The Beatles: Their Great Singles

The Beatles never released a bad single-at least on Capital. Most of them are great.
You really have to consider "A" and "B" sides when picking the best.
My top 10:
1. Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
2. Hey Jude/Revolution
3. Paperback Writer/Rain
4. I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There (the US made a better B side choice than the UK This Boy)
5. Something/Come Together
6. We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper
7. Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus
8. All You Need Is Love/Baby You're A Rich Man
9. A Hard Day's Night/Things We Said Today
10. Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby

 

My sister was 14 when the Beatles broke in the US in Jan 64...I was 4. She had the albums...Capitol, UA and VeeJay. And the Capitol singles...except...A Hard Days Night/I Should Have Known Better, Cant buy me Love/You cant do That, and I'll Cry Instead/ Happy just to Dance w/ you. Maybe she felt they were unnecessary with the soundtrack and Something New..
I'll have to ask her. My neighbor had HDN...I always liked that picture sleeve. Favorite to this day is Day Tripper/ We Can Work it Out.

 

I have a complete set of all original US singles plus the two Canadian ones that I consider part of the set due to the fact they charted here. The thing about sitting down and playing Beatles 45s is you gotta play both sides. They are soooo good.

 

Nowhere Man should’ve gone to number one. I’m very surprised it didn’t.

 

Eh, not really. If anything, Hari lifted it for "Drilling A Home" from Wonderwall Music.

 

I think I must have them on “ignore” blissfully - don’t see it but I can tell from some of the responses it must have been a doozy

 

I'll try to list my favourites (from A's and B's) after looking over the full list of singles on Wikipedia's discography page, including everything they released through 1970, the year of the breakup:

A top 10 songs approximately in descending order (it varies day to day, like so many favourites lists):

Nowhere Man
I Should Have Known Better
Paperback Writer
Eleanor Rigby
Please Please Me
The Long and Winding Road
I'm Happy Just to Dance with You
Roll Over Beethoven
If I Fell
Penny Lane

Followed by a group bunched together so tightly that I can't really order them:

I Saw Her Standing There
A Hard Day's Night
And I Love Her
No Reply
Help!
We Can Work It Out
Girl
Rain
Strawberry Fields Forever
Hello Goodbye
I Am the Walrus
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Don't Let Me Down
Something

Plus a few others that I like enough that they deserve to be on the list:

She Loves You
Revolution
Things We Said Today
Baby You're a Rich Man
All You Need is Love

This is just favourites, not "best" songs; objectively, the best is probably Penny Lane which today is at no. 10

 

A thought just occurred to me...the Capitol 45 picture sleeves are more interesting and better visually than the Capitol album covers...except Yellow Sub/Eleanor Rigby.

 

You're pretty much in line with what I think of The Beatles singles. Please Please Me is possibly my favourite, at least as good as any of them. We Can Work It Out is up there too. Lady Madonna is my least favourite. I don't think that and Get Back are very good songs. I do think Hello Goodbye is though, it's simplicity is it's strength, Ringo's drum sound is killer and there's enough going on for it to stay on the right side of bubblegum. I Am The Walrus is the perfect contrast on the B-side.

 

I don't hear 'Lady Madonna' here at all! It's all over 'Bad Penny Blues' though.

 

That glitch in the stereo mix wasn't fixed until the 2009 remaster.

 

Very tough competition at that time. The Rolling Stones had ' 19th Nervous Breakdown' , Nancy Sinatra has ' These Boots Are Made For Walking' and sitting in the top slot was Sgt Barry Sadler with ' The Ballad of the Green Berets'

" Put silver wings on my son's chest/ These men are brave, America's best/ One hundred men will test today/ But only one gets the green beret"

 

I was given my very first Beatles record for my 10th birthday...
I Feel Fine / She's A Woman.
So... for sentimental reasons that's my favorite single however the singles that were to follow in 1965 weren't too shabby also. Ticket To Ride, Help, Roll Over Beethoven.

 

"Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" is easily one of their greatest; it was a massive two sided hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
I'm also a fan of McCartney's "Let It Be." It's always been one of my favorites since youth, and is arguably one of their best.

Yep, it stopped short at #3 and ended a string of 6 consecutive chart-toppers for the band. The only other act with a longer streak?
Elvis Presley who completed a run of 10 consecutive (1956-1958).

 

'Penny Lane' topped the Billboard chart but the single only made it to Number Two in Britain where it was shut out of the top slot by 'Release Me' by Englebert Humperdinck.
When reminded of this in 'Anthology' , Ringo said : "Oh, dear."

 

I could not agree more! great, great, song....

 

In Britain the top three biggest chart hits of 1967 were all by Humperdinck.

 

The original title must not have lasted long, because I remember ads for it shortly after its release touting the title as "Hey Jude." By this time -- 8th grade -- I'd become kind of a Beatles obsessive and paid attention to everything.

 

I should have mentioned Baby You're a Rich Man -- I've always loved it.

 

I don't get the disregard for Lady Madonna. It's wonderfully atmospheric and a great piano-pounder, with rather darker lyrics than we'd been used to from the Beatles. It's also a perfect transition from the psychedelic era to the more straightforward sound of Hey Jude and the White Album. It's always been a favorite of mine, and the crowd eats it up when Paul does it live. I easily prefer it to We Can Work It Out or Hello Goodbye, to name two (both perfectly good songs, just not as good to my ears as Lady Madonna).

 

Singles I bought:
US - I Want to Hold Your Hand, Twist and Shout, Can’t Buy Me Love, All You Need is Love, Lady Madonna, Get Back, Ballad of John and Yoko.

UK - Paerback Writer, Strawberry Fields, Hello Goodbye

 

While I love The Inner Light, the perfect Bside to Lady Madonna would have been Hey Bulldog. A one-two punch of back to basics rock - would have been a double sided hit.

 

How ? It ain’t on it.

 

Yes....
This was already pointed out to me and I noted my mistake saying I was thinking of 'Old Brown Shoe'
Thank you for your input.

 

Ah, but would it sell ?