The first Beatles release that John Lennon called “terrible”
The Beatles are arguably the biggest band of all time, with their music at the forefront of the 1960s counterculture and youth movements. Inspiring generations of musicians to come, The Beatles were pioneers of popular music, exploring new sounds and styles that were not widely used in the mainstream.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison were together from 1958, with a series of different drummers playing with them until they found Ringo Starr in 1962. With the help of manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin, the band became one of the leading figures of pop music, creating a frenzy amongst young music fans known as ‘Beatlemania.’
While the first few years of their career saw them produce radio-friendly pop albums such as Please Please Me and A Hard Day’s Night, their retirement from live performances in 1966 saw them embrace a more experimental style of music-making, paired with an interest in psychedelic drug-taking and a retreat to India which inspired them spiritually.
In the later half of the 1960s, the Beatles released some of their more sophisticated works, such as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road, which have widely been regarded as some of the greatest albums of all time.
By 1970, the band were no longer, and the members embarked on solo careers and created other bands. The decade-long existence of the Beatles was monumental, and no other band has managed to create such an impact in such a short space of time.
Yet, despite the band’s massive legacy, not everything they did was considered an incredible work of art. The band have plenty of bad songs to their name, which make us question how such an impressively talented group of people were capable of producing such awful tracks – ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ come to mind.
However, a lesser-known bad Beatles track was described by Lennon himself as “terrible.” The song is ‘The Saints,’ which sees the Beatles take on the role of backing band to English singer Tony Sheridan. Featuring Pete Best on drums, who often played with the Beatles before they found Ringo, the song is a rock ‘n’ roll version of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In.’
Appearing as a B-side to ‘My Bonnie,’ which also features Sheridan on vocals, the single was actually the band’s first commercial release. The track was recorded in Hamburg during 1961 after German bandleader Bert Kaempfert proposed the idea of the Beatles providing backing music for Sheridan.
During the recording, which took place in Hamburg’s Friedrich-Ebert-Halle school, the band also recorded backing music for Sheridan’s songs ‘Why’ and ‘Cry for a Shadow.’ When the ‘My Bonnie’/’The Saints’ single was released in Germany, it sold 100,000 copies and made its way to number five in the German charts.
However, the band were forced to change their name, with McCartney saying, “They didn’t like our name and said, ‘Change to The Beat Brothers; this is more understandable for the German audience.’ We went along with it – it was a record.”
Speaking about the track, Lennon said: “It’s just Tony Sheridan singing, with us banging in the background. It’s terrible. It could be anybody.” By 1962, the songs were released in the UK, credited as Tony Sheridan and the Beatles.
By 1964, the band were hugely known all around the world, so the credit was changed to The Beatles and Tony Sheridan once ‘The Saints’ made its debut on a US album in 1964.
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