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Music

The Top Ten Worst Beatles Songs

For a complete list of the worst Beatles songs, gather their discography in one long queue and press play.

Photo via ​Wikicommons

I've always despised the Beatles. They are the Backstreet Boys of the early 60s who decided to do drugs and become artists. It's like if one of the New Kids put out a shoegaze album. And I've given their music plenty of chances over the years. I can't count the number of times I've sat down with Abbey Road and tried to convince myself it's the masterpiece everyone claims it is. I've looked inward, asked myself if there's something wrong with me. Am I dead inside? But the answer I come up with is always the same: I am alive and the Beatles suck ass.

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Some of my favorite music comes from bands I hated at first, but in the case of the Fab Four, the more I tried, the more each song somehow became even more cheesy and terrible. When I sat down to make this list of the Beatles songs that barf the hardest, I realized that I could have made a top 30, or top 100.

Think of this as an opening of a discussion—the inauguration of a Hall of Anguish in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. For a complete list of the worst songs by the Beatles, gather their discography into one long queue and press play.

10. "Here Comes the Sun"

The introduction melody to this song reminds me of waking up in a coffee commercial. A young man opens his eyes, stretches, puts on his slippers, and comes downstairs to find a steaming cup of cocoa, made by a magic elf. He laughs and shrugs at no one. He takes the cup and goes to stand at the window, sipping gently, watching robins frolic in the snow. For some reason, it is Christmas. It's always Christmas in Beatleland to me, because if Jesus existed and came down to earth he would probably listen to cheeky pop-dad bullshit like the Beatles.

If you aren't getting your hair combed by an old man while drinking hot cocoa in your PJs when you listen to this song you aren't doing it right, and therefore I hate this song.

9. "Please Please Me"

WHY DOES THIS SONG SOUND LIKE IT IS CHRISTMAS AGAIN? Sorry, I didn't mean to type-yell. For some reason, within seconds of hearing most any Beatles song my blood goes cold and my skin starts screaming. In this case, it's because of the horrible harmonica at the beginning, which sounds like someone made an instrument out of a malfunctioning hard drive.

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Then come the lyrics about hanging out with "my girl." This whole song is an endless, lyrical spray of nursery rhyme emotion, patriarchal babbling, and rock 'n' roll turrets outbursts like "Come on, Come on, Come on!"

Why does this guy's "girl" have to please him like he pleases her? Are the Beatles lyrics the origins of the date rape mindset? I vote yes.

8. "Blackbird"

This would be a great track to be buried alive to. The song is a little lullaby, though for some reason there's a guy tapping a little hammer against a wood block in the background. He's singing about a bird. How Portlandia.I guess the Beatles did influence the future. Thank you for including the sample of the bird chirping so at least there's something to distract me from the rest.

7. "Good Day Sunshine"

The first nine seconds of this song are tolerable because it's just a steady drum beat and piano pounding. I wish it'd stayed that way, but then the singing starts, and I can't help but think of hippies sharing loaves of bread with one another in large grass fields while listening to iPods.  There's something so Apple commercial whenever the Beatles do vocal harmonies.

It's not that I can't get down with the overly optimistic and good-natured theme of a song about having a good day, it's that hearing people singing about having a good day usually makes me have a bad day.

6. "Ticket to Ride"

I've always really hated any song that talks in third person, with lyrics like "he does what he needs / because he needs to / because he's a drifter" or something. That's not what this song says, but it might as well—it's just as hokey and makes just as little actual sense.

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Nonsensical lyrics are great when they are actually nonsensical, but lyrics that pretend to tell a story when they are actually just repeating themselves are the aural equivalent of a blowjob without anybody actually ejaculating.

5. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"

I know it isn't fair to hold an era's slang against an artist, but I can't help wishing the subtitle of this song meant it was a love song for a big girl. In reality, it just means—again—that bro wants to do sex with a smoking hot chick. Surprise!

The guitar line that opens this song sounds like what dozens of my friends in high school would play while trying to figure out some Smashing Pumpkins song. That could be cool or interesting in an ironic way, until the verse arrives and J-Lenny starts singing with all the vitality of your dad's favorite bar band.

Sorry, I just don't believe the faux-earnestness in rock lyrics like "I want you" in any context. Saying "John was a genius, this was a commentary," doesn't change the fact that the song sounds like Creedence Clearwater Revival performed by deaf middle schoolers. Actually, that would be better than this song.

4. "Yellow Submarine"

Of all the Beatles songs I don't like (a.k.a. all), this one stands out for being so bad it's almost good. "Yellow Submarine" is one that even a lot of massive Beatles fans hate for its childish goober sing-song style. That makes me want to like it just on principle—the enemy of your enemy is your friend, right?

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But no, this track has one of the most obnoxious choruses of all time. It's the kind of chant I imagine they make child molesters sing in order to get supper delivered to their cell. Probably what most people don't like about this one is that who the fuck knows what it means. This could be a mark in its favor, if only it didn't sound like one of the Munchkins' work songs. "Yellow Submarine" should either become our national anthem or be deleted forever.

3. "The Fool on the Hill"

What happens when a heartthrob boy band does a shitload of drugs and become hippies? Poop on tape. This song has a kazoo solo, right? I'm pretty sure that this is what horses hear when they are killed.

2. "Let It Be"

As much as I could say about this, I will instead defer to a comment left on the song's YouTube page by user Ninjastyle124:

"Da fact dat all kindsa muthafuckin books still name tha Beatlez 'the top billin or most dope or most influential' rock crew eva only drops some lyrics ta you how tha fuck far rock noize still is from becomin a straight-up art. Jazz muthafuckas have long recognized dat tha top billin jazz musical muthafuckaz of all times is Dude Ellington n' Jizzy Coltrane, whoz ass was not da most thugged-out hyped or richest or dopest sellaz of they times, let ridin' solo of all times. Classical muthafuckas rank tha highly controversial Beethoven over old-ass musical muthafuckas whoz ass was highly ghettofab up in courts round Europe. Rock muthafuckas is still blinded by commercial success: tha Beatlez sold mo' than any suckas (not true, by tha way), therefore they must done been tha top billin. Jazz muthafuckas grow up listenin ta a shitload of jazz noize of tha past, old-ass muthafuckas grow up listenin ta a shitload of old-ass noize of tha past. Rock muthafuckas is often straight-up all salty ta tha rock noize of tha past, they barely know tha dopest sellers. No wonder they is ghon be thinkin dat tha Beatlez did anythang worth of bein saved. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka!"

1. "Hey Jude"

No non-instrumental song ever should be more than seven minutes long unless it is black metal. This fact is even more true when half of the words are in do-do-wah-wah language. Even if this song were one minute long, I would still prefer to listen to a chorus of sickly babies crying on a plane without AC in Arizona.

Hate-follow Blake on ​Twitter.