The Beatles' 10 most influential/important tracks, and why?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by LadyGrinningSoul, Jul 28, 2016.

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  1. LadyGrinningSoul

    LadyGrinningSoul Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I don't have 1/100th of the Beatles knowledge that some of you people have, so i ask, what are the Beatles' 10 most influential/important tracks, and why?
     
  2. Dr.D

    Dr.D Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I'd nominate 'I Feel Fine' for that first note. It was, I believe, one of the first uses of recorded feedback.
     
  3. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    I Want to Hold Your Hand
    The single was most Americans' first exposure to the songwriting magic of Lennon and McCartney.
    The song "was the apex of Phase One of the Beatles' development," said producer George Martin.
    [​IMG]


    Ticket to Ride
    "Ticket to Ride" was the first Beatles recording to break the three-minute mark, and Lennon packed the track with wild mood swings. His singing and lyrics teeter between ambivalence and despair in the verses. The bridge is a powerful double-time burst of indignation ("She oughta think right/She oughta do right/By me"). Another surprise came in the fade, an entirely different melody and rhythm with the repeated line "My baby don't care," sung by Lennon at the upper, stressed top of his range. "We almost invented the idea of a new bit of a song on the fade-out," said McCartney, who also played the spiraling lead-guitar part in the coda. "It was quite radical at the time." The Beatles now saw making records as a goal in itself, rather than just a document of a song and were changing their approach to recording as they got more comfortable with the possibilities of the studio. Instead of taping songs as they would play them live, picking the best take and then overdubbing harmonies or solos, the band now usually began with a rhythm track and slowly built an arrangement around it. "It was pretty much a work job that turned out quite well," said McCartney.
    [​IMG]


    A Day in the Life
    "A Day in the Life" is the sound of the Beatles on a historic roll. "It was a peak," John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, recalling the Sgt. Pepper period. It's also the ultimate Lennon-McCartney collaboration: "Paul and I were definitely working together, especially on 'A Day in the Life,'" said Lennon.


    Come Together
    "If I had to pick one song that showed the four disparate talents of the boys and the ways they combined to make a great sound, I would choose 'Come Together,'" George Martin said. "The original song is good, and with John's voice it's better. Then Paul has this idea for this great little riff. And Ringo hears that and does a drum thing that fits in, and that establishes a pattern that John leapt upon and did the ["shoot me"] part. And then there's George's guitar at the end. The four of them became much, much better than the individual components." "Come Together" was the final flicker of this rejuvenated spirit: It was the last song all four Beatles cut together.
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2016
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  4. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    "Yesterday": Because it made all previous doubters finally have to admit that Lennon and McCartney were songwriters for the ages. It is also the most covered song in modern times.
     
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  5. LadyGrinningSoul

    LadyGrinningSoul Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Nice and detailed, thanks! :)
     
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  6. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    For sheer impact, I doubt much could touch "She Loves You" (Europe) and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (USA). For formal breakthroughs, "We Can Work It Out", "Norwegian Wood", "Yesterday", "SFF" and "Hey Jude" were pretty carefully studied. Lyrically, "Revolution".
     
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  7. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    I have Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Martin to thank for that. :D
     
  8. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Add "Let It Be" too. It seems to have grown in importance over the past decades.
     
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  9. Haristar

    Haristar Apollo C. Vermouth

    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    She Loves You
    I Want to Hold Your Hand
    A Hard Day's Night
    Yesterday
    Eleanor Rigby
    Strawberry Fields Forever
    A Day in the Life
    I Am the Walrus
    Hey Jude
    Let it Be
     
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  10. BadJack

    BadJack doorman who always high-fives children of divorce

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    "Tomorrow Never Knows" invented hip-hop. I read that somewhere.

    But really, "Tomorrow Never Knows".
     
  11. NiceMrMustard

    NiceMrMustard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia, USA
    In no particular order,
    1. I Want to Hold Your Hand
    2. Please Please Me
    3. Yesterday
    4. Norwegian Wood
    5. Tomorrow Never Knows
    6. A Day in the Life
    7. I Am the Walrus
    8. Hey Jude
    9. Revolution
    10. Across the Universe

    Seems like John wins this one....
     
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  12. the sands

    the sands Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    Just some thoughts, not based on facta or anything. :)

    I Want to Hold Your hand - Breaktrough in America and then the rest of the world. Millions of teens formed beat bands.
    A Hard Day's Night - Catchy pop songwriting of another world. It raises the bar for everyone else.
    I Feel Fine - With feedback. Very unconventional in pop, rock in 1964.
    Ticket to Ride - Inventive drumming for beat music at the time.
    Yesterday - Taking the pop song to new heights of sophistication
    Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) - with sitar and eastern flavors.
    Tomorrow Never Knows - A new type of studio trickery and tape loops.
    Strawberry Fields Forver - Heavy on mellotron, mood and atmosphere. More than a 'pop/rock song'.
    A Day in the Life - Not just a song but a composition and studio construction.
    Hey Jude - Looooong single. Not your average radio edit.
     
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  13. jricc

    jricc Senior Member

    Location:
    Jersey Shore
    I very much agree with this, and in addition to most of the songs above, A Hard day's Night because of the arguably, most dissected opening chord.
     
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  14. BadJack

    BadJack doorman who always high-fives children of divorce

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    "Within You Without You". Seriously.
     
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  15. LadyGrinningSoul

    LadyGrinningSoul Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Personally i believe it's ''Norwegian Wood'', a landmark for psychedelic music, and we have (one of) the first use of a sitar in pop music.
     
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  16. If I Can Dream_23

    If I Can Dream_23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I'm always bad at this kind of stuff because it's hard to precisely pinpoint what has been influential or what is most important (the notion of pop music being important always makes me shudder a bit anyways).

    I suppose with a group like The Beatles, almost any song is eligible for the top ten!

    Ten that stand out for me, as they happened (though I make no claims they are necessarily "important")...

    I Want To Hold Your Hand
    A Hard Day's Night
    Got To Get You Into My Life
    Tomorrow Never Knows
    Strawberry Fields Forever
    The whole "Sgt Pepper" album, cover and all :)
    All You Need Is Love
    Revolution 9
    Let It Be
    Side 2 of "Abbey Road" :)

    That should work for now. :)
     
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  17. Lance Hall

    Lance Hall Senior Member

    Location:
    Fort Worth, Texas
    "Tomorrow Never Knows" which was like 30 years ahead of it's time. It's closer to a 1990s "alternative" track than anything from the 1960s. I would call it "important" from today's perspective but I don't know how "influential" it was at the time.

    Is the OP talking "influential" at the time or now? Lots of famous older and newer musicians consider the Beatles influential in their own work.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2016
  18. CybrKhatru

    CybrKhatru Music is life.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    If I were to make a 10-list, it'd be hard to argue against any of these. :) :) :)
     
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  19. CybrKhatru

    CybrKhatru Music is life.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Yeah.. ! great choices.

    It's hard to narrow it down to 10, really.
     
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  20. Pastle

    Pastle Forum Resident

    She Loves You
    I Want to Hold Your Hand
    A Hard Day's Night
    Yesterday
    Eleanor Rigby
    Strawberry Fields Forever
    A Day in the Life
    Help!
    Yellow Submarine
    All You Need is Love
     
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  21. Cymbaline

    Cymbaline Shiny Dog

    Location:
    Buda, TX
    Her Majesty
    Maggie Mae
    Dig It
    Mr. Moonlight
    Revolution 9
    Sea of Holes
    What's The New Mary Jane
    Flying
    Sgt. Pepper Inner Groove
    Why Don't We Do It In The Road
     
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  22. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    This is so difficult because i don't know what the best way is to approach it. Are we talking songwriting or studio influence? For me their greatest overall influence is that they showed the difference between writing a "song" and writing a "record". I think the latter is their greatest influence of all in terms of the music. Over the decades, rock has shown us that a song need not be "great" or, at times, even all that good, to be a great, important recording. Some of the greatest rock records of all time are as such because of what the band/artist did with "the song" in the studio. Taking all this into consideration, it's not that easy to quickly rattle off the top 10 most "influential".
     
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  23. CCrider92

    CCrider92 Senior Member

    Location:
    Cape Cod, MA
    "If I Needed Someone" > jingle/jangle 12 string rock!?
     
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  24. Rojo

    Rojo Forum Resident

    The first thing that must be said is that the Beatles were influential because they were massive and popular. All their innovations were relative to their popularity. Perhaps some lesser known band did some of the things listed here before the Beatles but not on an influential scale, as far as I know.

    I Want to Hold Your Hand -- Iconic song of Beatlemania period, established new pop sound for 63/64, inspired countless imitators
    Yesterday -- Reasons mentioned by Arnie plus sting quartet arrangement
    Ticket To Ride -- Heavy drum beat plus it inspired numerous arrangements of contemporary songs (Girl Don't Tell Me, She Don't Care About Time quickly come to mind)
    Norwegian Wood -- use of sitar
    Eleanor Rigby -- Lyrics and string arrangement (first "serious" non-protest pop hit of its era?)
    Tomorrow Never Knows -- tape loops, constant drum beat, reverse guitars
    Strawberry Fields Forever -- Took the whole mindset of pop song arrangements into a different level
    A Day in the Life -- The ambition of what was attempted and achieved with this song, in both lyrical and musical terms, was unknown to any pop song of this era but inspired a lot that was attempted afterwards
    Helter Skelter -- points to the path that heavy rock would soon take
    Come Together -- can't quite explain but sounds unlike anything before it but like a lot that came afterwards
     
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  25. Rojo

    Rojo Forum Resident

    The sound of "If I Needed Someone" was borrowed from the Byrds. Even the guitar riff was borrowed from Bells of Rhymney
     
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