Scroll down and you will see a listing for Revolver and TNK. He (Scott Freiman’s) overview of the song is great - he describes the influences on the song, plays the various tape loops used independently, both in their original form and how they were modified (sped up, played backwards, etc.) and how they put them to use in the studio.
**Geoff Emerick’s **Here, There and Everywhere offers a total You Are There as a 19-year-old kid engineer that is cool, too.
No kidding. And it’s not like we are comparing top five lists: these are top 15s with such a small overlap. Maybe even more amazing is that I am not scoffing at, or outraged by, the lists that are quite different from mine. I don’t quite think “oh, whoops, they are right and I screwed up mine”; it’s just “yeah, that’s a pretty good list as well”. So there have to be easily 50 songs listed so far that I have found reasonable to be included in a top 15!
Hard to imagine any group could come close to touching that, especially given a similarly sized catalogue (Dylan just came out with his box set of, what, 50 albums or so? If there is similarly wide variety in his fans’ top 15s, that seems much more statistically expected).
Maybe in painting? How long did it take for Picasso to go from fairly representational portraits to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon? (And similarly to the Beatles, his early work should not be overlooked IMO: there are some great works there in the pre-Cubist period.) Perhaps also in cinema? I will have to give that one some thought.
Hey Bulldog
Come Together
Yesterday
I Will
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
You Won’t See Me
Hey Jude
From Me to You
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Revolution (single version)
Help!
Abbey Road Medley (You Never Give Me Your Money through Her Majesty)
Yellow Submarine
Something
In My Life
The page I linked to is worth looking at for the way it pulls so much info together, inc. from Geoff Emerick’s book.
Something else that boggled my mind was that Emerick got promoted within Abbey Road because the Beatle’s usual engineer had himself been promoted (to producer) - worst timing ever: I think I’d have to decline the promotion. Except it meant he produced Pink Floyd … what an extraordinary era …
Revolution 9 by itself is dismissible. In the context of the whole White Album it fits as part of the cultural snapshot of weird avant garde that was going around at the time and especially with the Beatles and Lennon as the center of culture and counter culture. It is really out there.
I love the Beatles! My own idiosyncratic list, which might be different an hour or a month from now:
A Day in the Life
With a Little Help from My Friends
Getting Better
She’s Leaving Home
Good Morning Good Morning
Back in the USSR
Magical Mystery Tour
Hello, Goodbye
All You Need Is Love
Martha My Dear
Yesterday
Because
Golden Slumbers
Let It Be
The Long and Winding Road
Some great Beatles songs will never appear on any list of mine just because I’ve heard them so many $*&^%! times on the radio that, great as they are, I’m just sick of them.
Please Please Me
P.S. I Love You
I Wanna Be Your Man
Help!
I Need You
A Day In the Life
Back In the USSR
Yesterday
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I’ve Just Seen a Face
The Night Before
A Hard Day’s Night
Norwegian Wood
One After 909
You’re Going to Lose That Girl
[ol]
[li]Help[/li][li]Ticket To Ride[/li][li]I Feel Fine[/li][li]Yesterday[/li][li]Get Back[/li][li]I Will[/li][li]Blackbird[/li][li]Old Brown Shoe[/li][li]I’ve Just Seen A Face[/li][li]Day Tripper[/li][li]Golden Slumbers Medley[/li][li]Magical Mystery Tour[/li][li]Getting Better[/li][li]Revolution (single)[/li][li]Two Of Us[/li][/ol]
When you can have songs as profoundly different as A Day In The Life and All My Loving on one list, I think it’s pretty hard to nail down a particular taste or personality, except to say that you have good taste in music.
Your list has more McCartney songs where mine is more Lennon heavy, which might say something. Not that it means much, though.
If your children are younger, and not in their teens, I’d suggest using more kid friendly tunes like Ob-La-Di and All Together Now as a couple of examples. A Day In The Life seems a bit much for a youngster.
For the record, my list at the moment:
Across The Universe
Hide Your Love Away
Norwegian Wood
Girl
She Said She Said
Tomorrow Never Knows
P.S. I Love You
If I Fell (for the exquisite harmonizing)
Because
Penny Lane
Paperback Writer
Magical Mystery Tour
In My Life
Everybody’s Got Something To Hide 'Cept For Me And My Monkey
Rain
I heard McCartney recently mention that song as one of his own favourites for the craftsmanship of it, particularly the way the chorus leads back into the next verse.
I think it’s possible because music itself was changing so fast in the 1960s–it starts out with fairly conventional rock and ends with all the rules thrown out. The Beatles were both influencing and influenced during this period, so while the decade itself is an example of extreme and rapid change to a surprising degree, I don’t find the Beatles’ rapid change within the decade to be all that surprising.
If you would like another example of extreme change during a short period, how about Arnold Schoenberg?
His D major string quartet is from 1897 (I love it, btw):
In 1899, he has Verklarte Nacht. Already a huge shift. This piece made him famous.
In 1908, he has his String Quartet #2 in F# minor (the D major was not #1; it was an unpublished piece; his D minor #1 is also epoch-making):
This quartet is famous for basically being the first atonal classical music piece (in the 4th movement, which has no key signature). It also has a soprano in the 3rd and 4th movements!
So, in the span of 11 years, we go from a young guy who is writing very well but not publishing his stuff to someone who is totally upending the rules of classical composition.
Wow, I think that was 30 posts, with multiple excellent choices, until BlondeBear took note of “I Feel Fine”. I’m too lazy to do a list of 15 but that would be on it.
Agreed. “I Feel Fine” is a perfect Beatles song and I, too, was surprised it took so long to make a list. Also shocked that “Walrus” isn’t making as big a splash.
