The Beatles, Album by Album--Beatles for Sale

This is the most troubling LP of the Beatles' career, with the possible exception of Let It Be (now that I think about it, with the very likely exception of Let It Be). I think that this is because it is the first album they made without a sense of musical growth. It feels like a step back from A Hard Day's Night. Beatles for Sale would've been a perfectly acceptable follow-up to With the Beatles, but after the tremendous sophistication and development of A Hard Day's Night, one can't help feeling short-changed by this. It reminds me of Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin'. That would've been an acceptable, even great second album but from him, but coming after The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, it feels like a step back. Beatles for Sale also feels like this, but that doesn't mean there isn't some goodness on here to be mined.

Although this is the first album without any sense of musical growth, the key innovation on here is John Lennon starting to find his voice as a lyricist via a strong Bob Dylan influence. This is best seen in the opening trilogy that serves as not only a rocking intro to the album, but also as its highlight. "No Reply" is possibly my favorite Beatles opener ever (its only real contender is on the next album), creating a sense of high drama through the quiet-loud verse-chorus contrast that Kurt Cobain would milk for all it was worth in Nirvana (actually, Kurt was very strongly influenced by the Beatles). The bridge amps up the romantic desperation of John even further, and the way it settles back into that verse again, only to explode with the final chorus, is John at his finest. As I've said before, no one sold the desperation of love quite as well as Lennon. It's interesting that Lennon was writing all these songs about romantic insecurity at the same time as he was married with a kid. He was probably the Beatle least playing the field and, from my understanding, he felt very trapped in his marriage and would often stay at home and get loaded (Matt voice). "I'm a Loser" takes the desperation even further into a sense of self-loathing, something unthinkable in the pop music of past. It must have been rather shocking to hear a member of the world's biggest rock band singing, "I'm a loser, and I'm not what I appear to be." This introspection and psychological insight/honesty was not possible in popular music before Bob Dylan. I love the lyric, "She was a girl in a million, my friend. I should have known she would win in the end," because this idea that love is a game that will eventually screw you over, instead of being something mutual and beautiful, that is so John Lennon. We all feel that insecurity sometimes, and John was always the best one at putting it out there in the open. I also love the way his vocals dip into those depressing low notes. "Baby's in Black" concludes the opening trilogy on a fine note. I like the dual-singing of John and Paul on this one, and of course it's a depressing one.

At this point, it feels like the Beatles should not be doing covers. Obviously after A Hard Day's Night, they proved they could deliver an album of consistently strong originals, which was a first at this time (I think even Buddy Holly or Beach Boys albums where they wrote everything were completely full of filler), other than maybe Dylan's Freewheelin', but he was really a folk musician at this point, so that doesn't count (Bringing It All Back Home would change this). It doesn't help that their covers are from increasingly outdated early rock 'n' rollers (made outdated by the Beatles themselves). Regardless, there are some good covers on here. "Rock and Roll Music" finds John delivering the fire to Chuck Berry's original (Chuck Berry seems like the most covered '50s rock artist at this point--everyone was doing his shit), and I find it better than the original with its storming piano and bass. "Mr. Moonlight" is perhaps the most maligned Beatles song, but I like it, partly because it's so over the top (listen to that organ solo!). I love Lennon's vocals on it too. He puts the blade to the heat. Carl Perkins is covered twice on here, and both songs are decent enough. George tellingly sings "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," which is full of a sense of tiredness and distanced bemusement at the craziness of Beatlemania. The album title Beatles for Sale itself is rather ironic: this is not only a new Beatles album up for sale, but the Beatles themselves felt like commodities merely there for the rabid consumption by their fans. Just look at that album cover!

"Honey Don't" is the other Perkins cover on here, and Ringo lends characteristic charm to the vocals. Ringo provided so much comic touch in all of his wounded lover songs (which was most of them), because he could somewhow seem both funny and noble when he was self-deprecating. Lennon provided the high drama; Ringo provided the tragic Woody Allen-style comedy. "Words of Love" is another fine, Buddy Holly cover. What I like about this one is the way those vocals are hummed beautifully by John and Paul, really illustrating the soft-spoken words of reassurance that they are singing about. I've never heard the Buddy Holly original, so I'm not sure how much of this they borrowed from him. "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" is my least favorite song on here probably. It seems like it's not something Paul would have picked to sing. John always seemed more fit to do the old rockers, and anyways, this is not my favorite kind of rock 'n' roll song from the '50s.

I'm sure I've made the album seem pretty good by now and someone is asking, "Why did you say it was troubling then?" Like I said, this just feels like another good early Beatles album instead of a step forward into deeper terrain. I feel that the original songwriting is not as strong as it could be by this point. Obviously the Beatles were absolutely worn out by this point. After all, this was a band that gave up touring at the height of their popularity two short years from now. "I'll Follow the Sun" is a pretty but slight ballad from Paul. "What You're Doing" is decent, and the way its ringing guitar riff repeats throughout seems to have inspired the entire career of the Byrds (along with Bob Dylan's lyrics--exactly how many fucking Dylan songs did they cover again?). "Eight Days a Week" would be a great song on their first two albums, but the Beatlemania feel seems a bit outdated by this point. Still, nothing matches the opening barrage of Lennon's songs, and for that reason it's hard not to view this album as a step down from the summit of A Hard Day's Night.

--Edward