Beatlemania 2009!! Your Top 5 Beatle Tunes?

[cyberyukon]

With the reissue of the band's albums this week, and the release of the Beatle's groovy new "Rock Band" edition it looks as if the Fab Four are back (again). Sigh--what really is McCartney to do with all of that mula?

Anyways, it got me thinking about what are really the best Beatle tunes. So if you could pick five...any five....which would you select?

For example:

1). "A Day in the Life of"

2). "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight"

3). "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

4). "Strawberry Fields Forever"

5). "Baby, You're a Rich Man"

[francey]

With the reissue of the band's albums this week, and the release of the Beatle's groovy new "Rock Band" edition it looks as if the Fab Four are back (again). Sigh--what really is McCartney to do with all of that mula?

Beatles on every radio station. Beatles in every newsletter I get. Beatles reviewed by people I considered Facebook friends. Beatles. Beatles. Beatles.

So, I went to talking-heads.nl/heaven to read something about that other highly influential band.

...enter Cybie.

sigh.

[cyberyukon]

Heh, heh--

I guess you could say that they are--what?-- "Here, There and ...

[Ruben]

Too hard. But these ones I love:

1) A Day In The Life
2) Hey Jude
3) Yesterday
4) Taxman
5) The Fool On The Hill

[francey]

I like The Beatles' tracks from their yet-to-be-discovered in 2014 and released-on-the-next-unmissable-boxset in 2023 "Beatles: the lost surround tapes" best...

1. Pu-pu-pu-poker Face (One of Lennon & McCartneys best lyrics, later covered by Lady GaGa)
2. Revolution number 5.1 (the true surround experience, too revolutionary for original release in the 60s, hence tucked away on a tape hand-labelled 'lost tape' by George Harrison)
3. This Beat is Technotronic (from the Abbey Road sessions - the mono outtake version with just the beat going on for 17 minutes is awesome!)
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (once mentioned by David Byrne as a very influential song)
5. Paperback Diaper (later re-recorded with a slightly different title, for commercial purposes)

Ok, enough with the silly Jokes... Let's see if there's any new downloadable content for Rock Band available...

[elbakan]

I like the Early Beatles. Here is a recently discovered video from the time in 1964 when Paul was
experimenting playing right-handed. Another English band later recorded a more famous different version
of this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfoccRna6I

[Mr.DRC]

In discussing Le Beatles with Lone Son, I realized that certain songs will always take-me-back to that time.
Particulary wistfully, now I've hit the big 50.
So.

Penny Lane
Yellow Submarine
Yesterday (You gotta forgive Macca anything for that one)
Eleanor Rigby
I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Particularly relevant in my formative years )

Don-wish I still had my Beatles Mug and Wallpaper-C

"Hey,buddy! Is that a Beatles haircut?"

[fredd2332]

I love this new Beatlemania!

My Top 5!

1. Across the Universe
2. For No One
3. Dear Prudence
4. It's All Too Much
5. In My Life

[Mr.DRC]

Now that's odd...

Greg Hawkes,Cars/The New Cars keyboardist, has an album of Beatles covers on the Ukelele.See Wicky-wacky.

Ukelele Controller? It could happen...

[Mr.DRC]

Check out the Prize Stories 1970:The O.Henry Awards,first prize winner: "The Girl Who Sang with the Beatles" by Robert Hemenway It is in The Best in Rock Fiction anthology compiled by June Skinner Sawyers. Hal.Leonard 2005.The best story in the antho and a low-fi blueprint for Rock Band in its own right.

Alright,while we're on the subject,your Top Five Rock Fictions (start a new thread) Takers

Love to make the Yung Uns work

[cyberyukon]

Watching the old videos (circa 1964-ish) makes me wonder just how much pressure the band had to undergo to conform to achieve their success. In some of those live performances you can almost hear "The Man" off camera calling out the cues: "Paul, smile and shake your head more!!", "John--more wiggling!!!". It all seems so packaged and polished.

Which is why I can only listen to the band from the "Rubber Soul"/"Revolver" era on, when the musicians seemed to tap into themselves and leave the bubble gum on the table.

The re-masters sound incredibly good. Paul's bass playing gets some fore-front action on many tracks, which maybe for the first time fleshes out the pallete of the songs unlike ever before.

[Eke]

My top 5.

1. Helter Skelter

and that's it...

[Camden Furse]

My top 5...

1. A Day in the Life (yeah, yeah, it's like EVERYONE'S favorite)
2. Across the Universe (the lyrics are hauntingly beautiful)
3. Sun King (my personal favorite from Abbey Road...there's something hypnotizing about it)
4. Happiness is a Warm Gun (brilliantly mixing sounds that could've easily been 3 different songs)
5. Yesterday (another popular favorite, but for good reasons)

Honorable mentions:
Hey Jude, In My Life, I've Just Seen a Face, Within You Without You, Two of Us

[finnikko]

1. No Reply - Beatles For Sale
2. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away - Help!
3. Penny Lane - Magical Mystery Tour
4. It's All Too Much - Yellow Submarine*
5. Hey Bulldog - Yellow Submarine*

*Yellow Submarine was the very first album I bought.

How about your top 10 least favorite songs.
1. Rocky Raccoon - The Beatles
2. Maxwell's Silver Hammer - Abbey Road
3. Octopuses' Garden - Abbey Road
4. When I'm Sixty-four - Sgt. Pepper's
5. Why Don't We Do It In The Road? - The Beatles

The balance/tension that Lennon & McCartney had, so necessary to keep songwriters from leaning too sweet or too bitter, was sorely lacking on these songs.

[Chandler]

A fairly consistent personal ranking for decades...

1. "I Am the Walrus" ("Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe." Of note: this past week a friend did a "rubbing" of Poe's gravestone for me, that is, holding a paper over the gravestone words and rubbing a copy with graphite lead... to be framed and hung in the basement.)

2. "Eight Days A Week"
3. "Revolution"
4. "A Day In the Life"
5. "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)"

Chandler