It’s the Beatles fault – they let some singles fall through the cracks without putting them on the next album. I bought all their albums between Rubber Soul and Let It Be, but Lady Madonna, Inner Light (which was the B side of Lady Madonna, right?) Hey Jude and Revolution (the single version, Hey Jude’s B side) weren’t on any of them.
IIRC, all these songs except “The Inner Light” were released on Hey Jude (also had alternate title which escapes me), the last of those official sweep-up-the-unreleased-singles albums (Yesterday and Today , etc.)
Not entirely. The record company can be faulted to a degree. They wanted to keep the group on the charts with little or no gaps between albums. The Beatles would have finished songs, so they allowed those to be released. After Capitol stopped cannibalizing their British releases, they had nothing in the vaults to create a US-only album so the pressure was put on the group to come up with something.
The alternate title was The Beatles Again. Original copies had that title on the labels, and Hey Jude on the spine. (There was no title on the front or back cover.)
Right.
It hasn’t been three weeks yet, so I’m going to resurrect this thread for a bit of ‘B’ side trivia that was in today’s NY Daily News.
In 1960, a man by the name of Doc Pomas, wrote a little ditty called ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’. It was written for the Drifters, but they were indifferent to it. The song was shopped around for a while, until the Drifters finally accepted it as a ‘B’ side. The ‘A’ side was passed on to Dick Clark, to play on American Bandstand. The song, ‘Nobody But Me’, didn’t ring a bell for Clark, but, the “B’ side, he liked. He played the “B” side on the live show, and the rest is Drifters history, their only number one hit.
Doc Pomas was in a wheel chair for most of his life, from polio, and he wrote the song for his wife. They would go out to clubs, and while he sat in his chair, she would dance with other guys. Knowing that fact, read the lyrics here.
…And, I can hear you ladies saying…aaahhhhh.
I have had many favorite B sides over the years. One of my favorites was the B side of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” The song was an acoustic ditty “Hey, Hey What Can I Do”. It wasn’t on any album and I played it quite a lot, even recording it on a cassette to hear in the car. Years later it was included on a Led Zep box set.
Another was the B side of the Beach Boys “Dance, Dance, Dance” the song was “The Warmth Of The Sun” a beautiful ballad with the incredible voice of Brian Wilson. This was the better song of the two.
Off the top of my head there are a few that come to mind where I liked the B side better than the hit A side.
Pink Floyd: Another brick in the wall part 1 / One of my turns
Joan Jett: I love rock n roll / Crimson and Clover
Joan Jett: Do ya wanna touch / Oh woes me
Ratt: Round and round / The morning after
There’s more I cant remember em…
My favorite B was Simon & Garfunkel’s “Keep the Customer Satisfied”, which was the flip side to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (if memory serves).
mmm
I haven’t bought a .45 since about 1982 (I think Men at Work’s “Down Under” may have been the last).
In the old days, yes, I always played the B-sides. I had a lot of favorites that were genuinely good, but the godawful ones are the ones I remember best.
In 1973 or thereabouts, when I was about 12, I bought Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun.” The B-side was a song called “Put the Bone In.” The chorus keeps saying:
PUT THE BONE In, she yelled out once more!
But it wasn’t a sex song- it was about a lady begging the butcher to put a bone in her shopping bag so she could bring it home to her little injured doggie!
I remember Paul McCartney put out the great country tune “Sally G” as the B-side of the great rocker “Junior’s Farm”.
Elton John released “Snow Queen”, a brilliantly moody ballad, on the back of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Never got released on CD. A very fun live performance of “I Saw Her Standing There” with John Lennon (backing “Philadelphia Freedom”) did pop up as a CD bonus track.
Other noteworthies are “Even In His Youth” and “Aneurysm” by Nirvana (Smells Like Teen Spirit), “Yellow Ledbetter” by Pearl Jam (Jeremy), and “Said Sadly” by Smashing Pumpkins (Bullet With Butterfly Wings).
I usually did play both sides but of course I was primarily interested in the A side.
It was very common to leave singles off the albums in the UK. Supposedly, this was because singles were a teenage market in the US while they were bought by everyone in the UK. Most of the time the British stand-alone singles were shoehorned onto the American album–but the Beatles’ late sixties contract said the albums had to have similar tracks worldwide.
Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll, Pt. 2” was the B side of a two part song. Part 1 was a vocal whose lyrics were a loose history of rock and roll. Part 2 was the familiar instrumental with the “Hey” chorus that has been played at thousands of sporting events.
In 1988, George Harrison was casting about for a B side for his single “This is Love.” He, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison got together for a jam and came up with a tune inspired by a beat up box in Dylan’s garage. The result was “Handle With Care.” Harrison’s record company deemed the song too good to be used as filler material and requested more material from the five. The result became the first Traveling Wilburys album, which spawned a couple of singles of its own - “Handle With Care” and “End of the Line.”
What was on the flip side of the Beatles ‘Come Together’? I can’t remember but I do remember it was as good as the reverse.
Brian Epstein and George Martin decided at the very beginning of their relationship that it would be unfair to the fans to make them buy the same songs on singles AND LPs. Frankly, both of them were neophytes in the Pop Music business. And nobody could predict the popularity, longevity, or potential of the Beatles back then.
“Something”. That’s actually the A-side by catalog number, with “Come Together” being the B-side. Considering how huge both sides were the difference is academic.
If I bought the record I was going to listen to both sides. The B side was usually disappointing, but I wouldn’t ignore it. This was in the 60s, I don’t recall ever buying a 45 in the 70s, it was all about stereos and albums by then.
“The version I heard was,” a DJ somewhere played “Hound Dog” as a joke, wondering if the B side of an Elvis single was any good, and the next thing you know, people were rushing to record stores wanting to buy the “Hound Dog” single, which record store owners were happy to sell them (presumably by flipping over their “Don’t Be Cruel” singles and putting them into blank sleeves).
Yes. $0.98 in the mid-50’s. I worked in a small town supermarket as a bag boy at the time and I built up my collection there and at the local record shop, “Damon Tucker’s”.
Back in THAT day, some of the B sides became as or more popular than their A sides:
From my collection (original vinyl) A/B by:
Dragnet/Dancing in the Dark-Ray Anthony
Somebody Bad Stole de Wedding Bell/Baubles, Bangles, and Beads-Georgia Gibbs
Ricochet/Too Young to Tango-Teresa Brewer
Changing Partners/Bimbo-Pee Wee King
Ebb tide/If I Could Make You Mine-Vic Damone
From the Vine Came the Grape-Time Will Tell-The Gaylords
Isle of Capri/Love I You-The Gaylords
Crazy Mixed-up Song/What Shall We Do with a Lonesome Lover?-Peter Hayes & Mary Healey
Crystal Ball/The Creep-Johnston Bros.
Secret Love/The Deadwood Stage-Doris Day
Make Love to Me/Adi-Adios Amigo-Jo Stafford
Cross Over the Bridge/My Restless Lover-Patti Page
A Girl, Girl/Anema e Core-Eddie Fisher (Carrie’s Dad)
I Need You Now/Heaven Ws Never Like This-Eddie Fisher
The Man Upstairs/If You Love Me-Kay Starr
The Man with the Banjo/Man, Man is for the Woman Made-Ames Bros.
The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane/While the Vesper Bells Were Ringing-Archie Bleyer
(bought 11/4/54)
The Crazy Otto/Humoresque-Johnny Maddox (1/25/55)
The Elephant’s Tango/Commander’s Overture-The Commanders (1/25/55)
Dance With Me Henry/Ballin’ the Jack-Georgia Gibbs 3/29/55
Love Me or Leave Me/Somethin’s Gotta Give-Sammy Davis, Jr.
Unchained Melody/From Here to Eternity theme-Roy Hamilton 5/10/55
It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie/My Baby Just Cares for Me-Somethin’ Smith & the Redheads
Carmen’s Boogie/A Story Untold-The Crew-cuts 6/29/55
Ain’t That a Shame/Tennessee Saturday Night-Pat Boone 6/29/55
I’m So Glad/Se De Boom Run Dun-Mickey & Silvia 10/18/55
(That’s just from 75-singles disc box 1 of 3-the others are in storage.)