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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:

74. “Don’t Let Me Down”

73. “Rocky Raccoon”

72. “Your Mother Should Know”

71. “Piggies”

70. “I’ve Just Seen A Face”

69. “It Won’t Be Long”

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The Beatles couldn’t have picked a better way to start their second album, With The Beatles, than with the adrenaline rush that is “It Won’t Be Long.” The first thing you hear is John Lennon shouting, “It won’t be long, yeah,” followed by Paul answering the “yeah” with one of his own as the music kicks in. The pace is torrid, seconding the immediacy of the title.

After that thrilling start, everything else is a bit of an anti-climax, at least until the refrain re-appears in all of its frenzied glory. Lennon is once again scorching the microphone, his voice raw and raucous yet always in control. He shows his versatility in the verses, softening to fit the tone of the more subdued music but keeping unwavering confidence. He revs it up again when he gets to “You’re coming home,” screaming the words out as if to will the reunion into existence.

The lyrics are fairly run-of-the-mill, although John’s songwriting quirkiness shows up again in the way the verses vary between two separate sets of melodies (the “since you left me” parts and the “every day” parts). His innate ability to provide these idiosyncratic touches is one of the most underrated aspects of his songwriting.

But the main draw of “It Won’t Be Long” remains that punch-in-the-gut chorus, the electric hook that spurs the song into high gear. It never relents until those sweet falsetto harmonies in the last note fulfill the promise of the chaotic onset. It suggests that she came home after all, and it wasn’t long. Two minutes and ten seconds to be exact. When you’ve got a suitor as persistent and persuasive as this, it’s best not to keep him waiting.

68. “I’ve Got A Feeling”

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However chaotic the Let It Be sessions were, when The Beatles got their hands on a good song, they knew what to do with it. In the case of “I’ve Got A Feeling,” they got their hands on two good songs at once, so the splendid results are unsurprising.

Paul was in charge of the main body of the song, which contain some of his bluesiest, most unfiltered singing, a style that he returned to in his solo career (check out “Maybe I’m Amazed,” for example.) Lennon takes lead guitar and creates a memorable electric riff out of the picking style that he learned from Donovan while on retreat in India and that fueled many late Beatle songs (”Julia,” “Dear Prudence,” etc.).

Later in the song Lennon brings in his lyrical contribution, the “Everybody had a good year” part that fits right into Paul’s main structure flawlessly. John’s more sedate melody and relaxed lyrics are a perfect contrast to the primacy of the McCartney section.

In the final verse, the two sing their parts together. There is something poignant about this, the way the duo inhabit the same song while singing totally different melodies and lyrics. The glass-half-full person would say that it’s the ideal encapsulation of their partnership, the way their contrasting styles and personalities created the perfect songwriting marriage. The pessimist would argue that it’s emblematic of how far the two men had drifted from each other by this time, each singing their own song completely oblivious to the other. As that ascending guitars climb to the close of this excellent track, it’s clear that “I’ve Got A Feeling” is a powerful piece of work, no matter what the proper interpretation might be.

67. “When I’m Sixty-Four”

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One of the greatest contributions The Beatles ever made was to explode the notion that rock music had to be constrained to three chords played on electric guitars. They were eclectic music fans, and held no snobbery toward musical styles that might be considered by others to be unhip.

Hence, you can look at a song like “When I’m Sixty-Four” and see the way that it opened up new worlds for future musical shapeshifters like David Bowie or Neil Young or Elvis Costello by indirectly saying that anything is fair game in popular music, as long as it’s done with integrity and authenticity. Paul McCartney’s genuine affection for the types of songs on which this Sgt. Pepper’s track is based shines through and keeps the song from veering into parody.

Old-fashioned is the proper word for the musical accompaniment, although Paul makes things a little more palatable for modern audiences with the bridges, at least until the clarinet and bass drum interplay send us right back into the roaring twenties.

But the music is fitting, because Paul’s lyrical plea is a far cry from the usual live-for-the-moment tendencies of rock’n’roll. His espousal of themes like constancy and dedication are not what you would expect from a rock star who, let’s face it, could pick and choose his romantic partners and the amount of time he wished to keep them around. In “When I’m Sixty-Four,” he’s searching for something more permanent, a love that can withstand that inevitable loss of passion that accompanies aging and find comfort in the pedestrian pleasures of maturity. Paul envisioned a time in which the headiest activity of the day would be “digging the weeds;” was there a partner out there who shared such foresight?

We all know that Paul found such a partner, and their love story is as inspirational as it is rare, especially considering his chosen profession. Paul’s respect for old-fashioned values, antithetical as it may be to the core of rock, is exactly what gives “When I’m Sixty-Four” a timelessness that very few songs can claim.

66. “The Long And Winding Road”

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As spurious a project as Let It Be…Naked may have been, there is no question in my mind that it contains what should have been the definitive version of “The Long And Winding Road.” This was the song that Paul McCartney felt was wrested out of his control during the dissipation of The Beatles, leading to Phil Spector’s heavy-handed orchestration being laid upon a lovely piano ballad that needed little adornment. While it’s dubious whether the reimagined version of Let It Be released in 2003 proved anything at all about the merits of McCartney’s original vision for the album, it certainly proved he was in the right about this particular song.

But since we’re judging the songs by their official release and not by any lost intentions, “The Long And Winding Road” ends up ranked respectably in the 60’s, although it could have been much better. The song, on its own, is a moving portrait of resilience in the face of indifference, something that Paul was clearly dealing with at the time in respect to the waning attention spans of his bandmates. As usual, The Beatles took a specific circumstance and produced a song that could resonate with anyone who heard it regardless of their own personal situation.

That original recording shows The Beatles’ light touch with slower material, with Billy Preston’s organ fill in the break providing precisely the right amount of emotional support. Spector’s choirs and strings, on the other hand, bury everything in their path and lay on the pathos with a trowel. On top of Paul’s already-impassioned vocal, it’s overwhelming but not necessarily in a positive way.

The band’s effort is lost in the shuffle as well, particularly Ringo Starr’s notable work in gently nudging the song forward. Spector was known for the Wall of Sound; this is more like a fortress, imposing and impenetrable. And it steers the song closer to easy listening than The Beatles had ever been before.

Luckily, as I said before, the song is such a marvel that it manages to almost overcome all of this. It remains a beguiling mixture of triumph and botched opportunity.

65. “Fixing A Hole”

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Fascinating from its opening harpsichord buzzes to Paul seemingly spiraling out of earshot as he sings in the fadeout, “Fixing A Hole” is a song that insinuates and suggests without ever really staking a claim. It’s essentially an ode to keeping one’s thoughts in the here-and-now, but all the while the meandering music insists that such a task is far easier said than done.

Anyone doubting the subtler aspects of McCartney’s songwriting ability should start here. There is no chorus to fall back on, but the song does a sly job of pulling in the listener just the same. In between those verses about the benefits of mundane tasks for keeping busy, Paul inserts some galloping middle sections that get positively fired-up about those who get bogged down in hectic activities and needless confrontations while lacking the appreciation for gentler pursuits.

What’s ironic is that writing a song like “Fixing A Hole” requires exactly the kind of mind-wandering and flights of fancy against which the lyrics warn. Paul seems to be saying that there needs to be compartmentalization of such tendencies. It’s OK to let your brain indulge its wanderlust now and again, but stay too long, and it might not return.

Paul is losing that battle in the song though, and that struggle seems to get increasingly desperate until the fade-out, where he seems to be calling out for help from a great distance. He seems almost anguished in parts, which is effectively contrasted by George’s sure-footed guitar solo, one of the few such solos he was afforded on Sgt. Pepper’s.

The great thing about a song like “Fixing A Hole” is that it invites the listener both to delve deep into its intricacies and to enjoy it on surface level as an alluring piece of pop music. It’s just another illustration of the dichotomy that the song presents: the way our feet can be rooted firmly in the earth, no questions asked, while our head roams the stratosphere for answers.

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