storymilo

I don't know about that, I like All Things Must Pass more than any album John did by himself. But Working Class Hero is an amazing song.

Awesometastic

For kicks: The worst Beatles song by album, in chronological order, starting with Help!
(I'm not doing ones pre-Help! because I am not as familiar with them, and they are generally weaker albums anyways. I'll try and limit my pick to the worst song by album, but a few albums might get a couple nods.)

Help! - Dizzy Miss Lizzy - While not a bad song, it hearkens back to the less mature pop rock of that they had spent the every song before it repudiating with huge steps forward as musicians, composers, lyricists, and arrangers. It sounds particularly weak and dated because it closes the album, and immediately follows what is arguably the Beatles' most mature song to date, "Yesterday." This song belonged on With the Beatles or Beatles for Sale, not Help!.

Rubber Soul - What Goes On - Easy pick. Figures they would give Ringo the worst song they wrote for the album. Interestingly it is one of the Beatles' first genre crossing forays, as they delve a good bit into country music here. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work at all musically, with generic rhythms and oddly stuttering twangy guitar lines. The melody is fairly subpar and the lyrics are just inane. While not a terrible song - in all fairness, it's just mediocre - it is again very noticeable because the rest of the album is so damn solid.

Revolver - Tomorrow Never Knows - Yeah I said it. This song gets so much love and I will never ever know why. The lyrics are stupid and meaningless attempts at faux depth, but that's not where it really goes wrong. The major fault of the song is the complete lack of melody or harmonic structure, which it compensates for by flooding the background with aggressively dissonant white noise and completely unmelodic and unrelated motifs. Lennon at his very worst, throwing all musicality out the window to try to sound psychedelic. Take a lesson from Hendix, Cream, or even George: to be psychedelic one need not throw all other song writing conventions to the wind. Of course you didn't learn did you? More on this later.

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band - She's Leaving Home - An interesting exercise by Paul, taking a common popular song topic of the day - the teenage runaway - and turning it on its head to show the emotional turmoil of the girl's parents. Unfortunately, it is overly melodramatic, which combined with its slow tempo and lack of strong rhythm means the song tends to drag for the listener. It just seems interminable; far too long a time to spend with over the top melodramatic misery. I have to work to get through the song without skipping.

Magical Mystery Tour - This one was a closer call. Our first contender is the infectious but vapid "Hello, Goodbye," which Paul famously wrote in like five minutes. While completely meaningless and silly bubble gum pop, it's also incessantly catchy nature and brimming with enthusiasm. The kind of awesome reprise saves it from worst of the album territory, leading me no choice but to glumly pass the torch to our winner: Blue Jay Way. While also not a terrible song, it is sloooooow and dreary, making it's four minute run time seem interminable. While it to has some good things going for it - some great Ringo fills and a solid melody - it just can't overcome the dragging tempo. Another song that I have to work reeeally hard not to skip.

The White Album - There's A LOT of filler here, so again we have some stiff competition for the worst song of the album. Is it the utterly pointless and horrible sounding "Wild Honey Pie?" The equally pointless though slightly less horrible sounding "Why Don't we do it in the Road?" The often despised "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da (love this song)," "Piggies (don't hate it)," "Birthday (it's kinda dancey so I can stomach it)," or "Honey Pie (screw you, this song is great)?" Nope, again Lennon takes the cake by completely throwing away all musicality for the sake of psychedelia with the absolute waste of time that is "Revolution 9." This time, throwing away just harmonic structure and melody aren't enough for him, and he has to do away with any sense of music whatsoever. It's like eight minutes of nails on a chalk board. What would EVER possess you to do something like that?

Abbey Road - Well I'm picking on Lennon again, but in all fairness he had totally mentally and emotionally checked out of the band by this point, basically leaving McCartney to run the show. Fortunately McCartney was able to step up with the awesome, if somewhat silly and vapid at parts, medley and George had some great material to fill in the gaps. But Lennon runs away with the stinker of the album with a double win. He again turns in the interminably long song with "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." It clocks in at almost eight minutes long, which wouldn't be so bad, if there was something going on musically, but. there. is. not. It just repeats the same not particularly interesting guitar riff ad infinitum while Lennon waxes on with utterly meaningless lyrics - ironic given the amount of crap he gave McCartney for doing the same thing, but at least McCartney did it with catchy melody and concise run times. Then as if we hadn't heard the riff enough for the past eight minutes, Lennon uses it AGAIN for "Because," and somehow finding even more meaningless and vapid lyrics and faux depth. Ugh. And Octopus's Garden is fun, catchy, and melodic, if not high art. So screw off haters.

Let it Be - We're going by the Naked release here, because the Phil Spector additions are terrible. George may be my favorite Beatle, but he does not get a pass for I Me Mine. In fairness it was thrown on last minute because they had nothing else to put there, but none of them, including George really wanted it there. In any case, it's fairly terrible and one of the worst songs of the album. From the endlessly repeated meaningless words to the anticlimactic trail off ending, this is just not up to snuff for a Beatles song. George isn't alone: "One after 909" is up there too in the horribleness scheme of things. I can't really pick out what I don't like about it, so I'm reticent to include it here, but for some reason, listening to it just gives me a splitting headache. Ugh, I need to turn it off before I get a migraine.

And there you have it. The worst of the best.

Awesometastic

You should check out Brainwashed. It's underheard because no one ever expects anything from posthumous releases, but it's a great album, possibly even on the level of All Things Must Pass if only due to consistency. But then it's easier to be consistent with a one disc album than it is with one that takes up three CDs.

Rickenbacker

Awesometastic: Excellent, excellent post! You're my favorite new member now.

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last.fm
rym
Talk About the Passion - R.E.M.'s Discography Reviewed

NumberNineDream

@Awesome
Ever heard a Bob Dylan song?

... and that absurd comment on the over-use of the riff in Because and She's so heavy, well that's cause it's used in all the songs... as Because starts the same way as Sun King (a George Harrison composition) and then in You never give me your money (a McCartney one) just to state some examples. That's why I feel Abbey Road is much more worked as a concept album than Sgt.Pepper.

And when you criticize a song, you can't just fill it up with your subjectivity. Since when lack of melodics is a "bad" thing to do, that we should try to compensate with something else? Actually Tomorrow never Knows is more of an electronic song, and that's why it's considered more of an Avant-Guard take on music, as it is not melodic and the lyrics were never meant to be deep, it is just an experiment. And since when is there rules to Psychedelia? Why should it be overly melodic with a sitar and an oriental scale just injected in the song from nowhere.

Plus Dizzy Miss Lizzy is a song by Larry Williams (1958), can't see how you can compare another person's work in The Beatles evolution in songwriting.

Sorry couldn't read the whole thing, it was just a bit too absurd to read. If you don't like this kind of music, just don't listen to them. You don't have to like The Beatles just cause they're popular.

Plus all the ranting on Lennon, while it's obvious that you haven't heard any of his solo works. I don't suggest you listen to them, as you won't like them a bit.

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Engine

Haha - that's my favorite song on the album.

Your epistle is precisely why I could never really discuss the Beatles with "true" Beatles fans. I guess I simply don't get it because I certainly don't have the "correct" opinions about their songs. For all their iconic status - they were still just another good rock band who made some great songs and some bad ones. I knew there was a reason that I usually avoid discussions about the "worst" this and that. Pointless and frustrating.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

storymilo

Awesometastic: That was a nice little write-up there. I don't agree with a lot of what you said (Tomorrow Never Knows?) but at least you gave some reasoning for why you don't like it. Also, I'm glad to finally find someone else who doesn't like I Want You.

And I'll definitely check out Brainwashed.

Rickenbacker

I also disagree with some of what you said, but your points were on the whole dead on!

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rym
Talk About the Passion - R.E.M.'s Discography Reviewed

storymilo

Did you just diss Dylan?

NumberNineDream

no, that's the point. If a song has those descriptions doesn't mean it's a shitty song. It can be a great track without the over worked melodies.

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