EDITOR’S NOTE: This was written back in 2017, but we’re updating it with Now and Then, the final single released by The Beatles in 2023. See where it landed below.
It was 50 years ago today …
Indeed, in the United States, Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on June 1, 1967. It was instantly one of rock’s greatest and most progressive albums, and another sign that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had officially put their mop-top Fab Four days behind them.
In celebration of the seminal album’s 50th anniversary, I took on a challenge: To rank every Beatles song written by the band from worst to first. What qualifies me to do such a thing? I know, I’m not a music critic. What I am is a die-hard Beatles fan who grew up obsessed with the band, reading anything and everything I could find about the band while listening to the albums over and over.
Here are the rules for this exercise, which we’ve done before with Bob Dylan’s songbook: No bootlegs, no live cuts, nothing from the Anthology collections and — this was tough — no covers of songs written by non-Beatles. It felt a little unfair to rank the Beatles singing other people’s songs, even if they were iconic. Anything that was released as a single, B-side or on an album is on this list.
I spent the last few weeks re-listening to every cut and I tried my best to get rid of personal bias, but it was tough. I also tried to comment on my bottom 10 and top 20, with some thoughts in between.
Ready? Step right this way …
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It’s like Lennon and McCartney slapped together four different songs and repeated the same words over and over and over and over again. Is it supposed to be funny? Artsy? Whatever it is, it’s the worst thing the Beatles released.
I know, harsh — it’s a lullaby. But it’s corny.
Magical Mystery Tour always felt all over the place as an album, and this instrumental track is just sort of blah.
Don’t worry, Harrison’s songs will get some love later.
And zero offense to Starr, who wrote some good songs as a solo artist.
I had mixed feelings about the remaining Beatles reuniting to record with audio from the late Lennon, but the other single produced by the group was much, much better than this tune.
It would be so easy to rank this mishmash of sounds dead last, but I remember listening to this when I was younger and having the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That response is worth something.
It counts, and it’s a jarring little interlude on the otherwise sparkling White album.
Yes, it’s a kids’ song. I once heard it being sung by a bunch of kindergartners, and that was about the only time I enjoyed it.
Again: I am not anti-Harrison. But these two aren’t among his best.
Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY Staff
Seems blasphemous, but the Beatles wrote so many better songs than this early B-side.
An earworm of a chorus, at least.
The Rolling Stones recorded it, but Ringo sang the heck out of the Beatles’ version and it’s so much better than what their British counterparts did with it.
The video was pretty cool — it’s chock full of references to Beatles song titles and lyrics.
This was so hard to rank. On the one hand, it’s the Beatles’ final statement to the world, albeit using Lennon’s demo long after his shocking death in 1980. It’s so emotional to listen to, haunting and sad. Lyrically? It feels like an unfinished statement, a work in progress, which it was when Lennon put it on tape. But it’s still beautiful, particularly the harmonies that sound like the boys back in the late 1960s.
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The start of a run on good, not great songs.
I’ve heard it one too many times.
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There are some songs that aren’t lyrically that great but that are undeniably great tunes. This is one of them.
I know, it’s a tiny little fragment stuck on to the end of Abbey Road. But there’s something cool about this coming after The End, like a little encore, with a chord that never resolves, leaving us eternally wanting more. That’s the English major in me talking.
I’m a sucker for songs when John, Paul and George do three-part harmony together.
Like in this one. Also, one additional challenge for this list: I decided to rank the songs on the Abbey Road medley separately.
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Yeah, about that whole “getting rid of personal bias” thing … I will stand by the fact that this song is vastly underrated. I don’t care that the name Martha belonged to McCartney’s sheepdog.
Shoutout to the Mamas and the Papas, who did a solid take on this Lennon song.
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So hard not to rank all the Abbey Road medley songs together … sorry.
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Photo by HBO
An underrated number in the Beatles catalog.
I had so much trouble figuring out how I felt about this song, it moved up and down the list before settling here. On one hand, it’s proof of how much the group grew as songwriters after this. On the other, it’s catchy.
There was a point where I didn’t listen to Beatles for Sale for a decade because it was my least favorite album. After listening to it again recently, I realized the trio of songs that lead off the LP (including this one, I’m a Loser and Baby’s in Black) are absolute gold.
A song that I think is overrated but still lands in the top 100.
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Remember: Some songs don’t have great lyrics, but the tunes make you want to get up and dance.
LVCVA
The second of the Beatles For Sale trio — Lennon gets really dark: “I’m a loser and I’m not what I appear to be.”
Photo by Dan Harr/Invision/AP, File
Could have been so much better without Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” overwhelming it.
A song inspired by a real circus poster.
This is a frame grab from WEBTV series from Make Productions Vimeo Channel. In this short film, Beatles superfan Peter Dean sets out to recreate John Lennons circus poster that inspired the lyrics for the song ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ HANDOUT
When you realize the Beatles were in their mid-20s and wrote/recorded a song like this that had so much depth to it, it’s pretty mind-blowing.
I know how ground-breaking this song was, but again: There are better Beatles songs.
McCartney wrote it when he was 16!
The album opener is great, but I think the reprise is juuust slightly better.
Only one word for it: Haunting.
Stevie Wonder’s version made it an entirely different song.
I do love it when Lennon goes Dylan, as you’ll see.
The “White Album” version of its harder-rocking counterpart that will make its appearance later. It’s a different recording and title. So it must be ranked separately, and the slower take is nearly as good as the single.
That’s right, Paul McCartney invented heavy metal!
One of their most polished early songs, and I wonder if that’s why they led with it on The Ed Sullivan Show.
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Starr’s vocals are charming, but this is one of the rare times that they wrote a song that was recorded better by someone else: Joe Cocker. Am I biased because I grew up with this as the theme to The Wonder Years? Maybe.
Revolver is mind-blowing, and it kicks off with Harrison at his most biting.
“Your day breaks, your mind aches. You find that all the words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you.” Brilliance from McCartney.
What band ends their final recorded album (Abbey Road was released before Let It Be, even though most of the latter was recorded first) with the group trading guitar solos and Ringo’s only drum solo, along with an epitaph? “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
The bridge could be its own song.
If you wanted to explain to aliens who the Beatles were, this would be the first tune you’d play for them.
The best “One, two, three, four!!!” count-off ever followed by this raw, scream-filled number with a lyric that’s been much-cited (“Well she was just seventeen, you know what I mean”) for being just enough of a wink to listeners, who get it without quite completely understanding what McCartney means.
Simple, gorgeous, and with a message to “take these broken wings and learn to fly.”
Can’t hear this title track from their film debut without seeing the Beatles running from their screaming fans, which opens up the movie.
A bluesy, joyful tune with one of the best guitar solos Harrison ever recorded.
Harrison and guest star Eric Clapton wail.
“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” Deep.
Lennon does his best Dylan. It starts as a pleasant song about an encounter with a woman and turns into something much more complex.
Of course there are religious overtones, but I also interpreted this as McCartney knowing the Beatles were on their way to splitting and telling himself to “let it be.”
The first of two Harrison-penned songs in the top 10.
A superior pop tune on its own, but when you find out that Lennon wrote it as a literal cry for help, it takes on a different meaning. Here’s what McCartney told People in 2015:
“Lennon later said, ‘I was fat and depressed, and I was crying out for help,’” McCartney said of his former band mate. “But looking back on it, John was always looking for help. He had [a paranoia] that people died when he was around I think John’s whole life was a cry for help.”
Too high, you say? No way. It sounds like a sample a DJ might put together today, which means it was 50 years ahead of its time. Also, it’s a part of one of the best scenes in Mad Men, in which the song is used to show just how much old fashioned Don Draper is completely out of his element in the mid-1960s. I can’t imagine how revolutionary this song must have sounded in 1966.
I don’t know what more there is to say about a song that’s been written about so much. The ranking speaks for itself.
An absolute searing political message (although, don’t you know it’s gonna be all right?) surrounded by the group rocking out. A fiery combo.
If you’re ever feeling down about something, just listen to this.
The best love song the Beatles ever wrote … and it was written by Harrison. Frank Sinatra famously loved it and for good reason.
A catchy riff, plus introspective, poignant lyrics, great harmonies and a funky beat, not to mention a sped up piano solo from producer George Martin (side note: Anyone who tells you the “fifth Beatle” is anyone but Martin is wrong). What more could you want?
I tried. I really did. I tried to see if I could think of a Beatles song that was better, mostly because if you polled 1,000 fans, I’d bet this song would come out on top. But there’s a reason for that, isn’t it? It’s not so much a song as it is a symphony. And this is the apex of the Lennon-McCartney partnership that produced so many amazing songs — John on the verse, Paul on the bridge, leading up to that thunderous piano chord that gives me chills nearly every time I hear it.
