Top Ten Songs by the Beatles
1. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
The first time I heard this song I was in elementary school. It was the first song I heard on the radio that stopped me in my tracks. It was December 1963. I asked my cousin who was singing it, and she replied, “Oh, some group from England called The Beatles.” I asked my parents for the album for Christmas, but I didn’t get it. Two months later, in February, The Beatles hit the Ed Sullivan show and history changed for ever. I finally got the album for my birthday that March. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sounded fresh and energetic, and different from anything else on the radio. Without its American success, The Beatles might have remained a fairly successful British group instead of an international sensation.
2. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”
This song and the many other cover songs on the 2nd American album release introduced many white American teenagers to a whole genre of American music. I can’t imagine not having listened to Smokey Robinson, but I hadn’t until I heard The Beatles cover this song. The harmony and the vocal trade-offs in The Beatles’ version let it stand up to The Miracles’ version, and that just proves how really good they were even that early in their careers.
3. “All You Need is Love”
When satellite TV was not a commonplace thing and there was no Cable TV, this song was chosen for the first global broadcast. It sent a simple, easily understandable and timeless message to a world that needed to hear it, and still does.
4. “Yesterday”
“Yesterday” proved that The Beatles could and did appeal to all ages, and that they could transcend musical genres. It sounds just as good today as it did 40 years ago.
5. “In My Life”
“In My Life” is another beautiful, genre-bending song, and one of the most touching and honest tributes to friendship and love I have ever heard.
6. “Across the Universe”
Whenever I am stressed out, this is my meditation song. It soothes me and centers me, even though it makes me terribly sad that John was not right when he sang, “Nothing’s gonna change my world,” or at least not in any way we can objectively prove.
7. “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
The song personified a generation. It is forever linked with the “Summer of Love,” the most optimistic year many of my generation ever experienced, when we really thought we could reinvent ourselves and assume new identities of our own choosing just like The Beatles were doing in this song. Plus, it’s an amazing performance to listen to, even after all these years.
8. “Eleanor Rigby”
“Eleanor Rigby” personified loneliness and isolation in such poetic style, and showed what Paul can do when he is really trying and not just throwing something together. It touched people in a lasting way.
9. “Julia”
John’s song to his mother is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful and heartrending songs ever written, period.
10. “Her Majesty”
I’m picking “Her Majesty,” which I have never seen on anyone else’s list, because it is a perfect little comic gem. This tiny wisp of a song caught the whole irreverent, light-hearted spirit that made The Beatles what they were, the part that is often forgotten in all the books that make it sound like being the most popular group on the planet was nothing but a huge drag and one long fight. No, a lot of time they had fun and they didn’t always take everything seriously, and “Her Majesty” is a perfect example of that. Plus, I think it foreshadowed some serious punk disrespect for authority a little further down the road.
