Beatles For Sale (Album) at 50 - Song by Song Discussion Thread

Ok, almost 51, but close enough! Let's talk about the album first then each individual track.

Beatles for Sale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the 1965 EP, see Beatles for Sale (EP).
Beatles for Sale

Studio album by The Beatles
Released 4 December 1964 (UK)
Recorded 11 August - 26 October 1964[1]
Studio EMI Studios, London
Length 34:13
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin

Beatles for Sale is the fourth studio album by English rock band the Beatles, released on 4 December 1964 in the United Kingdom and produced by George Martin for Parlophone. The album marked a minor turning point in the evolution of the Lennon–McCartney partnership, John Lennon particularly now showing interest in composing songs of a more autobiographical nature. "I'm a Loser" shows Lennon for the first time coming under the influence of Bob Dylan,[6] whom he met in New York while on tour, on 28 August 1964.[7]

Beatles for Sale did not produce a single for the UK – the non-album tracks "I Feel Fine" and "She's a Woman" performed that role. Nevertheless, that coupling was followed up in the United States by "Eight Days a Week", which became their seventh number one in March 1965. In Australia, the only-ever non-original Beatles single (either side) went to Number One: Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" backed with Carl Perkins' "Honey, Don't", which held the summit for four weeks.

The album hit the UK number one spot and retained that position for 11 of the 46 weeks that it spent in the Top 20. Beatles for Sale did not surface as a regular album in the US until 1987. In its place was Beatles '65which featured eight songs from Beatles for Sale, plus the A and B-side of "I Feel Fine" and "I'll Be Back" from the UK's A Hard Day's Night album. Beatles '65 enjoyed a nine-week run at the top of the US charts from January 1965.

Overview
Prior to the recording sessions for Beatles for Sale, the band toured Australia and New Zealand (after a two-show night in Hong Kong), played concerts in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden and made several television, radio and live concert appearances in the UK. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said, "It was inevitable that the constant grind of touring, writing, promoting, and recording would grate on the Beatles,"[8] leading to the inclusion of several cover versions after the all-original A Hard Day's Night; the band's visible weariness on the album's cover is noted by narrator Malcolm McDowell during The Compleat Beatles. Yet during these sessions they were still capable of recording the single "I Feel Fine" and its B-side, "She's a Woman" (both written by Lennon–McCartney, and not included on the album).

Gram Parsons has noted the strong country influence on "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party". "I'm a Loser" is also notable for being perhaps the first Beatles song to directly reflect the influence of Bob Dylan, thus nudging folk and rock a little closer together toward the folk-rock explosion of the following year.[9]

Charting
Beatles for Sale and its modified US counterparts, Beatles '65 and Beatles VI, all reached number one on the charts in their respective countries, with Beatles for Sale taking over from A Hard Day's Night in the United Kingdom.

On 26 February 1987, Beatles for Sale was officially released on compact disc (catalogue number CDP 7 46438 2), as were three other Beatles' albums, Please Please Me, With the Beatles and A Hard Day's Night. Almost 23 years after its original release, the album charted in the United Kingdom for a fortnight in 1987. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the album was also issued domestically in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. Even though this album was recorded on four-track tape, the CD version issued in 1987 was available only in mono.

This album has been digitally remastered using the latest technology (along with the rest of the Beatles' catalogue) and was reissued on CD in stereo for the first time on 9 September 2009.[10]

Writing and recording
Background
When Beatles for Sale was being recorded, Beatlemania was just past its peak; in early 1964, they had made waves with their television appearances in the United States, sparking unprecedented demand for their records. Beatles for Sale was their fourth album in 21 months. Recording for the album began on 11 August, just one month after the release of A Hard Day's Night, following on the heels of several tours. Much of the production on the album was done on "days off" from performances in the UK, and most of the songwriting was done in the studio itself.

Most of the album's recording sessions were completed in a three-week period beginning on 29 September. Beatles' producer George Martin recalled: "They were rather war-weary during Beatles for Sale. One must remember that they'd been battered like mad throughout '64, and much of '63. Success is a wonderful thing, but it is very, very tiring."

Song selection
Even the prolific Lennon–McCartney songwriting team could not keep up with the demand for their songs, and with a targeted deadline of Christmas to meet, the band resorted to recording several cover versions for the album. This had been their mode of operation for their first albums but had been abandoned for the all-original A Hard Day's Night. The album included six covers, the same number as their first two albums. McCartney recalled: "Recording Beatles for Sale didn't take long. Basically it was our stage show, with some new songs." Indeed, three of the cover tunes were recorded in a total of five takes in one session on 18 October.

Beatles for Sale featured eight original Lennon and McCartney works. At this stage in their partnership, Lennon's and McCartney's songwriting was highly collaborative; even when songs had a primary author the other would often contribute key parts, as with "No Reply" where McCartney provided a middle-eight for what was otherwise almost entirely a Lennon song.

In 1994, McCartney described the songwriting process he and Lennon went through:

We would normally be rung a couple of weeks before the recording session and they'd say, 'We're recording in a month's time and you've got a week off before the recordings to write some stuff.' ... so I'd go out to John's every day for the week, and the rest of the time was just time off. We always wrote a song a day, whatever happened we always wrote a song a day ... Mostly it was me getting out of London, to John's rather nice, comfortable Weybridge house near the golf course ... So John and I would sit down, and by then it might be one or two o'clock, and by four or five o'clock we'd be done.

Recording
Recording took place at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London.[11] The Beatles had to share the studio with classical musicians, as McCartney would relate in 1988: "These days you go to a recording studio and you tend to see other groups, other musicians ... you'd see classical sessions going on in 'number one.' We were always asked to turn down because a classical piano was being recorded in 'number one' and they could hear us." George Harrison recalled that the band was becoming more sophisticated about recording techniques: "Our records were progressing. We'd started out like anyone spending their first time in a studio—nervous and naive and looking for success. By this time we'd had loads of hits and were becoming more relaxed with ourselves, and more comfortable in the studio ... we were beginning to do a little overdubbing, too, probably to a four-track."

Recording was completed on 18 October. The band participated in several mixing and editing sessions before completing the project on 4 November; the album was rushed into production and released exactly a month later. The Beatles' road manager, Neil Aspinall, later reflected: "No band today would come off a long US tour at the end of September, go into the studio and start a new album, still writing songs, and then go on a UK tour, finish the album in five weeks, still touring, and have the album out in time for Christmas. But that's what the Beatles did at the end of 1964. A lot of it was down to naiveté, thinking that this was the way things were done. If the record company needs another album, you go and make one."[citation needed]

Original songs
Opening tracks
All three opening tracks for Beatles for Sale have a sad or resentful emotion attached to them. This opening sequence set the sombre overall mood of the album, revisited in another Lennon tune, "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", which, "consistent in tone with ‘No Reply’, ‘I'm a Loser’, and ‘Baby's in Black’", according to Allmusic, "finds the singer showing up at a party only to find that the girl he expected to find isn't there".[12]

Other McCartney songs on the album included "What You're Doing", which implored the singer's girlfriend to "stop your lying". Although "Eight Days a Week" and "What You're Doing" are well regarded by many fans, they were regarded negatively by their creators: McCartney dismissed "What You're Doing" as "a bit of filler ... Maybe it's a better recording than it is a song ...", while Lennon referred to "Eight Days a Week" in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine as "lousy". In 1972, Lennon revealed that "Eight Days a Week" had been made with the goal of being the theme song for the film Help!:

I think we wrote this when we were trying to write the title song for ‘Help!’ because there was at one time the thought of calling the film Eight Arms To Hold You.

McCartney considered the Beatles for Sale sessions to be the beginning of a more mature phase for the band:

We got more and more free to get into ourselves. Our student selves rather than 'we must please the girls and make money', which is all that "From Me to You", "Thank You Girl", "P.S. I Love You" is about. "Baby's in Black" we did because we likedwaltz-time ... and I think also John and I wanted to do something bluesy, a bit darker, more grown-up, rather than just straight pop.

"No Reply"
Main article: No Reply (song)
According to Lennon in 1972, Beatles music publisher Dick James was quite pleased with "No Reply":

I remember Dick James coming up to me after we did this one and saying, 'You're getting better now—that was a complete story.' Apparently, before that, he thought my songs wandered off.

Reviewer David Rowley found its lyrics to "read like a picture story from a girl's comic," and to depict the picture "of walking down a street and seeing a girl silhouetted in a window, not answering the telephone."[13]

"I'm a Loser"
Main article: I'm a Loser
Steven Thomas Erlewine, writing for Allmusic, singled out "I'm a Loser" as "one of the very first Beatles compositions with lyrics addressing more serious points than young love" (cf. "There's a Place").[9]

David Rowley found it to be an "obvious copy of Bob Dylan", as where Lennon refers to the listener as a "friend", Dylan does the same on "Blowin' in the Wind". He also said its intention was to "openly subvert the simple true love themes of their earlier work".[13]

"Baby's in Black"
Main article: Baby's in Black
Unterberger said this song was "a love lament for a grieving girl that was perhaps more morose than any previous Beatles song".[14] The song features a two-part harmony sung by Lennon and McCartney.

"I'll Follow the Sun"
Main article: I'll Follow the Sun
"I'll Follow the Sun" was a reworking of an old song; it had originally been written when McCartney was a youth, as he related in 1988:

I wrote that in my front parlour in Forthlin Road. I was about 16 ... We had this hard R&B image in Liverpool, so I think songs like "I'll Follow the Sun", ballads like that, got pushed back to later.

Unterberger argued that although the song was "sometimes described as a ballad because of its light and mild nature, it's actually taken at a pretty brisk tempo."[15]

George Martin would later say that this was his favourite song from Beatles for Sale.[16]

"Eight Days a Week"
Main article: Eight Days a Week
"Eight Days a Week" is noteworthy as one of the first examples of the in-studio experimentation that the band would use extensively in the future; in two recording sessions totalling nearly seven hours on 6 October devoted exclusively to this song, Lennon and McCartney tried one technique after another before settling on the eventual arrangement. Each of the first six takes of the song featured a strikingly different approach to the beginning and ending sections of the song; the eventual chiming guitar-based introduction to the song would be recorded in a different session and edited in later. The final version of the song incorporated another Beatles first and pop music rarity: the song begins with a fade in as a counterpoint to pop songs which end in a fade out.[17]

"Every Little Thing"
Main article: Every Little Thing (song)
The dark theme of the album was balanced by "Every Little Thing", a "celebration of what a wonderful girl the guy has", according to Unterberger,[18] that appeared later in the album and had been written as an attempt for a single, according to McCartney:

'Every Little Thing', like most of the stuff I did, was my attempt at the next single ... but it became an album filler rather than the great almighty single. It didn't have quite what was required.

The British progressive rock band Yes included an extended cover of this song on their 1969 debut album and have played their version live on many occasions.

"What You're Doing"
Main article: What You're Doing
The lyrics are generally believed to concern McCartney's relationship with Jane Asher, also considered to be the muse for future Beatles songs such as "I'm Looking Through You" and "You Won't See Me" from Rubber Soul and "For No One" fromRevolver.[citation needed]

Cover songs

Beatles for Sale by the Beatles (side 1) – Parlophone yellow and black label. This is an original pressing with the "Kansas City" track listing not yet amended.
The remainder of the album consisted of cover versions, several of which had been staples of the Beatles' live shows years earlier, especially in Hamburg, Germany and at The Cavern in Liverpool, including Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music", Buddy Holly's "Words of Love", and two by Carl Perkins, "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" (sung by George Harrison) and "Honey Don't" (sung by Ringo Starr).

Many critics panned the cover version of "Mr. Moonlight". Stephen Thomas Erlwine of allmusic called it Lennon's "beloved obscurity" that wound up as "arguably the worst thing the group ever recorded."[8] Q magazineagreed, calling "Mr. Moonlight" "appalling". Rowley noted that the original by Dr Feelgood and the Interns was "hardly outstanding".[13] A cover of Little Willie John's "Leave My Kitten Alone" was recorded at the same session, but rejected from inclusion on the finished album; it was widely bootlegged before seeing official release on 1995's Anthology 1 compilation.


Later pressing of Beatles for Saleshowing amended label
The recording of the medley of "Kansas City" and "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey!" was memorable for McCartney, who in 1984 said that it required "a great deal of nerve to just jump up and scream like an idiot." His efforts were egged on by Lennon, who "would go, 'Come on! You can sing it better than that, man! Come on, come on! Really throw it!'" The song was inspired by Little Richard, who combined "Kansas City" with his own composition, "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey!", but Rowley found the lead vocals "strained" and considered it McCartney's "weakest Little Richard cover version"[13] (although McCartney only recorded one other Little Richard cover, "Long Tall Sally", while with the Beatles). However, in contrast to this Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, described it as one of their better covers. The original LP sleeve listed the song as "Kansas City" (Leiber & Stoller). After the attorneys for Venice Music complained, the record label was revised to read "Medley: (a) Kansas City (Leiber/Stoller) (P)1964 Macmelodies Ltd./KPM. (b) Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey! (Penniman) Venice Mus. Ltd. (P)1964."

Release
Beatles for Sale was released in the United Kingdom on 4 December 1964. On 12 December, it began a 46-week-long run in the charts, and a week later knocked A Hard Day's Night off the top of the charts. After seven weeks, the album's time at the top seemed over, but Beatles for Sale made a comeback on 27 February 1965, by dethroning the Rolling Stones and returning to the top spot for a week. The album's run in the charts was not complete either; on 7 March 1987, almost 23 years after its original release, Beatles for Sale re-entered the charts briefly for a period of two weeks shortly after the first CD release on 26 February 1987.

Album design
The downbeat mood of the songs on Beatles for Sale was reflected in the album cover, which shows the unsmiling, weary-looking Beatles in an autumn scene photographed at Hyde Park, London. McCartney recalled: "The album cover was rather nice: Robert Freeman's photos. It was easy. We did a session lasting a couple of hours and had some reasonable pictures to use ... The photographer would always be able to say to us, 'Just show up,' because we all wore the same kind of gear all the time. Black stuff; white shirts and big black scarves. We showed up in Hyde Park near the Albert Memorial and he was quite impressed by George's hair then - a marvelous little turnip top he'd managed to create."

This was the first Beatles album to feature a gatefold cover (the next would be Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1967). The photo inside the gatefold cover showed the Beatles standing in front of a montage of photos, which some have assumed was the source of inspiration for the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, though there is no evidence for this.

The sleeve notes featured an observation by Derek Taylor on what the album would mean to people of the future:

There's priceless history between these covers. When, in a generation or so, a radioactive, cigar-smoking child, picnicking on Saturn, asks you what the Beatle affair was all about, don't try to explain all about the long hair and the screams! Just play them a few tracks from this album and he'll probably understand. The kids of AD2000 will draw from the music much the same sense of well being and warmth as we do today.

 

Historically my least played Beatles album, but that all changed in 2009! Now it is one of my most played and freshest sounding Beatle albums to my ears. The 2009 remasters, both Stereo and Mono, were a revelation to me, and the sound quality is so high that this becomes one of the best sounding Beatle albums period. It feels more like you are in the recording studio with The Beatles than most of their other albums. What do you folks think of the album as a whole?

 

A lot of overlooked gems on this album. I dont Want to Spoil the Party, Every Little Thing, and What You're Doing in particlar. I don't care for the covers. Still feel that the Beatles were more of a singles band rather than an album band at this point.

I've always labelled this as the Beatles 'country album'. Perhaps not accurate but thats what I call it anyway.

 

I don't think any Beatles album is unessential. Beatles For Sale is criminally underrated.
Not a shabby album by any means, actually has a few of my all-time favorites by them.

Side one
1. "No Reply" 10/10
2. "I'm a Loser" 10/10
3. "Baby's in Black" 9/10
4. "Rock and Roll Music" 8/10
5. "I'll Follow the Sun" 10/10
6. "Mr. Moonlight" 7/10
7. "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" 9/10

Side two
1. "Eight Days a Week" 10/10
2. "Words of Love" 9/10
3. "Honey Don't" 7/10
4. "Every Little Thing" 10/10
5. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" 8/10
6. "What You're Doing" 10/10
7. "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" 9/10

 

​

No Reply JOHN 1972: "I remember (Beatles music publisher) Dick James coming up to me after we did this one and saying, 'You're getting better now-- that was a complete story.' Apparently, before that, he thought my songs wandered off."

 

I love the album, but to me this is their worst sequencing job ever! The Beatles albums are known for their near perfect sequencing of tracks, and many bands including ones that I have worked with have sequenced their albums using The Beatles sequencing as their template. Beatles for sale breaks all the rules of what is thought of as Beatles sequencing.

 

If I was to apply typical Beatle sequencing, then the album would look something like this:

Side one
1. "Eight Days a Week" 10/10
2. "I'm a Loser" 10/10
3. "Words of Love" 9/10
4. "What You're Doing" 10/10
5. "Mr. Moonlight" 7/10"
6. "Rock and Roll Music" 8/10
7. "No Reply" 10/10

Side two
1. "I'll Follow the Sun" 10/10
2."Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" 9/10
3. "Honey Don't" 7/10
4. "Every Little Thing" 10/10
5. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" 8/10
6. "Baby's in Black" 9/10
7. "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" 10/10

 

Can a Gort merge with one of the threads opened at any random time for any random Beatles album, possibly one where there isn't a full article copied from Wikipedia (copyright infringement) and full lyrics are not posted (another copyright infringement in most countries)?

 

Who thinks Beatles For Sale would be better regarded had they included the corresponding single I Feel Fine/She's a Woman in place of a couple cover songs?

 

Agreed, this is the one time where the Beatles were cruising on fumes, and they really could have benefited everybody by dropping a couple of the covers and including both sides of the single on the album instead.

 

Can a Gort please remind this poster that thread crapping is not allowed. Also I don't know what you would merge this thread with being as a Song by Song discussion of Beatles For Sale has never been done! Goodbye troll!

P.S. One of us is using this forum correctly and one isn't. It sure ain't me that's breaking the rules here.

 

There's always Beatles '65....

This album really improved to me too around the 09 remasters, really a joy to blast in the car and re-appreciate. Sort of like how Revolver got a bump when it was first issued on CD. For some reason this was my most played album around the remaster time, and every time I played it I had to play it again. It has that infectious Beatle pull, that energy of the 45 singles with some neat touches - C+W, harmonies, etc. The only song I really don't care for is Rock n Roll Music.

No Reply is a good example of how this is not the most inspired Beatles material, you can hear the weariness and almost workmanlike quality to the songwriting but they were at the top of their game as singers & performers. The bridge is great even if the pronouns are a little muddled - 'if I were you I'd realize that I love you more...' It's alright John, just give those Dylan LPs a few more spins, would you?

 

JOHN on No Reply (1972): "I remember (Beatles music publisher) Dick James coming up to me after we did this one and saying, 'You're getting better now-- that was a complete story.' Apparently, before that, he thought my songs wandered off."

JOHN 1980: "That's my song. That's the one where Dick James the publisher said, 'That's the first complete song you've written that resloves itself,' you know, with a complete story. It was sort of my version of 'Silhouettes.' (sings) 'Silhouettes, silhouettes, silhouettes...' I had that image of walking down the street and seeing her silhouetted in the window and not answering the phone, although I never called a girl on the phone in my life. Because phones weren't part of the English child's life."

It really is a complete story in a song, an interesting piece lyric wise.

 

No Reply - a great song. Great vocals. Shapr. Great harmonies. Perfect opener for the album. Abruptly, it gets the listener to listen immediately.

 

PAUL circa-1994: "We wrote 'No Reply' together but from a strong original idea of his. I think he pretty much had that one, but as usual, if he didn't have a third verse and the middle-eight, then he'd play it to me pretty much formed. Then we'd shove a bit in the middle or I'd throw in an idea."

 

The nice thing about 2015 is that they do live on that album now!

But seriously, they same is true for their other albums where the singles would have made them better. This is just the last one with covers with singles released separately.

Actually, Help! has a much better ending with I'm Down instead of Dizzy M. Lizzy.

 

This album opens with one of my favorite songs by the Beatles, No Reply. One of the reasons why I like the US Beatles 65 album was that it also had No Reply. I am used the to the US albums which had the songs on this LP on a few different albums.

Scott

 

I like this record a lot. Way more than Help!, Hard Days Night, With The Beatles, Please Please Me, Abbey Road, Let It Be, Yellow Submarine (obviously), and maybe even more. When John and Paul sing together it's like peanut butter and chocolate. 'Baby's In Black' is a top 5 Beatle song for me. 'Don't Want To Spoil The Party' another highlight for me. 'Honey Don't" a karaoke staple for me and my friend. Buddy Holly cover is tasteful. The unpopular 'Mr. Moonlight' is enjoyable ramshackle organ chaos. The only track I tend to skip is "Kansas City", blasphemy, I know, but I just never liked that cut. This is a great record. One of their best. And it tastes like Beatlemania 1964.

 

Of course, but they'd be missing a killer single, at least in the UK, we don't care if it's released in both formats in the USA.

 

JOHN on I'm A Loser (1980): "That's me in my Dylan period. Part of me suspects I'm a loser, and part of me thinks I'm God almighty." (laughs)

 

PAUL circa-1994: "We used to listen to a lot of country and western songs and they were all about sadness and 'I lost my truck' so it was quite acceptable to sing 'I'm a loser.' You really didn't think about it at the time, it's only later you'd think, God! That was pretty brave of John. 'I'm a Loser' was very much John's song and there may have been a dabble or two from me."

 

one of my favorite Beatles records especially the original stereo Y+B Parlophone lp.
also Beatles 65 was special for me growing up. their cover of Rock + Roll Music was one of my all time favorites.
really a great rock+roll song.

 

@Sean Murdock @Glenn Christense @Chief @theMess I would love to have any of you chime into this thread.

 

I was just thinking the other day - what if Capitol had recompiled this album similar to the way they did 'With The Beatles' (one album of the original material, holding the covers back for the second spin-off album)? Might have looked something like this:

BEATLES '65

No Reply
I'm A Loser
Baby's In Black
I'll Follow The Sun
I Feel Fine
She's A Woman

Eight Days A Week
Every Little Thing
I Don't Want To Spoil The Party
What You're Doing
I'll Be Back

(all songs Lennon-McCartney)


BEATLES VI

Kansas City / Hey Hey Hey Hey (Leiber-Stoller/Penniman)
Rock And Roll Music (Berry)
You Like Me Too Much (Harrison)
Bad Boy (Williams)
Mr Moonlight (Johnson)
Words Of Love (Holly)

Honey Don't (Perkins)
Yes It Is (Lennon-McCartney)
Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Williams)
Tell Me What You See (Lennon-McCartney)
Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby (Perkins)