Fab Four Picks

I was a mere child when the Beatles hit America, but my sister was three years older (a tween) but she was the one excited about the Beatles and that excitement filtered down to me (baby sister syndrome; always wanted to do what older sister was doing).

She bought the Capitol Records when they came out with her allowance (I remember them being $4 bucks, a lot to save on a 25 cent a week allowance) but she did it. I might have seen them on Ed Sullivan, I don’t remember. Mostly what I remember from Ed Sullivan was Senior Wences (a truly innovative ventriloquist), and Topo Gigio, an Italian mouse puppet, along with those spinning plates characters. But Top 40 music was part of our house, or at least our road trips when my dad was in charge of the radio in the car and he liked modern music. So the Beatles became part of the background of my childhood years in the 60s and 70s. And there was even the Saturday morning Beatles cartoon show, not voiced by the Beatles but the songs they played were theirs.

So in listening to the Beatles channel on Sirius XM in our car, I decided to steal their idea of music folk talking their Fab Four top songs.

The first Beatle song I remember hearing was “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, but that’s not my first pick of favorite Beatles songs. That belongs to Lennon-McCartney’s 1964’s  “A Hard Days Night.” With that first strum of those chords, you know exactly what it is. It couldn’t be any other song! And then it goes immediately into that energetic beat that gets you right into what being a Beatles fan was all about; a driving beat, a great tune, and the words! In the beginning of their composing the words didn’t mean too much more than “I really like this girl, I wanna kiss this girl, I fell in love with this girl” that the songs of the fifties and sixties crooned about in a beat you can dance to. It’s a working lad’s song. He works so hard and life is tough, but when he comes home and you are there, everything is all right again. Simple.

HARD DAYS NIGHT VIDEO

My next pick is “Here Comes the Sun” from the 1969 Abbey Road album. I don’t know why, but no matter what’s happening in my life, when that song hits my radio, I get a huge sense of calm. Maybe because of George Harrison’s vibe that runs all through it (he wrote it and sings it), but it tells me that the sun will come out and things will get better. It’s magic. Thank you, George. (And thank you, also, for making Monty Python movies possible!)

HERE COMES THE SUN VIDEO

My third pick is “Yellow Submarine” from the Revolver album in 1966. The later Beatles gave us some wacky songs and this is part of that songbook, but this was still early Beatles. And they began fairly early in experimenting with all sorts of sound, sound bites, animal noises, echoes, and voice manipulation. It was part of the scene, you know? And, let’s face it, getting high while you listened was also a thing (not me. I was a kid!) And Ringo got to sing a lot of those strange ones (“Octopuses Garden”, the rather-awkward-today’s “You’re Sixteen”, the Shirelles cover song “Boys”, etc.) But in this one, it’s a rather fun one declaring that “we all live in a yellow submarine”, and why not? This was a single song written earlier than the 1968 animated film, but I can’t divorce the song from the brilliant psychedelics from the movie of the same name with some of the best imagery of the 60s to be had. But it does standalone as a fun community sing, no?

YELLOW SUBMARINE VIDEO

And my fourth pick, going along with the increasingly strange themes is 1969’s “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” sung and composed by Paul McCartney. What can I say? I like the tune and the macabre story it tells. It’s so catchy (the tune, not the murdering).

MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER

What are your nostalgic faves from the Fab Four and what are your fab four choices for best Beatles songs?