Worst Beatles song on Revolver

the lyrics to taxman (rich popstar whines about the inland revenue) are nauseating enough to distract from the groove.

^^^ This.

Anyone with foolish reservations about "Here There And Everywhere" should listen to the Emmylou Harris version. (Same goes for the Earth Wind & Fire version of "Got To Get You Into My Life", obviously.)

Yeah but the Emmylou Harris version isn't on Revolver, and the version on Revolver IS a bit dull, so I'm still voting for it.

I'm fixating on "worst Beatles SONG", though. "HT&E" is a great song!

yeah, forgot the thread title: It's a bit undercooked (whereas they were in plentycook mode about now) but it's a great song.

I get what you mean, BUT we're talking about pop/rock here, and the platonic essence of the song is the recording, not the score, so I'm judging based on what's on the actual album, not the chord sequence of melody divorced from that.

OR melody.

I Want To Tell You is a bit perfunctory, isn't it?

I wish Paperback Writer and Rain were on here.

Anyone who votes for any of these obvious perfect classics is crazy:

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I'm Only Sleeping
5. Here, There and Everywhere
7. She Said, She Said
9. And Your Bird Can Sing

I get what you mean, BUT we're talking about pop/rock here, and the platonic essence of the song is the recording, not the score, so I'm judging based on what's on the actual album, not the chord sequence of melody divorced from that.

The melody and the chord sequence are always on the actual recording.

Yes, but we are not voting on the melody and chord sequence IN ISOLATION of the recording; we are voting on the Beatles' recordings of these songs as released on this album.

and people say my rhetoric gets tedious, gee

(that wasn't aimed at anyone particular but to be fair we are talking about the beatles here, not emmylou harris or whatever)

I always forget Good Day Sunshine and GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE BA BA BAAA BA are on this album. I have consistently unprogrammed them from the CDs and left them out of tapes for years and years.

I think it's easier to skip Good Day Sunshine since it was the first song on the second side (yes no?) but GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE is just this horrible cold bucket of awfulness between two otherwise fantastic songs. Honestly, it is the SURPRISE BUTTSECKS of Beatles segues.

Man, I have no idea how people can dislike GTGYIML. I wonder if there's some sort of inverse relationship between the people who hate Eleanor Rigby and the people who hate GTGYIML.

Then I suddenly see you
Did I tell you I need you
Every single day of my life?

Not that keen on Eleanor Rigby, either.

This was the first Beatles CD I bought - and one of the first maybe three or so CDs I bought, period - and it was specifically for "Got To Get You Into My Life." Awesome song.

xp: okay, so that's not it. It just seems like those two songs are where I differ with the majority on this poll so far.

I'm all about I'm Only Sleeping, Love You To, She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows, really.

Yeah, those are hard to fuck with.

This one's the toughest to choose, right?

Yellow Submarine is the only song on this album that will be sung in 300 years. Eleanor Rigby ia kuh-lame.

Eleanor Rigby should not be played so much on oldies radio. I just wish the old bag would die already.

Aretha's version made me a convert.

eleanor rigby haters - why?! it's such an incredible song. although it does smell like old libraries and school halls for some reason. still love it. i once remember seeing a large choir reciting it on tv and it was astonishing.

Difficult choice, its a fantastic album from start to finish. Going for I Want To Tell You, just because.

huh i'd never heard this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBBN0T5PYXY

Really?!

I can't really imagine a time when I'd actually want to hear Yellow Submarine - like, deliberately put it on. On the other hand, my four year old son likes it.

Yellow Submarine was in the charts and on the radio when I was four - and oh, how I loved it. Especially the "full speed ahead captain!" bit in the middle, and the bit where the cheeky little fella repeats the lines. All very stimulating to a four-year old's imagination.

Rigby - because I'm mean and don't want to hear about some lonely old lady 10x a day.

Would it be possible these days for a mass audience pop group to put out an album as eclectic as this? I mean, from Yellow Submarine to Tomorrow Never Knows, with a half-dozen other genres in there as well.

zelda - i pine for this kind of thing too. seems that a lot of albums these days concentrate on consistency, working on ploughing a very distinct furrow, which is great - but a lot of my favourite albums throughut history, Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile", The Boo Radleys' "Giant Steps", Aphex's "I Care Because You Do" and of course "Revolver"; are real genrific hopscotchers. Who's doing this kind of thing these days?

Aphex's "I Care Because You Do"

rly?

Faith No More put out some incredibly diverse albums in the 90s.

Also Basement Jaxx.

Generic hopscotching is one of the reasons I've always rated Kevin Ayers so highly.

Funny you should say that, one of the biggest complaints I've read about Joakim's new album is that it "hopped about genres too much" - that kind of thing is frowned upon these days. :-(

Aphex's "I Care Because You Do"

rly?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 23 September 2009 15:24 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You ask rly?, but at the time it felt incredibly eclectic. I listened to it the other day and admit it has dated somewhat and maybe something like Druqks would be a better example these days. But you've got the harsh industrial beats of "Come On You Slags", experiments like "Ventolin", and this is all juxtaposed with more melodic/ambient material like "Alberto Balsalm" and some of the last few tracks.

I'm sure there are bands out there being eclectic, but there's more emphasis these days on a consistent sound, even if it's one that evolves from album to album. Maybe back in 1966, the genres hadn't been set so much in stone, so the situation was more fluid. Maybe Revolver didn't sound so eclectic then as it does now, when we have all the different genres nailed down.

I have "Druqs" but not "I care", just wondered...

re aphex: not wanting to derail too much, but "I Care" is one of his best. as i say, it works more as a document now as opposed to something that will blow yr mind. it's the album that falls between his early techno/ambient era and his later drill'n'bass/acid stuff but doesn't really rely on any of those styles. as such it's his least predictable record.

inconsistency is more difficult to grasp and to market, ergo it is frowned upon

maybe replace inconsistency with "eclecticism" there

Anyone with foolish reservations about "Here There And Everywhere" should listen to the Emmylou Harris version.

Agreed. The Harris version is so poor that it enables realisation of how good the original is.

Eleanor Rigby

tax man because as my mother says, at this point they were way too young to be singing right wing lyrics

This is nutty, but I love "Good Day Sunshine" because, as the piano gradually gets louder, the drums kick in, and the cymbals echo backwards until the vocals explode, it approximates the feeling of a drug coming on.

true, the tax rates for high earners were pretty astronomical back then

Yeah but as Harrison said later "It's a song that goes regardless if it's the sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties,there's always a taxman.".

Here is a picture of Harrison's house that he bought after paying all that tax.
http://images.francisfrith.com/c10/450/34/henley-on-thames_H73303.jpg

Also it's the f-ing opening track, the big opening statement. It's always pissed me off ,probably because, you know, it's quite good apart from the sentiment.

Dude, you like paying taxes? I dont.

its an honor and a privelege. I like roads and schools and environmental regulations

I mostly ignore the sentiment and think of it as a Monty Python sketch ie about a humorless/evil British taxman in a bowler hat