If The Beatles taught us nothing else, it’s that they were unafraid to follow their muses wherever they might have led, even if that took them way outside the established boundaries of rock and roll. And if that also meant that things got a bit weird at times, well that was part of the deal.
The Beatles Song John Lennon “Always Hated”
These are five Beatles songs that wear like their bizarre nature like a badge of honor. Let’s look back in chronological order.
“Good Morning Good Morning” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
On the surface, this Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band track isn’t all that weird. It’s got a peppy rhythmic pulse and some sly John Lennon lyrics about the boredom of everyday life (a pervasive theme on that album). But then there are the little touches the band adds that take this one into strange territory. First, there’s the decision to suddenly switch to the German language at the end of the refrain: Good morning, good morning, gut. Even odder is the wild cacophony of animal noises tacked onto the end of the song.
George Harrison, while staying in a rented house in Los Angeles and fighting jet lag, decided to write a song on an old organ so he could stay awake until his friends arrived. The lyrics pretty much tell the story of the night without embellishment. But the music of “Blue Jay Way” (the name of the street where the house was located) tells a different, eerier story. Everything about the accompaniment is just a tad off-kilter, from the creaky organ, to the insinuating strings, to the backing vocals that sound like disembodied spirits haunting the song.
“Happiness Is a Warm Gun” from The Beatles (1968)
It is tempting to have this list be nothing but songs from the White Album, because there is a lot of bizarre stuff spread across those two LPs. While the obvious choice is “Revolution 9,” that one is almost too studied in its efforts to be off the wall to have quite the same effect. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” is the choice because, unlike some of the other mini-suites that The Beatles would later pull off (like on Side Two of Abbey Road), this one features three wildly dissimilar musical pieces held together by nothing more than the force of John Lennon’s personality.
“Only a Northern Song” from Yellow Submarine (1968)
The Beatles wanted nothing much to do with the Yellow Submarine animated film, but their contract stipulated that they still owed a film to the studio. As a compromise, they allowed their likenesses and music to be used, while also agreeing to offer up a few new songs. The four songs they chose were generally too off-the-wall to be considered fit for a regular album. “Only a Northern Song,” with its wayward chord sequences and self-reflexive lyrics, was like one big in-joke perpetrated by George Harrison at the expense of his publishers and band.
“You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” (Single, 1970)
Just the recording schedule alone for this one renders it somewhat odd. The Beatles started it with a couple of sessions in 1967, one of which featured Rolling Stone Brian Jones playing a little drunken saxophone. Then, two years later, John Lennon and Paul McCartney decided to go back to it and finish it off. It finally appeared as a B-side to the “Let It Be” single in 1970. Even though the original sessions predate the Monty Python phenomenon, the madcap non sequiturs that make up this song seem like they could have come from that famed troupe.
