The Beatles

What’s Your Favourite?

iTunes has finally got their man, or men to be more exact. It appears that the Bookies have slashed the odds on The Beatles taking all the places in the Top Ten as fans of the Fab Four download to their hearts content.

So what is the current favourite? What is likely to be the number one download?
Apparently “Hey Jude” is right up there with a surprising late entry from “Here Comes the Sun”.

Bizarre! I’m not sure that the latter would feature in my top twenty songs of the Beatles.

But then again, I’m also not sure what Beatles songs would.

It seems to me that if you went around the general public and asked what their favourite Beatles song was, it would possibly be the first one that popped into their heads. Whatever compilations came from such a question would always feature the most well-known and not necessarily their best. And anyway, music is such a personal thing. With it comes such memories, such emotions that are important for one person that are completely meaningless for another.

Take “Sergeant Pepper”. I have such fond memories of locking myself away in my brother’s bedroom because he was the only one of us that had a record player in his own space away from the rest of the family. Whenever he was out, I used to go in and treat myself to playing the very few records that we actually had. One of them was “Sergeant Pepper” and I learned to sing from this album.

My favourite at that time was “She’s Leaving Home” purely because it was the one that I could sing best, and I was desperately worried about this poor family who were having to deal with such a traumatic occurrence!

Nowadays, I think I have a completely different Top Ten Beatles songs than I did a decade or two ago. I would be loathe to say which is my favourite but there are certain songs that still have resonance with me for a variety of reasons.

I love “Across the Universe”. Nothing is going to change my world and everything is. Meditation, spirituality, “limitless undying love which shines around me” “thoughts meandering”.

I lose myself when I listen and play this song. I love sitting at the piano and just drifting off into Lennon’s composition, allowing it to take me across all sorts of universes, thinking about nothing, thinking about everything - “possessing and caressing”.

Perfectly beautiful.

I still love certain songs for their utter simplicity. “I will” is a song that is not as well known as other Beatles tracks. It is clearly a McCartney rather than Lennon composition and yet, I still love to hear the basic lyrics that explain with how unconditional love and affection could be, albeit rather simplistic.

“For the things you do endear you to me”.

It’s not the best of their songs, and it is actually a bit soppy but somewhere in my distant past, it meant something to me, and has stuck.

“Blackbird” is such a song of hope. “You were only waiting for this moment to arise”. Learn to fly – we should all be learning to fly in whatever direction we choose. If only more of us could fly where we want to.

I could go on. “I am the Walrus” Do I actually geddit? “Girl” weird and totally different to other songs that they produced. “Something” – so much of Harrison.

And then there are the old favourites. Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday, I Feel Fine.

And of course, “A Day in the Life”

I still listen, mesmerised, by what the hell is going on there!

The point is, is there any point at all in trying to have a definitive list of favourites? Surely they fluctuate as times and circumstances change. Can you ever have a favourite when they are so eclectic? Isn’t that precisely why The Beatles were so popular – well one of the reasons anyway.

All I hope is that this change in The Beatles management means that I can listen further on Spotify. I sincerely hope that this means that they are going to be available there too.

Here’s hoping.

Because what I want to do is learn. I want to listen to more music. Not just The Beatles, of course, but I certainly want to make a more educated and considered choice as to what might be my favourite and there is every possibility that I might not even have heard, or registered, my favourite Fab Four track because I know that I have not listened to them all.

And isn’t that exciting? That there is still a wealth of music out there for me to listen to.