This month we are tackling my favorite band, The Beatles!
For those of you who don’t know, The Beatles are a group of lads from
Liverpool, England whose music spanned a mere decade but spawned millions of
fans, cover bands, and the like. You could argue that they are the most
influential group of the twentieth century, but I digress. Here I am making a
playlist of my favorite Beatles songs.
Quite literally, this song captured an
entire generation of people. It was performed during the first worldwide
broadcast (written by John Lennon, no one knows whether he wrote it
specifically for this occasion or not) to convey a sense of unity and
togetherness. Which I think it does masterfully. There’s a nice throwback at
the end of the song, John starts singing “she loves you yeah yeah yeah” which
is, of course, from their earlier hit “She Loves You.” It’s a great song to
kick off this list, and happens to be one of my favorite songs ever.
For a change in mood, let’s now go to
“Eleanor Rigby.” Despite the fact that the lyrics are rather depressing, it’s a
rather upbeat song. I’ve never thought of it as a downer. The lyrics are quite
amusing as well, for example she puts on “a face that she keeps in a jar by the
door.” And if you listen for the story, the priest and Eleanor come together at
the end as he digs her grave, which isn’t the happiest thought. Honestly
though, I think it captures modern life quite well as we are so isolated from
each other, when literally there’s someone else right next door. In that sense,
this song is a foil to “All You Need is Love.”
3. “Let It Be”
A classic Paul McCartney written song. One
fun fact about it is that “mother Mary” is actually his mother, Mary McCartney,
and not the Virgin Mary. It’s also about the Beatles breaking up and arguing,
and how in times of trouble sometimes you just have to let things be. It’s
amazing how such pain (the four members of the group were great friends) can
create wonderful art such as this. It’s a great segue from “Eleanor Rigby”
since the previous song ended on a sad note, this one adds a bit of hope to the
mix.
John Lennon wrote this song about his
childhood. You can still visit Strawberry Fields if you go to Liverpool,
something that every Beatle fan does at some point. What I find fascinating
about this song is its wacky lyrics: “living is easy with eyes closed” or “no
one I think is in my tree.” John here is trying to talk about how he thinks
he’s on another plane from everyone else, and it’s easy for him to just kind of
get by in life, but he doesn’t want to do that. Of course, I think that this is
applicable to everyone with an ego, we all think that we’re different from everyone
else. Just as John here is returning to his childhood, we all have had separate
upbringings and separate experiences that have shaped who we became.
This is off of the album “A Hard Day’s
Night,” which supplemented their first Beatle film as well. It’s just so fun to
listen to, even in the movie this is the song for where the four of them escape
and get outside and do wacky things on this random lawn. Its also got a great
message about how money exists, but it can’t buy the important things in life.
Which is something we must remember, especially in this day and age.
Off of their last studio album, “Come Together”
was written by John Lennon about political togetherness and how we need to band
together. Its got a bit of a jazzy feel to it, which has made it one of the
more popular Beatles tunes. It was also covered by Aerosmith rather famously,
but no one needs that in my opinion when the original is around.
7. “For No One”
This I think is one of the few songs that
really sums up what love and breakups are all about. Paul McCartney wrote it,
and it’s one of his most underrated songs in my opinion. The melody is
gorgeous, especially with the French horn playing it partway through. It just
gets it, when you’re fighting with your significant other, you’re upset, but
it’s not for you or for your partner. It really is for no one.
George Harrison wrote this tune, and it’s
one of his best works. I think it’s lovely. The music is so delicate, like a
flower finally opening up to the sun for the first time, and captures the sense
of the moment perfectly. This is another song about the Beatles breaking up,
and how George knew that eventually everything would be alright. It’s also
frequently covered by other artists as well, but again, why would you want that
when this perfect original is right here?
9. “Hey Jude”
This is a Paul McCartney tune, but it’s
written for John Lennon’s son, Julian. John and his first wife Cynthia were
going through a divorce, and Paul wanted to write Julian something that would
tell him to stay determined and keep going. At the time, it was the longest
number one hit due to the absurd number of na na nas at the end. But that also
makes it a great sing along song, which is really more important. As we reach
the end of this playlist, this makes for a great wrap up.
This is the last song off of their most
famous album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I figured that it would
be a perfect goodbye song here as well. It finishes off the list of Beatles
tunes, and has a distorted ending to remind you that in the end, this was a
group of four guys just experimenting and seeing how far they could push the
limits of music at the time. Everything that they did has since become
commonplace, but they were the groundbreakers and the first to do these things.
Music was never the same again.
So you might have noticed that it’s not quite
the same as my ranking of Beatles songs
that I did a couple years ago. Some songs just work better in a playlist than
others. Anyways, I had a lot of fun exploring one of my favorite bands in a new
way, I hope that it made you think about the songs differently, or introduced
you to a new one! Next month will be something also different, I will be
creating a playlist entirely of album
openers! We shall see where that takes us, it’s a bit of a challenge to
craft a decent playlist when all of the songs are the first one, but let’s see!
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