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Can we all agree … or not?
16 March 2015
5.06am
NotABeatlesRelatedUsername
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Glad to see that It’s All Too Much (The best Beatles song) scored higher than Michelle (The worst Beatles song). Everything else about that list is wrong and makes me want to cry though.

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16 March 2015
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Ron Nasty said
There is no way Free As A Bird or Real Love can be considered a part of the canon. Every other Beatles recording released, including the BBC stuff, the Star Club recordings, the Tony Sheridan recordings, the Decca audition, and the archive Anthology material would come above those.

There is one simple reason, whatever anybody’s personal feelings about them may be – negative or positive, they do not feature, and could not feature, the active participation of John. If this is to be done, it should be solely restricted to the core canon as settled in 1987 with the initial CD releases.

John wasn’t on some of the White Album or Abbey Road songs either. At least John was on those 2 songs.

 For this reason, I believe they belong on the canon list. apple01

  Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-7.52.07-PM.png   BEATLES Music gives me Eargasms!  apple01

16 March 2015
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NotABeatlesRelatedUsername declared 

Glad to see that It’s All Too Much (The best Beatles song) scored higher than Michelle (The worst Beatles song). Everything else about that list is wrong and makes me want to cry though.

I wouldn’t say Michelle is the worst. And I wouldn’t say It’s All Too Much is the best. In fact, I wouldn’t say any Beatles song is worst or best. Which is why these lists make me want to cry too. a-hard-days-night-paul-3

Glad to see you, @NotABeatlesRelatedUsername ! I like your un-Beatley username. Have an apple, apple01 and if you like, you can introduce yourself to the forum here

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16 March 2015
2.24pm
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The fact that “Yellow Submarine ” has fared so poorly reflects that the fact that it’s a very simple (simplistic?) song that most on this Forum would not choose to listen to.

But the song has had such a SPECTACULAR IMPACT.

This gets back to an issue raised a long time ago of whether a song’s impact should factor in its rating. I think it should – it’s the difference between “what are your favorite songs?” and “what are their best songs?” 

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16 March 2015
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Into the Sky with Diamonds said
But the song has had such a SPECTACULAR IMPACT.

This gets back to an issue raised a long time ago of whether a song’s impact should factor in its rating. I think it should – it’s the difference between “what are your favorite songs?” and “what are their best songs?” 

…but that’s not the purpose of this whole thing.  This thing was done to try and get the opinion from this very specific sect of the hardcore Beatles fanbase.  This was never a question of “what, objectively, are the best Beatles songs?.”

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16 March 2015
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Into the Sky with Diamonds said
The fact that “Yellow Submarine ” has fared so poorly reflects that the fact that it’s a very simple (simplistic?) song that most on this Forum would not choose to listen to.

But the song has had such a SPECTACULAR IMPACT.

This gets back to an issue raised a long time ago of whether a song’s impact should factor in its rating. I think it should – it’s the difference between “what are your favorite songs?” and “what are their best songs?” 

And that would be difficult anyway, since music is so subjective.

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16 March 2015
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@Necko   I’m not so sure about that.

If you look at how this all got started, you’ll see that the opening paragraph of the “Can we all agree … or not” thread reads:

Everyone here is a Beatle aficionado, but there seem to be strong Forum disagreements on the merits of this or that song.

Remarkable how the same songs appear on the ‘Unbelievably Underrated’ and ‘Worst Beatle’ song threads.

Are there any songs that we could all agree represent the Beatles at their best? Or at least be fine examples of their work.

How would we go about determining that?

Could a list of all Beatle songs be posted somewhere, and somehow we could give each song a score?

Could we give a thumbs up, a thumbs down, or no thumb at all?

Could a thread be set up here that everyone could edit a la Wikipedia? We could then simply add our names next to the songs we like.

All suggestions welcome.

I’veJustSeenAFaceo then took it from there and collected our ratings.  

The key sentence is “Are there songs that we could agree represent the Beatles at their best?” When you look at it that way, I think impact does matter.

Example: I never cared for “Tomorrow Never Knows ” and would never include it on any playlist (except for the playlist of songs to be played when I want to get guests out of the house). But I have to recognize its impact and rate it higher than a song I might mildly like that remains essentially unknown.

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16 March 2015
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NotABeatlesRelatedUsername said
Glad to see that It’s All Too Much (The best Beatles song) scored higher than Michelle (The worst Beatles song). Everything else about that list is wrong and makes me want to cry though.

They don’t make me cry – though I tend to ignore them as I personally find them meaningless.

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16 March 2015
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Bongo said

Ron Nasty said
There is no way Free As A Bird or Real Love can be considered a part of the canon. Every other Beatles recording released, including the BBC stuff, the Star Club recordings, the Tony Sheridan recordings, the Decca audition, and the archive Anthology material would come above those.

There is one simple reason, whatever anybody’s personal feelings about them may be – negative or positive, they do not feature, and could not feature, the active participation of John. If this is to be done, it should be solely restricted to the core canon as settled in 1987 with the initial CD releases.

John wasn’t on some of the White Album or Abbey Road songs either. At least John was on those 2 songs.

 For this reason, I believe they belong on the canon list. apple01

This is another area where we can’t all agree – though I agree with you that they are ‘canon’ – whatever that really means, I suspect the majority here don’t. Which is fine by me – it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of them at all.

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16 March 2015
11.26pm
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I consider Free As A Bird and Real Love canon, as well.

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17 March 2015
3.36pm
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I won’t get into any fights over this, but I generally don’t think of Free As A Bird and Real Love as “proper Beatlesongs”. I tend to think of songs written and/or recorded 1962-1969 as such. But that’s probably only because I don’t like to be reminded that there was life after the Beatles broke up, and that John died. <wince> No Ron Nasty sneers intended here. They’re very lovely sorta-Beatles songs. They just make me sad because… well… a-hard-days-night-paul-7ahdn_george_07a-hard-days-night-ringo-24?

And by the way, no, we cannot all agree. Disagreements are a part of life, and humans would not be what they are without them. We can, however, agree to disagree, and carry out our discussions in a calm, rational manner, which is a trait more strongly detected on the Beatles Bible Fab Forum than any other Internet meeting-place I have experienced in my limited experience. (Yes, I’m looking at you, YouTube.) a-hard-days-night-john-3 

Kudos apples to civil discussions!apple01apple01apple01

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17 March 2015
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Bongo said

Ron Nasty said
There is no way Free As A Bird or Real Love can be considered a part of the canon. Every other Beatles recording released, including the BBC stuff, the Star Club recordings, the Tony Sheridan recordings, the Decca audition, and the archive Anthology material would come above those.

There is one simple reason, whatever anybody’s personal feelings about them may be – negative or positive, they do not feature, and could not feature, the active participation of John. If this is to be done, it should be solely restricted to the core canon as settled in 1987 with the initial CD releases.

John wasn’t on some of the White Album or Abbey Road songs either. At least John was on those 2 songs.

 For this reason, I believe they belong on the canon list. apple01

John was dead. The Beatles weren’t active anymore. Also, after the split, it was often that two or three of them would record a song together. Does that make it a Beatles song? No it doesn’t.

I agree with Ron Nasty here, though I’m sure I’ve shared my opinion on this before.

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18 March 2015
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Linde said

John was dead. The Beatles weren’t active anymore. Also, after the split, it was often that two or three of them would record a song together. Does that make it a Beatles song? No it doesn’t.
 

This view is a little shortsighted, in my opinion, for John Lennon was very aware of The Beatles’ plans to compile their own personal footage for a tentatively titled ‘The Long & Winding Road’ project documenting their Beatles’ experience together while he was still alive which eventually became the ‘Anthology’ volumes.  The ‘Anthology’ project (which ‘Free As A Bird ‘ & ‘Real Love ‘ obviously play a Big Part) is arguably the most ambitious Beatles’ undertaking EVER, the fruits of DECADES worth of Beatles’ film, music & memoirs.  John Lennon contributed every bit as much to the ‘Anthology’ as the others did, he simply “stepped out” (Sorry, but my Spirituality acknowledges that he DOES indeed Live On) before the project was completed, no different than him not being around for most of the ‘Abbey Road ‘ album (which all of us DO agree qualifies as “canon”).  The ‘Anthology’ hardly compares to the “two or three of them would record a song together” “after the split” argument…:-)

18 March 2015
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What do you mean by John “simply stepped out”? It wasnt like he had gone to the bathroom and then for a smoke and the three did it on the quick before playing it back when he returned. He was dead. He left no instructions for either track for what the Beatles should do and whilst John did seek input from the others on his Beatles material (Paul was in the control room for Julia as heard on ‘Anthology 3 ‘) he always had the option to not go with it. Ignoring all the Beatles tracks John didnt contribute to and focusing on the ones he was the lead man, his songs, he could always say what about a hammond organ or suggest Ringo plays the snare lighter or bring in a 23 piece orchestra or overdub the sound of strawberries being eaten, whatever. He could also listen to the other three (or whichever was playing on the track) as they made suggestions like piano, harp, ukelele, sing it a touch slower etc and then either say no there and then or try and out and see if it worked or not. If it did use it. That option had gone on these.

The idea that John contributed (outside of a couple of demos he never imagined would be overdubbed 20 years later and released as Beatles singles) to either ‘Free As A Bird ‘ and ‘Real Love ‘ as much as any of his other Beatles songs in my opinion is deeply flawed.

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meanmistermustard said
What do you mean by John “simply stepped out”?

This was exactly how Paul, George & Ringo approached the recording of ‘Free As A Bird ‘ & ‘Real Love ‘, Ringo had said that they imagined him to be “on holiday” while they finished up a couple of his songs.  I get that you don’t think much of these tracks, but if Paul, George, Ringo & Yoko agreed (something that doesn’t happen everyday) for these to go out as “Beatles” then I don’t think that anybody else can just come along and say “Yeah, but it’s not really them”, it’s The Beatles alright and as George Martin likes to say, “All You Need Is Ears”…:-)

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18 March 2015
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There is a difference in taking the approach when recording the songs when it makes it easier to record overdubs plus it nicely omits the fact that John could not at any point ever in the recordings make any input into them*. However you approach it, whatever you want to think about them John could not. And at this point we go into how John didnt add anything to (insert track) and we go back in circles.

And to repeat I’m not arguing that these are not recordings that go under the name ‘Beatles’, what i am saying is that these are not to be classed in the same category and taken in the same manner as all the tracks released in the Sixties up til May 1970 are°.

 

*And going by that logic, and to take it to a ridiculous extreme, when all four Beatles have gone whoever is in charge of their estates can shove together four random pieces of solo multitracks agree to call it Beatles and we are to swallow it and go “yip, thats a Beatles track the same as ‘Yesterday ‘ is. Great. Thank you.”.

“°Life comes and life goes as we go round and round in circles.”

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meanmistermustard said 

And to repeat I’m not arguing that these are not recordings that go under the name ‘Beatles’, what i am saying is that these are not to be classed in the same category and taken in the same manner as all the tracks released in the Sixties up til May 1970 are°.
 
  

And what I’m saying is that Everything that’s been agreed to have gone out as “The Beatles” should be treated as such, especially when one is trying to acetane which songs of theirs are “the best”, putting limitations on only a select portion of their catalogue because of one person’s opinions on which ones qualify cheapens the exercise of “Can we all agree … or not?”, in my opinion.  If someone likes ‘Free As A Bird ‘ more than ‘Eleanor Rigby ‘ then let them have their voice, their opinion matters just as much as yours, are you afraid that ‘Free As A Bird ‘ will crack the Top 100 or something?  As for your “ridiculous extreme” quip, that hasn’t happened yet for ‘Free As A Bird ‘ hardly qualifies, it was done with the utmost care with Yoko Ono’s blessings (she didn’t need the money) and was a most suitable “reunion” while a reunion was no longer possible, most worthy of The Beatles’ Brand…:-)

18 March 2015
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No one is saying that it doesnt count as a Beatles song (for the 100th time) and no one is saying you cant like ‘FAAB’ more than ‘Eleanor Rigby ‘ or ‘Yesterday ‘ or ‘Leave My Kitten Alone ‘ and no im not afraid if they make the top 100 (if Apple had had sense at the time it would have beaten Michael Jackson to the top spot back in 1995) and this isnt an attack on anyone or what they think or believe. If folk want to write and believe that both are fine, good, great, I’ll defend their right to do so and post it here. But the same goes for the opposite view and that it can also be posted. Both sides should be allowed to be vigorously defended as long as none of it gets personal and it isnt just going in a circle for eternity going over the same points again and again until everyone one on the forum is fed up.

However it does seem at times like the yes camp can say it loud over and over and post their reasons whilst the no voters should be quiet and not challenge some of the points.

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meanmistermustard said
No one is saying that it doesnt count as a Beatles song (for the 100th time)

Really?  The Thread Topic is about Agreeing on Which Beatles’ Songs are Best and I didn’t see ‘Free As A Bird ‘ or dozens of other Beatles’ songs on The Ballot…:-)

18 March 2015
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Billy Rhythm said

meanmistermustard said
No one is saying that it doesnt count as a Beatles song (for the 100th time)

Really?  The Thread Topic is about Agreeing on Which Beatles’ Songs are Best and I didn’t see ‘Free As A Bird ‘ or dozens of other Beatles’ songs on The Ballot…:-)

Yes. Really!!

What was discussed at the beginning of the thread and the whole way thru regarding ‘FAAB’, ‘RL’, and all the BBC and Anthology tracks is not that they arent the Beatles but instead that they are not part of the main canon of songs which is commonly viewed as everything recorded and released by the Beatles on Parlophone/Apple (or Capitol/Apple if your in the USA) from the ‘Love Me Do ‘ single in October 1962 right the way thru to May 1970 with the release of the ‘Let It Be ‘ album.

This has been gone over before.

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