The End

30 posts in 30 days is a lot harder than you think. Even with a good theme and great material it is tough to meet the deadlines and with the Sabbath observance, even harder.

But I made it!

I had decided to make this last NaBloPoMo post be the greatest Beatles song of them all, but that is really an impossible task. First off, there is no consensus anywhere as to what the best Beatles song is, so this would have to be, (like most of this month) totally my opinion. Second, I had to decide what songs could be considered, and I decided to keep to the general official Beatles canon. That is usually accepted as all of the studio albums plus Past Masters/Mono Masters. So songs from Live at the BBC for example were out (they are mostly covers anyway). There were a bunch of songs on the three Anthology albums, but again, I choose to leave them out. Finally, I decided that it is unfair to choose one Beatles song, because all of the Fab Four wrote songs. So what I came up with was that I would choose one (or two) songs from each of them to make my favorite Beatles songs, plus one or two from their recorded covers.

Pinning down who wrote what is not always an easy task, but thanks to a lot of research out there and a great chart on wikipedia, today it is pretty easy. Most of the Beatles songs are credited to Lennon/McCartney. John and Paul made an agreement early on that all of the songs would be in both their names. Despite this, Many songs were written by just one of them, with some songs being true collaborations. There are also some songs that were written by John with some help from Paul or written by Paul with some help from John. In these cases generally one wrote the song and the other changed a lyric or melody, or most often, one wrote the verse and the other wrote the middle eight (bridge) section. There are also a few songs that they all are credited as authors and a few that are credited to Lennon/McCartney, but are John’s songs with some assist from Paul and Ringo or George and Ringo. Finally there are two songs not in any of the canon albums that I have included in the list, which are John’s songs with assist from all three of the others, and they are Free As a Bird and Real Love both created from John Lennon demos that the other three added to during the production of the Anthology albums and films.

In my list there are 211 Beatles songs, including covers or others work. Of these John has the most with 59 and Ringo the least with 2. Here is the full list of how many they each wrote:

John Lennon – 59
Paul McCartney – 56
George Harrison – 22
Ringo Starr – 2
Ascribed to all four – 2

Covers – 24

True Lennon/McCartney collaboration – 14
Paul McCartney with assist from John Lennon – 15
John Lennon with assist from Paul McCartney – 13
John Lennon with assist from George Harrison and Ringo Starr – 1
John Lennon with assist from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – 1
John Lennon with assist from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – 2

So without further ado, I am going to choose a few songs from each and then perhaps a few of the collaborations.

John Lennon
A Hard Day’s Night is often cited as the best Beatles song, and clearly one of the best Rock and Roll songs of all time.

Strawberry Fields Forever come from the psychedelic writings of John Lennon and sometimes I choose it as my favorite Beatles Song.

Across The Universe is often overlooked and I think a masterpiece of music and art.

Paul McCartney
Yesterday is the most covered song of all time. Its simplicity makes it a true masterpiece.

Eleanor Rigby is another that I often call my favorite. The use of the string quartet as the only instruments was genious.

The Long and Winding Road is a wonderful song from the end period of the Beatles.

George Harrison
While My Guitar Gently Weeps is perhaps his best song.

Something is the most covered of all of George’s songs.

Here Comes the Sun is another overlooked great song.

Ringo Starr
Ringo has only two songs, and I only really like one of them, Octopus’s Garden.

Probably the best true Lennon/McCartney collaboration is With a Little Help From My Friends. Of the songs written by Lennon with Paul’s Help, I think A Day In The Life is tops, and of the McCartney songs with John’s help clearly for me Penny Lane is the best.

Well, that brings me to the end of NaBloPoMo and my trip through the Beatles albums. I hope people enjoyed!