A few days back I put up my top ten The Beatles songs of all time. Never an easy thing to do but it was fun working them out. Then my awesome friend Paul Conium said he wished there was an explanation which is certainly fair enough, especially as The Beatles are his (and my best buddy Leo’s) favorite band.
I’m not gonna justify my choices, there is no point in that when it is a personal top ten, but I will comment on how these songs changed my life and where they fit in the puzzle of Kendall.
I remember first discovering The Beatles as my mom had the first five albums n vinyl from when she was at college, her and her best mate Rosemary used to be totally obsessed with them and it was funny that they wrote their names in pen on the back of the covers. I fell instantly for Help! and A Hard Days Night, I’ve never really liked the first two albums much but I’m sure they wont lose any sleep over that!
I remember one day being in my mom’s car, she had a white Allegro and it had a square steering wheel, I always remember that, anyway the radio played A Day In The Life and I remember asking why she didn’t have the album that it was on, but it seems it came out after they’d finished college and maybe they stopped caring so much about pop. Luckily I was just in the right time and I went straight out after and got the Sgt Pepper album, which is a very strange animal, stunningly original and varied but still not as great as Help! despite showing many more sides to the band which would come into play with my favourite Beatles album..The Beatles.
It was Helter Skelter that drew me to this record, it remains my favorite Beatles track to this day, a stunning heavy metal rampage where the country’s favourite pop band became the world’s greatest rock band. I have a few things to thank for discovering this, I mean when I was young, the White Album was never really talked about, you heard about Sgt Pepper and She Loves You but not this epic double record.
I first heard Helter Skelter when Motley Crue covered it brilliantly and then got reacquainted with it when it appeared on Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits album. I didn’t hear the original until I started reading about Charles Manson and read what he considered each song to mean and how he told his Family what to do and what was about to occur. It was then that I finally went out and purchased The White Album for myself, although it was not easy to find, pre internet, I got it from Woolworths in Torquay and remember smiling all the way back in the car as I anticipated what I was about to experience.
The White Album soon became my favourite Beatles record which shows up in my top ten with Helter Skelter, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Dear Prudence and Savoy Truffle all represented. Stunning.
Aside from that record though, I tend to go back to the start, I guess when I was younger I ignored the greatest hits but as I grew I discovered that such tracks as Ticket To Ride and She Loves You were stunning beautiful pop singles and I will always love them more than later works. (The Beatles aside, of course) I remember sitting in Camden, whenever I was in The Dublin Castle and The Good Mixer I would play a couple of these songs and everyone would smile and feet would be tapping all around.
So yeah, that’s how I created my top ten Beatles songs, I consider them one of the 3 greatest bands of all time, certainly the greatest English band ever and a stunning example of pure pop and strange psyche , noise, experimentation and epic tunes ever to burst over the consciousness of the entire world.
I’m glad my mom got to experience them firsthand and kept a glorious collection for me to catch up.
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