The Beatles albums bought by fans in the United States were not the same as the Beatles albums bought by fans in the United Kingdom. Not until 1967's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" did the countries get in sync.
It came about because, early on, Capitol Records, which had the U.S. rights, was unsure of the commercial appeal of the Beatles (really!) and thus licensed certain singles that they thought would do well. They did deals for "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" (Vee-Jay) and then "She Loves You" (Swan), but passed on the Beatles' first two albums, "Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles." Those came out in England in 1963 and, when Capitol finally pulled the trigger, it released the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (which spent seven weeks at No. 1) and a patched-together album called "Meet the Beatles" in early 1964. It contained just 12 of the 35 songs the Beatles had released so far.
Other album releases, titles and song selections got all jumbled up. The American version of “Help!," for instance, had a mix of Beatles songs and instrumental soundtracks, while the UK version had 14 Beatles songs. The difference didn't make the Beatles happy.
"We made only say, 10 albums, actually, and in America there seemed to be 30 of them," said John Lennon in a 1974 radio interview. "We would sequence the albums how we thought they should sound. We put a lot of work into the sequencing. We almost got to not care what happened in America because it was always different. It used to drive us crackers 'cause we'd make an album and then they'd keep two from every album." (Typically, the Beatles' U.K. albums had 14 songs and U.S. albums had 12.)
Interesting tidbit: The Beatles' 1966 album " 'Yesterday' ... and Today" was a collection of tracks packaged for the US market. The original cover had the Beatles surrounded by plastic baby dolls and fake blood. It's referred to as the "butcher" cover. A commentary on Capitol's resequencing and packaging -- the suggestion that Capitol butchered their babies? "That's a widely held theory," says Beatles biographer Tim Riley. (Capitol recalled the albums and pasted an inoffensive cover on top of the bloodied baby dolls image— it is the stuff of which collectors have salivated over for years.)
Here's our take on the best of the band. What we're working off here is "The Beatles," the 2009 CD box set of the UK albums that includes the double-CD of singles, "Past Masters."
"Please Please Me" (March 1963): The 14-track debut was famously recorded in one day. Yes, the Beatles were that ready to go. It kicked off with Paul McCartney shouting "1-2-3-4!" and into "I Saw Her Standing There," an explosion of optimism and delirious vocal harmonies. Six songs were covers and their early influences shine through — R&B, girl groups, blues, skiffle — and by the end of it, "Twist and Shout," Lennon is nearly hoarse, but ecstatic.
"With the Beatles" (Nov. 1963): Once again, six covers, eight original songs. Maybe the mix was out of necessity, but you’ve got to love the idea of the Beatles — clearly songwriters at this point — wanting to pay tribute to their influences. And it could be said they kicked Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven." There was the yearning in "It Won't Be Long," the promise in "All My Loving" and, in the closer, the Bradford-Gordy song "Money (That's What I Want)" a wild exhortation about that particular goal.
"A Hard Day's Night" (July 1964): The first album of all Lennon-McCartney songs (but only 13!) and the de facto soundtrack to the Beatles madcap first movie directed by Richard Lester. The title track captures the Beatles' life as it was depicted in the movie — frantic, on the road, delirious, besieged (and probably not far from real life). The songs on the LPs first side are from the movie; the second side features non-movie material. George Harrison introduces a jangly Rickenbacker sound. "Can't Buy Me Love" might be an answer song to "Money." "And I Love Her" and "Things We Said Today" are gorgeous and mostly acoustic; "I Should Have Known Better," with Lennon's breezy harmonica riff, is an exuberant song with a cautionary message.
"Beatles for Sale" (Dec. 1964): This came out just five months after the last LP and the first three songs are Lennon in his early bitter/reflective phase — "No Reply," "I'm a Loser" and "Baby's in Black." Not the first hint of negativity in Beatlesland, but the first songs that might be termed "confessional" — a post-Dylan effect. McCartney's pretty happy, though, with "I'll Follow the Sun" and a raucous version of "Rock & Roll Music." And, it's back to the eight-to-six originals-to-covers split, reflecting, perhaps, the Beatles hectic tour-record-make-movie schedule was taking a toll.
“Help!" (Aug. 1965): And now comes the second Beatles caper movie from Lester and soundtrack from the Fab Four. Six songs from the movie (there were seven on the US soundtrack, plus Ken Thorne's score music) and eight others. The title song is just a big glorious rush of harmony and gleeful desperation. "The Night Before" is about the (deceitful?) one that just got away and "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" is about the one who's just about to get away. Also, there's "Ticket to Ride," more sorrow dressed up as glee. And on side two there's Ringo's version of Buck Owens' "Act Naturally." Oh yes, there's McCartney's "Yesterday," the most covered song in the history of creation (estimates range between 2,000 and 3,000) and the ultimate melancholic, baroque pop song.
"Rubber Soul" (Dec. 1965): The breakthrough album? The first indicator of the more mature Beatles? Perhaps. More folk-rock (Dylan, Byrds) influences. Harrison employs the sitar and Lennon gives us a coy sexual innuendo in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)." Lennon said the song was about an extra-marital affair he was having and the key line is "Isn't it good/Norwegian wood." That's Liverpool slang for "knowing she would." McCartney gives us another love ballad (partly in French!) "Michelle," and we guess that lots of babies got that name in 1966. "Nowhere Man," about a universal feeling of being displaced, has a lovely, sad drift and "In My Life" may be the best song ever about the power of memory to hold onto love and affection over the years. The album closes with another of those sounds-like-fun-but-is-really-threatening romps: "Run for Your Life" is vicious. There are two Harrison songs and Ringo's country/rockabilly take on an early (as yet unrecorded) Beatles song, "What Goes On."
"Revolver" (Aug. 1966): Psychedelia rears its head. Multi-tracked guitars, sitars, Lennon's ode to his drug dealer ("Doctor Robert") and another tune about morbidity ("She Said She Said"). McCartney keeps ever-cheery with two rousing numbers, "Good Day Sunshine" and "Got to Get You into My Life." Harrison, who penned three tunes, had the honor of the lead song, "Taxman," a hooky song with a classic bass line and a complaint about taxation that few would argue -- especially if you were in a very high-earning English pop band. The final song was the band's most experimental to date, "Tomorrow Never Knows," where Lennon sang part of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (his voice coming out of a Leslie speaker cabinet, creating a vibrato effect) over an eerie tribal beat, tape loops and squealing guitars.
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (June 1967): Hailed as a concept album, but what's the concept? Well, perhaps it's the Beatles posing as this fake band with a variety of styles, but it's more likely the linkage of songs, the idea that it's meant to be heard as an album. And the Beatles stated that none of the songs were supposed to sound like any others — the exception, of course, being the reprise of the title track, which leads into the best patched-together song in the Lennon-McCartney lexicon. You can't help but listen to the jaunty two-beat swing of "When I'm 64" now and remember how far away that age once seemed — to the Beatles, to many of us. (McCartney, who said he wrote it at age 16, is now 71; Starr is 73; Lennon was 40 when he was shot and killed in 1980; Harrison died of cancer in 2001 at 58.)
"Magical Mystery Tour" (Dec. 1967): The TV film is a mess, but not so the music. It was originally released in England as two EPs, and one LP in the US. (The UK re-release is now one CD, same songs.) Included were the six soundtrack songs plus five singles from earlier that year. There's McCartney's charming old-timey "Your Mother Should Know" and Lennon's "I Am the Walrus," with its frequent sonic shifts, a vaguely menacing tone, cryptic wordplay and odd muttering. The '67 singles are topped by the panoramic, psychedelic masterpiece "Strawberry Fields Forever," along with "Hello Goodbye," "Penny Lane," "Baby You're a Rich Man" and "All You Need is Love."
"The Beatles" (aka "The White Album") (Nov. 1968): Their first eight-track recording, it opened with McCartney's sly Beach Boys tribute/send-up "Back in the USSR" and included the most inscrutable track of the Beatles' career, the ominous sounding "Revolution No. 9." It's tape loops and noise, orchestral bits, piano snippets and spoken word collage, the spooky-sounding "Number 9, number 9..." and the sports chant of "Block that kick!" The so-called "White Album" ranks as one of the top double-albums in rock history — and also one of the most stylistically sprawling. There's the gallop of Lennon's anti-hunter "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," McCartney's ode to old-style domesticity "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da," Harrison's standout "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (with additional guitar from pal Eric Clapton, the first time a prominent guest musician was used by the band). "Birthday" is a frenzied celebration with great pounding drums from Ringo. "Happiness is a Warm Gun," with its multiple time signatures, plays on cartoonist Charles Schultz's "Happiness is a warm puppy" line and while you may think it's about handguns, it's really about heroin addiction. The album features McCartney's hardest-rocking song, "Helter Skelter," often considered a precursor to heavy metal, written to capture the delirium of a wild carnival ride. (Charlie Manson sort of misconstrued this one and a few others on this album.) "I'm So Tired," with its "Give you everything I've got for a little piece of mind!" plea captures the particular horror of insomnia; "Yer Blues" is a howling cry of desperation; "Mother Nature's Son" is bucolic bliss. "The White Album" goes everywhere. (This is also the album where the "Paul is dead" rumor/hoax took hold, with various clues seemingly planted by the Beatles in song and on album covers. Paul has gone on record as saying he is not dead.)
"Yellow Submarine" (Jan. 1969): The Beatles album you can probably skip; certainly the Beatles songs from the animated movie are their most trifling and six others are instrumental songs by Martin. (McCartney does kick up the silly sing-along "All Together Now" these days in concert.)
"Abbey Road" (Sept. 1969): The last songs the Beatles recorded — though not the last LP. "Abbey Road" has the range of "The White Album," but on just one disc. And it's the Beatles' rockingest record. Side one begins with Lennon's cryptic "Come Together" and follows with Harrison's only Beatles' hit single, "Something." They take us through cheery courtroom-and-murder scenes in the bouncy "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and conclude with the clamorous, heavy blues of "I Want You (She's so heavy)." The tape ends mid-coda and now it's over. Whew! Side two starts with Harrison's ever-hopeful "Here Comes the Sun" and soon introduces us to the dirty old man in "Mean Mr. Mustard" and his sister "Polythene Pam" (who we may assume either has a sexual kink for polythene or is dead and wrapped up in a polythene bag.) It closes with that majestic, McCartney-dominated medley, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"/"Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End." The latter features Ringo's great simple eight-measure drum solo — his only one, he hated them — and Harrison's most sizzling lead guitar. (The ditty "Her Majesty" technically closes the album with a giggle.)
"Let It Be" (May 1970): Recorded in January 1969, this became Beatles' actual, final LP release, issued after they had announced their breakup. "Let It Be" has a convoluted history, beginning life as a roots-rock tribute (album and documentary) called "Get Back," as recorded by Glyn Johns. They scrapped it. Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector came in for the "rescue" much later. He added strings — and is whacked for it by most Beatles fans, especially on "The Long and Winding Road" — and female backing vocals. (Two songs, "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine," were recorded at different times, 1968 and then early in 1970, after Lennon had left.) Some beautiful stuff — "I've Got a Feeling" and "For You Blue." Knowing the history of the sessions and the discord the Beatles experienced couldn't help but taint feelings toward the music back in the day. But more than four decades later? It's no "Abbey Road" or "White Album" but it's pretty darn good, Spector or not.
"Past Masters" (2009 "The Beatles" box): What can you say? The plethora of A-sides, B-sides and odds and ends that were never included on albums. The Beatles were a great singles band; the Beatles were a great albums band. You may well want to skip the Beatles' two worst B-sides, "Old Brown Shoe" and "You Know My Name (Look Up My Number)," but you will positively dig the riotous "Bad Boy." The first disc has the early singles — "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves" (both in English and German) — and the second has four killer tunes to start, the double A-side singles "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out" and "Paperback Writer"/"Rain." "Hey Jude" is there, of course — a junior high waltz classic, as some of us remember it — as is the Billy Preston-aided "Don't Let Me Down." "The Ballad of John and Yoko" is still the oddest Beatles song in the catalog: Isn't this a tad overly personal for a Beatles record? And how pleased were the other three to have Yoko in their song? (Years before, George Martin suggested to McCartney that "Yesterday," be a solo effort, as it was just him and the orchestra on it, but McCartney insisted it go under the Beatles moniker. Lennon should have done the same here.)
Postscript: There have been plenty of reconfigurations and compilations, including three albums in the "Anthology" series and two versions of "Rarities," similar to "Past Masters." In 2003, Capitol released "Let It Be... Naked," which, as it seems, stripped away the ornate touches Spector added. Just released (Dec. 2013) was "On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2," sessions the Beatles recorded for the BBC from 1962 to 1965. There are 37 previously unreleased versions — many covers of American pop, R&B and girl-group songs — and 23 bits of witty banter and interviews. "Now then me lucky lads," says the BBC interviewer, "What do you reckon you'll all be doing when this program is broadcast?" "Miami Beach! Florida!" they answer. Back in the USA. Not the motherland, but the land of plenty which awaited them.
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