The Beatles

The 10-year-old neighbor kid who hangs out with us sometimes says his favorite band is The Beatles.

@Dr Starky: That's great!

edited 4th Dec '12 2:03:56 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Okay, I've always wondered, did you get your name from a slight misspelling of Ringo's actual last name?

I went on a forum once and asked for an username suggestions.

Someone suggested Richard Starkey and I really liked how it sounded.

I had no idea it was Ringo's real name until a few days later.

edited 5th Dec '12 9:29:39 PM by DrStarky

Um, no I do not go to school in Antartica. Maybe where you live the Beatles are huge, but down here, not so much. Not all communities are similar, you do realize that right?

All hail the Fab Four, fathers of modern music!

My favourite Beatles songs are probably the psychedelic material, with Revolver being my favourite album of theirs. As for my absolute favourite song, "Tomorrow Never Knows" trumps "na, na naaa... i mean Hey Jude" by a miniscule margin. It's like electronica before electronica was a thing!

edited 26th Jan '13 11:12:37 AM by Uilleam

The most overrated rock band of all time. Still very good.

My 10 favorite songs are probably Things We Said Today, Come Together, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Eight Days a Week, What You're Doing, The Night Before, Julia, The Fool on the Hill, and (these will probably surprise a LOT of people) Maxwell's Silver Hammer and You Know My Name (Look Up the Number). Honorable mention goes to the Naked version of Across the Universe.

edited 14th May '13 9:12:36 PM by SuperKing93

Another lover of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", yes!! *high five*

And honestly, I can barely stand to listen to much of the Let it Be version of "Across the Universe", but I love the song in every other iteration. (Same goes with "The Long and Winding Road", though I've tempered on that a bit.) The best version of the song to me, though, will always be the originally released version*

Not only does it sound so much sweeter with those two girls on harmony in the background of the chorus (two Apple Scruffs that the band decided to invite in to sing on the song), but dat psychedelia man.

edited 15th May '13 8:57:06 PM by 0dd1

Nice! I've always thought that what people call "Paul's granny shit" (Obladi Oblada, Honey Pie, Your Mother Should Know, etc.) is undeservedly hated.

I don't really have a favorite Beatle. IMO Lennon was the best songwriter when the band was together, but I much prefer the solo work of McCartney and Harrison. Starr of course has his charms as well.

Am I the only one who despises the hell out of "Run For Your Life"? That has to be one of my least favorite songs of all time by any artist. Luckily I can just stop Rubber Soul before the track starts.

edited 16th May '13 2:49:41 AM by SuperKing93

Oh, "Honey Pie" is one of my favorites especially (though admittedly it took a while to grow on me). I will say that "Your Mother Should Know" is a song I could take or leave, mostly because of the weird juxtaposition of seemingly jaunty lyrics and a very dark mood to the song, being completely in a minor key for some reason. (I have the same issues with the Turtles' "Happy Together", though I still love that song.) As for "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", I will never understand people's hatred of that song.

Honestly, while I'd have to give them all their credit where credit is due, George is probably my favorite of all of them. It kinda helps that All Things Must Pass was among my first Beatle solo albums.

And dear God, no, you're not the only one. "Run for Your Life" is one of the most bitter, horrible lyrics Lennon ever wrote. It's like he took the concept of "You Can't Do That" and asked himself, "How can I make this even more threatening and sexist?" I just imagine a really possessive, abusive boyfriend singing this song to his girlfriend whilst courting her. (Though, to be fair, John was kind of a terrible person throughout most of his early adulthood. It's kind of fascinating how such a hateful, abusive, screwed up man could ultimately become a symbol of peace and love and all. I love his music and the messages he promoted later in his life, but when I think about how he was, it's cringeworthy.)

...where was I? Oh yeah. At least it's catchy, though

edited 17th May '13 12:15:44 PM by 0dd1

The Beatles are probably the most influential band ever, except for maybe the Velvet Underground.

It seems like an odd comparrison, but you know what they say about the latter group.

I wouldn't say that the Velvet Underground had QUITE as much influence as the Beatles...but they're certainly comparable. They're still one of the best bands that ever was, though, and the world would certainly be a far less interesting place if not for Lou Reed. Hell, he influenced David freaking Bowie—that's gotta count for something.

I do know what you mean with that, though, and I'm convinced that it is very true

edited 18th May '13 8:27:32 PM by 0dd1

Without the VU, "Alternative" Rock probably wouldn't exist either.

edited 18th May '13 9:03:17 PM by Smasher

True, but much alternative rock draws tons of influence from the Beatles as well. It's really, to use an odd term for a it, a melting pot of different bands and styles. To use a popular example, Nirvana's music has tons of influence from both groups (e.g. they covered "Here She Comes Now", Kurt wrote "About a Girl" after listening to Meet the Beatles on a loop for hours).

Yeah, and a small part of me says that if I asked Lou Reed which band was more influential, he would probably say The Beatles.

One more urban legend: The Beatles (as they were presented to us) Never Existed. Apparently they employed body doubles consistently in order to maintain prolific production while also making lots of public appearances, movies, etc.

Just got into the Beatles this summer, and I love most of their songs, but my personal top ten are:

1. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

2. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

3. Across the Universe

4. Hey Bulldog

5. Yesterday

6. Eleanor Rigby

7. Lady Madonna

8. Strawberry Fields Forever

9. Julia

10. Yellow Submarine

My favorite Beatle is John. To me, he had the most interesting background before and after the Beatles, even if most of it is sad. I also love his snarky, smartass sense of humor. It's a shame that he died so soon. He seemed like a cool guy, even though he was a jackass at times.

A Hard Day's Night is my favorite Beatles album. In my opinion, it's the only one that manages to be completely consistent, with all the others having at least one track I don't like.

You too? I mean, I just started listening to them properly this year - around spring. And got seriously teased by my parents. Especially my mother, who, come to find out, has been a Paul fangirl since 1964. (In my defense, we didn't listen to the Beatles at home! Make of that what you will.)

Anyway, I'm like this major "classical music" person, I've got a degree in Music Education, and having heard for years how seminal they are to Western culture, I started listening to Beatles albums, and it was like my music brain just clicked on and ate it all up. That doesn't happen often, so it was really delightful.

And then this summer my mom and I went to see Sir Paul live. I think my favorite part was how into it my mom was.

Favorite album: Revolver - somehow the songs just mesh beautifully on it, and I like the "middle era" sound.

Favorite song: Couldn't tell you. Too many.

Favorite Beatle: Ringo! (Sorry, Mom.) His "song over ego" attitude is like every music teacher's dream. Also, he's been performing since he was like 20, still gets stage fright, and has never let that stop him. Respect! I'm really pleased that he's going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

In the discussion about new generations getting into the Beatles: my nephew learned several songs in school. He could sing "Hey Jude" when he was only eight.

I am indebted to the kind souls who uploaded every last Beatles album onto You Tube, repeatedly. I am not a wealthy person and have had some financial difficulties this year, so it's been great being able to listen to great music for free. (I own about five albums now.)

edited 6th Jan '15 9:49:23 AM by scionofgrace

Yup. In my defense, my parents don't really listen to them, so I was a bit late to the game. That and I was born in 1993, so, yeah.

Since someone mentioned Run For Your Life earlier in this thread, I'll give my two cents on it: I have mixed feelings on that song. On one hand, the lyrics are misogynistic so it's understandable why some people dislike it. But on the other hand, the tune is catchy, so I can't really bring myself to hate it.

That and it inspired me to write a YA novel where that kind of behavior would NOT be OK for a significant other.

edited 6th Jan '15 10:44:37 PM by PrincessGwen

I personally prefer the Psychedelic Rock era of the band, from Rubber Soul to Abbey Road, but I like pretty much everything they ever did. They've often been called the most influential Rock band in the history of the genre, and that's not too far off, IMO...

I am appreciably older than you and thus have less of an excuse.

Also, gotta put this in here 'cause it was just too cute: Mom did not say she was a Paul fangirl, not at first. But she knew off the top of her head how old he was because, as she put it, "He's ten years older than me".

I do the exact same thing with David Tennant.

She only ever owned the one album, the Capitol Records version of A Hard Day's Night, and she shared that with her sister. I really should give her a CD copy for her birthday.

It's funny, both of my parents were the right age when Beatlemania hit the U.S., yet I seem to have delved far deeper with the band than either of them My dad likes the band a lot but seems to more prefer their more rock and roll stuff than their experimental stuff, especially having an affinity for their early albums and some stuff from Let It Be. (He's always been really big on '50s music, especially doo-wop, though, so not necessarily a shock.)

My mom, on the other hand, has never really been into the Beatles. She likes some of their songs, but she seems more burnt out on them than anything—I'd imagine she probably got sick of everyone raving about them back in the day, and whenever the topic comes up she always makes fun of all the screaming girls at the time.

Since the topic of favorite Beatle came up, might as well toss my hat in and say that I've always had am affinity for George—his music has always resonated the most with me ("I Want to Tell You" is practically an anthem for me, and All Things Must Pass is among my all-time favorite albums), and from what I've seen of him in interviews and such and from what I've heard and read about him, I feel like we would've had rather compatible personalities. I got kinda jealous when, at my internship last summer, one of the people working there told me that he'd met George once at a concert back in the day (I think he was working as a security guard back then). He said he was an extraordinarily polite person, really grounded and not all celeb-entitled (and goodness knows he would've had every right to be!).

I come to this thread because I cannot think of a better place to go.

An individual by the name of "bluesno1fann" has been reverting my edits on Beatles albums. The chain of events was this: I observed that trope pages have been made for each of the 13 studio albums by the Beatles. I further observed that the track list for each album page was a simple list of songs—for example, Please Please Me simply has a list of 14 songs.

Now anyone that knows anything about the history of music knows that these albums were not released originally as CDs, or MP 3 collections, or batches of files downloaded off of itunes, or whatever. All of those albums were of course released as albums, namely, phonograph records. And those phonograph records had sides. As in, Side One and Side Two—or, in the case of The White Album, Side One, Two, Three, and Four.

And anyone who has ever read about The Beatles or studied their music knows that the arrangement of music on a particular side of a record was not random. There's a reason why most of Side Two of The White Album is love ballads, and most of Side Three is the hard rock songs. There's a reason why Side One of Abbey Road is six songs, while Side Two mostly consists of the short songs that make up the Long Medley (11 songs in all). There's a reason why Side One of Magical Mystery Tour is the songs actually composed for the TV movie, while Side Two is a collection of the group's 1967 singles. Ditto Yellow Submarine, where Side One is the actual Beatles songs while Side Two is George Martin's orchestral score.

Anyway, I took the initiative to break the track listing up into sides. That is, rather than simply list 30 songs that make up the White Album, list eight songs on Side One, nine on Side Two, seven on Side Three, and six on Side Four. This, remember, being the way these recordings were originally published and the way they were published for 20-25 years until the invention of compact discs in The '80s.

What happened next (and I apologize for long-windedness) is that this person, "bluesno1fann", is reverting my edits. This individual is deleting my edits noting which song is on which side. So, rather than noting that six songs are on Side One of Abbey Road and 11 songs (mostly the medley) are on Side Two, this individual is reverting my edits, to show only a 17-track list.

I think the sorting of songs onto sides is relevant information. Observe The Other Wiki, which specifies which songs are on which side for each album. I ask for input.

Report it in Ask The Tropers. They can nip that Edit War in the bud.