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Thread: All 213 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best

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    RIP 2021 SEAWOLF97's Avatar
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    All 213 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best

    Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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    Senior Member srm51555's Avatar
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    Almost impossible to rank since they had such great music. Rubber Soul would be my favorite album, but favorite song, I couldn't choose one.

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    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    In retrospect, I find the Beatles' rockers more satisfying than their much loved career as balladeers. (I know, listeners will love lyrics. I prefer music to words unless the writer is exceptional. But to paraphrase the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, music will get you through a lyrics drought better than lyrics will get you through a music drought.) So my favorite remains "Please Please Me." It's the Beatles equivalent of the Beach Boys' "I Get Around." I think that pop and Rock ballads are not a natural fit for bands capable of high energy delivery. The worst of both worlds was/is the Power Ballad. To the Fab Four's luck/credit, they did not record in that era but probably would never have indulged in it. They had great taste.

    It is ludicrous to rank George's compositions with the rest of the catalogue, way too apples and oranges to have any meaning.

    Full disclosure, I was a much bigger fan of the British Blues than the Pop bands. More of a Rolling Stones/(Early) Fleetwood Mac fan. I first had a huge Teeny Bopper phase - for six months - and then the spell broke. Huge Beatles fan during, but after not so much until Rubber Soul and Revolver. I still listened to the Beatles, but Sonny and Cher fell by the wayside completely.
    Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
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    Senior Member hsosdrum's Avatar
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    No time at the moment to read the whole thing (it looks very well written and well reasoned), but my top 5 would be:

    1. A Day In The Life
    2. Strawberry Fields
    3. Tomorrow Never Knows
    4. She Loves You
    5. Medley: Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End

    Full disclosure: I've always been a huge Beatles fan. Saw them on all the Sullivan shows live , bought all the albums when they were first released (wish I still had the pristine mono copies we originally bought — I could sell them and probably retire) and just got the 50th anniversary edition of Sergeant Pepper's (which BTW, is wonderful! It's SO good to finally have a real, honest-to-goodness stereo mix of it, and of the Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane single). I even like Revolution 9 (a lot!).

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    Junior Member Amelia Williams's Avatar
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    My top 5

    In no particular order, these are my top 5 and on loop when working on something in my garden shed.

    1. Nowhere Man
    2. Paperback Writer
    3. Penny Lane
    4. The Ballad of John and Yoko
    5. Don't Let Me Down <3 <3 <3 !!!

    People say I'm too young to listen to the Beatles, but I have an old soul.

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    Senior Member hsosdrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amelia Williams View Post
    People say I'm too young to listen to the Beatles, but I have an old soul.
    Some friendly advice from an altacocker: Forever more ignore any advice given by people who say you're "too young" for anything — there's no such thing. (I was 12 when I started listening to the Beatles.) Revel in joy.

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    RIP 2021 SEAWOLF97's Avatar
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    these are the permanent residents on my Nano

    in no particular order.

    “She’s a Woman,”
    “Because,”
    “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),”
    “Another Girl,”
    “I’ll Follow the Sun,”
    “I’m Looking Through You,”
    “Things We Said Today,”
    “I Feel Fine,”
    “Help!,”
    “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,”
    “Day Tripper,”
    “I Saw Her Standing There,”
    “Here Comes the Sun,”
    Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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    Senior Member hsosdrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SEAWOLF97 View Post
    in no particular order.

    “She’s a Woman,”
    “Because,”
    “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),”
    “Another Girl,”
    “I’ll Follow the Sun,”
    “I’m Looking Through You,”
    “Things We Said Today,”
    “I Feel Fine,”
    “Help!,”
    “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,”
    “Day Tripper,”
    “I Saw Her Standing There,”
    “Here Comes the Sun,”
    I think that "I Feel Fine"/"She's a Woman" is the Beatles' second-best double A-side single, after "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane". I played the sh*t out of both sides when it first came out.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hsosdrum View Post
    I think that "I Feel Fine"/"She's a Woman" is the Beatles' second-best double A-side single, after "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane". I played the sh*t out of both sides when it first came out.
    OK, time I guess to lay bare my soul (or at least pref Beatles songs)

    out of that list, the 3 that get me going are :

    “Another Girl,”
    “Things We Said Today,”
    “I Saw Her Standing There,”

    yup, none of them very deep or musical. Guess I prefer the earlier stuff
    Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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    Senior Member hsosdrum's Avatar
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    It's all about what we make an emotional connection with. I still get chills whenever I hear "She Loves You". It was the first Beatle song I ever heard when I was 11. Ringo's opening tom-tom riff signaled the changing of my world.

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    Senior Member Fritz The Cat's Avatar
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    Worst song by the Beatles

    The Beatles' track i'd rather would like to be erased is "Revolution No 9". This is no fun at all definitively.....
    -= { Creek Destiny | Reson Rota + MM-Ortofon| Epos Encore Speakers | Nessie Washing Machine }=-

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    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fritz The Cat View Post
    The Beatles' track i'd rather would like to be erased is "Revolution No 9". This is no fun at all definitively.....
    Well... I was the guy that had a Dual manual 1009 turntable when it came out so I was tapped to spin it backwards. Then we knew why the repeating "Number Nine" rising inflection sounded so strange. It is a perfectly spoken - no sort of or I think I hear BS - "Turn me on, Dead man!". Sure it's a crap song, but nice Easter Egg.
    Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
    Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears


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    Senior Member hsosdrum's Avatar
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    The "Number nine" that is heard repeatedly throughout Revolution 9 was dubbed from recordings of B.B.C. test announcements (which included the same announcer saying other numbers with the same inflection) that Lennon found in the EMI Studios tape library. Its existence at the studio pre-dated the recording sessions for The Beatles (white album) by years. When played backwards, any resemblance to "turn me on dead man", regardless of how perfect it sounds, is 100% coincidental. The phrase was NOT intentionally put there by Lennon to be played backwards and decoded as some secret message; he included it because its sound quality was so pristine and its delivery was so mechanical that he thought it provided a striking contrast to all the other sounds on the track, which were taken from off-the-air recordings of radio programs, "white album" session outtakes, snippets of conversation and other bits and pieces found in EMI's extensive tape library. Like the P.A. system announcements in the film M.A.S.H., the repetitive "Number nine" statements are what ties together and provides context to what would otherwise be a disparate collection of sonic elements.

    BTW, the phrase near the end of the fade-out of Strawberry Fields Forever that we all heard as "I buried Paul" is in fact, Lennon saying "cranberry sauce". This is much easier to hear on the 2017 multi-track mix of the song than it is on the mono mix that went on the 45rpm single back in early 1967.

    All of the Beatle's EMI Studios recording sessions have been fastidiously and exhaustively researched by Mark Lewisohn in his book.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fritz The Cat View Post
    The Beatles' track i'd rather would like to be erased is "Revolution No 9". This is no fun at all definitively.....
    I accidentally put it on my Nano once. After hearing, it was the first thing erased when I got home.
    Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hsosdrum View Post

    All of the Beatle's EMI Studios recording sessions have been fastidiously and exhaustively researched by Mark Lewisohn in his book.
    No doubt. Due to the enormous popularity of the band, culturally and musically, they have been researched ad nauseum. When I was living in my college town and the disk came out, theories and rumors abounded and we had some fun with it. I suppose it is a case of "never let the truth get in the way of a good story", but since Lennon famously told an interviewer he was a complete liar, and he had at least to that point stuck with his story that Lucy In The Sky (With Diamonds) had nothing to do with LSD (which Paul said he had eaten like candy) and that had never occurred to him when he wrote it, I and we would have been disinclined to believe his explanation about just about anything. So we had fun with it.
    Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
    Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears


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