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Vulture writer ranks all 213 Beatles songs

P

peteykirch

Member
Get Back at 105?

2YFfur1.gif
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
I mean, I know I'll see agree with a lot of these picks, but let's pick some of my favorite lesser-known Beatles songs—

204. ”She's Leaving Home," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967): A bathetic lugubrious mess, the nadir of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The call-and-response chorus is labored; the whole thing reeks of having come from a squaresville OffBroadway musical about kids these days. The instrumentation is unusual; there are no actual Beatles playing on the track, but no one cares because the song is so bad. Note that the subject of the song is essentially the same as David Bowie's ”Life on Mars," which does much more with it.
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Well then, he's goes all in.

(No Beatle is playing on "Eleanor Rigby" either, you idiot, and you put that one at #9.)

As for the top pick, the ending crescendo and piano chords is probably one of the best endings to a piece of music, ever, but I'm not personally a fan of "A Day in the Life" insofar as everything that comes before it.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
emag said:
Myself, I've come to value some of Harrison's work more than when I was younger. Here Comes the Sun, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Something are actually pretty high on the author's list, but would be even higher on mine, and the early stuff (Please Please Me) would be a bit lower.
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Same here, I didn't like "While my guitar gently weeps" nor "Something" when I was a kid. Of course, "Here comes the sun" was, is and forever will be my favorite song ever, so obviously it's my #1 Beatles tune.

BumRush said:
Never going to agree with another person's list of Beatles songs, but it's still fun to read the reasonings.

I think Blackbird is the best song ever written, While My Guitar at #2 and A Day in the Life at #3
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So true. For example, I'll never agree with praising "A day in the life" so much. It's a good song, but doesn't feel particularly special to me.
 
K

KuwabaraTheMan

Banned
Okay, having songs like Dig a Pony, She's Leaving Home, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da and Only a Northern Song is the bottom 20 is criminal.

Wait? Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite at 185?! The Ballad of John and Yoko at 179?

Love Me Do seems way too low, too.

Whoa, what the fuck?! Happiness is a Warm Gun at at 110? That's a fucking top 3 song.

We Can Work It Out is way too low.

So songs like Flying, Hey Bulldog and Maggie Mae are better than Happiness is a Warm Gun, We Can Work It Out, and Good Morning?

It's around this point that I started just skimming through this list, which is so preposterous that I can't even deal with it.

A list that has She Loves You at 4 while Happiness is a Warm Gun can't crack the Top 100, and has While My Guitar Gently Weeps at 32, I Am The Walrus at 35, and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds at 68.

Yeah, it's safe to say that I'll never see eye to eye with this author.
 
A

acheron_xl

Member
Happiness is a Warm Gun is overrated.

Really glad to see Lovely Rita high. It was always my favorite song on Sgt. Pepper's.
 
T

Timeaisis

Member
132. ”I Want You (She's So Heavy)," Abbey Road (1969): A tedious workout. It sounded novel at the time, and there's some good sound, but it goes on for nearly eight minutes. I respect that Lennon is trying to strip down his work to elements, lose his ego, profess his love for Ono, and disappear to be reborn, all that shit. It's just a little artless. The Stones, led by Mick Taylor, would show how to take an idea like this and do it right in ”Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" on Sticky Fingers. The outro is interminable, undergirded with a roar of white noise, a nice effect. It finally ends, abruptly, with a sharp cut, mid-note. It was Lennon's idea, over the objection of engineer Geoff Emerick, as the latter tells the story. Later, Emerick came to feel Lennon was right.
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I guess there really is no accounting for taste. I will say, Can't you Hear me Knockin' is a fantastic song as well, but it's not like they cancel eachother out or anything. The raw simplicity and focus on a single, repeated riff set the stage for hard rock of the '70s, I'd say. Among other things, of course.
 
H

Hindl

Member
Zach said:
John Lennon on "Dig a Pony":



John Lennon on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer":



>_>
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Lennon thought a ton of the songs he wrote were garbage so that doesn't really mean much. And Maxwell's is a dumb song but it's still great
 
E

Eidan

Member
That "Across the Universe" rating is embarrassingly low.

My top five, no real order.

- For No One
- Tomorrow Never Knows
- A Day in the Life
- Eleanor Rigby
- And Your Bird Can Sing
 
U

uncelestial

Member
He spends the first 100 songs dragging the Beatles, most especially Paul. Why did they think this was the guy to handle this article?
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
While it would change with the day, my ad-hoc top five:

* She's Leaving Home
* Norwegian Wood
* If I Needed Someone
* Helter Skelter
* Things We Said Today

It's partially hard for me to pick because I collected the Beatles albums at different parts of my childhood to adolescence so it's sometimes hard to detach them from my my music tastes (and how they shaped them) at the time. Listening to "It's Getting Better" immediately puts me into my bedroom in middle school and I can tell you the exact layout of the room.
 
U

uncelestial

Member
SMG said:
It sounds good, but coming from a band that talks about free love and were all crazy rich before the age of 30 it always seems bitter and petty.
Gonna listen to Run For Your Life. Still a lot of Beatles songs I've missed.
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I will say, even though it leaves a bad taste to hear George complain about money, the "one for you, 19 for me" was literally the top tier tax rate in those days. If the government were taking 95% of any money I made past some arbitrary threshold, I would be pissed too.
 
eso76

eso76

Member
Would rank While my guitar higher, but aside from that it's an incredibly hard task.

I don't mind Penny Lane being in the top 3. It captures a particular atmosphere so incredibly well, it's such a special little song
 
R

Raigan5088

Banned
Cant argue with that #1 choice, A Day In The Life is the perfect song, the lyrics, the production on it, the sounds, everything about it is pure supremacy
 
O

Omadahl

Banned
Ob-la-di isn't just the worst Beatles song, it's one of the worst songs written in it's era. It's like someone puked a candy cane on a suburban white picket fence.
 
Megatron

Megatron

Member
IT's pretty much impossible to narrow this down definitively. My top 5 will definitely be different a month from now. If I had to name a top 5 now (in no order), I'd probably go:

Let it Be
Revolution
We Can Work it Out
Blackbird
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
 
Master Of Illusion

Master Of Illusion

Member
My somewhat fucked up list:

1. Abbey Road, Side 2
2. Don't Let Me Down
3. Eleanor Rigby
4. A Day In The Life
5. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
6. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
7. The Ballad Of John & Yoko
8. Octopus's Garden
9. Good Morning Good Morning
10. I Me Mine

I am also of the camp that believes Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is horrible.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
"I'm only Sleeping"
"Because"
"It's only love"

Edit: holy shit, my favorite song not only was in the top 100 (I'm only sleeping) but beat Across the Universe, Taxman, etc.
 
K

KuwabaraTheMan

Banned
If I was forced to make a list, it would probably look like this:

1. The Ballad of John and Yoko
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
3. Happiness is a Warm Gun
4. A Day in the Life
5. I am the Walrus
6. Eleanor Rigby
7. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
8. Here Comes the Sun
9. Something
10. Come Together

Making a list is really hard, though. Easily another 30 songs that I could put up right around the bottom part of that list.
 
C

compo

Banned
My favorite song is The Night Before. It's the song that captures best that mid-60's pop sound that was colorful and playful, but not tripping balls crazy yet.
 
W

War Peaceman

You're a big guy.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Hey Jude
The Abbey Road ending medley
Maxwell's Silver Hammer

(in no particular order) Are the best songs by the Beatles.


Taxman is the worst not because of musical content but it is nauseating to listen to the world'd biggest band whine about taxation.
 
D

Dhx

Member
It seems people dismiss Penny Lane as a mere pop song. There is a lot of complexity going on with the chord structure and melody, especially for the time. It may not be in my Personal top 3, but it may be in my top 5, and certainly would be in my top 10.
 
A

acheron_xl

Member
Martha My Dear
Mother Nature's Son
Because
Lovely Rita
And Your Bird Can Sing
Oh! Darling
Here, There,and Everywhere
PS I Love You
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Something

Probably my top 10.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
TheSkullPrince said:
Here Comes the Sun is the best Beatles song, other songs may come close but HCtScis their most beautiful song.
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I like you. That song makes me feel happy like few others can. It's bright and powerful and beautiful and sounds incredible.

compo said:
My favorite song is The Night Before. It's the song that captures best that mid-60's pop sound that was colorful and playful, but not tripping balls crazy yet.
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This is a strange opinion, but it's a hell of a song indeed. It has such a great rhythm!
 
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