These are my 25 favorite Beatles songs. I’ve sorted through the entire Beatles catalog and composed this list for you. Along with each song is my defense/story/reason why I’ve listed in the order that it appears. Discuss and tell me your favorites! Enjoy!
Here they are…. the Beatles!
25. Drive My Car/ The Word/ What You’re Doing
One of the cool things about the Rubber Soul album is that it marks a huge shift in the Beatles’ sound. As you will be able to tell very soon I am a huge fan of their later work. Before the Beatles stretch the boundaries of rock music, the first song off Rubber Soul shows us why the Beatles were already the greatest band of all time with Drive My Car. My favorite version of this song comes off the Love Album. For me in any party mix this version is a must, it gets people moving.
24. Day Tripper
Day Tripper is classic early Beatles, without being just another I love her, she loves me song. This is one of the edgier early songs. Side Note: As a tambourine player, I love the tambourine action on this song.
23. Lovely Rita
This is one of my favorites off the Sgt. Pepper album. I am not sure how many other people would have this one on their top 25. There are so many great lines, and there so many different elements in this song that make Sgt Pepper such a great album. Also explains my attraction to meter maids.
22. You Never Give Me Your Money
I wish I could put the entire second half of Abbey Road on this list, but I will start with the first song of the Medley. “You Never Give Me Your Money” is a simple but heavenly sounding song. I feel like any recent college grad can relate to this song. It also builds up quite a bit momentum leading you into the rest of the medley. One of my favorite parts is the line “one sweet dream came true… today” followed by an awesome guitar riff. The fading in and out of the phrase “1,2,3,4,5,6,7 all good children go to heaven” gives me chills.
21. Get Back
This is a great rock tune. I love the version from the original Let It Be release, where you can hear John and Paul talking just before/after the song. It is the tiny moments like those that make me feel like I’m on the rooftop to watch their final concert. “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves I hope we passed the audition.”
20. I’m Looking Through You
If you were to ask me which Beatle I like more John or Paul, I would respond with this song from Rubber Soul. Now this is a song written and sung by Paul, but to me it is Paul doing an impression of John. I think I relate more to Paul, but I wish I were more like John. I like that Paul did not write another sweet love song, and instead he got a chance to be kind of an asshole. “Love has a nasty habit of disappearing over night”
19. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
It is the most beautiful song ever written about a pyromaniac. Dylan influenced. AND! Provides a good lesson to all the ladies out there that John Lennon might burn your house down. Moral of the story is that if you offer John Lennon a seat, have a chair ready for him.
18. Good Day Sunshine
In the early stages of love? Play this song, and you will know why this is on my list. Walk around town with this song playing on your iPod and try to pretend you are not on top of the world.
17. She Said, She Said
…one of my favorite songs off Revolver. If you have ever witnesses two of your friends argue while on drugs, I bet it was not this brilliant. Based on the story of an acid tripping Peter Fonda insisting to John “he knows what it was like to be dead” and John responding with the eerie “You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.” That is just crazy! My friends, if ever on any kind of substance just argue over pizza toppings and Halo.
16. I’ve Just Seen a Face
One of the early Beatles tunes from Help! I love it for the all-same reasons as Good Day Sunshine. In addition to that, it kind of a country twang to it as well, which in this case is awesome.
http://bit.ly/G88d9 or ( the Across the Universe Version) http://bit.ly/glPrz
15. Hey Jude
I debated on weather or not I would put this on the list (I realized that is somewhat sacrilegious). How cliché I thought. Then I start to rationalize it and it went from bottom of the list all the way up. How the hell could have I a legitimate Beatles list without this song? Everyone loves Hey Jude! I’d love to sing this song with friends, family, and the rest of the world while wailing on the piano. I love the original, but I do I have a soft spot for the shortened version on the Love album where they drop the music and you can hear everyone singing along. I bet this song is what world peace feels like.
14. Here Comes the Sun
There is a lot of hope and humanity wrapped up in this song. Listen to this song, and tell me you don’t love it.
13. Strawberry Fields Forever
Good music will take you to a different place. Close your eyes, listen, and be taken to a place a thousand miles away from the worries of this place. Strawberry Fields is escapism at this best. Not only is it a great song, but with its psychedelic and distorted lyrics work to add to the Beatles’ mystique (hidden meanings, subliminal messages, Paul is Dead type stuff).
12. Hello Goodbye
Another great, for me this song is all about the last 50 seconds. One thing I really enjoy about the Love Album is that they took Strawberry Fields and meshed it with Hello Goodbye. Listen to it, your ears will love you for it.
11. Tomorrow Never Knows
I like to imagine what someone who heard this song for the first time back in 1965 thought when they heard this song. Think about it, you just got through listening to Revolver for the first time, and you come to the end of it then they hit you with this! Tape loops, sitar drone, the drums, and backwards guitars… consider my mind officially blown. Here is a 2 minute clip from the Beatles Anthology about the making of Tomorrow Never Knows http://bit.ly/DQusl
10. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
This is easily the creepiest and scariest songs in the entire Beatles’ catalog. With that said there is also something sexy about it, but definitely more scary than sexy. It is genius in so many ways. The song perfectly placed right in the middle of Abbey Road. Its lyrics are so simplistic (some 14 or 15 words in all, someone double check that). Clocking in at over 7 minutes the songs sounds like it could go on forever. Just after the 4-minute and a half mark, the song starts a long march that can only lead to madness. The guitars become deeper and more distorted. If I had to make any guess, I think this is what death sounds like. By the end of this song, I am terrified, luckily on the CD versions of Abbey Road Here Comes the Sun comes on immediately to save me from the darkness of death.
9. Hey Bulldog
This song is a classic, and I wish more people knew about it! From the opening piano chords to the crazy back & forth between John and Paul at the end this song is just a ton of fun. They sound like they are having fun recording it, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t either.
8. Rain
Rain is a personal favorite; if you are not a huge Beatles fan then you might not recognize it. This is another great song. That marks another leap in the Beatles’ sound. This came out just before Revolver, and was an indication of the new direction on the next album. Looking for a groundbreaking song? Well this is it.
7. I’ve Got A Feeling
It took me a while to get on board with this song. I would look at the title and think Paul’s going on about his feelings again. Then you listen and realize this is just a great rock song. Then you dig a bit deeper and you think, this is why the Beatles are great. A lot of people will point to A Day in the Life and show that as a sign of great lyrical collaboration between John and Paul, but in my opinion I’ve Got A Feeling is better in that respect. I love watching the video from the rooftop concert of this song. If you are still wondering “what is the big deal with this band called the beatles?!?” Check out the square at 1:20 on this video.
6. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Here on this song, George Harrison at his best. Both versions of this song White Album and acoustic version are great. The Beatles have a good knack for knowing when to bring an outside musician in to help take a song to the next level. Eric Clapton’s guitar solo is timeless.
5. In My Life
Hands down the most underrated Beatles’ song of all time. I do not care if Rolling Stone put it at No. 23 on its “500 greatest songs of All Time” it should be higher on that list ahead some of the other Beatles songs they listed ahead of it. It is an incredible piece of music that never gets it’s due credit. Even though I have four more songs ahead of this one, it could be easily be my number 1.
4. Dear Prudence
Dear Prudence is another song that is easily overlooked. The music and lyrics are simply beautiful. “The Sun is up the sky is blue it’s beautiful and so are you” is etched on the back of my iPod. It is probably my favorite Beatles lyric. Some day in the future, if I ever have a daughter I will play this song for her. I can already see family home movies set to this, and to me that is happiness. I wish I could better express just how much I love this song.
3. The End
I said earlier in the list that I wish I could have put the entire second half of Abbey Road on the list, so I have decided to put my favorite part of the second side of Abbey Road on the list. Its the second to last song on technically the Beatles’ last album. I mean if you are going to break up the greatest band of all time… this is the song you want as your last. It has got it all Ringo’s only drum solo, 3 dueling guitars, timeless lyrics, and it just rocks! It is like going through the whole Beatles history in one song. Then finally it ends with the classic line “and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
2. A Day in the Life
This is easily the greatest song of all time. For everyone who just thinks the Beatles are just some boy band with mop tops that played little happy go lucky love songs on the Ed Sullivan Show, I offer up this song. A Day in the Life takes those early Beatles songs and the rest of rock music up to that point and shatters them, and then it puts the whole thing back together. Sgt Pepper from the beginning to the final strike of the piano on A Day in the Life opened up the creative gates in music and all was possible. Its funny but if you listen to the Beatles in depth you can hear their influence in music today.
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1. Revolution
At the end of the day, the Beatles’ greatness came from their collective genius, and if you want proof of that then look no further than Revolution. John wrote a great song, and intended it to be a slowed down version of the song. Luckily, Paul and George talked him into letting them record a faster, louder, more raucous version of this song. That fast version lets each of the Beatles do what they do best, which is rock. Paul with a killer baseline, Ringo on the drums, and John & George on distorted guitars.
The lyrics are great, and the contraditctions between “count my out (in)” says that violent revolution isn’t the answer while at the same time leaving the door open for us to wonder. At the end of the day the Beatles, themselves, helped started a revolution both musical and cultural. The Beatles, through their music and love, proved that you do not need violence to revolutionize the world.
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Honorable Mention:
Could have easily been on this list: Eleanor Rigby, Come Together, I am the Walrus, Back in the USSR, Cry Baby Cry, I Feel Fine, Within Without You, With A Little Help From My Friends, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Its All Too Much, Black Bird, Rocky Raccoon, I Will, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except me and My Monkey, Helter Skelter, Paperback Writer, Lady Madonna, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Two of Us, Across the Universe, For You Blue, And Your Bird Can Sing, Michelle, Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, Being for the Benefit of Mr. kit, When I’m 64, I will, and Julia.
