Custom Beatles time…get ready for a long winded post...
So I had previously shared what an updated Please Please Me would look like, and spurred on from Laz’s post (and namkcuR’s from a couple of years ago), figured I’d go over the rest.
As previously mentioned, I don’t have the same disdain for most of the Beatles covers on the early albums that namkcuR does. At the same time, this isn’t strictly a restructuring of the Beatles canon either. If there are songs I truly detest, they won’t be included – this really goes for just the early albums though (and only for the weak cover songs – no originals are omitted). That said, like Laz I try to keep changes to an overall album structure to a minimum.
Similar to Please Please Me, With The Beatles has a wide array of covers. Some, like Roll Over Beethoven and Money, are classic interpretations and therefore deserve inclusion. Others (i.e. Please Mr. Postman, Devil In Her Heart, etc.), not so much. This album is my least favorite overall, but any time you can add I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You, it suddenly becomes a much more appealing album.
This album also represents the only time where I go outside the official album and single discography with the inclusion of I’ll Be On My Way, one of the best early Lennon/McCartney acoustic tracks which inexplicitly was never recorded in the studio, only at the BBC. A special note, however: the song fades out quickly and abruptly, so I customized it by adding a couple seconds of silence at the end for a better transition to I Want To Hold Your Hand.
This is also the one album where it is rearranged a bit more than normal for sequencing purposes.
With The Beatles
1. It Won’t Be Long
2. All I’ve Got To Do
3. All My Loving
4. I’ll Be On My Way
5. I Want To Hold Your Hand
6. She Loves You
7. I’ll Get You
8. This Boy
9. Roll Over Beethoven
10. Hold Me Tight
11. Till There Was You
12. I Wanna Be Your Man
13. Don’t Bother Me
14. Little Child
15. Not A Second Time
16. Money (That’s What I Want)
For A Hard Day’s Night, it’s fairly simple really. The album is already fantastic – I wouldn’t remove anything – so it’s really just expanding it a bit with the Long Tall Sally EP (now found on Past Masters), recorded during the same sessions. That EP includes one original and three covers, but what great covers they are. You get the double A-sided single Matchbox and Slow Down (one of Lennon’s best early vocals), and of course the rip-roaring Long Tall Sally. And the original, I Call Your Name, matches most of the songs already found on the album in terms of quality.
Perhaps the one thing I’ve always hated about A Hard Day’s Night is how it ends. I’ll Be Back, while a great tune, is a terrible album closer. These additions rectify that. It also gives Ringo a lead vocal appearance (with Matchbox), because we all need more Ringo in our lives.
A Hard Day’s Night
1. A Hard Day’s Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can’t Buy Me Love
8. I Call Your Name
9. Any Time At All
10. I’ll Cry Instead
11. Things We Said Today
12. When I Get Home
13. You Can’t Do That
14. I’ll Be Back
15. Slow Down
16. Matchbox
17. Long Tall Sally
Despite the high number of covers, Beatles For Sale is one of my favorite pre-Rubber Soul albums. The originals show the group further experimenting in the studio, and almost all of the covers are first rate. The one glaring exception is Mr. Moonlight, one of the cheesiest tracks they ever cut. It gets unceremoniously dumped here.
But offsetting that is one of their best early double-sided singles, I Feel Fine and She’s A Woman.
In the 80’s, before the discography was updated on CD in 1987 to follow the original British releases, I had heard a lot of the U.S. versions on vinyl through different family members. Not surprisingly, one of the best was Beatles ’65, which takes a lot from Beatles For Sale, but also includes the aforementioned single above. I always liked their positions near the end of that album, so I’ve inserted them in the same place here.
Beatles For Sale
1. No Reply
2. I’m A Loser
3. Baby’s In Black
4. Rock And Roll Music
5. I’ll Follow The Sun
6. Eight Days A Week
7. Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey
8. Honey Don’t
9. Words Of Love
10. Every Little Thing
11. I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party
12. What You’re Doing
13. She’s A Woman
14. I Feel Fine
15. Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby
With Help, it’s a similar situation to A Hard Day’s Night in that all of the songs are worth remaining (although the slight Another Girl is marginal), but one song is still removed – more on that later.
The Help sessions included three songs not found on the album – Bad Boy, Yes It Is, and I’m Down. Adding two more Lennon songs to an album already dominated by him is challenging, especially with the song I’ve taken out, but throwing I’m Down into the mix at the end of the first side helps to balance it out a bit.
Despite these changes, I still consider Help slightly inferior to the last two albums.
Help
1. Help
2. The Night Before
3. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
4. I Need You
5. Another Girl
6. You’re Going To Lose That Girl
7. Ticket To Ride
8. I’m Down
9. Act Naturally
10. It’s Only Love
11. You Like Me Too Much
12. Tell Me What You See
13. Yes It Is
14. Bad Boy
15. Yesterday
16. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
The early U.S. releases were a hodgepodge of albums put together by Capitol Records without the band’s involvement, with questionable track selections (adding instrumentals to Help) and fake stereo mixes, but they did do a few things that were pretty cool. Beatles ’65 and Beatles VI are great compilations, ones that I’ve always liked. But probably the best thing they ever did was put I’ve Just Seen A Face at the beginning of Rubber Soul.
I’ve never enjoyed Drive My Car as the leadoff; it seems better situated somewhere in the middle of the record, or perhaps kicking off Side 2. With I’ve Just Seen A Face, it really provides the proper aesthetic foundation to a record that has Norwegian Wood as the second song in – it’s such a superior transition. And I’d imagine, for at least American listeners at the time, a much more shocking transition from the albums before.
Beyond that, I don’t really stray too far the rest of the way. In fact, my placement of We Can Work It Out and Day Tripper is the same as Laz’s. I slot Drive My Car in right after We Can Work It Out.
I’m sure I’ll get some disagreement over this one, since I’ve Just Seen A Face is technically not even part of these sessions, and that’s fine, but I encourage folks to try it out if they haven’t done so already.
Rubber Soul
1. I’ve Just Seen A Face
2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3. You Won’t See Me
4. Nowhere Man
5. We Can Work It Out
6.Drive My Car
7. Think For Yourself
8. The Word
9. Michelle
10. Day Tripper
11. What Goes On
12. Girl
13. I’m Looking Through You
14. In My Life
15. Wait
16. If I Needed Someone
17. Run For Your Life
I found Revolver to be an easy update. Like namkcuR, I also have Good Day Sunshine moved to Side 1 after Yellow Submarine, but I prefer Paperback Writer as the leadoff to Side 2. I ended Side 1 with Rain, serving as a nice juxtaposition to the previous Good Day Sunshine and a nice fadeout with the reversed sounds.
I don’t find the alternating of lead vocals to be that important, and thus we have two Lennon songs back to back on Side 2. It’s a great twofer though.
Revolver
1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I’m Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here, There And Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine
7. Good Day Sunshine
8. Rain
9. Paperback Writer
10. She Said She Said
11. And Your Bird Can Sing
12. For No One
13. Doctor Robert
14. I Want To Tell You
15. Got To Get You Into My Life
16. Tomorrow Never Knows
I’ve shared track lists for the later albums previously, and we’ve covered those to death already, but I will add my Magical Mystery Tour list here. As the album was already a mix of new songs and other songs, I simply took the liberty of making this the home of all songs not already accounted for on other albums. So while Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane have been removed for their rightful place on Sgt. Pepper, we add the songs from Yellow Submarine (except for Only A Northern Song) and the Lady Madonna/The Inner Light single, for a nice expanded version of the album.
I’ve included everything on this one just for a complete picture, even though some of the material is obviously lacking (Blue Jay Way, All Together Now).
Magical Mystery Tour
1. Magical Mystery Tour
2. The Fool On The Hill
3. Hey Bulldog
4. Your Mother Should Know
5. Flying
6. Blue Jay Way
7. I Am The Walrus
8. Hello Goodbye
9. Baby You’re A Rich Man
10. Lady Madonna
11. The Inner Light
12. All Together Now
13. All You Need Is Love
14. It’s All Too Much
