the beatles. you know ’em. you’ve heard about ’em. incessantly. for fifty years. i’m sure your mind’s already well entrenched in whichever side of this ongoing cultural debate about “whether the beatles were good” you land on, so i’m not going to change your opinion about them either way. i just felt like sharing my ten favourite of their songs. make fun of me if you want to. i don’t care. what can i say? old people music is sometimes good.
- “revolution 9.”
famously the most divisive beatles song, this one is a totally deranged sound collage of screaming, crowd noise, piano cacophony, and radio static. very influential to me as a teenage ambient/noise musician. the people who say it’s bad are wrong. they just don’t recognize real art, maaaaaaaan. - “a day in the life.”
in my high school, i would’ve called this my favourite song ever. now, i don’t know what would hold that title (“dlp 1.1” by william basinski? i guess? i guess i just came to that realization right now. not sure how i feel about it.) what drew me in was the (i) melancholy, slightly silly retellings of news stories was a compelling narrative device, (ii) the ascendant and descendent orchestral swells before and after mccartney’s interlude, (iii) the broad relatability of mccartney’s description of a mundane morning routine, (iv) the orchestral swell followed by the prolonged piano crash at the end, (v) the devilishly annoying bit at the end where the shrill vocals repeat indefinitely on a record player because it’s carved directly into the groove. a fun little jaunt from begin to end! - “tomorrow never knows.”
revolver (1966) plays out as an alternating sequence of paul mccartney’s “i’m a happy good boy who’s in love (and also on drugs)” schtick and john lennon’s “ooga booga i’m the edgy drug man” schtick. “tomorrow never knows” is the latter to the fullest degree. and guess what. it slaps. - “you know my name (look up the number).”
the result of the liverpool lads goofing around in a music studio for a few hours, saying the same catchphrase over and over again in different inflections. how fun! - abbey road medley (“you never give me your money” / “sun king” / “mean mr. mustard” / “polythene pam” / “she came in through the bathroom window” / “golden slumbers” / “carry that weight” / “the end”).
this is my list. fuck you. i get to decide what counts as “one song.” - “why don’t we do it in the road?”
picking this for nostalgic reasons. i played this at a high school talent show, and it was a fucking hit. people really thought i was funny for doing that. that was maybe the last time i’ve felt unambiguously good about a decision i’d made. - “wild honey pie.”
the best beatles songs are the ones that have precisely one thing to say and they say it quickly and then leave. you hate to see an overstayed welcome. wild honey pie’s thing to say is “wild honey pie,” and it’s over in 0:52. - “i want you (she’s so heavy).”
and speaking of ‘overstayed welcomes,’ there’s this song. which goes on for so fucking interminably long that it wraps back around to being good again. and the way it ends abruptly, as if in the middle of a bar? sublime. - “i am the walrus.”
the piano part is easy to play and the nonsense lyrics are fun to chant out at classmates in a rented concert hall. - “eleanor rigby.”
this one’s just a good song.
ruminations of a sad oaf. 