After wrapping up the original studio albums with Let It Be, the quest to find the greatest Beatles song continues with the two Past Masters volumes. These collections are all the songs never put on the studios - The Beatles tried to avoid placing hit singles onto albums, as they felt it was unfair to make their listeners pay twice for the same song. Complied by Mark Lewisohn and released in 1988, the songs range from some of The Beatles’ most famous to obscure B-sides. Volume One spans from 1962 to 1965.
A few notes: “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” and “Sie Liebt Dich” are German versions of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You,” respectively. Also, the “Love Me Do” seen here is the version from the single release, rather than the one found on Please Please Me.
Fun Fact: Paul McCartney once said that it only really hit him how popular The Beatles had become when, one morning lying in bed, he heard a milkman outside on the street whistling “From Me to You.”
My vote went to “She Loves You.” I remember listening to the album it was on once, and being struck by how good that particular song was: for an early-career pop song whose chorus is essentially “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” it’s a well-written, meaningful song. (It probably helped that it’s easily the best song on that particular album.)
Well, if it is true that they “tried” to do that, they “failed” at it about as often as they succeeded, and that is true even if you confine your counts to the original, canonical British releases. (It seems plausible that they, and especially George Martin, had more control over,and paid more attention to, what got released in Britain rather than what got released elsewhere.) From the beginning to the end of their career they released albums that contained songs also released as singles, although they also released singles that did not appear on albums, and sometimes a single A-side would also be on an album but the B-side would not. (I can’t, offhand, think of any examples that are the other way around, unless you count “Revolution” and “Revolution 1”.) Sometimes, but more often not, single and album versions of the same song would be slightly, usually barely noticeably, different, and in one case (“Revolution” and “Revolution 1” again) radically different.
I can see no consistent policy being followed as to whether songs released as singles should also be on albums.
Easy one. “She Loves You” the first Beatles record I ever bought (the Swan 45). I’d heard about them, my parents had watched them on Sullivan but I pointedly ignored it, prissy little twerp that I was.
I must have overheard them on the radio but paid no attention. Decided one day to find out what was going on. Went to Unimart (remember Unimart?) and saw She Loves You/I’ll Get You on the rack, bought it. I’d never heard the song. Took it home, put it on my crappy little record-player (remember crappy little record players?). Two minutes later I was a Beatles fanatic, for life as it’s turned out so far. Believe it or not, 50 years later I can clearly remember the moment- the time of day, which room’s floor I was sitting on, what I was wearing.
Anyway- for me SLY is second only to Please Please Me as the Fabs’ perfect pop single.
On the list posted, I Feel Fine would be my second place.
I Want to… you know the rest. Their first international smash hit, and the signature song of the early years, all for good reason. I was hooked by age six, but that was in 1976…Treacherous Cretin, I bow to you. You were there, man!
I think that the closest thing to a policy was “If there’s enough new material for an album, do that; if not, recycle.” During more productive periods, like Sgt. Pepper, they could afford to not put single releases like “Strawberry Fields” and “Penny Lane” on - but with, say, Yellow Submarine, the rules were bent. Which isn’t really a criticism, as looking back, the whole idea of not putting your hits on your albums seems unnecessarily strict.
Oh, and I voted for IWtHYH, because it’s a great song, but it’s also historically important - The Beatles were popular in the US before it was (kinda-sorta illegally) released, but once it was out, the truly insane Beatlemania started. I do love “I Feel Fine,” though, especially the feedback and riff at the beginning.
Now that you mention it, it’s really surprising that no one ever seems to challenge the conventional wisdom that the Beatles kept their album and singles tracks separate, at least for the UK releases. It wasn’t until I charted it out that I realized just how often that didn’t hold true. Here’s a list of the Beatles UK singles; tracks issued on a more or less contemporaneous album–counting only the “canonical” albums–are in green, tracks placed on an album after the fact are in red. (I’m not counting “Revolution,” as “Revolution 1” is such a substantially different recording.)
Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You
Please Please Me/Ask Me Why
From Me To You/Thank You Girl
She Loves You/I’ll Get You
I Want To Hold Your Hand/This Boy
Can’t Buy Me Love/You Can’t Do That
A Hard Day’s Night/Things We Said Today
I Feel Fine/She’s A Woman
Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is
Help/I’m Down
We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper
Nowhere Man/What Goes On
Paperback Writer/Rain
Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby
Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
All You Need Is Love/Baby You’re A Rich Man
Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus
Lady Madonna/The Inner Light
Hey Jude/Revolution
Get Back/Don’t Let Me Down
The Ballad Of John And Yoko/Old Brown Shoe
Something/Come Together
Let It Be/You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
The UK release schedule seems to have tried to have a stand-alone single released some time ahead of a studio album release, from With the Beatles to Abbey Road; they also did of course singles/EP releases from the albums after those dropped (plus the Long Tall Sally stand-alone EP just to muddy the waters). Projects such as the Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine soundtracks however did result in a number of the mid-carrer standalone singles making it onto “albums” out of sequence. Then at the end the Get Back/Let It Be project threw things into disarray – with its first single (Get Back/Don’t Let Me Down) being released so far ahead it came out even before the lead-in single for Abbey Road which was a true double-A stand-alone (Ballad of John & Yoko/Old Brown Shoe); and an alternate second lead-in single for LIB (You Know My Name/What’s The New Mary Jane) ending up unreleased.
It was complicated.
This volume is something of an early-career sampler. As of this post there are three clear leaders and they are of course IWHYH, the iconic harbinger of Beatlemania across the oceans; She Loves You, the archetype of their sound for this time period; and I Feel Fine, that first hint of experimentation and expansion of the sound. Can’t possibly find fault with any of those choices.
I hate to do this to you, as you are backing up my point, but “Nowhere Man/What Goes On” was not a British single (and if we start counting non-British singles, let alone albums, we are going to get a lot more examples of songs that were released in both formats. On the other hand, “I am the Walrus” was both on the B-side of “Hello, Goodbye” and on the Magical Mystery Tour double EP, which probably ought to count.
There were also a number of other (single) EP’s containing mostly songs that also appeared on either albums or singles or both, that were released in Britain in the earlier days of The Beatles’ success. and which attained high positions (mostly #1) in the UK singles chart. (There was also material, largely covers apart from the Magical Mystery Tour stuff, that The Beatles released only in EP form in Britain.)
“Yellow Submarine” was not only issued as a single, but appeared on two of the canonical albums (at least if we use the standard criterion of being canonical: having been released, in Britain, by either Parlaphone or Apple, during the band’s lifetime).
Then we have several songs that were on Beatles albums and were also released at about the same time as cover singles by other bands, often charting quite high. Examples are “I Wanna be Your Man”, covered by The Rolling Stones, “Michelle”, covered by The Overlanders, and “Obla-di, Obla-da”, covered by The Marmalade . (There may be others I have forgotten.) It is well known that The Stones’ release of “I Wanna be Your Man” was sanctioned and encouraged by The Beatles themselves, and I would not be at all surprised if that were the case with the releases by The Overlanders and The Marmalade too.
All in all, the notion that, The Beatles, even just in Britain, avoided releasing the same song in more than one format, so that their more completist fans would not have to buy it twice, is a complete crock.
I voted “She Loves You” somehow without noticing “I Feel Fine” on the list which I would have probably voted for instead, but to me they are pretty much 1a and 1b. But I think “I Feel Fine” has better overall vocal harmonies and I love that guitar sound, and the interplay between the guitar, bass and cymbal work at the intro of the song right before the first verse begins. Classic.
Huh. The one I chose, “I Feel Fine,” is in the lead right now. (Subject to change without further notice.) Didn’t see that coming.
First-ever deliberately used guitar feedback on record. Decent riff and arrangement, and the band just holds it together really well. Lyrics nothing special, can’t win 'em all, but not too bad. Overall a nicely crafted tune.
If not for that, I would have gone with “I’m Down.” Just a straight-ahead rocker of the kind McCartney had a talent for.