Music N' Other Drugs

Now and Then: Revisiting My 10 Favorite Beatles Songs

November 22, 2023

2–3 minutes

When “Now and Then” dropped earlier this month, the world reacted as if an additional page of The King James Version, The Bhagavad Gita, or another sacred text had been uncovered after years of pining for a higher truth. I get it to an extent, but just because modern technology allows us to will previously unfathomable things into existence doesn’t mean that we should. The reality is that the song is nothing more than a faint reminder of the creative synergy we lost when The Beatles broke up and won’t be supplanting any of the 188 original songs released from 1962-1970 anytime soon. Well, maybe “Yellow Submarine,” but I digress.

I first published a list of my 10 favorite Beatles tracks back in 2011, and, like everyone else, my tastes evolved as I got older, so I thought the current hype surrounding the catalog was as good a time as any for an update. Because I now have a music-obsessed eight-year-old at home, his list will be included, as well, and I’m sure he’ll be quick to point out everything that is wrong with mine as soon as he reads it.

What irked me so much about Danny Boyle’s 2019 disaster, “Yesterday,” is that the script reduced the greatest songbook ever written to coffeehouse pablum played by a protagonist whose personality was too watered-down to perform it convincingly. He ignored all of the eccentricities and cultural combustion that made The Beatles what they were in favor of a “greatest hits” package that shouldn’t have gone past the table read.

While I love the hits, my choices aren’t likely to reflect what the majority of fans find to be the cream of the crop.