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:

9. “Something”

8. “Strawberry Fields Forever”

7. “In My Life”

6. “All You Need Is Love”

5. “Hey Jude”

LISTEN HERE  

It began with something very personal. John Lennon had separated from his wife Cynthia, with a divorce forthcoming. Paul McCartney felt bad for Cynthia, but also for her son Julian, who was still just a little boy. Paul had become good friends with the lad, so much so that Julian would later recall spending much more time with McCartney than with his Dad. So Paul decided to visit, and on the car ride over began to compose a simple song to try and cheer the child up.

From such a humble beginning “Hey Jude” was born, a song that is ubiquitous even today, some 40 years or so since its release in 1968. And yet it hasn’t lost any of its impact, any of its power to uplift, to encourage, to sustain, to console. It’s become nothing less than an anthem for anyone suffering from the immediate sting of loss, a song that pinpoints the part of us that hurts the most and begins the healing process almost immediately through the sheer force of its good-natured will.

Over the years, many people have tried to come up with other possible inspirations for the song other than Paul’s obvious explanation. Lennon heard it as a song about him and his newfound relationship with Yoko; others heard Macca’s song as a bit of advice to himself; and still others have come out of the woodwork claiming the song is about them. You know what? They’re all right. That’s the beauty of “Hey Jude.” It’s constructed in such a way that it belongs to everyone, a bastion of hope in the bleakest of hours.

Paul could have kept the song at the personal level and sprinkled in details that would have narrowed the song’s focus, and it likely would have worked, but not on the scale that it does. The Beatles usually swung for the cheap seats with their songs, going for the broadest possible audience a large percentage of the time, especially on their singles. They did this not by pandering, but by presenting their own takes on universal themes and doing so in novel ways, giving the listener a perspective they might not have heard before or even shedding a light on a perspective inside of the listener that they didn’t even know they had.

The sound of “Hey Jude” has been so widely cannibalized over the years by every rock ballad that you can wave a lighter at that it’s easy to forget that the song is as influential as it is moving. Paul’s plink-plunk piano style has, for better or worse, become the standard for every band or artist wanting to show their sensitive side. Most times these moves come off as cynical, but for The Beatles it was an organic progression and what suited the song best.

The gradual introduction of each instrument also is taken for granted today, but again, it was something new at the time. Most rock songs came on full bore from start to finish, but on “Hey Jude,” The Beatles found a way to let the song breathe and to allow each new sound to bring something novel to the table. Starting with just Paul’s piano and vocal, the song eventually encompassed a gigantic orchestra blaring out the refrain in the coda. Along the way, Ringo Starr’s gently intuitive drums are a real standout; his drumming has what sports fans call “touch,” that indefinable and unteachable ability to know precisely what was needed for each song in terms of loudness or beat. The backing vocals are particularly memorable as well, and leave it to Lennon to deflate the somber proceedings by dropping the F-bomb. (Listen real close for his voice in the last verse right as Paul sings “then you begin.”)

The song itself is deceptively simple once you take away all the ornate touches. The melody gets you right in the gut without being needlessly complex. The chords are pretty straightforward. And Paul sings right on the melody, letting his direct lyrics do the talking. There is some real cosmic beauty in those lyrics. “For well you know that it’s a fool/Who plays it cool/By making his world a little colder.” Those are lines that we all get immediately and yet they never occurred to us before.

Once again, this is a McCartney-type message, illustrating the difference between John and him. Whereas Lennon accepted loneliness and isolation as a part of the tapestry of life in songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Nowhere Man,” Paul strives against it and offers alternatives. Even Lennon could relate to Paul’s point of view. When Paul debated dropping the line “The movement you need is on your shoulder,” John wouldn’t allow it. John knew what Paul subconsciously was getting at: that even when all hope seems lost, there is always something to guide us. Whether it’s God, or a lost loved one, or even just our own inner strength, it’s there.

Lest you think I forgot, it’s time we got to the coda, that cathartic round of na-na-nas that takes the song into infinity. It’s the answer that Paul has been promising for the entire song, the movement that will set us free from sorrow. I mentioned this idea when discussing “Two Of Us,” but the wishful-thinking part of me hears that coda as The Beatles jamming endlessly on these three chords, even as the song fades out. When we need them the most, we can always reach for “Hey Jude,” and we’ll find The Beatles forever talking in our very own personal sad song, and making it better.

4. Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End

LISTEN HERE  

Before I begin, I fully realize that I’ve pretty much broken every rule that I’ve laid down for this list by including all three songs of the closing medley on Abbey Road in one entry. I know that I split up the previous medley on the album into individual songs. I apologize. My logic is that these songs are so seamlessly entwined, not only on record but in our hearts and minds, that I wouldn’t dare separate them. Simple as that.

I also would like to implore you not to try to take any personal relevance from these songs when you listen to them. I know I’ve stressed over and over again that The Beatles were great at taking their own personal experiences and turning them into songs that resonated with listeners and all that mumbo-jumbo, but kick that right to the curb here. Even if these songs do resonate with you, stop your resonating right now. The Beatles gave us enough that we should allow this goodbye to be solely about them, and nothing else.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, all I can say about this amazing medley is…wow! And this is coming from someone who hates medleys with a passion. When I see one on a music awards show I begin to babble incoherently and compose manifestos against the practice. You can check them out on my website, jbevs1001reasonswhymedleysshouldbedestroyed.com. (Editors note: This website does not exist. Ignore Jbev’s bizarre ramblings on all topics besides The Beatles, and even those you should take with a grain of salt.)

This medley is proof that Paul McCartney had the foresight to be concerned about The Beatles legacy, even while the group members themselves were at a time of extreme dysfunction. There was little secret among the band that Abbey Road would be the last album they would record, so Paul rallied the troops for an appropriately majestic sendoff.

And how fitting to frame it as a lullaby. He was, after all, putting The Beatles to bed. Throughout the medley, Macca does an amazing job of saying so much with very little verbiage. When you get right down to it, this medley has very few lyrics to speak of. But every one of those sparse words counts, especially that killer opening line: “Once there was a way to get back homeward.” This is the chilling admission that fans around the world never wanted to hear, a line that speaks of chances lost and opportunities missed and the heartbreaking feeling that The Beatles could not go home again. Once, maybe, but not now, not anymore.

Once Ringo clears a path with his snares, Paul sings the refrain with tremendous power, putting all of his pent-up frustration and anger into those ancient lines. This is a lullaby that will actually wake you from any lingering dreams and leave you in the cold harsh light of the unforgiving truth. But, at the moment when there seems to be no consolation left to give, the booming refrain of “Carry That Weight” kicks in.

There has been much interpretation as to whom Paul intended this part. Speculation runs from a dig at Lennon to a self-administered pep talk by Paul to a more recent critical view that sees the song as a way of admitting that the solo careers that would await the band would never live up to The Beatles’ legacy. I think there is a bit of truth in all of those. I see it as Paul acknowledging that the four men would always have to carry the weight of being a Beatle, not just in terms of the shadows cast over their career but in terms of the way they were viewed in everyday life. In many ways, no matter what they would do henceforth, their individuality was sacrificed forever, and they would always have to live up to the Beatles standard, whether it be in the studio or just walking down the street.

But even with this burden being borne, the music and the melody is upbeat, as if that lofty brass was spurring the afflicted forward. A refrain of “You Never Give Me Your Money” is next, a clear-eyed reference to the petty problems that had beset the group. In the face of all this pressure, they were breaking down.

“The End” refuses to let things finish on any down note. It’s more like a completion of the concert that The Beatles had put on for the dozen or so years since John and Paul first got together. And what better time to let their hair down and go to town on their instruments. After Paul sets the stage with his feverish belting, Mr. Richard Starkey takes his first and only drum solo with the group, a moment of thrilling indulgence that he had earned through so many years of bowing before the songs. The three remaining members take turns blasting through the boogie-rock beat with scorching solos, taking it all back to The Cavern once again.

After John’s final fuzzy blast, the air clears with some tinkling piano, and Paul gives his final pronouncement, with John and George in bittersweet harmony one last time: “And in the end/the love you take/is equal to the love/you make.” Hollywood screenwriters would kill for a closing line so concise and profound. And it somehow encapsulates everything the boys had been telling us since the beginning. It’s not the end of the line, but the completion of a circle of, what else, love, eternal and unbreakable, like a beautiful song that never fades out. The Beatles let out one final harmonized sigh, as if their work is finally done.

The perfect symmetry of this medley would be messed up by the carcass of the Get Back project being dragged into the world as Let It Be after the demise of the group had already occurred. But enough time has passed that we can appreciate the “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” medley as the Grand Finale that it was intended to be and that the group deserved. In the end, only The Beatles could write the fitting ending to their world-changing story.

3. “She’s Leaving Home”

LISTEN HERE  

Two names for your next Beatles trivia quiz: Mike Leander and Sheila Bromberg. Any guesses? Leander was responsible for the beautiful string arrangement on “She’s Leaving Home,” filling in for George Martin who was busy at the time Paul McCartney wanted it to be done during the Sgt. Pepper’s sessions. And Bromberg plays the harp on the track, becoming the first female to appear on a Beatles’ recording.

And, yes, I did say harp. And I don’t mean a harmonica being called a harp. I mean a harp, as in upscale-brunch harp. St. Peter-at-the-gates-of-heaven harp. Yanni harp. So what, you may ask, is a song with a harp doing ranked so well on a list of songs by a rock band?

Well, if rock’n’roll is the music of youthful rebellion, than “She’s Leaving Home” fits that bill as well as any song in The Beatles’ canon. Only it’s not the cathartic, spit-at-your-elders rebellion of punk rock. Nor is it the nihilistic, the-world-is-a-dump rebellion of grunge.

What it is, Beatles fans, is a mature, realistic story that depicts the generation gap in stunning detail. It’s a song that understands that while the us-against-them view of the relationship between kids and parents may be appealing to teenagers, the truth is rarely that black and white. Paul McCartney and John Lennon dare to humanize the parents in “She’s Leaving Home,” taking a newspaper item about a young runaway girl and turning it into a moving treatise on the way that generational miscommunication can develop into something that’s equal parts tragic and liberating.

McCartney wrote the music and much of the lyrics here, but he also deserves credit for the subversive casting of John as the aggrieved parents. The lyrics are cinematic in scope. Notice that the girl who runs away never utters a word in the song, leaving a letter to do her talking; her parents have long since lost the ability to hear her cries for help. But she’s not angry when she leaves, nor is she initially happy. The one brief glimpse of her mindset is gleaned from her “clutching her handkerchief,” so that it’s nearby when the tears fall. She’s not just carrying it, but she’s holding on to it for dear life, perhaps as a sign of stress, perhaps to steel her resolve for what she’s about to do.

In verse two, the parents discover the letter, and the scene of the mother standing momentarily frozen is a real grabber. The mother referring to her husband as “Daddy” is the height of irony, since his parenting skills clearly left a bit to be desired. Further evidence of this comes from their first reaction, which is not concern for their daughter’s well-being, but rather rampant self-pity.

The neatest trick that Lennon and McCartney pull off here is the way they play with the sequence of events. The verses move forward in linear fashion, but the refrains have the parents stuck in that moment in which they find the letter. As the girl moves forward to her new life, making appointments and new friends just two days after her departure, the parents can only proceed internally, going through three stages of grief in the three choruses: shock, denial, and then acceptance. That acceptance, which seems to be prodded along by Paul gently singing the title refrain until it sinks in, comes finally when the parents understand their mistakes.

But the point to take away is that they were not intentionally harming this girl. In their minds, they thought they were doing the right thing by their daughter. To their credit, the song doesn’t show them frantically searching for her at the end. Instead, their last words are a heartbreaking farewell. Maybe they finally realized that the girl’s freedom would be more beneficial to her than all of their monetary gifts. It’s like the old maxim that says you should let your kids choose their own path, and eventually it will lead them home.

That may not be the anarchic message of your prototypical rock song, and certainly the method of conveying that message, via harps and strings with nary a drum, wasn’t run-of-the-mill either. The Beatles understood that there was more to rock that guitars and drums, just as they realized there was more to parents and children than just clichéd rancor. “She’s Leaving Home” is the realization of all of that foresight and insight. All rock music should be so accomplished.

Comments (3)