Can't Buy Me Love

Right, let’s be a bit more controversial for this post. If history has taught us anything at all it is that, to quote a classic silver screen tag line, ‘Nobody’s perfect’. Even the greatest icons have their lesser moments, the trick seems to be to overwhelm those moments with a wealth of acclaimed work so that no one notices.

One of the greatest exponents of this principle was The Beatles who managed quite successfully to overshadow their own failings with a constant production line of brilliant songs. But strip away the good stuff and what are you left with? Welcome to some of The Beatles Worst Songs Ever.

‘Within You Without You’ – Does anybody not skip over this track nowadays? It is the wart on Sgt Pepper’s nose and not what most people would have you believe, i.e. a beautiful piece of eastern-inspired music, but a complete dirge. Whilst I am happy to indulge George in his other Indian influenced efforts (‘Love You To’ for example) and even John in his (‘Jealous Guy’) I really can’t be doing with this.

‘Ob-la-di Ob-la-da’ – Whilst I can live with most of McCartney’s whimsy (even frogs), I’m afraid that this just doesn’t do it for me and it rather spoils the otherwise excellent first side of the ‘White Album’. What were Marmalade thinking of? (answer: the money).

‘Dig A Pony’ – Fans will tell you that ‘Let it Be’ is just as good as other Beatles albums but this song belies that contention (along with a few others). Yet another Lennon/McCartney song that I cannot stand, basically because it is waaay too long and it drags like a sack of coal up a steep incline.

‘All Together Now’ – This song, knocked up to allow the Fabs to appear in their own ‘Yellow Submarine’ film, just redefines ‘filler’. It is rather depressing to see the greats of the popular song sunk to riffing around a nursery rhyme melody like it was their latest golden egg.

‘Octopus’s Garden’ – There’s a limit to how much ‘loveable’ Ringo a person can stomach, and this is it, or it could possibly be ‘Don’t Pass me By’.

‘One After 909’ – I feel that I dislike this so much because it arrived out of context. What was OK on the first Beatles album sounds naive and dated on ‘Let it Be’. Let’s face it, this is a bog standard rock ‘n’ roll structured song which belongs in the 1950s, not in the late 1960s rubbing shoulders with ‘Let it Be’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’. It just reeks of barrel scraping.

Right, that’s it. I’m off to calm down and listen to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’, arguably two of the greatest songs ever written. Strange that they came from the same stable as all the above!