The Beatles: Single By Single

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bailes, Nov 15, 2019.

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  1. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    'We Can Work It Out':

    The song would reach #1 on Billboard during the second week of January, 1966, and take the top spot for three un-consecutive weeks that month. 'Day Tripper' would peak at #5.

    Here's a snapshot of the Billboard singles chart to end December, 1965, when 'We Can Work It Out' was still making its way up (at #11), and 'Day Tripper' was #28. The Dave Clark Five is at #1, having overtaken The Byrds' 'Turn, Turn, Turn'.

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  2. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    Plus, the happenings in the Top 40 ranks of major US cities - from the same 12/15/65 issue of Billboard. 'We Can Work It Out' is already tops in two markets.

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  3. Bruce M.

    Bruce M. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hilo, HI, USA
    This is just horrible. But then, there were lots of awful Beatles singles in the sixties, and this isn't necessarily the worst. This is a period where I often like the Beatles' album tracks better than the singles. I get why "Michelle" was a single and it was certainlyh a commercial success, but it was one of the least interesting tracks on Rubber Soul.
     
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  4. Bruce M.

    Bruce M. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hilo, HI, USA
    That chart is a fascinating snapshot of the musical world in the mid sixties. In the top 20 we see not only the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkle, but also Roger Miller. James Brown and Dean Martin.
     
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  5. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    Considering that his band originally sounded like a retread of John Lennon's songs from Revolver, it was another reason I thought Stipe was full of crap.
     
  6. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    It always sounded to me like he was singing "sont des mots...", which is correct (an exact translation - "Michelle, ma belle, ce sont des mots qui vont bien ensemble" - wouldn't have fit. As it is, the translation is arguably incomplete, but not incorrect.
     
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  7. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    They were. Rubber Soul was the source of several hit singles in 1965/66, more so than previous LPs. This was the reason that when The Beatles prepared Revolver eight months later, they stymied the obvious cover version hit singles by releasing two tracks themselves (and deliberately going for the "least Beatley" songs as they put it).
     
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  8. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Interesting considering a hit cover means more dollars for them. "Here There & Everywhere" & "For No One" would have attracted a few covers. Can't recall any hit cover versions though
     
  9. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    Billboard's 'Hits Of The World' charts page from that same Dec. 25, 1965 issue (some repeated image overlap). 'Yesterday', 'Day Tripper', and 'We Can Work It Out' are scattered among the ranks, 'Yesterday' still tops in a few places. The new single is treated as a double-A side in the Britain at #1, where 'My Generation' is #5; 'Til The End Of The Day', #28. 'Help' is even #1 in Spain and Brazil on Odeon. Dylan takes New Zealand. I love how they still refer to Ireland as 'Eire'.

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  10. muddlehead

    muddlehead Forum Resident

    Location:
    santa rosa ca
    On this latest Billboard Hot 100 - the Beatles single DT and WCWIO are each the two best songs.
     
  11. Hermes

    Hermes Past Master

    Location:
    Denmark
    I agree with you about Michael Stipe :)
     
  12. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    Three things regarding excellent songs that make me sad about that chart:

    1. Here It Comes Again by the Fortunes apparently stalling around no. 30
    2. A Well Respected Man by the Kinks entering at no, 57 then dropping
    3. Go Away From My World by Marianne Faithfull barely scraping the nether regions
     
  13. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    I believe 'A Well Respected Man' is on the rise on that particular chart, at #57. It peaks during the second week of February, '66 - at #13.
     
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  14. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    That's a relief!
     
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  15. Jonny W

    Jonny W Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orangeburg NY
    "I'll Cry Instead" is a terrific, seemingly overlooked, early Beatles song. That brisk country-rockabilly rhythm
    is a treat, but as jauntily as it moves along, the lyrics are really wounded and brooding.

    Lennon's pointed lyrics--at a time when Beatles songs were still mostly about holding hands--seem in
    retrospect like suggestions of more gnarly things to come.

    "If I could get my way,
    I'd get myself locked up today..."

    "I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet,
    I can't talk to people that I meet,
    If I could see you now I'd try to make you sad somehow..."

    Sounds like the Lennon we would come to know.

    I've liked this cool little song ever since I first heard it (probably at around nine
    years old, at the time of it's release, on NYC's great AM radio pop stations WABC
    and WNEW), and I'm surprised it's not more popular among Beatles fans.
     
  16. Bailes

    Bailes Billy Shears Thread Starter

    Location:
    Australia
    Girl

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    Single Released: February 1966 (Norway), September 1966 (Italy)
    A-side: Michelle (Norway Only)
    B-side: Nowhere Man (Italy Only)

    The song's instrumentation has specific similarities to Greek music, as with "And I Love Her" and "Michelle".[6] As for the inspiration of the song's lyrics, Lennon stated that the "girl" was an archetype he had been searching for and would finally find in Yoko Ono.[7] He said: "'Girl' is real. There is no such thing as the girl, she was a dream, but the words are all right. It wasn't just a song, and it was about that girl – that turned out to be Yoko, in the end – the one that a lot of us were looking for."[8][9] In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine in 1980, Lennon said of his song "Woman": "Reminds me of a Beatles track, but I wasn't trying to make it sound like that. I did it as I did 'Girl' many years ago. So this is the grown-up version of 'Girl'."[10]

    McCartney claimed that he contributed the lines "Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure" and "That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure."[3] However, in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon explained that he wrote these lines as a comment on Christianity, which he was "opposed to at the time". Lennon said: "I was just talking about Christianity, in that – a thing like you have to be tortured to attain heaven ... – be tortured and then it'll be alright, which seems to be a bit true but not in their concept of it. But I didn't believe in that, that you have to be tortured to attain anything, it just so happens that you were".[11]


    References: Wikipedia
     
  17. blutiga

    blutiga Forum Resident

    It's very popular with this Beatle fan :)
     
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  18. BZync

    BZync Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Girl is another example of a great album track that is a strange choice for a single.
     
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  19. muddlehead

    muddlehead Forum Resident

    Location:
    santa rosa ca

    Fortunes caught my eye also. Only remember their two great songs - Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again & You've Got Your Troubles.
    Can't name another song by them. So, listened to Here It Comes Again.
    Not a great tune.
     
  20. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    The mono single mix is really good (it's on the Hard to Find on CD Vol 17 from Eric)
     
  21. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    For all the rumors about dirty jokes hidden in their lyrics (i.e. "Please Please Me", the supposedly obscene message in the Sgt Pepper inner groove), my understanding is "Girl" is the only song where they really were guilty of as much, with the backing vocals during the bridge. (Are we allowed to type that word on here without it being replaced with asterisks?) I was actually kind of disappointed when I learned that was intentional, as it's such a powerful, serious song - why saddle it with such a juvenile joke? I thought so even when I was a teenage boy myself.
     
  22. maccafan

    maccafan Senior Member

    I absolutely love the song GIRL!
     
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  23. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    The 'Hits Of The World' page in the March 5, 1966 issue of Billboard magazine has lots of Beatles action:

    'Michelle' (with 'Girl' as its B-side) is #1 in France (naturally), Holland, Flemish Belgium, and Sweden; #4 in Norway. 'Day Tripper' is #1 in Australia and Hong Kong, #10 in Flemish Belgium. 'We Can Work It Out' is #2 in Holland, #3 in Malaysia, and #8 in Sweden. And 'Help!' is #4 in Argentina, and #9 (#9) in Mexico.

    Covers:
    In Britain, 'Girl' by the St. Louis Union is at #18, while another cover version of 'Girl' is at #19, by the Truth. 'Michelle' by the Overlanders is #7 in the UK, #6 in Eire, #4 in Flemish Belgium, and #1 in Norway. 'Michelle' by Billy Vaughn is #3 in Singapore.

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  24. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    "finger pie" in Penny Lane?
     
  25. Exotiki

    Exotiki The Future Ain’t What It Use To Be

    Location:
    Canada
    I was way into Paul is dead a few years ago: and on a website it had a list of Beatles songs with hidden messages. It said if you played Girl backwards you would here the Beatles saying “tit” over and over again.

    so I got my CD rip of rubber soul, loaded it into audacity, (waited) reversed it (waited) And had one of the greatest moments of clarity

    “Tit” backwards is “tit”

    it was at that moment I realized that there are smart people in this world and I am not one of them :D
     
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