THE WORST BEATLES SONGS!!

Unlike the White Album's Revolution #9, this one has a bit of music and singing, therefore it belongs to the category of "song"...or maybe it isn't a song. Written by John Lennon in 1968, the "song" has three verses, a chorus and about 3 minutes consisting of avant garde sound effects made by Yoko Ono and a little bit of help from George Harrison. 

What's the New Mary Jane? is basically Lennon playing with words and tinkering on a piano and although it does have a structure and a theme, it just nursery rhyme style word play put together as a work of avant-garde piece. It was intended for the White Album, being demoed during the pre-production session at George Harrison's home in May 1968. The song was properly recorded and worked on by Lennon, Ono and Harrison but it was eventually dropped from the final track listing.

However, John made an attempt to use the track for his solo Plastic Ono Band project, remixing and adding more overdubs in late 1969. Since he had plans to release it under the Apple Records label, when word got to the other Beatles, they immediately opposed, laying the song to rest until 1996 when it was brought to life on Anthology #3. More of an experimental work that an actual song, What's The New Mary Jane has nothing other than the writer's ability to come up with the craziest lyrics.

This was George Harrison's first attempt at "professional" songwriting. He was an angular piece of The Beatles musically and vocally, but in therms of composing original material, it was John Lennon and Paul McCartney who laid the bricks.

An unspirited vocal performance that is evident in the studio outtakes that are circling among die hard fans.  The song relies heavily on double tracking, reverb and percussion add-ons. It was George's first attempt at serious songwriting, and it's understandable, but even the other Beatles performance and George Martin's or Norman Smith's studio tricks couldn't lift it to Beatle standards.

Following the tradition of Yellow Submarine and the yet unreleased You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), John Lennon brings the banal "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill". Here Lennon turns in to a "Uncle John" telling kids a story around the campfire.  With lyrics about a tiger hunter that runs to his mommy when danger arises, this is another example of light, "fun" novelty songs that The Beatles brought to the table after the success of Yellow Submarine.

The fact that this was taking seriously for inclusion on the White Album is beyond comprehension. Surely George Harrison had way better songs lying around that weren't even given the chance.  

By 1967, The Beatles have turned Rock and Roll to "Rock". And in the process turned it into a new form of art. Their creativity and innovation put them ahead of their peers and changed the course of popular music forever. In their quest to find new horizons, both mentally and artistically, they turned to LSD and marihuana. This gave them a new approach in their songwriting and artistic sensibility. They were ones to believe that any expression of the human being should be considered art, since it is a pure sentiment free of any rules.

Well George, not all. Here is one of the worst Beatles songs ever published. It is George Martin's least favorite of George's songs and it was left out of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, only to be dusted off for inclusion in the subpar Yellow Submarine soundtrack album. Full of sound effects, dissonant instrumentation and a slow and stoned sounding vocal it is a bad result of the psychedelic experimentation of the time. In stark contrast with the majestic Within You Without You with its transcendental Indian influence, It's Only A Northern Song falls short and it's one of the worst, not only on the Beatles catalog, but on Harrison's body of work. 

Apart from Within You Without You, George Harrison's 1967 song output was probably at its lowest. It marks a period of George's quest for spiritual enlightenment and soul searching. The pressures and craziness of Beatlemania, fame, money, it all made him look elsewhere for happiness and grounding and this came in the form of LSD and Indian religion. It made him question his existence, his place in The Beatles and his artistic direction. As lost as he felt, his songs mirrored his state of mind. The known songs of the period, all carried a sense of aimless rambling that only showcases the amount of effects, loops and noises they were able to throw in on a pop recording. It's All too Much, It's Only a Northern Song are pure examples of this, but none come closer to Blue Jay Way.

Chosen from inclusion on the Magical Mystery Tour film and Ep, this dislocated musical work was written in about two hours while Harrison waited for friends to arrive to the house he was renting in Los Angeles. This came from a period in which all the Beatles, not just Harrison, believed that ideas for songs can come up from anything, a poster (Being for The Benefit of Mr. Kite), a newspaper story (A Day in the Life), a kid's drawing (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds), a police officer (Lovely Rita), an old, lonely lady (Eleanor Rigby), and so on. So, why not write a song about, yeah, about waiting for a friend? "To keep myself awake, just as a joke to pass the time while I waited, I wrote a song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way" - said Harrison -  "There was a little Hammond organ in the corner of this house which I hadn’t noticed until then… so I messed around on it and the song came."

This failed exercise has a name and it's called Blue Jay Way a wobbly concoction of boredom and dullness that is definitely one of the Beatles' worst songs.

As we asked at the beginning of this article. Is that possible? A bad Beatle song? And the answer is that there is no such a thing.  It is impossible to find a bad Beatle song because for many a "bad" Beatle song might be a "great" Beatle song. Somebody's favorite song could be somebody else's least favorite song and vice versa. Songs, meanings ad tastes are subjective. 

The Beatles were always innovating and pushing their boundaries as a band and as musicians and artists. Since their early days in Liverpool they strived for being different.  While the norm was to present groups in the format of a lead figure and his backup band,  they presented their band as a unit. It wasn't Rory storm and The Hurricanes. Faron's Flamingos, Ian and the Zodiacs or Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, it was........ The Beatles.

They stood apart from the other Merseybeat bands by writing their own music, sounding different, having a distinctive look. All thus factor made them attractive to the public, first in Liverpool and Hamburg, and then the rest of the world.

Their songs were different, incorporating elements of various styles and influences, from American R&B, to dance hall tunes, folk, classical, Eastern rhythms and melodies, even electronic and experimental sounds. Their creativity and willingness to push the boundaries of their abilities and skills served as model for contemporary musicians and future generations as well.

Can we say that Blue Jay Way, Flying or Why Don't We Do It In The Road are bad songs? No. They are the artist's intention of expressing his/her emotions and experiences at that particular moment and that's how it should be seen. Words, sounds, melodies, they all cause a different reaction in whoever listens to it. The effect of those on the listener is unmeasurable. Bad song? No way to answer to that.