Among their many other recommending characteristics, The Beatles could bring about a joyous feeling in their listeners as well as anyone. It’s difficult to listen to them for too long without a smile creeping up on your face.
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Certain songs in their catalog elicit wider grins than others, of course. This quartet of tracks stands out from the pack for the happiness quotient each of the songs delivers.
“I Saw Her Standing There”
It’s difficult to pick just one song from The Beatles first year of recording for this list. There are so many tracks from that time period that deliver the goods in the joy department. We’re going with “I Saw Her Standing There” for several reasons. The music rushes along at a heightened speed without stopping for too long to contemplate. Meanwhile, the story is aspirational and satisfying. Although it’s unspoken, the narrator seems to be punching above his weight class as he prepares to woo the girl of his dreams across the dance floor. Yet there they are at song’s end, living happily ever after. And let’s not count out the power of the “whoo” shouts that punctuate each verse.
“I Feel Fine”
Conflicting recollections of the participants involved make it impossible to know if the feedback the band created at the beginning of “I Feel Fine” was a happy accident or a calculated plan. In any case, it’s a thrilling start to a song that just keeps raising the ebullience stakes from there. There’s a little bit of Motown in his track, both in terms of the chugging rhythm and the interweaving backing vocals. Unlike “I Saw Her Standing There”, the narrator here already has the love of his favorite girl in his pocket when the song begins. And the knowledge of how she feels about him is so powerfully joy-inducing that he has no choice but to share it with “all the world.” That phrase is a good estimation for the Fab Four’s listening audience circa 1964.
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
Here, a few years down the road from “I Saw Her Standing There”, we get another sweetly successful love story from the songwriting pen of Paul McCartney. There are several key differences. For one, this one follows the couple all the way from meet-cute to marriage and a family. On top of that, they’re so secure in their love that Desmond and Molly Jones start switching up their traditional roles in the final verse (a result of McCartney mis-singing the lyrics and then deciding he liked them that way). While “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” might be a joy to hear, it wasn’t a joy to record. John Lennon and George Harrison voiced frustration after the fact at McCartney’s endless efforts to perfect the track. Luckily, you won’t notice any strain in the finished product.
“You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)”
Whenever and however you learn the history of The Beatles, you won’t get very far before you hear mention of their collective sense of humor. This often emerged in interviews, public appearances, or even in their films. But they could also be hilarious within their songs as well. “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” is one of the few times that the group created a song that was solely focused on silliness. That’s probably why it was only released as a B-side at the end of the band’s career. Good luck trying to hold in the chuckles when you hear John Lennon and Paul McCartney donning all manner of weird voices as if they were trying out for Monty Python. And then there’s Brian Jones playing the saxophone, because why not?
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