10 Beatles songs that should have been hits
The Beatles never really needed to worry about having too many hits in their prime. Throughout every era of their career, it felt like the Fab Four had the musical Midas touch half the time, eventually turning everything they created into solid gold without thinking too hard. Even with a band as big as them, though, there are still a few tunes that never got the proper respect they deserved.
Compared to every other group to come out of the British invasion, The Beatles’ B-sides and deep cuts were good enough for anyone else’s biggest hit. Whether that was their pitch-perfect way of choosing covers or turning in great hidden gems on their album tracks, their back catalogue reads like a treasure trove that people have yet to stumble on.
That’s before even getting to their experimental period post-Rubber Soul. Although a tune like ‘Revolution 9’ deserves to be tucked away in history for a reason, that’s balanced out by some of the most tuneful tracks that could have been smash hits if given away to Badfinger or saved from the members’ solo careers.
While history has already been incredibly kind to the Fab Four, these tunes could have made their career even more unforgettable. It’s hard to call anything that they did ‘underrated’, but regarding raw sales and exposure on the charts, this is the kind of material that deserved equal billing with the ‘From Me To You’s of the world.
10 Beatles songs that deserved to be hits:
10. ‘Yes It Is’ – B-side
It’s hard to talk about the B-sides of any one of The Beatles’ hits without comparing it to the flipside. Even though none of their B-sides could be considered weak, it’s sometimes easy to hear why a song like ‘I’ll Get You’ wasn’t meant to go the same distance as something like ‘She Loves You’ in the public eye. At the same time, the flipside gave them a little more time to stretch out like on ‘Yes It Is’.
While John Lennon always dismissed this tune as a sad attempt at rewriting ‘This Boy’, hearing a dejected song about him not wanting to relive the pain of his old flame is far more sombre than most people could have imagined. Even with those aching harmonies and the Nashville-style volume swells, the tune may have been a little bit too morose for Fab fans, instead turning on ‘Ticket to Ride’ again or wanting to hear ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ again.
But think about it for a second. You’ve got a mellow groove, depressing lyrics, and some of the most aching vocals anyone had ever heard in rock? Yeah, this was The Beatles helping invent the sound of The Cure years before anyone had even heard of what the term ‘goth’ was supposed to be.
9. ‘There’s a Place’ – Please Please Me
It’s easy to find a clear line when The Beatles went from good to great in the public eye. Most of them didn’t bother with what the studio environment was supposed to be like in the early days, so it’s no surprise the lion’s share of their early productions sound rough. But if Please Please Me is their equivalent of a live album, ‘There’s a Place’ was proof that they had the magic before anyone had even heard of them.
Looking back on the record, though, many of their potboilers came from other people, whether their version of ‘Twist and Shout’, their interpretations of girl group songs like ‘Boys’, or knicking the bassline of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ from Chuck Berry. Right before bringing everything home, though, ‘There’s A Place’ is a facsimile of everything that makes them great, from Lennon’s harmonica to those aching harmonies to the wild left turns in the chord progression.
Most of the chords they used weren’t all that familiar to anyone then, but that hardly mattered. They were still a glorified bar band out of Liverpool, but those few chords were hitting on what the term ‘Beatlesque’ was going to mean once they went beyond their Liverpool stomping grounds.
8. ‘Because’ – Abbey Road
By the time The Beatles ended, it didn’t seem like they were all that concerned with singles anymore. The album had become their medium, and there was no way that some throwaway song would be given the same time of day as one of their epics. Then again, the Fab Four did manage to put one of their most adventurous tunes in a tight three-minute package on the flip side of Abbey Road.
While ‘Here Comes the Sun’ gets the time of day these days as one of their crowning achievements, ‘Because’ is still among the finest they have ever sounded on record. Despite having no Ringo Starr on the final track, hearing them harmonise over a harpsichord and the Moog synthesiser is among the finest they have ever sounded together, especially when they get to the end of every chorus and end on that slightly strange-sounding diminished chord.
Then again, this might have been too much for the public to handle at the time. They had already been tested with tunes like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, but whereas ‘Eleanor Rigby’ may have been jarring, ‘Because’ had the potential to melt minds if all anyone heard from them was ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.
7. ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ – Revolver
Lennon was never known to be the most diplomatic when talking about his Beatles songs. Most of them may have started with a good idea, but part of the problem was that Lennon never got to hear the sound that he heard in his head whenever he made a record. Even if ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ was a piece of garbage in his mind, it was still miles better than anything that any folk-rock band could have been doing at the time.
If George Harrison’s ‘If I Needed Someone’ was a nod to folk-rockers The Byrds, this is Lennon doing his best to capture Roger McGuinn’s typical jangle-guitar sound. Although Harrison and McCartney played the solo in the studio, hearing those guitars chime is the kind of optimistic tune that Lennon usually left for his writing partner, except this time, he puts loads more attitude behind it.
And while Lennon may have had an axe to grind with Frank Sinatra when writing the tune, it fit just as well as a psychedelic rock tune. The Beatles may have been playing catch-up with the rest of the rock scene on this track, but on the rest of Revolver, they were ready to steer music in a completely different direction.
6. ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ – Beatles for Sale
It’s easy to feel a lot of second-hand fatigue listening to Beatles for Sale. From reverting back to half-covers/half-originals to the dreary album artwork, it wasn’t a big secret that the band was being put through the wringer out on the road and were run ragged. At that point, the studio was the only place to go for refuge, and now that they turned it into a workshop, McCartney had time to flesh out a tune he had worked on since the beginning.
While many Beatles songs got left on the cutting room floor because they weren’t good enough, this sombre folk rock is one of the breeziest tunes in their catalogue. Standing at a little under two minutes, McCartney doesn’t overstay his welcome, either, taking the basic verse-chorus structure and crafting the perfect little pop song with a few Buddy Holly-style chord changes thrown in for good measure.
Even though this is the sparsest the group has ever sounded, that shouldn’t be a mark against them. They were still operating as musical scientists behind the scenes, and the fact that they could go from something this soft to ‘Long Tall Sally’ is a great showcase for how far their range was.
5. ‘I’m Looking Through You’ – Rubber Soul
In the grand scheme of Beatles albums, Rubber Soul is the first time that the group landed on a truly great project. Each one before had been between good and great, but this was the first time each song seemed to work off each other perfectly. And since this was their first proper deep dive into folk-rock, ‘I’m Looking Through You’ is one of the messiest pieces of beauty they had ever come up with.
While McCartney was known as the eternal optimist in the group, hearing him sing about his complicated relationship with Jane Asher is actually a breath of fresh air. Despite some pieces of it sounding flimsy, hearing McCartney break out his shout on acoustic instruments is enough to put it among his finest vocal performances from the group’s middle period.
And while each section is beautiful, it’s easy to forget that it doesn’t even have an official chorus to tie everything together. Because they had gone well beyond traditional song structures, now it was time to make the kind of records that were as fun to listen to as they were to create in the studio.
4. ‘I Will’ – The White Album
The lion’s share of The White Album tends to be an absolute mess. While there are still many gems to be found across every track, it’s no surprise that some people have issues with the long track listing and have debated for years about what the record would have sounded like had it been paired down to one single disc. Even though this was everyone’s chance to get weird, McCartney never forgot the beauty behind writing a simple pop tune.
Although it’s criminally short, ‘I Will’ has everything great about McCartney’s love songs in one tune. From the gentle strumming to the different left turns in the chorus, this feels like the kind of track anyone wishes they could sing to their partner, even if the lyrics imply that McCartney hasn’t even met this person yet.
Whereas most of McCartney’s ballads from around this time could reach melodramatic levels of sappy, there’s nothing wrong with this tune. In fact, looking at how he sings and plays guitar, this could have easily taken up a spot next to ‘Junk’ and ‘Heart of the Country’ as one of his finest solo acoustic tunes.
3. ‘Got to Get You Into My Life’ – Revolver
The Beatles were never satisfied playing to one genre. Even though they had their roots in rock and roll, there was no point in them hammering out Chuck Berry tunes all day if they were bound to get bored. They needed to keep things fresh, and when they hit Revolver, all bets were off when they started working on the sounds of soul music.
Although there had been many Motown tunes in their live repertoire, hearing McCartney holler on ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ is the kind of music that seems like it should be coming out of Muscle Shoals in Alabama rather than Abbey Road Studios. Despite being an ode to marijuana, McCartney delivers the tune like a combination of Little Richard and Al Green, complete with the kind of swagger that any good bluesman needs.
Even the spaces in between the main tune could have justifiably been a hit, like the guitar hook in the last chorus providing the perfect ear candy before going right back into the final verse. Everything that a band this old has done has the potential of being considered uncool, but no other 1960s band could claim to still have as much swagger as this tune has.
2. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ – The White Album
One of the greatest musical tragedies of The Beatles was George Harrison being boxed out of the room half the time. He had the potential to be one of the greatest writers of his generation, but when standing next to Lennon and McCartney, there’s a good chance that anyone was going to feel overshadowed. While ‘Something’ at least gave fans a preview of what his stellar solo career was going to be like, Harrison deserved to be a superstar based on this White Album track alone.
Because out of all the gems that Lennon and McCartney wrote for their double album experience, this tune is far and away the best song on the record. From the electric lead from Eric Clapton to the background harmonies from McCartney, Harrison captures the feeling of melancholy better than anyone else, eventually giving way to the bridge section, where the musical sunlight comes in for a few seconds.
Since Harrison was always a spiritual person, though, it’s not hard to see his sad lament as being about the state of the group. They would go on for a few more years, but this was the first sign that the greatest band in the world was already on the verge of falling apart.
1. ‘Hey Bulldog’ – Yellow Submarine
Of all the albums bearing the ‘Beatles’ tag, Yellow Submarine has always been the least necessary. Even though the movie of the same name is among the finest films they have ever made, it doesn’t bode well when the best songs in the movie are taken from entirely different albums. For the Fabs, any soundtrack album was a dumping ground for lesser songs, but ‘Hey Bulldog’ still deserves far better than being thrown away on here.
While The White Album may have been their definitive statement at the time, this is one of the best rock songs they have ever made. From the killer piano figure to the chaotic guitar solo Harrison plays halfway through the track, everything about this captures the group in their prime, down to McCartney doing his best impression of John Entwistle with those bass slides.
But the real magic comes at the end of the track when Lennon and McCartney are in the studio trading different barking noises for the final take. Even though this was the start of the tension between everyone, it’s nice to know that the group never forgot how to have fun every time they hit RECORD.
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