Worst Beatles song on Past Masters

Apologies for 2 in 1 day, but frankly I'm greedy and have been dying to talk about this release.

The German songs are pointless, rather than bad, so I'm voting for You Know My Name (Look Up The Number). Everything else here is brilliant.

Wow - reading that back, I really sound like Geir.

I've got little interest in most of the first disc, but Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand stands out as being particularly inessential, and also, from an audio point of view, just sounds pretty rubbish even remastered.

The opening four songs on disc two are probably my favourite four Beatles songs, and I have played them to death over the last 2 weeks. That the rest of the disc is pretty fucking awesome too is just a big fat bonus.

Is anyone gonna heavily diss You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)?

x-post; you do!

I really like the opening bars of Look Up The Number, and while it's clearly a throwaway piece of nonsense, I quite like it. Maybe just cos it's where I assume Vic & Bob got the "club style" singing for Shooting Stars from.

Maybe just cos it's where I assume Vic & Bob got the "club style" singing for Shooting Stars from.

I assumed they got it from Billy Connolly

... hold on though, didn't Dave Lee Travis, or some other Radio Fab DJ, used to have a Pub Singer bit in his show?

And did that sound like Lennon on YKMN(LUTN)?

It was Steve Wright!

http://991.com/newGallery/The-Legendary-Pub-Singer-I-Sink-Them-My-Wa-465642.jpg

I'm sure there's a Bonzos song with some pub singing going on as well

"Across the Universe" is horrible and gets my vote. It's John at his worst.

I'm sure it all began with "Stars on 45 pints" by Star Turn.

C'mon! Paul McCartney as a Male Stripper called "Denis O'Bell", why not?

.. and a posthumously released sax solo by Brian Jones!

I loved the German versions, we were out there at the time!

Man, everyone was out there in those days

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JzUx44lr8WA/SMXaS5-Fc0I/AAAAAAAADzA/MOCvuVbYBPs/s400/Hippies%5B2%5D.jpg

Yeah, gotta go with "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand." It's utterly pointless, the German pronounciation is terrible, and the couplet "O du bist so schön/Schön wie ein Diamant" is bad even by the standards of their worst lyrics.

"YKMNLUTN" is the best song on here WTFuckinflippetyfuck!

That is a joke, right?

Anyway.

Paperback Writer might be my favourite Beatles song. I assume I'm pretty much alone in this.

Can we talk about Rain's bassline, drum fills, and backwards coda, and can we also talk about the tightness, tautness, emotional maturity, and textural delicacy of We Can Work It Out, a finer genuine Lennon / McCartney collaboration than A Day In The Life?

I don't know why but until recently I always assumed that Paperback Writer was Lennon. Presumably it was the reference to Lear.

Paperback Writer might be my favourite too. Top 3, for sure.

Yeah.

Nick, you heard the 'long' version of "She's a Woman" right?

I would have expected 'Ballad of John and Yoko, The' (er) to walk this

Bad Boy, if not the German tracks. YOu Know My Name is great, so is Ballad of John and Yoko.

Why? It's the Nerk Twins! (re; Ballad of J&Y)

(One and only gig venue, the Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham, Reading, Berkshire)

I would have expected 'Ballad of John and Yoko, The' (er) to walk this

Uh, y' what? I mean I don't like it much either, but there's worse on here.

If they'd only polled a-sides.

Then again, Hello Goodbye?

Voted for Get Back!

...because the beatles just don't convince me as a blues-rock band.

Never got the love for Paperback Writer/Rain personally (Nick, you're gonna hate me even more for this). I do prefer PW, but both of these are kind of the straight-ahead rock songs that in my mind went on to inform the likes of Oasis etc, whereas I'm more of a Geirist Beatles fan of orchestras and silly noises (hence why I like stupid songs like Mr Kite etc). Plus I don't like songs English about rain as a rule.

Holy shit what's "straight-ahead" about "Rain?"

I'm beginning to think I disagree with dog latin on absolutely everything

Honestly, I think we've heard these songs so many times before that many of us take their pure musical invention for granted. If "Rain" was played on the radio for the first time today, it would blow a lot of people's minds. At the very least, it would still sound like nothing else around.

There really aren't any songs worse than Balladofjohnandyoko on this.

Protip: spelling it like that makes it seem even worse!

i love ballad of john and yoko

and "you know my name" is honestly one of my favorite tracks on here! i do all the weird voices to my wife and she hates it (she likes the song tho)

YOU
you KNOW
you KNOW you know my name heuhh heuhh heueehhh

& yea the opening bars are awesome

"hevvehh Hevvehh!"

haha

okay i think i should do a poll on the different parts of this song

I was thinking this too!

Someone needs to edit the Anthology 2 version bits into the stereo mix off Past Masters...

Get a room.

As for Rain begetting Oasis, I'll write more about this in the evening, but it's one very small facet of Rain that begat one very small facet of Oasis, and it's not an important facet of either.

"Hey Jude". Massively overplayed (even for the Beatles), and it's 7 minutes long.

Yeah, but every generation's gotta have their "Dry The Rain"...

The Sweden 1963 show is the best live Beatles ever.

this one? http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=fst001 or something else ...

Yeah! Reportedly John Lennon's favorite too. Jeez, only 20 minutes long, and most of that is on Anthology 1.

And of course Purple Chick has some wonderful live compilations out there. Maybe Apple just realizes bootleggers got all that covered....

This comp is all-time classic obv but today for the first time I'm really feeling the roughly twenty-month jump from "Rain" to "Lady Madonna," covering the singles that ended up in the album-ized MMT. I don't really know what they could have done that was better but man it's weird to hear this leap from Beatles as hot, live, top-of-their-game mod-psych rock band, to Beatles as nothing-to-prove purveyors of laid-back post-psych genre work and, once you get to Side 4, doughy proto-Classic Rock.

Also am I imagining things or wasn't there a thread polling McCartney's hammy/awesome ad-libs on "Hey Jude"? Google is getting me nowhere.

There was a poll, I think.

haha, i stand by what i said a few years back:

the most depressing transition on any beatles CD has to be the second disc of past masters, when you go from 'rain' to 'lady madonna.' the first four tracks are basically the beatles at the top of their game, just so sleek and confident and gorgeous, basically the coolest band ever, the james bonds of pop music. and then you jump ahead two years and already the band's turned into paul mccartney + three lazy stoners just fucking around in the studio.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 16 February 2013 07:04 (four years ago)

Absolutely; that run from Rubber Soul through to MMT is amazing. Maybe you crop it just before Sgt Pepper if you hate whimsy, but I'm fine with it.

yeah, from "Rain" (one of my favourite Beatles song) to "Lady Madonna" (maybe the song I hate the most from them) is quite a drop !
But it's a bit unfair since there should be "Penny Lane", "Strawberry Fields", "All you need is love", "Baby you're a rich man", "Hello Goodbye" and "I am the Walrus" to bridge the gap... (that said going from "Walrus" to "Madonna" is still a huge quality drop !).

oh I forgot "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" !

If you could fold in the Yellow Submarine original songs, you'd be onto a massive winner. Imagine sticking Hey Bulldog on Past Masters.

Ha, somehow missed that J.D. post or maybe it entered my subconscious ages ago and finally convinced me!

I think any hypothetical version of Past Masters would have to exclude "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" as those appear on a "proper" album, but it's interesting to think what their catalogue would look like if the Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine material had ultimately been treated the same as the Long Tall Sally material, not belonging to a "proper" LP and therefore fair game. It'd have to become a three-disc set, but at that point you have basically all of the most important, groundbreaking and smash hit Beatles recordings in one package.

the original yellow sub songs inc hey bulldog are on mono masters!

Huh, never realized that! And all you lose is "Old Brown Shoe," "The Ballad of John and Yoko," and "Let It Be." That's interesting.

Worst song on the Past Masters compilations is either one of the German-language translations or one of the covers.

sad @ 7 votes for "love me do", rote everly brothers style but harmonica like cool mersey breeze

Isn't that the lesser "Love Me Do", the one with Ringo on it that got pulled for the hit version w/the session guy?

wiki sez The Beatles with Starr recorded a version at EMI Studios.[16] They recorded Love Me Do in 15 takes. This version with Starr is available on Past Masters

I keep forgetting about 'Love Me Do' ... I don't hate it, but it's not exactly remarkable.

IIRC the Andy White version is only heard on Please Please Me.

It's on 1s, Red, and is the version usually heard on the radio.

I like "Old Brown Shoe." I figure its inexplicable presence on Red is a concession to George.

Its probably the most overlooked Beatles track.

'Old Brown Shoe' is great - it's always nice to hear George in those rare upbeat moments.

Ringo is so great on "Old Brown Shoe," and that guitar/bass unison line in the bridge is killer.

Yup. If 'Hey Bulldog' is the Lennon-McCartney one that got away, then 'Old Brown Shoe' is George's.

It's a cool song - IIRC the mix lets it down a bit? Should pay attention the next time I put it on... in my mind it's one where McCartney has insisted on having his bass WAY too loud in the mix but I could be wrong.

I thought Harrison played bass?

Possibly/probably. I can't imagine that Paul would allow George to essentially dictate his part to him note-for-note.

he did on "Something" -- and was passive aggreesive about it as usual ("Maybe it was George's turn to tell me what to do for once" or some such thing).

Harrison played bass on quite a few Beatles tracks, iirc.

As, Lennon memorably said about McCartney, "Best bass player in the world? He's not even the best bass player in the Beatles".

I thought that line was about Ringo?

In 1980:

Paul is one of the most innovative bass players … half the stuff that’s going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period … He’s an egomaniac about everything else, but his bass playing he’d always been a bit coy about.

j/k, in fact he didn't even say it about Ringo. Sadly.

It's interesting to note that even when the Beatles recorded in different comfigurations they still had that identifiable Beatles sound. 'She Said She Said' has no McCartney, 'I Me Mine' has no Lennon, 'Back In The USSR' has no Ringo and 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' has no Harrison (and Ringo) but they all sound like Beatles tracks.

Never thought of it that way but v true!

he did on "Something" -- and was passive aggreesive about it as usual ("Maybe it was George's turn to tell me what to do for once" or some such thing).

Did he? I remember George saying something about how it was too busy, and later saying, "I should've gotten Willie Weeks to play bass on it."

Harrison played bass on quite a few Beatles tracks, iirc.

He plays bass on "Drive My Car," and Paul plays lead. The main unison riff on the verses was George's idea, as an homage to the arrangement on Otis Redding's "Respect."

xx-post:

Yet, when it comes to their solo careers, it's a different story. McCartney's '70s work often feels like a continuation of Abbey Road, but no other Beatles members are on that stuff. Whereas Ringo, Harrison and Lennon occasionally collaborated and it didn't have a Beatles sound to it.

What comes closest - I'm the Greatest maybe?

"Band on the Run" has none of the other Beatles but sounds most Beatle-esque, from the drumming and bass work to the guitar fills.

Yeah i was thinking of the latter scenario (lennon, harrison + starr)

Lennon solo frequently used the Beatles-y chromatic descending bassline (if I have my music theory right). This one could have been a White Album track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcOkp6aj_U

Whereas Ringo, Harrison and Lennon occasionally collaborated and it didn't have a Beatles sound to it.

― Working night & day, I tried to stay awake... (Turrican), Monday, February 20, 2017 6:38 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dunno, I always thought "Back Off Boogaloo" and "It Don't Come Easy" sounded pretty Beatley.

Backing vocalists disqualify "It don't come easy", I'm afraid.

paul mccartney + three lazy stoners just fucking around in the studio.

aka the Best of the Beatles

George's Leslie'd arpeggios and the Savoy Truffle Horns add more Beatleness than the backing vocals subtract.

xp

Best of the Beatles

*QI klaxon*

many x-posts:

Yeah, 'Look At Me' is cut from the same cloth as stuff like 'Julia', which in itself could have been a Plastic Ono Band track.