Suck it Entertainment Weekly: Melissa and Josh's Top 50 Beatles Songs
Josh and I spent dinner (my choice–egg noodles with tomato sauce, my reward for all the work I did on the living room today) going over Entertainment Weekly’s 50 Best Songs by the Beatles list. Perhaps that list was the best Entertainment Weekly could do because they only think about these things in weekly increments. But we think about our best of lists 24/7. Mostly in chronological order rather than from best to semi-best. Our original picks are in red. The others appear on both lists*.
- Please Please Me
- Love Me Do
- All My Loving
- I Should Have Known Better
- If I Fell
- Can’t Buy Me Love
- Eight Days a Week
- Help
- You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
- Yesterday
- Norwegian Wood
- Nowhere Man
- Michelle
- In My Life
- Taxman
- Eleanor Rigby
- Here, There, and Everywhere
- Good Day Sunshine
- And Your Bird Can Sing
- Got to Get You Into my Life
- Fixing a Hole
- When I’m 64
- She’s Leaving Home
- With a Little Help from my Friends
- Fool on the Hill
- Your Mother Should Know
- Hello, Goodbye
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Back in the U.S.S.R.
- Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
- Blackbird
- Rocky Raccoon
- I Will
- Mother Nature’s Son
- Helter Skelter
- Cry Baby Cry
- Come Together
- Something
- Octopus’s Garden
- Here Comes the Sun
- Carry That Weight
- Two of Us
- Let it Be
- The Long and Winding Road
- Yesterday
- I Want to Hold Your Hand
- Lady Madonna
- Hey Jude
- The Inner Light
28 songs different from their list. Feel free to argue any of your favourites or openly mock us for our terrible taste, but if you want to add one (or more) songs to the list, you’ll need to tell us which one(s) of ours that you’re knocking off. I guess it’s fair game once you tell Entertainment Weekly to suck it. Next up (according to Josh…not me…), the best of Jethro Tull!
*ones that made EW’s list that did not make ours: Hard Day’s Night * A Day in the Life * She Loves You * Tomorrow Never Knows * Across the Universe * Penny Lane * Help * Revolution * We Can Work it Out * I’m Only Sleeping * I’m a Loser * Paperback Writer * Happiness is a Warm Gun * Rain * I Want You * I Am the Walrus * I’ve Got a Feeling * I Saw Her Standing There * Dear Prudence * She Said She Said * You Won’t See Me * Day Tripper * I’m Down * Lovely Rita * Ticket to Ride * I’m So Tired * All You Need is Love *
20 comments
I must argue with your leaving Penny Lane off of there. But that one's quite high on my list. *g*
Two of Us is one, actually, that I didn't get much exposure to while my original indoctrination, but my mom put it on our mix for my brother's funeral, and now I can't listen to it without sobbing like a little baby.
It makes me happy to see Love Me Do so high on your list. But no Paperback Writer? It's a dirty story of a dirty man!
How do you not put "Paperback Writer" on your list?!
A bunch of my faves aren't on either:
I'm Looking Through You, I'll Follow the Sun to start it off. Then of course is the best song not released until the Anthology "That Means A Lot". I've been to too many Beatlefests to even go down this rabbit hole.
I think In My Life should go higher on the list. However, I don't know if I've heard about 20% of those songs and I don't even own one Beatles album. However, due to my indoctrination during my formative years by my oldest sister, I can sing most of the songs.
Holy crap, who did they have put together their list? someone who was crotchety and grumpy and didn't get this rock-n-roll biz . . . circa 1965??!! (Which would make them what, 90 right now? Hello? Grandpa?)
I'm with you, I cannot believe the things they left out/put in. I'm a total sucker tho for "I am the Walrus" and "All you Need is Love." But what to replace? Maybe something early, like "All my Loving," and something else esoteric but not as fun like "Fool on the HIll." (And not a top 50, but c'mon, how many times have you caught yourself humming "Happiness is a Warm Gun?" But maybe changing the words around a bit?)
One that pops to mind that's not on either of your lists is "Oh Darling." Not sure where I'd rank it.
And I'm afraid I'd have to stick "She Loves You" back in there. I have fond memories of bouncing on my grandmother's bed with my cousin Catherine singing it at the tops of our lungs, having just watched an episode of the Beatles cartoon show on Saturday morning, circa 1965 or 1966.
I also love their versions of "Twist & Shout" and "Please Mr. Postman" — although they didn't write them, of course.
As for songs to bump — "Love Me Do" has never really been a favourite of mine… and "Rocky Raccoon" has always seemed on the silly side to me.
I think my absolute favourite Beatles song (if not "the best") is "In My Life." I've told dh I want it played at my funeral. (His choices are "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel and "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen.)
I don't even know how to start ranking/sorting Beatles songs. But it is egregious that EW left off Here, There, and Everywhere. And my list definitely would have several that you removed like Revolution, A Day in the Life, Across the Universe… Why do I have to choose? Arrgh!
I don't like to listen to She's Leaving Home because it always makes me cry. But that means it's fabulous.
Dear Prudence and I Am the Walrus are tops for me… and I will have to say that they replace Lady Madonna (because I am just not familiar with it) and Helter Skelter (just because it drives me a little nuts).
But I really do loves me some Dear Prudence
That is a really hard thing, to pick 50 but I huge kudos to you both for including "Octopus Garden", "Ob-la-di ob-la-da", and "Mother Nature's Son". I love those songs. I would also include "I'll follow the sun," "Julia" and "The ballad of John and Yoko." "Across the Universe" is a must on my list because while being currently over-hyped has been very special to me since I was a child. What a fun exercise in Beatles music.
they can totally suck it!! M and I were just talking about this tonight. I'd have to put some more serious thought into it before I knock any off your list.
right on for adding "two of us" — always been one of my favorites. I even made a video of our old dogs to that song. and now, now I sing it to little J when we're in the car on our way home. like just today.
Across the Universe sucks. Yeah, it's a Beatles song, and I love them, but it still sucks.
And Let It Be is only 44? And Here, There, and Everywhere has some of the most beautiful lyrics EVER. Of course I love Hey Bulldog, and most people don't even know that is a Beatles song. Our local classic rock station supposedly had a marathon where they played EVERY Beatles song ever made in alphabetical order…and they left it out.
EW's list SUCKS. But, I gotta put Help, Penny Lane, and Paperback Writer back on the list. I'd take Rocky Raccoon, Madonna, and maybe Helter Skelter off the list.
I'm back, because after careful consideration, I feel that Yellow Submarine is underrepresented. I'm going to submit both "Yellow Submarine" and "All Together Now," and will ponder what to remove.
This was my first rock album I ever owned, btw.
Jethro Tull! Sexay renaissance faire rock n roll. Love it.
Till there was you was the theme song of our wedding, and truly our relationship. I can't find one to knock off though!
You didn't include my favorite… "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?" Good memeories from college.
Dear Prudence is one of my favorites, so I have to agree with EW on that one! But coming up with just 50 is next to impossible. I am decidedly a late Beatles kind of person, so I would probably leave off all but their most heard early hits. I would insist on the entire second half of Abbey Road, which, despite it's overplayedness, never gets tired for me.
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl, someday I'm gonna make her mine, you know.
By the way — the local classic rock station is having a "Beatles A-Z" weekend, topped off with a Beatles Top 40 countdown, as voted on by listeners. They are still doing the countdown, but the list will be published on their website on Tuesday:
http://www.q107.com/Music/Countdown/BeatlesA-Z/Vote.aspx
So I just heard the new remastered "Dear Prudence" today on NPR and it was . . . . sublime. On the list.
Ditto to the other commenters that this is big old can of worms, but I just have 2 things to add that haven't yet been said above.
1. Lovely Rita is an awesome song.
2. The Long and Winding Road is my least favorite Beatles song, and I own every album, including the Live from the BBC ones. OK, no, actually it is better than For the Benefit of Mr. Kite. So it's my second least favorite. It's so whiny!