One of the greatest things about the Beatles catalog is how deep it is. Awhile back I wrote about my theory that it take three great songs to make a great album. Well, in the case of The Beatles, just about every song on each of their albums is great. Even (sometimes especially) the ones casual fans have never even heard of.

I can think of exactly one track in a discography of more than 200 songs that I actually skip: ‘Revolution 9.’ And that’s not even a real song. The rest run the gamut from ‘the best songs ever written’ to ‘pretty good’ with 95% at ‘great’ or better. Not many artists can claim that sort of consistency, and no other band rivals the number of ‘best songs ever written’ — not even close.

Today’s song is a great example of The Beatles’ depth. Nestled away on Side Two of the all-over-the-place White Album, the George Harrison-penned ‘Long, Long, Long’ is easily overlooked. But it’s a powerful, atmospheric love song (that George reportedly later claimed is about God, not a woman) and one of the finest moments on a double album full of fine moments.

One of the great things about the new remastered Beatles CDs is how they lead you to rediscover songs you’d left behind, and rediscover them in a couple of different ways. For one thing, it’s been awhile since I pulled out the White Album and really listened to it. And when I have listened to that album in recent years, it’s invariably the much stronger first disc (which features ‘Blackbird’ and another Harrison classic, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ among other gems).

Disc Two, on the other hand, hasn’t gotten a full listen in many years. So this new remastered version has given me an excuse to hear it again. And that leads to the other sort of rediscovery, which is listening to these songs for the first time as they were intended to be heard, clear and loud with every instrument isolated and every nuance unearthed. The White Album is one of the best sounding reissues in this new collection and well worth the $15 I had to drop 20 years after first adding it to my collection.

The remastered version of this song, in particular, completely floored me. My daughter woke up one weekday morning with a high fever so I made a drugstore run at 6 a.m. to pick up some Children’s Motrin and ‘Long, Long, Long’ came on as I pulled out of my garage and into the darkness. There’s something about listening to music while driving on dark and empty streets… it really highlights how isolated you are in your little bubble. It feels oddly like taking a one-man submarine into the deep ocean — I expect to run into that toothy Finding Nemo angler fish at any moment.

This song was the perfect soundtrack for that eerie trip through lonely darkness. And I have a new appreciation for it, and the whole White Album, as a result.