salvation, but the ambition is admirable.

Lennon’s gasping and the mammary-inspired vocals are a bit out-of-character for the message the rest of the song wishes to convey. Much more effective are Lennon and Harrison’s dueling acoustic guitars at the end, which create a mesmerizing effect much like the “Girl” in question.