The Beatles are conventionally known as the greatest rock and roll band of all time. The Liverpool, England-born group perfected the four-piece setup with drums, bass and rhythm, and lead guitars. But while they wrote songs that could make you get up out of your seat and cut a rug, they also wrote songs that involved great touch and simplicity on the acoustic guitar.
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Here below, we wanted to showcase a trio of songs from the former Mop Tops that are played with spare instrumentation. A trio of tunes that features the acoustic and a singing voice. In this way, the band highlights their songwriting prowess and not just some rollicking room-shaking musical muscle. Indeed, these are three eternal acoustic songs from The Beatles.
[RELATED: 4 of the Most Covered Beatles Songs of All Time]
“Blackbird” from The Beatles (1968)
From the group’s self-titled double-album, also known as the White Album, this song features an intricate guitar line inspired by Bourrée in E minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s a song that many talented guitar players learn to showcase their talents. But the lyrics, Paul McCartney has said, were inspired by the civil rights movement in the U.S. (a blackbird being a euphemism for a black woman). That backstory was recently highlighted when Beyoncé released a cover of the song on her country album Cowboy Carter. On the song, McCartney sings,
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
(You were only waiting for this moment to arise)
Blackbird singing in the dead of night (dead of night, night)
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see (learn to see all your life)
All your life (all your life)
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
“Yesterday” from Help! (1965)
This song came to McCartney first in a dream and the original title for the track was “Scrambled Eggs.” It has since become one of the most covered songs from the Fab Four. Lyrically, the song is about wanting to travel back into the past. McCartney thinks about yesterday when things were different—yesterday before “she had to go.” On the breakup number, McCartney sings,
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be.
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go?
I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I said something wrong.
Now I long for yesterday.
“Across the Universe” from Let It Be (1970)
This song written by John Lennon is much more psychedelic and metaphoric than the two above. The song was inspired by an argument between Lennon and his then-wife Cynthia. After she’d gone to sleep, Lennon has said, he kept thinking about her stream of issues with him. The lyric words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup came to him and so, he says, he went downstairs and turned the song into a “cosmic” one. Written in 1968, the song first appeared on the compilation No One’s Gonna Change Our World before finding its way onto the band’s final LP Let It Be. On the track, Lennon sings over a dreamy acoustic,
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru deva, om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
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Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
