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Why are so few people ranking Past Masters ? Why is @Jules almost the only one who was done it? Is @Jules still active anyway? I think ranking Past Masters makes sense, as one is basically ranking all the singles. Here goes nothing. I must be nuts.

33) Love Me Do – How can a band first kick the rock and roll out of the dirtiest nightclubs in Hamburg, then create innovative masterpieces, but do something like that in between? That’s your “granny music” right there, every single Macca track of the likes of When I’m Sixty-Four and Honey Pie is way more sophisticated and timeless. Goody-good boygroup pop to charme future mother-in-laws, must have sounded totally dated six months after release.

32) Thank You Girl – Another typical early-Beatles track that sounds really nice when I listen to it, but when I haven’t heard it in longer than five minutes I couldn’t recite it or distinguish it from two dozens other early-Beatles tracks

31) I Call Your Name – Early-Beatles-beatrocker-about-getting-with-a-girl Part 642. Some nice vocal passages (“I’m not gonna ma-a-a-a-ake it”).

30) I’ll Get You – Early-Beatles-beatrocker-about-getting-with-a-girl Part 643. The little part with the song title is by far the best thing about this thing.

29) Slow Down – How about you four boys slow down with doing rock covers that are perfectly decent but take the up space and add not that much to the table?

28) Matchbox – This is what I mean with the track above. The matches are good, they have a nice groove, it’s perfectly fine, I like Ringo singing. But the very concept of covering Rockabilly-standards, at least more often than once in a while at best, is not justifiable to me, not for a band of this calibre, not for the Beatles after graduating from a club rock group to recording artists crafting their own thing and being extremely succesfull with that.

27) From Me To You – Here we have a nice melody, nice vocals, some good variations in the song (unlike Love Me Duh), even a better harmonica part, but it’s just a bit too early-beatlesque for me to really stand out.

26) Sie Liebt Dich – I’m ranking those together, since they’re basically the same songs. Their german is both really good and really terrible, depending how you look at it. Let’s say it’s an impressive but imperfect effort.

25) She Loves You – This is basically Love Me Duh 2.0 but filthier, more energetic, more catchy. Solid early effort. A worthy representative of the early years.

24) This Boy – Starts out very slow and a bit tedious but has a really nice little bridge later on, and the acoustic flavour is good too.

23) Yes It Is – Same as with This Boy . Starts out very slow and a bit tedious and has a nice little bit later on that’s way too short. Are we sure this is not the same song? When do I get to Past Masters 2?

22) She’s A Woman – I can’t distinguish those 1963-1964 Beatles tracks anymore at this point. Much less rank them. Eehm, it has cool parts that are too short.

21) I Feel Fine – I think this almost sounds like early Rubber Soul stuff. Would have been far from the best track on said album, but in the chronology of Past Masters it’s the first major sign of progressing towards what was to come in 1965.

20) Bad Boy – The second best Beatles rockabilly cover (see Long Tall Sally ). I guess. Lennons pronunciation of “behave yourself” elevates it at least three spots.

19) I’m Down – The song that sounds like another Rockabilly cover but actually… isn’t one? Macca wrote this? If so he did a good job emulating 50s rock and roll. But what’s more important, we have reached Past Masters 2 finally.

18) Day Tripper – Good song, but which Beatles song isn’t? Not my favourite, it sounds like some Rubber Soul filler that’s representative of the overall feel of the album but doesn’t stand out.

17) Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand – The german is a bit better here. Sounds like some sobby german Schlager hit.

16) I Want To Hold Your Hand – This is actually a really strong melody that suffers from being an upbeat-merseypop Beatlemania hit single. The potential is there, just get rid of the handclaps and slow it down (where is that bloody Phil Spector at when you need him for once?!). The musical number in Julie Taymors film is a good example, it’s mindblowing. This is the song for me that Help ! was for John Lennon , the one where compromising to the standard genre is regrettable. Because the melody is great, did I mention that?

15) Long Tall Sally – My favourite cover song of theirs. Yes, better than Twist & Shout. This is rock and roll, this is the 50s, this is the filthy groove of old times. To me not necessarily weaker than Little Richards version (well, maybe a tiny bit), just a bit different.

14) Paperback Writer – This was mindblowingly awesome the first few times I heard it, then it became one of those songs that are just so good I feel obligated to justify why they’re not among my favourites but I can’t. It’s just that those four boys from Liverpool (you may have heard of them) were really, really good.

13) We Can Work It Out – Can’t say too much about it, it’s simple and lovely, quite creative with that little Waltz thingy. Would have been the better A-side if you ask me.

12) You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) – I think it’s funny. And unique. And even catchy in a way that’s almost annoying without really being annoying. With so many Beatles songs this one is perfectly allowed to exist. And it does a great job existing.

11) Lady Madonna – Imma call this one groovy, because that’s what it is. Almost jazzy. Another song that I’d like to have higher for how good it is, but somehow it still doesn’t hold a candle to my real favourites.

10) Get Back – Probably the superior version compared to the album version, although I sometimes miss Sweet Loretta Fart being a frying pan. For Get Back , I need to be in the right mood, then it pays off. It may have grown on me recently. By the way, drums are an awesome instrument, especially when they’re played by Ringo Starr .

9) Don’t Let Me Down – Stupid song, that used to give me some room to breath (and rank) because it was one of those that I could have a bit further down or even call a tiny bit overrated without having a guilty conscience. But for some reason it had to grow on me and now it must make it even more difficult to rank those songs somehow.

8) Rain – A song that has been called underrated so many times it became overrated in the process. To me it’s the ranks with I’m Only Sleeping and She Said She Said as a sort of psychedelic Lennon rock trilogy, and depending on the time of the day it’s either the best or the weakest of those three.

7) The Ballad Of John And Yoko – Doesn’t sound like a ballad actually. I’ve been tricked. It sounds more super-groovy. And it sounds good. Very good. Like Lennon being boss type good.

6) Revolution – The opening riff would be enough, but imagine, the song goes on! Man, I want to live in 1968.

5) Let It Be – I don’t know it it’s the best version of the song. I might prefer the album version I guess. Do I? What are the differences? How many versions are there? Spare me, I had a hard enough time studying all the different versions of Across The Universe , that song is like Blade Runner. But with even more different versions. Let It Be is great by the way.

4) Old Brown Shoe – I read the dictionary today, oh boy. Looked up the word ‘cool’. Found a picture of George Harrison and a music sheet. Of some track named after elderly umber footwear, that I sometimes listen to in a loop over twenty times. I still don’t know what he sings during the fade-out though.

3) Across The Universe – Wildlife was the first and for some time the only version of the song I heard, and it’s still my favourite. I’m used to and like the tempo, the bird sounds, the apple scruffs. Well, technically the Anthology take with the brillant sitar work would be the best, but Lennons vocals are not that good there. So until someone puts this vocal take on the Anthology instrumental this remains my overall favourite version of one of Lennons finest works. Jay Guru Deva Om.

2) Hey Jude – I guess many fans, me included, are tempted to have Jude a bit lower for how beloved it is by the masses. But I can’t help myself, this song is awesome, I just need a break from it from time to time, but when I return, it’s like an old friend putting a smile on me. Or making me cry. The sheer scope and scale of the track is overwhelming. And then I catch myself singing “Na Na Na Nananana” horribly.

1) The Inner Light – I’ve been switching Jude and Light for ages. Today it’s Light. I’m a sucker for my boy Harrison mixing west and east to a point where it just feels like authentic east. The Inner Light is just so different and interesting. I love it. It might be in my top ten favourite Beatles songs. George was so good. “Do all without doing” ending the track is heaven.