Uncharted Thoughts.

I don’t think I have done a review on my blog Uncharted Thoughts, as it doesn’t really suit the site. However, this time of year reminds me of winter nights as a child, listening to my dads record player as my mum made the greatest winter meals, my dad tinkered with the cars and my sister and I played in the darkness of the closing year. It also reminds me of some of the classics, Joe Cocker, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and John, Ringo, Paul and George.

So, while at work, feeding the great people of Manchester beer from 19 taps. I have provided three days of The Beatles, to all those that walk into our small pub. While listening, I put together my list of the top 10 Beatles songs. So here is goes…

PS. I have never done a music review, so I do apologies if it seems like its been done by a noob, because it has…

PSS don’t expect the learn anything here, my top ten isn’t any different from the 10 before this one… but, it was fun.

10. We can work it out.

The impact of Pauls first lyric along the strings of George is an, fun and timeless piece of music about the passing of time, about how there are differences in opinion, in difference of thought and ways of living. That arguing is a waist of time, that it is often best to forgive and move on than to sit and wallow in hatred and disagreement.

However, there seems to be a notion of finding the middle ground, that with opposite opinions there is always the chance of finding common ground.

There are references to thig being a love song (“Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone”), I do think that this can be interpreted as love of our fellow man as well as love for partner.

Its a short, powerful song that has more layers than a simple love song.

9. Penny Lane

Penny Lane never really made sense to me, it was probably not in my top 20 Beatles songs. That was until October of this year. When me and my partner went to visit Liverpool for a Halloween self guided ghost tour. While there I had to visit the world famous Penny Lane (along with other beatles land marks).

While there the song began to make more sense. What was once a silly song about firemen and hairdressers and bankers not wearing macs. However, I think, to my untrained ear. This is a love letter to Liverpool, and more accurately Mossley Hill area where the band originate from.

Its about British life, culture and the strange people we meet along the way. “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes” is a lyric that highlights how Liverpool is as much a member of the Beatles as each four members are.

8. Something

I love this song. It is a love song through and through. A appreciation to the woman we all love. It transforms some simple affective guitar work into a work of art that makes a very complicated human emotion into something so understandable and simple. It is how we men feel about the woman in our life.

It is said males are often cold and emotionally restricted by society, but I have to say, these four men wrote a song that really in universal and understanding of the male heart.

I love the guitar work, a slow, blues tone with soft but reassuring vocals.

7. She Loves You.

I absolutely adore this song, and asking me on another day, I would probably put this much higher in the the list. However, for not, today, she loves you belongs at 7th place. Its a incredible smiley song. It is about the appreciation of a girl loving you. It is, like most of the beatles songs, a simple message that we all can relate to.

The tingy guitar work is a relic long forgotten. The drum work keep a steady, vibrant and exciting tone to the overall score and the vocals, the yeah, yeah, yeah, is iconic.

This song could be the most played in my house from 1995-2010. It is a soundtrack that I have grown up with, a soundtrack I love.

6. Come together

The bass in this song, the subtle guitar work and drums makes it a song so iconic in sound I struggle to think of anything quite like it. The vocals are almost whispering. Yet the song in power. It is strength and heart.

A desire for unity, come together is about as Beatles hippy as you can get. The unity of man, the unity of gender, race and class. Although I have my opinions on the hippy movement, this is a message and manifesto all rolled into one.

5.Help!

We are moving into the top 5. Placement here becomes harder and harder. With each song I choose I had to think about its placement more and more. I think at this stage anything from 2-5 could be moved around depending on the day.

Help is raw, its untamed and to some extent painful. Help is about being in the rut, its about loosing ones way in this winding path of life. Although the instruments of the song are somewhat upbeat, I challenge you to read the lyrics outload. It is depressing. Perhaps the music is the mask we all have on while going through hard times, and the lyrics our thoughts?

4. A Day in the life

A day in the life, is a song I have a strange relationship with. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I really love it. Sometimes its good. I can never make up my mind if this is worthy of a top 5 or a top 15. I don’t know why I struggle so much to place this song, I think the length and the psychedelic ending sometimes puts me at odd ends, but I also love it for that.

3. Let it be.

The message to this song is stoic, something my readers know I try to live by, mostly unsuccessfully. It is a operatic song of meaning and soul searching reason. There is no song that puts me at peace like this song. It is spiritual to its core. No matter how bad life gets, The Beatles are telling us, preaching to us, that there is another side to the pain and the agony of life. That we must ‘let it be’.

2. Yesterday.

A masterclass in song writing, I mean it truly is one of the greatest songs of all time. In 2:05, The Beatles remind us of sorrow, of a time long gone, but in our possession only hours ago. How 24 hours can lead us down a road so unexpected, that the decision that was made, the cause of the pain and of todays dramas made us ‘half the man’ we used to be we a ‘shadow’ hanging over us.

It is then revealed in the second verse that it is lost love that has made us feel this way. The music is appropriately desolate. A sense of emptiness and sorrow that can only be felt with a broken heart, a loneliness and helplessness that is isolating.

I think, this is one of the greatest songs ever written. It may even be better than my personal number one. But for me, it belongs here purely because of my love for the next song.

Honourable mention: From me to you / All you need is love.

1. The Long and Winding Road

This song is the greatest song, of the most influential bands in the world. It is in my personal opinion the Magnum Opus of the Beatles. Its a melody of heartbreak. It is poetry, it is art:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to you door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here?
Let me know the way

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Anyway, you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

And still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago
Don’t keep me waiting here
Lead me to your door

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Need I say more….