Which singles by The Beatles were flops?
We live in a world with so many ways to take in media that we can meticulously curate our own experiences. After all, have you ever noticed that you don’t discuss things you’ve seen with people? You just hear about what they’ve watched and ‘add it to the list’. Not possible in the 1960s. Back then, home video was decades away; there were about three channels on TV and about as many radio stations as there were. So, when they were all playing The Beatles simultaneously, that was your lot.
Because of that, in an age where monoculture is a thing of the past, it’s actually kind of difficult to illustrate just how famous The Beatles were in their pomp. Imagine the way Taylor Swift is now, except no one had ever done it before, and there were no other options.
With that in mind, thank god it was The Beatles, to be honest. The Beatles were, with a bullet, the highest-selling act of the decade, with seemingly everything they released hurtling to number one on every chart. Seemingly.
Look a little closer, and there are a few stone-cold Beatles classics that stalled in the charts. I say stalled when compared to their peak, of course. These songs would still have done respectably for any of their peers, but for John, Paul, George and Ringo, only the best would do. After all, this was a band that took the news that ‘Penny Lane’ became their first single since 1963 not to debut at number one in the UK as a sign they were hopelessly past it.
So, which singles by The Beatles flopped?
However, there are still a couple of memorable stalls to be found, especially in the US. ‘I Am the Walrus’ reached number 56 on the Hot 100, and their cover of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ peaked at 67. This sort of makes sense. ‘I Am the Walrus’ is a psychedelic freak-out of a song, and ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ is an agreeable Chuck Berry cover. Neither has much of a place in The Beatles’ greatest moments, unlike ‘All My Loving’, whose chart numbers make for some truly baffling reading.
It’s true, despite history remembering it today as one of the best pop songs of the 1960s and a genuine candidate for the best early Beatles song, that the numbers for the Fabs’ first jangle-pop masterpiece aren’t impressive. It was a hit in mainland Europe, but on the Billboard Hot 100, it stalled at number 45 and didn’t even chart on the UK singles chart. However, the story becomes a little clearer if you look deeper.
In the UK, it wasn’t released as a single but as the title track to an EP, which was collected on different charts then. The US was actually much more impressive. See, the song was actually not released in the US as a single, either. It was released in Canada, though, and the sheer number of imported singles that US-based Beatlemaniacs mail-ordered from the Great White North caused the single to chart on the Hot 100—a testament to their all-conquering popularity.
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