10. Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby is a song about a person whose name, one might imagine, is Eleanor Rigby. So she hangs around and picks up rice in a church where a wedding has been. And Paul pronounces “been” how I would pronounce “bean.” Like that one part where Mrs. Weasley says “Where HAVE you BEEN?” The beds were empty, the car was gone, and no note was given.
Anyway, then there’s this other person called Father Mackenzie. Mackenzie is a selfish individual. Mackenzie writes a sermon that no one will hear because Mackenzie likes the appearance of doing great things and being a good person. But in reality, Mackenzie doesn’t care at all. Mackenzie only cares about Mackenzie. Mackenzie’s words are shallow and empty. When the time comes for Mackenzie to show some character, Mackenzie does nothing but wipe dirt from Mackenzie’s own hands, merely going through the motions to maintain Mackenzie’s status. Mackenzie is nothing but a hypocrite. Boy, am I glad I don’t know someone like Mackenzie!
Oh, and the vocals are pretty good in this song.
9. Taxman
The Beatles reference a few real people in their songs, such as Edgar Allan Poe (I Am the Walrus) and Sir Walter Raleigh (I’m So Tired). These two references, made by John Lennon, are a bit cheeky, a bit silly, they might even induce a sense of whimsy. Two years before, however, George Harrison referenced two contemporary political figures. They were Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the time, and Ted Heath, Leader of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the time.
The Beatles were being taxed an astronomical amount, and George was rather peeved about it. So he wrote this song to express that sentiment. I like to imagine the Assistant to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland stepping nervously into Mr. Wilson’s office on the day Revolver came out. “Sir,” he begins timidly, “the biggest band in the history of the world have mentioned you in their recent album.”
“Oh,” Mr. Wilson replies Englishly. “Are they commending my leadership?”
“Erm,” the assistant says, “Yes.”
He doesn’t have the heart to tell Mr. Wilson that George Harrison is telling him to fuck off.
This song is the most politically charged in the Beatles discography. George’s biting, satirical lyrics are his best work with the Beatles, and the bass/electric guitar combo really cooks.
8. Octopus’s Garden
You know I had to include at least one Ringo song on this list. Well, actually, I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to write this at all, or write anything for that matter. But you know what? I want to, and doesn’t that count for something in this work-a-day world? Sometimes you gotta consider what you’d like to do or where you’d like to be. As for me, I’d like to be, you may have guessed it, under the sea, specifically in the garden of an octopus, specifically in the shade. That sounds pretty great.
This is just a nice, pleasant song sandwiched between two heavier tracks. Before it comes the screamlike vocals and desperate lyrics of Oh! Darling, and after it comes possibly the heaviest Beatles song in I Want You (She’s So Heavy). So it’s a nice little break between those two. The Beatles [especially in the second half of their career] were great at sequencing their albums, picking the right order of songs. This is just another example of that.
This song makes me happy, and that’s a good thing.
7. It’s All Too Much
It really is, George. It really is.
This song has one of the best intros in the Beatles catalog. What is John saying? “To your muh!” It’s like he’s about to say “to your mother” but he gets interrupted by this searing, wobbling guitar that fills you with gratitude that electric guitars were invented. When that has run its course, we are graced with glorious chords on a glorious organ. It’s so beautiful.
The drums kick in, and we step into the groove. George’s other-worldly singing is the cherry on top of this birthday cake of a song. So take a piece, but not too much.
This is a euphoric sounding song about euphoric feelings. “It’s all too much for me to take, the love that’s shining all around you.” It’s that feeling when you’re so filled with love, not just love for a person, though that may be involved, but love for life itself, as though every cell of your body is leaping for joy. That’s what this song feels like.
6. Helter Skelter
The Beatles are from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but they were very, very, very popular in the United States of America. 1968, when the White Album [with Helter Skelter] was released, was a very, very, very turbulent time for the U.S.A. There were protests and political upheaval and assassinations and racial tensions and riots and a Democratic President stepping down from his re-election campaign. Kinda like now.
So now, in whatever year this is, I listen to this album, with Helter Skelter, and it speaks to me. It speaks to me like no other music ever has, as if the Beatles were singing directly to me. They’ve tapped into my spirit, you know? Like when Paul says “When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide,” he’s saying that life is a loop, repeating itself, and things are repeating themselves right now.
And when he says, “I’m coming down fast but I’m miles above you,” well, “down” means south, like on a map, so I gotta go to a ranch in southern California. The words Helter Skelter have a criss-cross quality to them. That means I should carve an “X” onto my forehead.
Then there’s “You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer!” That’s me to a T, whatever that phrase means. I’m not a dancer, I’m a musician! This whole album [and song] is telling me, personally, to make an album that will rock this country. Man, I really need to talk to a record producer in Benedict Canyon.
5. Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?
In the 15th song from the Beatles’ self-titled album, Paul McCartney asks a profound question, “Why don’t we do it in the road?” Most of us enjoy doing it, and we often find ourselves in and around roads. Yet, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone doing it in the road. So why don’t we do it in the road? It seems homo sapiens is the only species that has developed a sense of shame in relation to sex. Monkeys, as the songwriting story goes, saw no issue with doing it in the road.
Paul’s song harkens back to the very first story in the Bible, that of Adam and Eve. Those two ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and their immediate response is to hide in shame and cover their bodies in shame. Perhaps therein lies the answer to Paul’s question. It’s all about the relationship between knowledge and shame. The setting of the song answers itself. The very existence of a road implies some level of intelligence and knowledge. Roads don’t just grow on trees. An intelligent species has to build them. And perhaps any species that develops the intelligence to build roads would inevitably develop the shame to not “do it” in said road.
4. A Day in the Life
All Beatles songs that were written by either Paul McCartney or John Lennon were credited to Lennon/McCartney. Some were written entirely by Lennon, some entirely by McCartney. Others had varying degrees of collaboration between the two. A Day in the Life is a true Lennon/McCartney collaboration and a true masterpiece.
John’s voice has a dreamlike quality to it throughout the whole song. It transports you into a parallel world. You feel like you’re in England, but not our England. England from an alternate dimension. The lyrics are sublime. Every successive word fits perfectly, as if no other word would work. For me, the song evokes both tragedy and detachment. It feels like listening to an impressionist painting, if it could make music.
The building to crescendo just rocks your ears and mind. It’s terror-inducing, nightmarish, as life is. Then, suddenly, you wake up, and you gotta get ready for work. That’s just how it is. John’s part is amazing, Paul’s part is amazing, and this song is a masterpiece of their songwriting partnership.
3. Yesterday
Yesterday refers to the day before today. It denotes the past, an inaccessible, unchangeable realm. We can only contemplate it, we cannot touch it or change it.
Sometimes everything falls apart on a single day. Your life exists in one way, then some single day comes along, out of the blue, out of left field, out of the left field whose grass has been dyed blue, some Kentucky left field. Get it? Bluegrass?
Anyway something comes along out of left Kentucky field and fucks up everything. So you’re just left a shell of who you were, and you don’t even understand why things fell apart, and you’re trying hard to figure it out, but even if you do figure it out, it won’t change the fact that it fell apart, and you’re unbearably desperate to change the past, but you can’t. I mean, that doesn’t really happen to me, per se, because I’m a well-adjusted, content human being, but it could happen to other people, and Paul encapsulates that feeling perfectly.
2. Tomorrow Never Knows
In 1966, the Beatles released this, Revolver, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is Tomorrow Never Knows, a song so hypnotic, most people probably don’t listen to the lyrics. But they should, because they’re not just about the power of meditation and the importance of love, it’s also a personal statement about the band itself!
1. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
I just like the part where they go “you know my name, look up the number.”
Lefty Forrester 