B-Sides

And B-sides… The Beatles

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

October 5th marks the 64th anniversary of the release of ‘Love Me Do’, the Beatles’ debut single proper. And while it wasn’t a number one, in the UK at least, I thought it was as good moment as any to do this B-sides post, which I’ve been toying with for a while. Plus, in blog world we’ve just reached the Arctic Monkeys, British rock’s last great hurrah. What better time, then, to take a deep dive into the band that gave us British rock’s greatest hurrah?

I considered choosing my Top 5, or even Top 10, and at one point a Top 6 (?), favourite B-sides to the Beatles’ seventeen UK number ones. (Yes, I know they’ve had eighteen, but they hadn’t in 2005, which is where we are in number1sblog land). But then I realised that I liked too many of them, and so why not rank all of them?

Ranking is a pointless task, lazily clickbaity; but it is undeniably satisfying. It is a very human impulse – a male impulse I might argue – to put things into lists. So here we are.

The Fab Four’s B-sides varied widely from territory to territory, and from release to re-release. But these fifteen tracks are the original British B-sides to their #1 singles. And yes it’s fifteen B-sides from seventeen #1s, thanks to their two chart-topping double A-sides, ‘Day Tripper’ / ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ / ‘Yellow Submarine’.

One, two, three, FAH…

15. ‘The Inner Light’, B-side to ‘Lady Madonna’

‘Lady Madonna’ was the first single The Beatles released after their trip to India to see the Maharishi. And while the Fats Domino inspired A-side was about as far from eastern mysticism as you can get, ‘The Inner Light’ made up for it with bells (and sitars, and drones) on. It’s a George Harrison composition – the first to be released on any Beatles’ single – with lyrics inspired by Taoism, and is highly regarded by scholars who know their meditation. But, I have to be honest, it’s a bit of a racket to my ungodly ears.

14. ‘Yes It Is’, B-side to ‘Ticket to Ride’

‘Ticket to Ride’ is such a statement single, one of The Beatles’ big steps away from a beat combo to an experimental rock group, that I’d have expected the B-side to have been a little more avant-garde. But the slow waltzing ‘Yes It Is’, in which the boys beg their girl not to wear red because it will remind them of their ex, is a slight disappointment. The harmonies are strong, and the accordion and/or harmonica lends an intriguingly woozy edge to it. But it sounds like a retread of ‘This Boy’, which you will be able to find much further down this list…

13. ‘Thank You Girl’, B-side to ‘From Me to You’

Nothing particularly wrong with ‘Thank You Girl’, the B-side to their first number single. But it feels like it’s been patched together using scraps from better songs. There’s the harmonica clarion call from ‘Please Please Me’, there’s the chugging riff from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hold’, and there’s some pretty ropey rhyming couplets. I do like the weirdly affected and echoey way they sing the ‘oh oh oh’s though.

12. ‘She’s a Woman’, B-side to ‘I Feel Fine’

Paul McCartney wrote ‘She’s a Woman’ as an attempt to copy the style of their early tour-mate Little Richard. I don’t think it sounds particularly like Little Richard, more like Georgie Fame, but McCartney sounds half cut and wonderfully hoarse singing this bluesy number. It apparently features the band’s first reference to marijuana in the turns me on line, but that feels like retroactive thinking, unless the ‘woman’ of the title is Mary Jane herself.

11. ‘I’ll Get You’, B-side to ‘She Loves You’

B-side to the Beatles’ best single (no arguing, thanks), ‘I’ll Get You’ is perhaps the perfect distillation of the band’s early sound. It’s a great beat-pop song. It just loses a couple of marks because it relies a little too heavily on the ‘oh yeah’s.

10. ‘I’m Down’, B-side to ‘Help!’

Releasing a record that would appear on paper as ‘Help!’ / ‘I’m Down’ suggests that things were not all tickety boo towards the end of the Beatles’ touring days. But if you expect ‘I’m Down’ to be a mopey record then you’re to be disappointed. Written by McCartney a couple of years earlier, like the A-side it couches its depressive message – I’m down, I’m really down, Down on the ground… – in a rollicking rock and roll beat, with lots of whooping and hollering, a wild organ solo, and a brilliant intro that rips off Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ to fine effect. The Top 10 are all great songs, signature hits for literally any other band, and ‘I’m Down’ gets us off to fine start.

9. ‘Rain’, B-side to ‘Paperback Writer’

Pop music was developing so quickly in the mid-sixties that the Beatles went from releasing ‘I’m Down’ to ‘Rain’ inside ten months. Their first release to use reversed vocals, as well as nods towards eastern musical styles (though no actual sitars feature on the song) and other classic ’60s psychedelic touches, it was recorded around the same time as ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, and the relationship between the two songs is clear. And yet, despite the experimental sounds, John Lennon has described the song as being concerned with that most quintessentially British phenomenon: ‘people complaining about the weather’.

8. ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’, B-side to ‘All You Need Is Love’

A year later, and the same psychedelic sounds were incorporated into a much poppier song for the B-side to hippy anthem ‘All You Need Is Love’. It has a very hooky chorus, but lots of odd touches – it features a clavioline, for example, the same proto-synthesiser used on the Tornados’ ‘Telstar’. The ‘rich man’ in the title might be Brian Epstein, or those involved in the hippie movement.

7. ‘You Can’t Do That’, B-side ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’

The first B-side in this list that, I think, might be better than the A-side. This chugging, bluesy groover, with John Lennon letting his rock star voice loose is a gem. I am a sucker for the use of a cow bell in rock music, mind you, so that might be swaying the vote.

6. ‘Old Brown Shoe’, B-side to ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’

Once the Beatles had gotten through their psychedelic phase, their final year or so was spent recording songs that were either very experimental, or a return to their rocking roots. (Or that were a middle finger to what people expected of them, like the A-side to this one.) ‘Old Brown Shoe’ is a rocker, with a brilliant bass line and a wonderfully echoey effect on George Harrison’s lead vocals. Sources are conflicted as to whether it’s Ringo playing drums on this record, or Paul.

5. ‘This Boy’, B-side to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’

I will argue all day long that early-Beatles shouldn’t get overlooked as much as it does (give me the Red Album over the Blue any day…) So I’ve managed to put two pre-1965 B-sides in the Top 5. The next one is rightfully recognised as one of their best, but ‘This Boy’ is beautiful too. The Everly Brothers harmonies in the first two verses, and the soulful blast that John Lennon gives the middle-eight, make it a highlight of their early hits.

4. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, B-side to ‘Get Back’

The Beatles’ second last chart-topping B-side is one of their more famous ballads. Like at least two other songs on this list, it is enhanced by a full-throated vocal performance from John Lennon. I’ve always loved the off kilter middle eight, and the risqué sounding third verse (Ooh she done me, She done me good…) Like the A-side ‘Get Back’, this also features Billy Preston on the piano, most notably in the outro.

3. ‘Things We Said Today’, B-side to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

For a long time I thought that ‘Things We Said Today’ had come along much later in the Beatles’ careers, maybe around ‘Revolver’, or at least ‘Rubber Soul’. But for this minor-key masterpiece to have been recorded less than two years after ‘Love Me Do’ astounds me. It’s a McCartney composition, allegedly inspired by difficulties in his relationship with Jane Asher, and sees him look ahead to a day in future – I always read it as after they’ve split up – when they remember the nice things they used to say to one another.

2. ‘Revolution’, B-side to ‘Hey Jude’

On another day this could have been my number one. But today I am feeling less revolutionary, more contrary. Though in fact that kind of sums up John Lennon’s ‘Revolution’, which is not so much about wanting a revolution as telling those who want one that they’re doing it wrong. You say you’ll change the constitution, Well you know, We’d all love to change your head… And we can surely all relate to agreeing with a cause but thinking those in charge are sanctimonious pricks? And if we can’t all agree on the politics of the song, I’m sure we can all agree on how nasty those fuzzy guitars sound.

1. ‘I Am the Walrus’, B-side to ‘Hello, Goodbye’

Edging out ‘Revolution’ because, at the end of the day, has there been a more regime changing lyric than oompah oompah stick it up your jumper? Started by Lennon when he was on an acid trip, and with influences from Lewis Carroll, playground chants, extracts from ‘King Lear’, and his own bloody-mindedness after finding out that hip young English teachers were using Beatles songs for their lessons (‘let the fuckers work that one out’, he is alleged to have cackled). ‘I Am the Walrus’ defies explanation, quite intentionally, and is top of this pile. If only they had listed it as the A-side over ‘Hello, Goodbye’, it would have been one of the strangest number ones of all time.

Happy Beatles day, then. I’m off to listen to the Red Album…

And B-sides… Manics, Boomtown Rats & Wizzard

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Time for another peek at what was on the flip-side of some classic number ones. Usually my ‘And B-sides…’ posts have been themed around a particular artist, but I’ve decided to every so often throw in some different flip-sides, from acts whose chart-topping careers are too short to fill a whole post.

First of all, a little something to blow the cobwebs away…

‘Rock and Roll Music’, by Manic Street Preachers – B-side to ‘The Masses Against the Classes’

This Chuck Berry standard has been covered by the great and the good, from the Beatles, to the Beach Boys, from Tom Jones to Showaddywaddy, and any decent garage band in-between. But I doubt it has ever lived up to its title more then when in the hands of the Manics. Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music… they demand, then deliver three minutes of blistering, gonzo, balls-to-the-wall rock and, yes, roll music.

‘It’s All the Rage’, by Boomtown Rats – B-side to ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’

Another spiky track, inspired apparently by a fight that Bob Geldof got into with another band. Out in the street, They’re usin’ their feet… This is a proper B-side: a very different track to the A-side, not a remix or a retread, a song that could easily have been the single, and a glance back to the Rats’ punky origins. The glorious middle-eight meanwhile, ripped straight from an sixties doo-wop track, shows their musical range. (Thanks to regular reader/commenter John Van der Kiste for suggesting this one!)

‘You Got the Jump on Me’, by Wizzard – B-side to ‘Angel Fingers’

Completing this trio of hard rocking flip-sides, ‘You Got the Jump on Me’ is another song that sounds nothing like the sixties-inspired, glam rock track that made #1. This is potentially as close as Led Zeppelin came to a chart-topper… Written by bassist Rick Price, it has the feel of an extended jam session, especially when the driving riff gives way to a boogie-woogie piano for the last minute or so of its six and a half minute run-time.

Again, most of this information comes from John Van der Kiste, who knows more about Wizzard than I could ever hope to learn. Like many of his peers, Roy Wood was a genuine Led Zep fan. He, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan (drummer for ELO and the Move) attended John Bonham’s funeral, which Bevan said afterwards was one of the most miserable, depressing funerals he had ever been to. There was an affinity between them as Bonham and Robert Plant were also from the Black Country. When The Move were being formed late 1965 Bonham, as one of the most renowned drummers in the area and possibly up for grabs, was suggested by someone as a suitable member, but Carl Wayne, who was the eldest of them all, had heard things about him and said no. How different things might have turned out…

Thanks again, John! If any other readers have suggestions for B-sides I can feature in future posts, then do let me know in the comments!

And B-Sides… T. Rex

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

For our latest B-Sides feature, let us return to the glory days of glam. Of platform shoes. Of sequins. Of Noddy Holder’s sideburns and Ziggy Stardust. And most gloriously of all: T-rextasy.

Marc Bolan and co. enjoyed four all-time classic chart-toppers in 1971 and ’72 (okay, three all-timers, and one which is still pretty great). They were also very generous with their B-sides, giving fans two extra songs per number one.

I’ll restrict myself to choosing one B-side from each single, and linking to the other. Starting with…

‘Woodland Rock’, B-side to ‘Hot Love’

If there was a track to sum up the band in the moment of their transition from Tyrannosaurus Rex to plain old T. Rex, from ethereal hippyness and lyrics about magical moons to crunching glam guitars, it might be ‘Woodland Rock’. It’s based around a derivative rock ‘n’ roll riff (borrowing liberally from ‘Jailhouse Rock’), but with snatches and loops played in reverse, and an opening verse about a man dancing like a gypsy – so he must be where its at – and houses up trees.

‘Hot Love’s other B-side was ‘The King of the Mountain Cometh’, and that’s even more old-school Tyrannosaurus Rex, if that’s your thing.

‘Raw Ramp’, B-side to ‘Get It On’

Lady you think you’re a champ, But girl you’re nothing but a raw ramp… Me neither, but I don’t think it’s meant to be complimentary. Bolan really was the King of nonsense lyrics that somehow, in some not too distant dimension, work. And then a second later he’s singing Oooh I’m crazy about your breasts. I love the way this track grows from the standard Tyrannosaurus Rex hippy drumbeat, to a full on glam rock out by the end. In fact, the last minute and a half of ‘Raw Ramp’ are a jam known as ‘Electric Boogie’, which sounds like an outtake from the ‘Get It On’ sessions.

The other B-side here was a one-minute long, wistful ballad called ‘There Was a Time’, which is over before it’s even started.

‘Baby Strange’, B-side to ‘Telegram Sam’

The one B-side that is better than the single? Not that ‘Telegram Sam’ isn’t fun, but it isn’t in the same league as T. Rex’s three other #1s. Interestingly, this is a variant on the same riff from TS, and the chorus is soaring. And who can resist a song that comes in with a One and a two and a bibbety, bobbity boo boo yeah...? Not I. ‘Baby Strange’ featured on ‘The Slider’ album, which is T. Rex’s masterpiece, and the one to listen to if you want an introduction to the group at the height of their powers.

The other B-side was the stomping ‘Cadilac’, in which Bolan indulges in one of his main tropes: comparing women to cars.

‘Thunderwing’, B-side to ‘Metal Guru’

If ‘The Slider’ LP was peak T. Rex, then the album’s second single was the apotheosis of the T. Rex glam sound. ‘Metal Guru’ is a two-minute long, glorious moment. And one of my Very Best Number Ones. I’ve heard it described as one long chorus, but I’d say it’s more one long bridge, a tune that soars towards a chorus that never arrives. But it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, enough of the A-side. That’s not what we’re here for. One of the B-sides was ‘Thunderwing’, in which Bolan again gets horny for his car. My little baby she’s a tippy-toed vamp rider, She moves like the sun in the dawn… It’s another glam stomper, with a great groove to it, if a little repetitive. The other B-side was ‘Lady’, a gentler, trippier nod to the Tyrannosaurus Rex days.

T. Rex’s star shone oh so brightly, but fairly briefly. By 1974 they were struggling for hits, and by 1976 Bolan was struggling with addiction. By 1977, he had cleaned up, was recording again and had just been given his own TOTP-style music show, when he and his girlfriend, soul singer Gloria Jones, crashed their car in south London. Bolan died instantly. Jones was seriously injured. I also did a T. Rex Top 10 countdown of their best non-charttoppers, so head on over there if you want more T-rextasy in your life. And we all should, I think.

And B-Sides… Rod Stewart

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

For our latest B-sides feature, I thought I’d look back at the man who belted his way through a greatest hits set during the Glastonbury ‘Legends’ slot last weekend. He may be eighty, but Rod the Mod still has a bit of life left in him yet.

Rod scored six UK #1s between 1971 and 1983, and here are the B-sides to three of those chart-toppers…

‘Lost Paraguayos’ – B-side to ‘You Wear It Well’

A lively rocker, very much in the folksy story-teller vein of his earliest hits. And much like ‘Maggie May’, it’s another tale of Rod upping and leaving a lady. But unlike the older Maggie, the unamed filly in this one may be dubiously young… Your ridiculous age, Start a state outrage, And I’ll end up in a Mexican jail… (Ah, the nineteen seventies…) It ends in a flurry of guitar licks and a brass band, and is a whole lot of fun.

‘Stone Cold Sober’ – B-side to ‘Sailing’

Another rocker, this time with a countryish bent. The bar room piano, the glam rock licks… Why wasn’t this version of Rod a greater presence at the top of the charts, over the more earnest (and sometimes slightly dull) balladeer? Plus, we have lyrics which argue that waking up hungover in an alley is worth it as long as you had a wild night (a compelling debate topic, for sure). But on Thursday prepare for your weekend, And let Friday disappear into Saturday morning, When you’re stone cold sober again… Nobody plays the loveable rogue better than Rod Stewart. Speaking of which…

‘Dirty Weekend’ – B-side to ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’

Those who feel that he slipped too much into parody with ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’ had better avoid the B-side, in which he’s off over the border again… This bawdy barroom brawl of a tune peaks in the second verse, which deserves to be quoted in full:

I’ll bring the red wine, You bring the ‘ludes, Your mother’s doctor must be quite a dude… We’ll hang a ‘don’t disturb’ outside our door, I’m gonna rock you ’till your pussy’s sore…

I mean… It’s preposterous. But I love it. In the eighties he tried to, probably sensibly, move away from this uber-lothario image, yet I respect the fact that he spent the entire second half of the seventies making a career out of being a borderline sex pest, culminating in this ode to banging your best friend’s girl under a fake name in Mexico. And he brings ‘Dirty Weekend’ to an abrupt end inside two and a half minutes, as if fully aware that this nonsense can go on no longer.

If anything, it’s also been nice featuring some guitar-heavy, balls to the proverbial wall, rock ‘n’ roll tunes back on this blog. I’ll have to do it again sometime soon. Next time we’ll be back to the regular rundown, in 2001, where guitars have become endangered beasts, and rock music but a distant memory…

And B-sides… ‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

It’s time for part two of our semi-regular B-sides feature. My first was on Oasis, the band perhaps most famous for the quality of their B-sides. For my second I’m turning to one of the great chart-topping singles…

‘Space Oddity’ was David Bowie’s first chart hit, and his first number one. Not at the same time, however. It made #5 on its first release in 1969, tying in with the Apollo 11 moon landing, before belatedly making #1 six years later, after a re-release. (Read my original post here.)

For the 1975 rerelease, another old tune was chosen as the first B-side. ‘Changes’ had featured on Bowie’s 1971 album ‘Hunky Dory’, but had flopped completely as a single in early 1972. (Amazingly, Bowie had been looking like a one-hit wonder following the original ‘Space Oddity’, and had to wait until his Ziggy Stardust era for another hit.)

Despite now being one of his signature songs, you can kind of see why ‘Changes’ failed to catch on at the time. What exactly is it? Is it glam? Is it jazz? The chorus and the middle-eight are great power pop. It’s listed as ‘Art-pop’, but then that sounds like the sort of genre given to songs that nobody can quite place.

The second 1975 B-side was an offcut from the Ziggy Stardust sessions, ‘Velvet Goldmine’. Testament to the depth of Bowie’s career, this is another now-classic that went unnoticed at the time. Bouncy, theatrical and fruity, with a brilliant humming-slash-whistling outro that reminds me of Lee Marvin’s ‘Wand’rin Star’. Unlike ‘Wand’rin Star’, however, this is an ode to blowjobs: I had to ravish your capsule, Suck you dry… The song is now so well-respected in the annals of glam that it lent its name to the 1998 movie ‘Velvet Goldmine’, about a fictional glam-rock star.

A bonus for you here, as ‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’ was the B-side to the original 1969 release of ‘Space Oddity’. It’s an epic tale about… something. When I reluctantly admit that I’m not a fully paid up member of the Bowie fanclub, it’s songs like this that have put me off. This single version is quite sparse – just a guitar and some trings – but he re-recorded it for his eponymous second album, with an orchestra, and that version has an appealing grandeur about it. (I’m still not sure what it’s about, though…)

And B-sides… ‘Some Might Say’, by Oasis

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

Launching our second new feature of the year, we’re going to celebrate the flip-sides to some famous chart-toppers. In my posts on every UK #1 between 1952 and 1999, I’ve stuck fairly rigidly to reviewing just one side of each chart-topping disc. On occasion I may have mentioned them in passing, and I’ve always given them a spin if they’re listed as a double-‘A’; but by and large I’ve avoided the B-sides.

To be honest, I was born at the tail end of the B-side era, so sometimes overlook their importance. By the mid-to-late-nineties, when I started buying music, the bonus tracks on a CD or cassette single were often just remixes of the A-side, or maybe a live version of an earlier hit. And the download/streaming era has killed off the concept for good. But cast an eye back further, to the days when an act’s singles were the main event, rather than a plug for their current LP, and the ‘other’ side of a hit single was a source of countless hidden gems.

And besides (see what I did there), many’s the big chart-topping hit that was originally intended as back-up to a song that, for whatever reason, didn’t catch the imagination. ‘Rock Around the Clock’, ‘Maggie May’, ‘I Feel Love’… The list is long, and often surprising. So, let’s kick things off with one of the last bands to recognise the power of a good B-side…

‘Some Might Say’ made number one in April 1995, Oasis’s first chart-topping single. You can read all about that song here. It was only their sixth release, but already the Gallaghers and co. had built a reputation for spoiling their fans with cult classics hidden behind the actual hits. ‘Half the World Away’ on ‘Whatever’, ‘Listen Up’ and ‘Fade Away’ on ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’. But on ‘Some Might Say’, the lead single from their soon to be multi-multi-platinum second album ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’, Oasis included not one, not two, but three great B-sides. Starting with…

‘Talk Tonight’ is a classic of the Noel-with-an-acoustic guitar genre, a common theme for their B-sides. It was written about a woman in San Francisco, to whom he escaped after a concert went wrong (another common Oasis theme). Oasis at their best produced songs about very specific moments – visiting a park with a woman you barely know – that feel very universal. Everyone has some absent friend with whom they would like to talk tonight.

‘Acquiesce’ meanwhile is Oasis with a capital OASIS. One of very few tracks on which the brothers share vocal duties: Liam at his sneery best on the verses, Noel stretching his vocal chords on the chorus. Plus, the lyrics speak to their brotherly bond: Because we need each other, We believe in one another… (Noel has claimed that the only reason he sang the chorus was because Liam couldn’t reach the high notes). The moment when the pair collide at the start of the second verse is possibly the best five seconds in Oasis’s entire back-catalogue.

For a famous rock band, the moments in which Oasis let loose and just fucking ROCKED are actually quite few and far between. ‘Headshrinker’ may well be the heaviest song they ever recorded, with ten-tonne weighted chords, and lyrics like Lost in the fog, I’ve been treated like a dog, And I’m outta here… about an unhinged lady-love. Their biggest hits may have long since been lost to bland ubiquity, but gems like this remind us that on their day Oasis could be pretty punk.

Noel Gallagher has long since bemoaned the fact that he used up so many great songs as B-sides, especially after years of fame (and booze and drugs) had blunted his songwriting edge. Stick any of these three featured songs onto ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ and they would instantly be the best tracks on the album. But then again, chucking classics like these away on the one CD single encapsulates the carefree, live-in-the-moment ethos of early Oasis, and of Britpop before it soured, and was a huge part of their appeal.

I hope you enjoyed this first installment in what I hope to make a semi-regular feature. If you have any suggestions for B-sides (to UK #1 singles) that I can feature, please let me know in the comments!