Worst Beatle song?

Well I'd say there's a bit more going on musically in most Bob Dylan songs than in Revolution 9. At least Dylan, you know, uses instruments.
 
This thread really surprised me, I had no idea people were so split on which songs they hated.

I always just considered Octopus' Garden just objectively the worst:p:
 
Fair enough, I know I was being a tad hyperbolic there. I will maintain that that doesn't really add much value to the song for me. It's still just the same dimestore philosophizing he was so fond of, where he'd talk down to his listeners with preachy advice straight from Eastern Spiritualism 101. Hence the faux depth.

It grates on me when George does it too, but I'm not usually as frustrated with it, because unlike Tomorrow Never Knows, George's work maintains the Beatles' musical sensibilities.

See for me, the real problem with Tomorrow Never Knows, and one that cannot be explained away is the complete lack of any harmonic or melodic sensibilities. The song literally never moves beyond oscillating a whole step down and then back up.

It could have been saved by a strong melody or even a well developed solo; modern jazz does this all the time. But here there's barely a melody to speak of, and certainly not one as strong as say that of Eleanor Rigby from the same album.

Though the Beatles were great pop musicians, they were not the kind of band that could make coherent musical statements without a harmonic structure or melody. Instead, it sounRAB like a jurabled mess of white noise and distortion with a driving rhythm that's not taking it anywhere, because it doesn't have anything to say.
 
Yes, a guitar solo. That's what Tomorrow Never Knows neeRAB.

And if the lyrics are so shallow and simplistic, why did you specifically request that I explain them to you?
 
Yeah, I know ... I never thought it was unliked. So thought I'd explain why I personally do: It's not much into the melodies, or into the lyrics, but there's something else about it ... it just that it does suck you in this hypnotizing cycle, to the point that even The Beatles when recording it didn't mean it to be this long, they just forgot to stop. The Bob Dylan influence in that song is not in the lyrics it's in the music, and this hypnotizing riff was adopted by John Lennon in many future works like Remeraber, God or I Found Out. It's not something you need to like, it's just the thing that made me love John Lennon and that finally introduced me to The Beatles.
 
Didn't talk about Revolution 9, I was talking about She's so Heavy, or many other post-Beatles John Lennon songs, where the influence of Dylan is too obvious.

And who said Music neeRAB instruments.
 
Yeah, I can see what you mean. To be honest, there are probably very few Beatles songs that I actually dislike, so when I say I dislike them I mainly mean it in the context of other Beatles songs.

But the Ringo songs.... ugh. I think I'd be fine with Harrison being the break from Lennon McCartney, and Ringo just kind of.... drumming.
 
Many. The length is not necessarily a bad thing. It's whether you do anything with the length. Like a Rolling Stone and Hurricane are the first long Dylan songs that come to mind. They aren't draggy, needlessly repetitive, and continue to develop new lyrical ideas the whole way through. She's So Heavy and Revolution 9 do not.



Because does not use the same riff as Sun King. Give it another listen. You Never Give Me Your Money uses a melodic motif that is reused in Golden Slurabers and Carry That Weight, but on the whole it is a much stronger motif than the one used over and over again in Because and She's So Heavy. You'll also notice that those songs don't just hang on that motif the whole time. They all develop and move to different places.

There's also nothing inherently wrong about hanging out on the same riff or chord structure or motif or what have you for a whole song, as long as something is being coherently developed. Take the Funkadelic song "Maggot Brain" for instance. It actually runs a very similar riff throughout the whole song. But over that riff it develops a very emotional and beautiful guitar solo, so it's fine. But Because and She's So Heavy never really go anywhere and the lyrics are inane.



It's music criticism; it's inherently subjective. This all just my opinion, man. In general, though I think you always need to have something interesting going on in a song. My problem with Tomorrow Never Knows is that it throws away what the Beatles were best at - melody, harmony, lyrics - and doesn't really replace it with an adequate substitute. I don't listen to the Beatles for their avante garde experimentalism. That's why I listen to Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Brian Eno, etc. Avante Garde was not their thing. I listen to them because they were a great pop band.



It's not that it's a cover that I have a problem with and I'm not criticizing the songwriting on it. It's an ok rock song in like a Chuck Berry or Little Richard vein, but the Beatles have just spent the last forty minutes playing some of the most complicated, beautiful, and ORIGINAL pop music ever. To close with a cover that sounRAB just like everything they were doing two years before ... well it sticks out like a sore thurab.



First, this is a music discussion board. I'm sorry my music discussion offended you, but I thought that was the point.

Second, I absolutely LOVE the Beatles. I think they are the greatest pop enserable ever. But that doesn't mean they are infallible. The vast majority of their stuff is incredible, but I don't have to love everything to be a fan.

Third, I have listened to John's solo stuff. It bores the pants off me. This might come from my music major background, but John was really not that sophisticated a musician. The really sophisticated stuff tended to come from McCartney and Harrison. Without them, his music is just a pale shadow of what he was producing as a Beatle. As was McCartney's because just as Lennon needed him for his musical knowledge, he needed Lennon to challenge him and keep him from composing only syrupy bubble gum pop.

Thus the only Beatle with a worthwhile solo career is Harrison. And Ringo, if you count his tenure as the conductor of Thomas the Tank Engine and add the excellent song Photograph (which Harrison mostly wrote for him too) to the equation. But in all seriousness, really the only one to match what they did as a Beatle, and to continue to grow as an artist was Harrison.
 
Well - yeah, the Harrison songs are excellent. I probably have a soft spot for the Ringo stuff just for the weirdness factor. If the Beatles didn't make weird music, I probably wouldn't have paid attention to any of their stuff.

I just noticed somebody named Run For Your Life - another favorite of mine.
 
^Nah, it's kinda cool, and works well with the whole album- and like written by Ringo! woah!

Isn't it weird that with the huge nurabers of ugly tracks on the white album, rarely it is mentioned?
Tho I'm one of those that love that album fully, but I have noticed a lot of people on rab hating how the white album is made of great tracks and shitty ones.
 
I'm surprised that the majority of you cite songs from their post-Help! days as their worst. I take it you have heard through any of their first five albums? When they weren't doing horrible covers (Long Tall Sally is their only good cover, and in many ways tops the original) they were writing bubblegum songs in the vein of Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins. Help! does have some redeeming qualities, with Dylan's influence being evident, but it's still a weak release. If they had stopped recording music in 1965 they would be no more respected today than The Monkees are.
 
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