В составлении списка десяти лучших битловских вещей участвовали Michael Wright, Bryan Wawzenek, Andrew Vaughan, Sean Dooley, Arlen Roth, Aidin Vaziri, Russell Hall, Ellen M. Barnes, Ted Drozdowski, Paolo Bassotti, Apple Records’ Tony Bramwell, Elliot Easton (The Cars), Ric Olsen (Berlin), Doug Powell (Swag), Chris Stein (Blondie), Richard Thompson, а также были учтены голоса посетителей Gibson.com.
10. “Let It Be” (1970 – single/Let It Be)
The title track from The Beatles’ final album carries an air of resignation – with the band members at war and the pressure of success wearing down their defenses, Paul McCartney was visited in a dream by his late mother Mary, who reassured him, “It will be all right, just let it be.” Despite the singer’s protestation over Phil Spector’s handling of the production on the final version and John Lennon’s general distaste for the song all together, it remains one of the group’s most epic ballads – a lighter-waving staple at McCartney’s concerts and the tune to close out charity concerts with an all-star ensemble. When it was released in 1970, though – after the group had already announced it had split – it was just balm for the jilted fans. – Aidin Vaziri
9. “Across the Universe” (1970 – Let It Be)
Inspired equally by domestic turbulence (“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup”) and a blossoming interest in Transcendental Meditation (“Jai guru deva om”), Lennon’s cosmic folk tune has that rare ability to stop you in your tracks – just as it did the man who wrote it. “The words are purely inspirational and were given to me – except for maybe one or two where I had to resolve a line or something like that,” Lennon said. “I don't own it; it came through like that.” To get the harmonies just right, the band roped it some of its teenage fans lingering outside Abbey Road studio. Although John wasn’t thrilled with the final recording that appeared on Let It Be (on which Phil Spector slowed down the original tape and embellished it with airy strings), he claimed “Across the Universe” was one of his best songs. – Aidin Vaziri
8. “Something” (1969 – single/Abbey Road)
Despite George’s songs usually receiving short shrift next to John and Paul’s tunes, both Lennon and McCartney held his song “Something” in the highest regard. John felt it might have been the best track on all of Abbey Road, while Paul later said it was the best song George had ever written. “Something” was the first Harrison-composed song to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single (it was double A-sided with “Come Together”). The lyrics for “Something” came well after the music, and for a while George used the placeholder “attracts me like a cauliflower” in place of “attracts me like no other lover.” Initially George wasn’t too keen on the song because it had come to him fairly easily, so he sat on it for about six months before giving it a chance. Because the promotional video featured George’s wife at the time, Pattie Boyd, most believed (including Pattie) that it was about her. In 1996, however, George revealed that he’d actually been thinking about Ray Charles when he wrote it. – Sean Dooley
7. “Help!” (1965 – single/Help!)
When it was time to write and record their fifth album, Lennon was not in the best shape. Fame was taking its toll, he’d packed on a few pounds and the adrenalin-fired excitement of getting to the “toppermost of the poppermost” had been diluted by the tedium of promotion, touring, interviews and insane fan frenzy. The opening line’s (“Help, I need somebody!”) vulnerability and honesty would signal a new direction in Lennon’s writing. Already influenced by the more direct style of Bob Dylan (interestingly, “Help!” knocked the Dylan-penned surreal masterpiece “Mr. Tambourine Man” by The Byrds from the U.K. #1 spot), Lennon would never again simply craft pop songs for radio and TV appeal. With “Help!” The Beatles started making music for grown-ups. – Andrew Vaughan
6. “Hey Jude” (1968 – single)
A powerful and poetic masterpiece, this tune, The Beatles’ biggest hit of all time, certainly is a song of true grandeur. I can still recall the first time I heard it on a far-off AM radio station that made it almost impossible to hear. Yet the riveting power of this record was so undeniable, its impact still came through despite all the static and interference. It features one of the great “ride-outs” of all time, and seemed to put a final capper on the ’60s as a song that took all that the decade had to offer musically, while delivering it in a package that still, to this day, stands up as one of the greatest recorded songs in history. A work of art of intense and complex mastery for sure! – Arlen Roth
5. “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966 - Revolver)
The final track on Revolver was a quantum leap forward for modern recorded music. Primarily a Lennon track (inspired largely by the Tibetan Book of the Dead), “Tomorrow Never Knows” marks the exact moment when pop music became rock music and when recorded songs transmogrified into aural journeys. With double-tracked vocals put through a Leslie speaker, it sounds as if John is raining down trippy wisdom from a distant mountaintop. Add to that backwards guitars and cymbals, droning sitar and tambura and almost avian tape loops – who knew a song built around one chord could take you so many places?! – Michael Wright
4. “Yesterday” (1965 – single/Help!)
When McCartney completed the composition of “Yesterday” by writing its lyrics on the back of an envelope, little did he know he had just created what would become the most covered song in history with over 3,000 recorded versions (A Guinness Book record). Paul had written the actual music sometime earlier, having dreamed the melody while sleeping at girlfriend Jane Asher’s family home in London. He woke up and rushed to the piano to flesh out the music before it vanished. For many weeks, Paul wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t inadvertently plagiarized the melody from another song. He ran it by numerous people, industry executives and the like, to see if anyone recognized the tune. Everyone assured him that it was fresh and new, and after a number of weeks, Paul finally felt comfortable enough to claim it as his own. During the sessions for “Yesterday,” he was only accompanied by a string quartet, making it the first Beatles song to be recorded using only one member of the band. – Sean Dooley
3. “In My Life” (1965 – Rubber Soul)
Written in 1965, when things were at a fever pitch for the Beatles, this track from Rubber Soul finds Lennon digging through his past just to get his feet back on the ground. “It was, I think, my first real major piece of work,” he said in 1980. “Up till then, it had all been sort of glib and throw-away. And that was the first time I consciously put my literary part of myself into the lyric.” It’s a deceptively simple tune, lavished with the trademark Beatles touches that make it sound unlike anything else – a hint of blues, the lovely minor chords and the baroque piano break in the middle that producer George Martin laid down while the band was out on a tea break. As close to perfect as the band ever got. – Aidin Vaziri
Having retired from the road in ’66, The Beatles now had the time to do whatever they wanted in the studio. Freed of constraints, the boys (plus George Martin and Geoff Emerick) turned Lennon’s acoustic ballad into psychedelic psycho-analysis. “Strawberry Fields Forever,” written in part about the garden where he played as a child, is the sound of John questioning his sanity as the world swirls around him. A mellotron saunters along, horns blurt, a swarmandal rains down, cymbals crash backward and nay-saying cellos saw at a tree, where John sits alone and wonders if he’s “high or low.” Sped-up, slowed-down, piled high with sonic elements and polished off with a little “cranberry sauce,” “Strawberry Fields” changed what a pop song could sound like. It stopped countless musical peers in their tracks – including Brian Wilson, who decided The Beatles had beaten him to creating the music he had idealized in his mind. It remains a bizarre, haunting and beautifully warped wonder. – Bryan Wawzenek
1. “A Day in the Life” (1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)
“A Day in the Life” represents the peak of the middle-period Beatles, when no sonic stone was left unturned and every trip to the studio was an opportunity to do something no one else had ever done before. There was no getting back to where they once belonged. Every movement was forward. This Sgt. Pepper closer takes the “We Can Work It Out” John/Paul formula and fires it down Alice’s rabbit hole. The frame of the song is a gorgeous Lennon ballad, mixing real-life tragedy (the death of the young Guinness heir, Tara Browne) with stream-of-consciousness canoe paddlings, filling the Albert Hall with holes and splashing English imperialism on the silver screen, to the horror of the movie house. This piece on its own would have been noteworthy for its melodic beauty and lyrical adventurousness. But the Lennon bit is merely the foundation of something much more grand. An almost anarchic orchestral climb sends the listener to another place entirely – a bell-clear, everyday, up-out-of-bed-and-off-to-work place that seems comparatively mundane until the character has a smoke and goes into a dream. Then the world explodes again, with an ethereal, almost primordial vocal from Lennon sending the listener back to his own soundscape. This time, when the Lennon verse ends, all bets are off. We launch into an orchestral crescendo that hurtles headlong until the crash of that oh-so-famous final chord. Quite simply, it is pop music’s finest moment. – Michael Wright
Votes for the Top 50 Beatles Songs were included from Michael Wright, Bryan Wawzenek, Andrew Vaughan, Sean Dooley, Arlen Roth, Aidin Vaziri, Russell Hall, Ellen M. Barnes, Ted Drozdowski, Paolo Bassotti, Apple Records’ Tony Bramwell, Elliot Easton (The Cars), Ric Olsen (Berlin), Doug Powell (Swag), Chris Stein (Blondie), Richard Thompson and the Gibson.com Readers Poll.
