Tag Archives: The Beatles

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Song of the Day #130: ‘In My Life’ – The Beatles

rubbersoulFor this week’s theme, I will continue the Beatles album-by-album song selection I started a month ago. I’ll pick up where I left off, starting with the band’s fifth album, Rubber Soul, and continue through their final album, Abbey Road, which will be the focus on Sunday. I will dedicate two days to the double-sided self-titled album (popularly referred to as The White Album).

And what better way to start than with ‘In My Life,’ a leading candidate for Best Beatles Song Ever and, for that matter, Best Song Ever. This is one of the simplest yet most profound songs I know.

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Song of the Day #106: ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ – The Beatles

On their fifth album, The Beatles returned to the formula that served them so well on their third. Help! is a soundtrack album that’s split between songs from the film and new material. But, just as the movie Help! is no A Hard Day’s Night, neither does the album quite live up to its predecessor.

It’s still an amazing record, however, and it caps off the band’s “early” years before they entered their experimental phase and really began to change the landscape of popular music.

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Song of the Day #105: ‘What You’re Doing’ – The Beatles

Beatles For Sale feels like it should be the group’s third album — so much so that I have accidentally miscategorized it as such several times already in preparing this week’s blog posts. After the all-original material of A Hard Day’s Night, it returns to the pattern of the band’s first two releases, splitting the lineup between originals and covers.

I imagine it was a bit of a let-down when it came out. Following the phenomenal artistic success of A Hard Day’s Night it must have seemed like a step backward. For me, who discovered all of The Beatles’ albums nearly two decades after the group broke up, that wasn’t really an issue.

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Song of the Day #104: ‘I’ll Be Back’ – The Beatles

Most discussions of The Beatles’ best albums seem to center around Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road. And I have no argument with that, as they are all incredible, classic albums.

But my personal favorite may well be A Hard Day’s Night. Released as the soundtrack of the film of the same name, itself a classic, this album contains thirteen stellar songs, including such immortals as the title track, ‘If I Fell,’ ‘I Should Have Known Better,’ ‘And I Love Her,’ ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘Things We Said Today.’ I’ll stop there rather than just post the whole tracklist.

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Song of the Day #103: ‘All I’ve Got to Do’ – The Beatles

I consider With The Beatles the worst album by the Fab Four (though it does sport the second most-famous of their album covers). Now, admittedly, saying “this is the worst Beatles album” is kind of like saying “this is the worst nude photo of Eva Mendes.” But I’m big on lists, so there you have it.

The album’s best-known song is ‘All My Loving,’ which is a great song indeed. Their excellent take on ‘You Really Got a Hold On Me’ is another classic, while Paul’s take on the showtune ‘Till There Was You’ is a little corny for my taste. The rest is a mix of cover tunes and simple Beatles rockers.

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