Here are the results of the last 32 songs in the first round as well as a little analysis of the first round.
Til There Was You
v.s
Daytripper
Winner: Daytripper
Rock and Roll Music
v.s
You Know My Name
Winner: Rock and Roll Music
Can’t Buy Me Love
v.s
Helter Skelter
Winner: Helter Skelter
I’m Looking Through You
v.s
I’ll Cry Instead
Winner: I’m Looking Through You
Lovely Rita
v.s
The Word
Winner: The Word
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
v.s
Your Going to Lose That Girl
Winner: Lucy is the Sky with Diamonds
It Won’t Be Long
v.s
Good Day Sunshine
Winner: Good Day Sunshine
Lady Madonna
v.s
What You’re Doing
Winner: Lady Madonna
I’ll Get You
v.s
Let It Be
Winner: Let It Be
I’ve Just Seen A Face
v.s
Ask Me Why
Winner: I’ve Just Seen A Face
Roll Over Beethoven
v.s
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Winner: Happiness is a Warm Gun
If I Needed Someone
v.s
Hello Goodbye
Winner: If I Needed Somone
Yesterday
v.s
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Winner: Yesterday
I Need You
v.s
She Loves You
Winner: She Loves You
Twist and Shout
v.s
Back in the U.S.S.R
Winner: Twist and Shout
With A Little Help From My Friends
v.s
Thank You Girl
Winner: With A Little Help From My Friends
So with that I conclude the first round and cut the number of songs from 208 to 104. I don’t really feel like there were a great deal of surprises in the first round. I do have a couple of regrets with how I handled the first round. The biggest is one is that I broke up the songs that were part of the Abbey Road Medley. These were eight songs that were put together in one long medley on the second half of the Abbey Road album. They were all incomplete songs. Some very good like She Came in Through the Bathroom Window some not so great like Sun King. The thing with the medley is it works very good as a whole but not so great broken up into its individual pieces so I regret doing that. My other regrets are that I included “songs” like Dig It and Maggie Mae that were essentially just jam sessions that weren’t real songs in my opinion. Anyway nothing I can do about that now. I thought I would include a breakdown of how many songs from each album made it through the first round as well as a little perspective in some cases. Here we go:
Please Please me: 14 songs, 7 songs survive 1st round 50%
With the Beatles: 14 songs, 4 songs survive 1st round 28.57%
Hard Day’s Night: 13 songs, 4 songs survive 1st round 30.77%
Beatles For Sale: 14 songs, 6 songs survive 1st round 42.86%
Help: 14 songs, 5 songs survive 1st round 35.71%
Rubber Soul: 14 songs, 11 songs survive 1st round 78.57%
Revolver: 14 songs, 10 songs survive 1st round 71.43%
Sergeant Pepper’s: 13 songs, 6 songs survive 1st round 46.15%
Magical Mystery Tour: 10 songs, 7 songs survive 1st round 70%
The Beatles: 29 songs, 13 songs survive 1st round 44.83%
Yellow Submarine: 4 songs, 1 song survives 1st round 25%
Abbey Road: 17 songs, 6 songs survive 1st round 35.29%
Let It Be: 12 songs, 5 songs survive 1st round 41.67%
Past Masters Volume 1: 15 songs, 10 songs survive 1st round 66.67%
Past Masters Volume 2: 11 songs, 9 songs survive 1st round 81.82%
The percentages listed at the end is the percentage of songs off the album that survived the first round. Now some perspective. Judging purely from the numbers the best album was Past Masters volume 2 and the worst was Yellow Submarine but both volumes of Past Masters collected mainly the Beatles singles while the Beatles didn’t really consider Yellow Submarine a true album release because it contained music previously released or deemed not good enough to be released at the time it was recorded. The Beatles had a unique view on how they released singles and placed music on their albums. They mostly released what they considered their best music as singles and then did not include the singles on their album releases. Since Past Masters is mainly their singles then it is no surprise that so many of the songs made it through the first round.
Tomorrow I will begin posting results for the second round and I may start trying to include more commentary especially because there are going to be some very good songs that don’t make it through the second round.
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