All 213 beatles songs ranked from best to worst (by Bill Wyman)

Hard to argue with the top two but there’s a lot of wtf here

what does your top 213 look like (top 5 will do)

pointless exercise I know

I’ll never understand why Penny Lane is so highly rated - bog standard Macca plod, Wings b-side, etc.

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she loves you should be #3

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Bill, why man?

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Good though they might be, the Beatles did not write 88 songs that were better than Hey Bulldog, did they?

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Not going to read that but I think Penny Lane is well respected chiefly because it’s got a good sing-along chorus and because it has a real hook in the way the trumpet is playing its own thing within the melody. I mean on top of that it has a lot of understated clever hooks to the way it runs, I’m thinking here of how it has the sort of ‘run-on’ in the verse - “It’s a clean machine”. It makes it a remarkably pleasing song despite being weirdly, like you say, boringly plodding.

initially quite glad to see Good Day Sunshine in bottom place, though really When I’m 64 is much worse

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So Good Day Sunshine is the track that stinks up Revolver then?
Meanwhile Yellow Submarine places 80 notches higher.
Not reading the rest.

yes.

Right, you two. Out in the car park. I’m not having this Good Day Sunshine slating on my manor.

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1 ) Across The Universe
2) A Day In The Life
3) And Your Bird Can Sing
4) Helter Skelter
5) For No One

cheers

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Paperback Writer’s only at #40? Wyman, I’ll deal with you later.

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Hardly the worst ever Beatles song though. McCartney wrote loads worse than this.

Who’d have thought a man who was happy to date a 13 year old when he was 47 might have questionable tastes in other areas, though?

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Good Day Sunshine isn’t that bad. Let’s look at the criticism.

“The piano playing is a parody of itself”

It’s perfectly pleasant. It suits the song well. The lyrics are pretty brainless, but hardly offensive. It’s well orchestrated with good harmonies.

“It’s the worst song of the classic period.”

Off the top of my head: Run for your Life, Revolution Number 9, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer…all worse.

“It stinks up Revolver”

Yellow Submarine, if anything, is slightly annoying in the middle of Revolver. A far worse culprit would be Run for your Life comes at the end of a brilliant album…lazy, throwaway, predatory piece of rubbish. But that’s at number 88 on the list. Whatever.

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She’s leaving home at 204? not gonna bother reading any further

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that is the maddest one

and the fact that he thinks the Beatles have 79 better recordings than Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

While I agree there’s nothing wrong with Good Day Sunshine, the ‘classic’ period is surely the one that ends with Revolver so RN9 and MSH aren’t for consideration?

Actually I dunno if it ends with Revolver. I see he refers to Early stuff so in that case I presume he’s putting classic as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour?

Pretty transparent in some of his rankings: Wyman trying to pass blame, for his own band’s problems in psychedelia, to the band who they were trying to copy at the time, the Beatles. One of the two bands, however, were forced to retreat to the ease of imitation blues and finally took inspiration in copying Gram Parsons for their final important entries of the era. Hard to imagine Jagger or Richards sanctioning Wyman’s rankings here. Hard to believe Wyman was even given a platform for this.

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I know I could be in danger of being wolfcastled here but I don’t think the author of the article is the Bill Wyman.