How did The Beatles do it? How did they get from the simplicity of “Love Me Do”, their first hit single, to majestic, complex, moving songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Blackbird”, “Within You Without You”, and so many more? Well, they didn’t get there overnight. These four songs represent huge developmental leaps that eventually led to the masterpieces from the second half of their recording career.
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“She Loves You”
On the surface, you might not consider “She Loves You” to be all that complex. But it subtly shows that the Fab Four understood that they couldn’t stand pat if they wanted to stay on top of the heap. Granted, it was another basic love song in content. But Paul McCartney came up with the idea to change the approach ever so slightly. Instead of singing the song from the first-person perspective (as in, “I love you”), the group did it in the third person. That means the narrator technically is just offering advice, which was a somewhat novel twist at the time. In addition, The Beatles snuck in some chord changes that were far from the norm for the typical early 60s pop song.
“I Need You”
Again, here’s an example of a song that might not jump out at you when you think about crucial songs in The Beatles’ history. Why “I Need You”? Well, the song was written by George Harrison. On the first four albums recorded by the Fab Four, Harrison wrote just one song, the acerbic “Don’t Bother Me” off With The Beatles in 1963. On the Help! album, Harrison returned to writing with two songs. One of them, “You Like Me Too Much”, is a pleasant enough trifle. But “I Need You” showed emerging sensitivity in the lyrical department and a sharp melodic sense. You can look at it as a springboard to all the wonderful songs Harrison would write in the years to come.
“Paperback Writer”
Pop music in the early 60s rarely ventured away from the topic of romance. Granted, artists were starting to write about it with a bit more nuance and authenticity by the middle of the decade. And The Beatles were certainly among those at the forefront in that department. But an artist writing a pop/rock song about any other subject was rare, especially when that song was earmarked as a single. Paul McCartney wrote “Paperback Writer” in the guise of a struggling, would-be author desperately trying to get someone to buy his work. Not a mention is made of love. A track like this is the logical forerunner to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a masterpiece without a single love song on the track list.
“In My Life”
We’re closing out this list with a song from Rubber Soul, because that LP marks the demarcation line between the simplified early Beatles and their advanced later years. “In My Life” is as good a song as any to choose when it comes to one that launched the group into another stratosphere, far from most of their pop peers. John Lennon didn’t feel he was in the same class as Paul McCartney in terms of writing melodies. But there are few 60s songs as pretty as this one, which was mostly written by Lennon. On top of that, he manages to find novel ways to communicate the feelings he has for his significant other. His eloquent tenderness set the bar for all love songs in the decade.
Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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