Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The Vermilion Album

In my discussion of the Beatles' Red and Blue albums, I noted the bizarre choice to have 13 songs per album for the former and 14 for the latter.  If anything, the album representing the early years should have had more songs, since those songs were shorter (and perhaps better).

Most of the songs on the Red album were hits.  I noted the few that weren't major singles, such as "Girl" and "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away." If those were acceptable, then why leave off a ton of other non-single classics?

Someone asked me which songs in particular, so here's a list of Beatles recordings from 1962 to 1966 that could have fit.  Let's imagine they form their own album. (Like the original collections, I won't use cover songs.  And I won't use quotation marks because they're tiring.)

I Saw Her Standing There
P.S. I Love You
Do You Want To Know A Secret
There's A Place
Hold Me Tight
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
Tell Me Why
Any Time At All
Things We Said Today
You Can't Do That
I'll Be Back
No Reply
I'll Follow The Sun
What You're Doing
The Night Before
You're Going To Lose That Girl
I've Just Seen A Face
The Word
I'm Looking Through You
Wait
Taxman (George gets in)
I'm Only Sleeping
Here, There And Everywhere
She Said She Said
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
For No One
Got To Get You Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows

1 Comments:

Anonymous Lawrence King said...

When I read your list, I was convinced that some of your choices were on the actual Red Album. "I Saw Her Standing There", "I Should Have Known Better", "I've Just Seen a Face", "Good Day Sunshine" -- these were played constantly when I was a kid and everyone still knows them today. I would have bet money they were on the Red Album. But they're not.

Your list also includes some of my very favorite Beatles songs that weren't huge hits: "I'll Follow The Sun", "I'm Looking Through You", "She Said She Said".

But then when I looked over the actual Red Album list, I think they definitely did succeed in choosing the very biggest Beatles hits from that era. It's just amazing that the Beatles had so many hits. 75% of the songs on Michael Jackson's Thriller were huge hits, and he is remembered as a giant for having created an album that big. The Beatles did this on almost every album.

11:59 PM, May 16, 2018  

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