Worst Beatles Single

I think it gets the boost of all unheralded B-sides: they avoid overplay by radio as well as by novice fans, then you get to discover them tucked away on the compilation and they sound really fresh compared to everything else. Also a few really good lyrics of a bent George doesn't do so often, mainly "Want a short-haired girl who sometimes wears it TWICE as long!" No idea what that means but I totally know what it means, y'know?

Also "For your sweet top lip I'm in the QUEUE!"

Anthology version is good too.

I should have mentioned that I rated these against each other, not against the rest of the world of mere mortals. Add a point or two to everything if you want. "This song goes up to 11."

well, i'm relieved.

I left out Free As A Bird and Real Love for fear they would derail everything

good choice, but i can't imagine anyone voting for real love. maybe i'm alone on this, but it's definitely in my top 5 john songs.

Dude, people are voting for Paperback Writer and We Can Work It Out here. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

XXP But there have been so many good unheralded b-sides. I would say the best completely unheralded Beatles b-side is probably "This Boy". Also love "Thank You Girl".

blasphemy

― miss precious perfect (musically), Saturday, January 3, 2009 7:42 PM Bookmark

When I was a senior in HS, one of the few black students at my all-white school, there was an assembly I couldn't manage to get out of, and at the end of the assembly they played "Hey Jude", which at that point I'd never heard in my life. Everyone else sang along to this song I'd never heard before, and then it got to the coda and it just kept going on and on forever and ever with 2000 white kids surrounding me, enthusiastically chanting this neverending unfamiliar refrain. It was surreal. I have never felt more alienated in my life than that moment and I've absolutely detested "Hey Jude" ever since.

heh owned

Reminds me of Tom Ewing's complaint, that it starts out as an avuncular cheer-up chat and devolves into a gregarious, unsolicited bear-hug from which there's no escape and you wind up feeling sorry for Jude. Anyway I can sympathize, on the general principle that anything used in a school assembly context connotes forced fun, which, aligned with race or not, sucks.

I've already voted, but I would consider rating "Let It Be" higher because George's solos are fantastic.

"Hey Jude" is actually a nice little song that probably would have worked perfectly had George Martin had the balls to stop it at 3 and a half minutes.

Yeah, that's probably otm.

The Let It Be outro is pretty good the first couple times you hear it though.

They were running things by that point, Geir.

I don't think they even recorded that at Abbey rd

i don't hate "hey jude" the way some people do, but i definitely like assagai's awesome version better:

(uh i guess ignore the odd footage of old folx strolling in the park...)

i love don't let me down even tho i generally dislike the beatles

Can't fathom the dislike for Paperback Writer or Ticket to Ride or Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out. Surely the 64-66 run of singles is their best.

I hate Get Back but Don't Let Me Down makes it impossible to vote for. Also, All You Need is Love/Baby You're a Rich Man is pretty bad, relatively speaking of course.

Ultimately I had to go with Love Me Do, just incredibly simplistic and obnoxious. Please Please Me seems light-years ahead of it in every way

Favorite thing about that song is a few tunes removed: it's the story of Steve Jones saying how when Glen Matlock showed him the songs Glen played all these "wanky Beatle chords" and Steve replied: "Look, you're going to get a Major chord and that's it!" "When Glen played 'Anarchy' it didn't sound like 'Anarchy' it sounded like 'Love Me Do'."

Can't fathom the dislike for Paperback Writer
Me neither. It's the sound of Paul liberating himself from that clunky old Hofner.

Love Me Do vs. Ballad of John and Yoko

heyyyyyyyyy Jude

Guys, "Hey Jude" has to be so long because of that long part at the beginning when Ringo isn't drumming.

Let It Be

"Hey Jude" should have started with 2 minutes of Ringo alone, then add Paul and others, end it at 3:30

The version of Let it Be where the especially squealy guitar solo comes rising out of the quiet organ break is my fave.

From Me To You/Thank You Girl is probably the least compelling of these. The others have at least one good song. I Feel Fine is a bore but I like She's A Woman, for example.

Looking at the list reminds me how little use I have for Late John, and even less for solo John. Such laziness and hypocrisy, phoning in that drawly laconic vocal like it's supposed to be some sort of deep metacomment on rockstardom. As if he hadn't scrambled like fuck and craved every bit of the attention, and as if he didn't expect everyone to still lap it up. As if we're all supposed to be wowed by his lack of conviction and by his barely-disguised contempt for us; how deep, he's all dispassionate & like a guru & shit. Spare me.

Most of the crap/overplayed A-sides on this list are redeemed by their flipsides: I'll tolerate "Hey Jude" to get "Revolution", or "Hello Goodbye" (which is easily the worst Beatles #1) for "I Am The Walrus".

But "Old Brown Shoe" is not one of Harrison's better songs, and can't make up for the navel-gazing of "Ballad of John and Yoko", which has a couple clever lines but feels totally phoned-in (and not in a good way). Whenever I used to listen to the blue album as a kid, I'd always skip those two. Thus my vote.

xpost!

Guys, "Hey Jude" has to be so long because of that long part at the beginning when Ringo isn't drumming.

― ilx chilton (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, January 5, 2009 2:18 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok this is going over my head i think

Funny that we both talked about phoning it in. "Ballad" does kinda feel like a giant fuck-you from Lennon to...well, to everyone but Yoko, really. And not a very interesting one -- I'd far sooner listen to Plastic Ono Band.

Looking at the list reminds me how little use I have for Late John, and even less for solo John. Such laziness and hypocrisy, phoning in that drawly laconic vocal like it's supposed to be some sort of deep metacomment on rockstardom. As if he hadn't scrambled like fuck and craved every bit of the attention, and as if he didn't expect everyone to still lap it up. As if we're all supposed to be wowed by his lack of conviction and by his barely-disguised contempt for us; how deep, he's all dispassionate & like a guru & shit. Spare me.

― Ye Mad Puffin, Monday, January 5, 2009 2:37 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah...my distaste for almost anything Lennon did past say '68 is one of those things I have total conviction in but never wanna talk about because it would lead to a lot of annoying arguments or Yoko-blaming or whatever.

yeah, John seems like an asshole in a lot of ways, which makes any Yoko-blaming doubly lame. (There's a lot of Yoko hate in the Bob Spitz bio, which I was recently thumbing through)

that being said I will rep for a lot of solo Lennon stuff. Instant Karma, Pussycats, Plastic Ono Band, Fly, Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out

Disliking post '68 and solo Lennon is understandable, but his voice has little to do with it. His singing (and guitar playing) are generally sharper than songwriting during these periods.

I dislike Yoko's persona and work, but for the most part I think she just enabled tendencies in John that were already there, and would have come out anyway. Anything he did that sucks, personally or artistically, was his own fault.

</challops>

Anything he did that sucks, personally or artistically, was his own fault.

^^^yes. Its really tiresome to read these accounts of how the Beatles breaking up was all Yoko's fault because she was some kind of gold-digging interloper or whatever. Altho I totally disagree about Yoko's "persona" (not even sure what that means) and work. The golddigger accusation in particular seems kinda baffling to me because obviously anyone who wanted to keep the Beatles gravy train rolling would've tried to keep them TOGETHER.

guys I'm sorry I invoked "Yoko-blaming," I think it's obvious nobody here is really doing that and knows to judge Lennon's work on its own merits.

Yoko's "persona" (not even sure what that means)

I would say "personality", but I don't know her personally (though I know a couple people who met her and John, at least one of whom got a very negative impression of her). So U DONT KNO ME etc., and I can only base my impressions on her public/artistic persona, and the things she says in interviews, etc. All of which generally puts me off. Make sense?

xpost indeed

(For the sake of completeness, I had an acquaintance -- now deceased -- who knew, and loathed, McCartney, and said he was an absolute shithead.)

sure Charlie, no worries. And sorry for the yoko-blaming tangent it was just something I was thinking about the last couple days.

re-reading this list I am surprised to see that "You Know My Name" (and "The Inner Light"!?)were actually released as b-sides. And that Long and Winding Road was not a UK single. (understandable since its such a horrible song, I guess)

Considering all the weed he smokes, and as the noted author of "Monkberry Moon Delight," I'd say what's in his head is closer to mush than shit.

Lord Alfred: "Disliking post '68 and solo Lennon is understandable, but his voice has little to do with it. His singing (and guitar playing) are generally sharper than songwriting during these periods."

Huh? Instant Karma, Imagine, Watching the Wheels, Jealous Guy - all have the germ of perfectly decent rock songs in them, but are mostly ruined by the lazy, convictionless vocal style of the late Lennon.

And I don't mean anything stupidly simplistic like passionate = good, calm = bad, because that way lies Bono-itis. But the contrast between the energy that early-to-mid-career John brought to a vocal performance (cf. Twist and Shout) vs. the flat affect of e.g. All You Need Is Love is pretty telling.

You can arrive at that vocal style honestly and for well-intentioned reasons, but I never got the sense that John made it as a deliberate aesthetic decision; to me it is emblematic of a general self-indulgence that mars his later work. Put plainly, he doesn't sound like he's trying.

a) Maybe he didn't really care about pleasing anyone other than Yoko. b) Maybe he thought, Why bother trying if everyone around you is constantly assuring you that your every utterance is an act of the purest genius? c) He seemed pretty invested in telling everyone that fame/success was bullshit, thus it would be unseemly to appear to be actually seeking it out. d) He was embarrassed by the bubble-gummy Beatlemania material and wanted to distance himself from it, but his counterreaction was to exude contempt for the very IDEA of pleasing an audience. And if an artist doesn't give a hoot about me, I'm liable to return the favor.

Hey, YMP, you wanna pick on lazy singing, go pick on Lou Reed!

I wouldn't call any of the vocals on Plastic Ono Band "convictionless"

Huh? Instant Karma, Imagine, Watching the Wheels, Jealous Guy - all have the germ of perfectly decent rock songs in them, but are mostly ruined by the lazy, convictionless vocal style of the late Lennon.

Sheer madness. Great songs and vocals.

who cares about conviction? I'm sure Wings had plenty of conviction, but in the end, they were still fucking WINGS

It's what you do with conviction... it's what you do with vocals. it's what you do with singing.. it's what you do with orchestrating... etc.

yes. And ditto for "Woman", it doesn't have a "lazy, convictionless vocal" either, if we are talking about the latest work in his book. And to slur the Plastic Ono Band stuff this way, jeez.

I think it's a mix of the attitude problem described, John's own insecurities about his voice (trying to hide behind effects etc.) and just the ruination of said voice from overuse and exhaustion. There's not a Nilsson-esque break point, but by the end I don't think he physically COULD sing the way he used to. I don't mean just that he couldn't go as loud or as high, just the control and clarity and all that. His throat was torn to shreds.

Too bad Yoko was busy buying fur coats and cattle instead of investing in conviction.

t's what you do with conviction... it's what you do with vocals. it's what you do with singing.. it's what you do with orchestrating... etc.
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