Off The Beatle Track

Here’s the second in the series naming an MVB (Most Valuable Beatle) for each album. First up was Please Please Me. This time, we’ll tackle:

With The Beatles (1963)

Songwriting:

Among the album’s 14 tracks are 8 originals (including the first song written by George, Don’t Bother Me) and 6 covers. John primarily wrote 4 of the originals, It Won’t Be Long, All I’ve Got To Do, Little Child, and Not a Second Time. Paul primarily wrote 2, All My Loving, and Hold Me Tight, and they cowrote I Wanna Be Your Man for Ringo (and the Stones).

Verdict: The best original on the album is Paul’s All My Loving. The next three best originals are all John tracks (feel free to order them as you wish): It Won’t Be Long, All I’ve Got To Do, and Not a Second Time. The less-than-stellar Hold Me Tight and Little Child cancel each other out. This contest is close, but John wins based on his efforts’ quality and quantity.

Singing:

I’d argue that the best singing occurs on 3 covers: Paul’s Till There Was You and John’s 2 side-closers, Please Mr. Postman and Money (That’s What I Want). Overall, John sings lead on half the tracks, and George has as many lead vocals (3: Don’t Bother Me, Roll Over Beethoven, and Devil in Her Heart) as Paul (All My Loving, Till There Was You, and Hold Me Tight). Ringo’s lead works well, but did Mick and Keith deprive us of Ringo’s singing lead on Little Child?¹

Verdict: Money features the best vocals, both lead (John’s second album-closing potboiler cover in a row) and backing. If you haven’t done so already, listen to Money and concentrate on the backing vocals from George and (mostly) Paul, especially how Paul bends the last “Thaaaat’s what I wa-a-a-a-a-ant!” John and Paul excel on the respective covers Please Mr. Postman and Till There Was You, but the former is just a much better song than the latter. Paul’s “oo-oo” on All My Loving is a nice touch, but the preponderance of the evidence favors John again.

Playing:

John plays harmonica on Little Child, but it’s not enough to save an otherwise lackluster effort. Ringo’s drumming is uniformly excellent, so much so that one begins to take it for granted. We’ll have to watch that.²

Verdict:

To my untrained ear, the 4 instrumental highlights are John’s rhythm guitar on All My Loving; George’s lead guitar on Till There Was You and Roll Over Beethoven; and George Martin’s piano on Money. Since George Martin doesn’t qualify, I’m going with George here. Both Till There Was You and Roll Over Beethoven were staples of their early setlists, and George crushes them both.

MVB:

This one is much closer than Please Please Me, but it’s John again. It Won’t Be Long had a chance to be a single, and All I’ve Got To Do and Not a Second Time might have been singles for another band (not to mention the latter’s aeolian cadences). Money belongs in the Rock Vocal Hall of Fame.³

Who’s your With The Beatles MVB? email me at beatletrack@gmail.com.

1. In other words, if John and Paul hadn’t needed to finish writing I Wanna Be Your Man, would they have given Little Child to Ringo, with whom it probably belonged? ↩︎
2. It’s not outlandish to suggest that Ringo should win Playing honors for at least all of the early albums, and maybe all of the later albums, too. ↩︎
3. Which does not exist. There is, however, a Vocal Group Hall of Fame, which looks terrific. But I can’t tell from the website whether it’s still open. ↩︎