Beatles comment #3 (of 30)

If you had to represent The Beatles to someone by choosing one, only one, recording (song) what would that be? I am talking about a hermit who missed it all, or an alien from another galaxy. Which track would be the one that has to define the band, given the chore of only selecting ONE? The obvious first problem is the difference between one Beatle “era” versus another. “Get Back” represents the band personnel quite nicely, but is toward the end of the existence of the group, and misses the Beatle-mania period. Also, Billy Preston is all over it. I would have to nix that one, though I love it. Another problem would be who gets to be the lead vocalist on the sole Beatle song that ET takes back to his home? Who would be the writer of that representative number? Harrison’s “Something” is a marvelous sample, but, again misses the heart of Beatle-mania. And, do we disallow Lennon-McCartney, the songwriting team, to stand up for the band’s definitive recording? Would we really give George that opportunity? Maybe, he deserves it. Should the early ‘64 time period be when Beatles music gets the mantle for this one-off thing? After all, that is when they exploded into being the most phenomenal pop act the industry had ever known. We can call it the “Beatle Big Bang”, though ET would not get the shockwave just yet. That is when they charted the top 5 singles AT THE SAME TIME! However, they had not quite grown into their groundbreaking studio work at that point. The “Strawberry Fields Forever“ and “Penny Lane” moments had not kicked in. This is all food for thought. We can all fall back into our think tanks and consider what one song would be the choice for demonstrating who The Beatles were, if given the job of introducing it to someone never to have heard of the group. It is kind of like the old “deserted island” discussion, being what is your one thing you would take with you. In this case, The Beatles will be defined by the single recorded track, and only that. I will give my choice in a later post.

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