Charles Olney

One After 909 opens a window into an alternate history of the Beatles in the 70s where they brought in Billy Preston and just played some good old dirty rock and roll for a few years

174. Words of Love It's a nice song, but doesn't really pass the 'why not just listen to the original' test

An extremely faithful cover of a good Buddy Holly song, Words of Love is a nice piece of the #Beatles story, but doesn't do much to advance the argument open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

173. Birthday Imagine writing and recording a song in a single afternoon and then have people listen to it hundreds of millions of times

A very rare #Beatles song that's built around a riff, Birthday is a fun bit of rock and roll ephemera open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

175. Savoy Truffle George's return to rock and roll, and a stepping stone toward some of his greatest work

Savoy Truffle isn't one of the great George Harrison songs, but it plants the seeds for songs that ARE among his very best open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

177. Ask Me Why A song inspired by Smokey Robinson, which more or less rises to the challenge

It's one the most trifling #Beatles songs, but there's a lot to love even when they're still finding their feet open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

In some ways, Revolver is the *most* experimental #Beatles album, which is a major selling point but also sometimes a minor detriment

George Harrison was a complicated man, and it would be pretty unfair to dismiss his genuine spiritual strivings as mere hypocrisy

Soon enough, the Beatles would be reinventing rock and roll on their own terms. But you can already hear the seeds of that transformation in songs like this--which bridge the divide between past and future

180. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill It's impossible to argue that the world ‘needed’ to hear Bungalow Bill, but sometimes the greatest gifts are the ones you didn’t need, or even particularly want

Bungalow Bill is a pretty silly song. And it could never have appeared on any other #Beatles album. But it’s the opposite of ‘filler’ open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

Rawlsian political liberals responding to this post:

181. Till There Was You It's 'slightly to the left and the right of rock and roll,' and plays an important part in the story of the early Beatles

It might be their schmaltziest song, but I still have a lot of time for Till There Was You. Especially the guitar solo open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

182. Do You Want to Know a Secret It's a bit too precious and a bit too simple, but the underlying sincerity of the performance ensures that it still ends up as something special

Do You Want to Know a Secret is an imitation of earnestness, which can be a little hard to take seriously. But the underlying nervousness about being loved rings true open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

183. Maggie Mae An old skiffle tune included to lighten the mood, which it more than manages to do

The #Beatles’ origin as a skiffle band isn’t something that shows up all that clearly in their more famous work, but it’s nice to have one clear reference to that history on the record open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

185. Tell Me What You See One of the rare Beatles songs where the performance doesn't do justice to the song

For another band, Tell Me What You See might have been a mega-hit. For the #Beatles it was a bit of album filler open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

186. A Taste Of Honey A lovely early vocal performance from Paul, albeit in a somewhat inessential song

John loved to rag on Paul for his taste in old-timey music, but it's actually part of the strange magic that made the Beatles into #TheBeatles. A Taste of Honey is a great illustration open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

I suspect that the best plausible path out of this involves a bunch of absolutely shameless people pretending that they never supported Trump.

It will be infuriating, and will do very little to prevent the next nightmare. But even so, it’s still good if they start to think it’s time to pretend.

187. Kansas City / Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey A song that obstinately refuses to stick in my brain

Many people would list this among their favorite #Beatles songs, but for some reason, it's never quite managed to hold my attention open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

The list of #Beatles number ones in Germany is pretty funny

189. Matchbox A throwaway Ringo cover is rescued by a killer rhythm track and some inspired George Martin piano-playing

Out of all the pre-Revolver Ringo songs that dominate the bottom of my list, Matchbox is my favorite. Though I wouldn't describe it as the best open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

190. The Word One of the most interesting, if not one of the best, songs from Rubber Soul

The Word is one of the coolest (and funkiest) songs in the #Beatles catalog. It just doesn’t happen to one of my favorites open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

191. Slow Down A very promising start crushed by first ballot inductee to the guitar solo Hall of Shame

Is this the worst guitar solo in the #Beatles discography? It has to be, right? open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

192. Act Naturally They'll make a song about a man that's sad and lonely, and all he's gotta do is act naturally

Act Naturally is almost the perfect Ringo vehicle: because it simply allows him to be himself. Whether that makes it a fully successful *song* is another question open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

Democrats could force the sun to shine 16 hours a day in the winter but they Won’t. Even. Try.

“It’s great, it sold, it’s the bloody Beatles white album, shut up”

194. For You Blue A somewhat listless 12 bar blues song matches the premise of the Get Back project without bringing much heat

For You Blue is a nice enough song. But it’s pretty weird that it, of all the available Harrisongs, actually ended up on Let It Be.
open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

Pivot to video

195. Sie Liebt Dich The past is a foreign country, especially when it's sung in German

It is a truly wonderful historical curiosity that the #Beatles were forced to record German-language versions of two mega-hits open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

The previous two were hosted by Russia and Qatar and everyone was perfectly happy to go along.

I’m not going to say there’s a 0% chance everyone finds religion now. But it’s probably no higher than 0.01%

196. I Wanna Be Your Man For a song that inspired tales of the incredible Lennon/McCartney songwriting chops, there's not very much 'song' here

It's about 30 seconds worth of killer songwriting stretched out to fill two minutes worth of song. But it's a pretty great 30 seconds, so you can't really complain open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...

197. Wild Honey Pie A song fragment that's perhaps a bit more interesting than it is enjoyable

Wild Honey Pie would never had made the cut on a standard #Beatles album. Whether that's a feature or flaw is mostly a matter of perspective open.substack.com/pub/beatles2...