Rain
1966
Emerick taped the backing fast and slowed it on playback; Ringo called it the best record he ever made.
★ 6.5
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
I Saw Her Standing There
1963 · From Please Please Me
Martin spliced McCartney's count-in from take nine onto take one, and rock and roll never had a better doorway.
★ 6.8
Please Please MeThe Beatles
Please Please Me
1963 · From Please Please Me
Eighteen takes in one November session, a Lennon ballad sped up, and Martin calling their first number one.
★ 7.0
Can't Buy Me Love
1964 · From A Hard Day's Night
Two point one million American advance orders, and behind them a Paris hotel upright where McCartney wrote it.
★ 7.4
With a Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)
1967 · From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Starr sang it at dawn after ten takes, having first made them cut the line about thrown tomatoes.
★ 7.4
Ticket to Ride
1965 · From Help!
Cut at EMI in February 1965, with Harrison's Rickenbacker riff and a record Lennon later called the first heavy metal.
★ 7.5
All You Need is LoveThe Beatles
All You Need is Love
1967 · From Magical Mystery Tour
Beamed live to 400 million on the first global satellite link, opening on La Marseillaise, its coda quoting Bach.
★ 7.5
Twist and Shout
1964 · From Please Please Me
Last song of a twelve-hour day, Lennon's throat gone, one usable take, and the Beatles' only million-selling cover.
★ 7.7
I Am The Walrus
1967 · From Magical Mystery Tour
Lennon stitched three unfinished songs together, then let a live BBC King Lear broadcast wander into the mix.
★ 7.7
Help!
1965 · From Help!
Twelve takes in April 1965, McCartney's counter-melody chasing the lead, and Lennon insisting years later the plea was real.
★ 7.7
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
1965 · From Rubber Soul
Harrison's sitar, widely reckoned the first on a rock record, and Lennon smuggling an affair past everyone.
★ 7.9
A Hard Day's Night
1964 · From A Hard Day's Night
Starr's slip of the tongue supplied the title, and the opening chord is still argued over by musicologists.
★ 7.9
While My Guitar Gently WeepsThe Beatles
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
1968 · From The White Album
Harrison opened a book at random, saw "gently weeps", and Clapton came in uncredited to play the solo.
★ 8.0
Penny Lane
1967 · From Magical Mystery Tour
McCartney heard a piccolo trumpet on a Bach broadcast, called David Mason in, and pop had never sounded brighter.
★ 8.1
SomethingThe Beatles
Something
1969 · From Abbey Road
Harrison lifted the opening line from James Taylor and wrote the first Beatles A-side that wasn't Lennon or McCartney.
★ 8.2
Come Together
1969 · From Abbey Road
Lennon started it as a campaign song for Timothy Leary, then Ringo muffled his drums with tea towels.
★ 8.7
She Loves YouThe Beatles
She Loves You
1963 · From The Beatles' Second Album
Lennon and McCartney started it on a tour bus after a Newcastle show; Martin thought the sixth-chord ending corny.
★ 8.8
Let it Be
1970 · From Let It Be
McCartney dreamed of his mother Mary telling him it would be all right; Harrison cut two different solos.
★ 8.9
Eleanor Rigby
1966 · From Revolver
No Beatle plays an instrument on it; George Martin's string octet does everything, sawing away at two solitary lives.
★ 8.9
In My Life
1965 · From Rubber Soul
Lennon's first draft listed bus stops in Liverpool; Martin's piano solo, taped at half speed, sounds baroque.
★ 9.0
Yesterday
1965 · From Help!
McCartney dreamt the melody, called it "Scrambled Eggs" for weeks, then let a string quartet make it immortal.
★ 9.5
Hey JudeThe Beatles
Hey Jude
1968
Seven minutes, four of them just na-na-na, and somehow nobody has ever wanted it to end sooner.
★ 9.5
Here Comes the Sun
1969 · From Abbey Road
Harrison wrote it in Clapton's garden while skipping a business meeting, and it sounds exactly like that relief.
★ 9.6
I Want to Hold Your Hand
1963 · From Meet the Beatles!
Handclaps, that leaping chord under "I can't hide," and five weeks later America belonged to them.
★ 9.6
Strawberry Fields Forever
1966 · From Magical Mystery Tour
Two takes in different keys and tempos spliced into one, a Mellotron haze over Lennon's Liverpool childhood.
★ 9.7
A Day in the Life
1967 · From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Two unfinished songs bolted together, an orchestra climbing to nothing, and the last piano chord in pop.
★ 9.9