The problem with picking the greatest Beatles songs, as Rolling Stone has done, is that the Beatles were not always Great–you know, capital G Great, as in profound, but not only profound, also peerless. They were, however, prolific, creative, innovative, imaginative, relentlessly cheerful, and over and over and over again, perfect. Songs like “Lovely Rita”, “Good Morning“, “Baby You Can Drive My Car“, “Lady Madonna,” “We Can Work It Out,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face”–I could go on–are just irresistible pop gems. The were almost never not likable; they were almost never not lovable. Not for nothing did they star in cheery movies like A Hard Day’s Night and Help, and get a Saturday morning cartoon show. Those dark Rolling Stones never got a TV show, and their movie was about Altamont. On the other hand, the Stones produced one great song after another. For as much as they rocked, the Stones lived in your head. The Beatles almost never loved in your head. Paul McCartney was just too ebullient, and his forays into seriousness, then and in ensuing years, were cliched. John Lennon, the smart one, never seemed to me to be as deep as he was credited. Some of the band’s “greatest” stuff resulted when he exercised that impulse.
Here are Rolling Stone’s Top Ten: 1.) “A Day in the Life”; 2.) “I Want to Hold Your Hand; 3.) “Strawberry Fields Forever”; 4.) “Yesterday”; 5.) “In My Life”; 6.) “Something”; 7.) “Hey Jude”; 8.) “Let It Be”; 9.) “Come Together”; and 10.) “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I agree with four of the selections: “A Day in the Life,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Something,” and “Come Together.” “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be” are simplistic and derivative and unworthy; “In My Life” is nice but not better than a thousand other songs of its era. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is fun and infectious, but the band produced better material during that period. “yesterday” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” are vey fine songs; I prefer others.
I would probably rank “Strawberry Fields Forever” in first place; I thought it was a deeply mysterious song when I first heard it through my pillow on my Zenith transistor radio over WCAO, and then all the more mysterious, full of dimly understood lost thoughts, when I learned that Strawberry Fields was an orphanage. Still, “A Day in the Life” is beautifuland profound, and the band nailed it. Tough choice. My other choices: “All You Need is Love,” “Penny Lane,” “Paperback Writer,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Got To Get You INto My Life,” and “I Saw Her Standing There.”
The top choice was a true Lennon-McCartney collaboration, with John writing the opening and closing verses and Paul providing the bridge.
Rounding out the first half of the top 10 were No. 3 No. 4 “Yesterday” and No. 5 “In My Life.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2010/08/26/2010-08-26_news_today_oh_boy_mag_picks_alltime_best_beatles_tunes.html#ixzz0xiWo9vef