10 songs that The Beatles shouldn’t have released
There’s a certain timeless quality to nearly every album released by The Beatles. From their days as a humble rock and roll outfit to the experimental soundscapes of their later years, every one of their records has both innocence and innovation to appreciate. Though the sounds of these albums might stand the test of time, there are a handful of songs that should have never seen the light of day.
Granted, some of the songs listed below may have worked a lot better at the time of release. The world of the 1960s and the ‘Summer of Love’ was far different than 2023, and some things were a bit more acceptable back then. Even though these songs might have celebrated that fact, some of the lyrics might have resulted in a few dirty looks should they have released them today.
Then again, there are some songs that should have never been released in the format they were, to begin with. Either because of the terrible production or some bad premise, some songs simply didn’t age well right out of the gate, sounding cheap by their standards or making the audience seriously question if they had lost the plot.
There is certainly merit to some of the songs here, but the problems can’t be ignored when they’re put next to classics like ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘In My Life’. For all of the great tunes that The Beatles have made, no band is perfect, and these tracks keep the band’s catalogue from being perfect from back to front.
10 songs that The Beatles shouldn’t have released:
‘The Long and Winding Road’ – Let It Be
First things first, this inclusion has nothing to do with the song itself. Coming at the tail end of The Beatles’ final effort, ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is one of the best ballads that Paul McCartney ever wrote for the band, with a trace of melancholy added in for good measure. No, where this falters is how much of a headache went on behind the scenes.
On the standard version of the album, McCartney was furious hearing what producer Phil Spector had done to his work, adding in syrupy strings and an orchestral touch that completely wrecked the feeling that McCartney was going for. The original take wasn’t much better either, with the bass break having some phenomenally poor playing by John Lennon, who was clearly getting used to the instrument during the recording.
The resentment surrounding this tune only made the hostility between the members grow towards the end of the band, leading to Paul McCartney announcing their end with the release of his first solo album. Considering the fact that Let It Be…Naked was released with a completely reworked version of the tune, the original is the sound of the Spector-ised version of what The Beatles were.
‘You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)’ – B-side
The best aspect about The Beatles was their lovable personalities both on and off their records. Outside of their remarkable chemistry with each other, the members were nothing but charming in interviews, always slipping in some tongue-in-cheek humour into every scenario. It wasn’t out of the question for that to cross over into their music, but ‘You Know My Name’ still sounds like a demo more than an actual song.
Despite sounding like a particularly average Monty Python sketch, this song took a lot of development before being heard, originally workshopped all the way back in 1967. Though some fellow rock and roll stars like Brian Jones played on the track, the listener often spends most of this track for the song to get started, only for it to fart around for four minutes until it mercifully ends.
What makes it even worse is where the song is placed in the context of the band’s story. While it was rightfully considered a B-side from the sessions, putting it on the flip side of their final single ‘Let It Be’ feels a little bit like throwing salt in the already-raw wound. The world’s most beloved group was disintegrating, and their last artistic gasp came from an unfunny standup routine. It’s nice to hear the band having fun, but that doesn’t mean the listener is having fun as well.
‘Mr Moonlight’ – Beatles For Sale
Considering the hustle and bustle of Beatlemania, Beatles for Sale shouldn’t be as good as it is. Since the band had to rush something out quickly before the end of 1964, their stabs at old rock favourites and dipping their toes into styles like country and western offered some new turns that most fans hadn’t heard before. A tight schedule meant relying on cover songs too, but ‘Mr Moonlight’ is one of the only duds in their early repertoire.
An original by Dr Feelgood, this is a soulful number about loving the moonlight for bringing the narrator and his love together. Though John Lennon can certainly sell a song like that, the rest of the instrumentation behind him doesn’t fare much better, sounding like the rest of the band is on autopilot as they’re working their way through the tune.
The only novel idea added to the tune is the midsection’s organ break, which might have been trendy at the time but just sounds uninspired coming from the same act who were about to release songs like ‘I Feel Fine’ and ‘Ticket to Ride’. In the context of The Beatles, ‘Moonlight’ might just be a weird oddity, but when reading about what they were going through, this sounds like the moment when they were officially starting to burn out.
‘All Together Now’ – Yellow Submarine
OK, so it might be a cheap shot to throw anything off of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack onto a list like this. While The Beatles’ animated film became a cult classic amongst children everywhere, the “soundtrack” album was not something any of them were invested in, only throwing odds and ends into the mix and filling the second side with an orchestral score. While ‘All Together Now’ definitely understands the concept of children’s entertainment, it seems a bit too schmaltzy coming out of Paul McCartney.
For as much as John Lennon ragged on his songwriting partner for writing “granny music”, this is the first time it starts to get mildly annoying, starting off with listing out numbers before asking everyone to join in with the “all together now”. Here’s hoping listeners enjoy that chorus because that’s easily 80% of the tune, hammering the song into the skull until it’s engrained in the psyche for eternity.
Although the song ‘Yellow Submarine’ remains a beloved children’s favourite, this is the one time when the charm of Paul McCartney starts to dwindle ever so slightly. Children’s song are supposed to be fairly simple, but that doesn’t mean that The Beatles had to give up on structure. Instead of luring the listener in with catchiness, this feels like beating their audience into submission.
‘You Can’t Do That’ – A Hard Day’s Night
There have been more than a few accusations and evidence brought forth for how John Lennon viewed women as a youngster. While he showed remorse in songs like ‘Jealous Guy’, it must have been hard for Lennon to keep a level head when being heralded as one of the greatest writers of his generation. There’s a difference between becoming an icon and being a possessive person, and ‘You Can’t Do That’ is firmly on the wrong side of that argument.
Towards the end of A Hard Day’s Night, this song starts off fairly strong, having a groove that feels reminiscent of classic Motown. As soon as Lennon opens his mouth, though, he is seething with anger, coming off as insanely insecure that his girlfriend dared to speak to another man in his presence. Instead of talking through his problems, Lennon chooses to play the role of a manipulative boyfriend, willing to call their relationship off then and there if she doesn’t stop talking to other boys.
Though it’s entirely possible that this girl is messing around with other men, the audience only hears Lennon’s side of the story, which makes him come off like an insecure jerk who can’t have his girlfriend speak to any other male specimen except for him. It’s almost fitting that the next Beatles album features the breakup song ‘No Reply’, which follows the story of Lennon becoming more insecure after this girl dumped him. Even after the breakup, this asshole is still not getting the picture.
‘Another Girl’ – Help!
Most of the attention-grabbing dirt on The Beatles tends to come back to John Lennon. Lennon never claimed to be a role model and often spoke at length in his later years about atoning for how he treated the opposite sex when he was a young man. Lennon might be the easy target, but ‘The Cute Beatle’ wasn’t safe from some unflattering songs every now and again too.
Taken from the soundtrack to Help!, ‘Another Girl’ feels like another soulful number from McCartney, talking about moving on to another girl after his previous girlfriend dumped him. However, the tone in this one is decidedly malicious, especially towards the second verse, where McCartney alludes to the fact that hooking up with this girl is practically a warning to his old flame to start her messing around.
As if the idea of using this other girl isn’t enough, the video of them performing the song in the movie has not aged well in the slightest, including numerous shots where a bikini-clad woman takes the place of McCartney’s guitar as he makes mock strumming motions in front of her. Some of The Beatles’ die-hard fans could chalk this up to more innocent times, but the more accurate adjective there is probably more ‘ignorant’ times.
‘Little Child’ – With The Beatles
When The Beatles were first getting themselves sorted out, George Martin remarked that they weren’t the greatest songwriters. As much as they may have blossomed, their producer only saw potential when he heard them play their sets from The Cavern Club in Abbey Road Studios, and it took a while for them to come around to proper songwriting. In the midst of their first chart success, though, they weren’t about picking some low-hanging fruit for their songs as well.
Looking back on the songs on With The Beatles, ‘Little Child’ is easily the weakest track they have ever put to tape from their years. Clocking in at just under two minutes, most of this song is one big filler track, with Lennon singing lyrics about wanting this girl to dance with him. This might have been a fun dance track at the time, but hearing what would become one of the greatest songwriters of the ‘60s phone it in like this feels so hollow.
While Lennon gives his all with the spare harmonica part in the solo section, it can’t save the already weak premise of the song. Some artists make the listener see the real person behind the music with their lyrics, but all that fans are going to hear when listening to this track is the sound of the cash register ringing.
‘Wild Honey Pie’ – The White Album
The White Album may be one of the most ambitious artistic achievements that The Beatles had ever taken on. Although the goal was to get all of their inspired moments down on tape, making an entire double record thrust every one of the band’s songwriters to the forefront, often with fairly mixed results. Despite having some of the greatest tunes of all time across its running length, ‘Wild Honey Pie’ is something that should have never been meant for human ears.
Just before the start of ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’, the opening strains of out-of-tune chords fade in as Paul McCartney whines out the vocal ‘honey pie’ in the most tone-deaf voice he can muster. This would have been cheeky as a little aside, but McCartney is determined to carry out this song, repeating the verses for three run-throughs before stopping as an act of mercy after nearly a minute.
Granted, when listening to the album from back to front, the tune at least serves as a nice palette cleanser before going into the next half of the first disc, bringing with it imaginative songs like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Julia’. While every band member might have been insistent on getting the proper amount of airtime on the record, it’s hard to believe that McCartney left a potentially great song on the cutting room floor for this.
‘Run For Your Life’ – Rubber Soul
In the grand scheme of Beatles albums, Rubber Soul marks the first major turning point for their sound. After making songs for what Lennon later called “the meat market”, this was the first artistic statement they made on the record, turning the album into more of an art form rather than a cheap collection of singles. Each song gave us a more mature take on The Beatles’ love song formula, so why did they pick a closing thing that seems to contradict all of that?
Throughout the record, Lennon and McCartney have matured by leaps and bounds as songwriters, writing from different perspectives like McCartney’s ‘You Won’t See Me’ and Lennon’s ‘In My Life’. When getting the sessions started, though, Lennon’s choice to include a song about an abusive boyfriend felt like them decidedly going backwards.
As opposed to his suggestions in ‘You Can’t Do That’, ‘Run For Your Life’ is much worse by comparison, where Lennon threatens to murder his girlfriend should he get caught running around with another man. Lennon later called this tune a piece of garbage as well, not thinking that it fit with the rest of the record. Whereas each song on Rubber Soul felt like a thorough study on how to push the traditional love song forward, ‘Run For Your Life’ is doing its best to undermine everything that the album was about.
‘Revolution 9’ – The White Album
The late ‘60s marked the first time that the Beatles began to get political. They had talked about not being allowed to speak on the Vietnam war at the start of their career, and ‘Revolution’ was the sound of John Lennon turning his voice up, being interested in what happens once all of the revolutions are finished. Though the song was already controversial among some of the band’s critics, no one was prepared for the other versions.
As opposed to the rock and roll spectacle of the single version, The White Album offered two different versions of the tune, the first of which was a mellow acoustic version of the original tune. While it’s nice to hear what sounds like the tune in the demo stages, Lennon got an awful idea when working with Yoko Ono, deciding to create ‘Revolution 9’ out of random tape loops and sounds to create an avant-garde piece.
Though the piece might do a good job and building the sounds of revolution in one’s own mind, it’s certainly out of place on the album, making for a jarring shift in tone as the penultimate track before Ringo Starr lulls us back down to sleep for the song ‘Good Night’. The Beatles were always about pushing the limits of what their listeners were used to from pop outfits; this feels like forcing that experimentation onto them whether they like it or not. Since the song clocks in at over eight minutes, The White Album would have been far more perfect had they thrown in some decent odds and ends or even ‘Hey Jude’ on the track listing.
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