Brian Epstein & The Beatles Top 100 Countdown (#30-26)

During the last few days we examined Brian Epstein's life before the Beatles, and with the Beatles. Today we'll examine the Beatles life after Brian.

Brian's death left the group disoriented and fearful about the future. Lennon recalled: "We collapsed. I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared. I thought, 'We've had it now.'"

During recording sessions for the White Album, which stretched from late May to mid-October 1968, relations between the Beatles grew openly divisive. Starr quit for two weeks, and Lennon had lost interest in collaborating with McCartney. Describing the double album, Lennon later said: "Every track is an individual track; there isn't any Beatle music on it. [It's] John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band." McCartney has recalled that the album "wasn't a pleasant one to make". Both he and Lennon identified the sessions as the start of the band's break-up.

Although Let It Be was the Beatles' final album release, it was largely recorded before Abbey Road. The project's impetus came from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney, who suggested they "record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a live audience for the very first time – on record and on film".

Producer George Martin has said that the project was "not at all a happy recording experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb." Lennon described the largely impromptu sessions as "hell ... the most miserable ... on Earth", and Harrison, "the low of all-time". Irritated by both McCartney and Lennon, Harrison walked out for five days. Upon returning, he threatened to leave the band unless they "abandon[ed] all talk of live performance" and instead focused on finishing a new album, initially titled Get Back, using songs recorded for the TV special.

New strains developed between the band members regarding the appointment of a financial adviser, the need for which had become evident without Epstein to manage business affairs. Lennon, Harrison and Starr favoured Allen Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones and Sam Cooke. McCartney wanted Lee and John Eastman – father and brother, respectively, of Linda Eastman, whom McCartney married on 12 March. Agreement could not be reached, so both Klein and the Eastmans were temporarily appointed: Klein as the Beatles' business manager and the Eastmans as their lawyers. Further conflict ensued, however, and financial opportunities were lost. On 8 May, Klein was named sole manager of the band, the Eastmans having previously been dismissed as the Beatles' attorneys. McCartney refused to sign the management contract with Klein, but he was out-voted by the other Beatles.

Martin stated that he was surprised when McCartney asked him to produce another album, as the Get Back sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us". The primary recording sessions for Abbey Road began on 2 July 1969. Lennon, who rejected Martin's proposed format of a "continuously moving piece of music", wanted his and McCartney's songs to occupy separate sides of the album. The eventual format, with individually composed songs on the first side and the second consisting largely of a medley, was McCartney's suggested compromise.

For the still unfinished Get Back album, one last song, Harrison's I Me Mine, was recorded on 3 January 1970. Lennon, in Denmark at the time, did not participate. In March, rejecting the work Johns had done on the project, now retitled Let It Be, Klein gave the session tapes to American producer Phil Spector, who had recently produced Lennon's solo single Instant Karma! In addition to remixing the material, Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the recordings that had been intended as "live". McCartney was unhappy with the producer's approach and particularly dissatisfied with the lavish orchestration on The Long and Winding Road, which involved a fourteen-voice choir and 36-piece instrumental ensemble. McCartney's demands that the alterations to the song be reverted were ignored, and he publicly announced his departure from the band on 10 April 1970, a week before the release of his first, self-titled solo album.

On 8 May, the Spector-produced Let It Be was released. Film critic Penelope Gilliatt called it "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings".

McCartney filed suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership on 31 December 1970. Legal disputes continued long after their break-up, and the dissolution was not formalised until 29 December 1974.

During the time Brian Epstein managed the Beatles, they enjoyed the greatest success that any popular artists had ever achieved. Their career trajectory was meteoric. There was not a single reversal of fortune in the entire 5 3/4 years. Once he died the Beatles became embroiled in a tangle of conflicts, money squabbles and personal jealousies. They had lost the one man who united them and who was capable of resolving their differences.

From the first Beatles success until his tragic death in August 1967, Brian took care of every aspect of the Beatles' career. When he died the difference was immediately felt. While the Beatles continued to make magnificent music, their business affairs rapidly crumbled. Within two years of Brian's death the end of the Beatles was clearly in sight. By 1970 it was all over.

Now, let's get on with our Top 100 Beatles' songs countdown.

At #30 is Get Back, a Paul McCartney song. As a single, it went to #1 in every major market. It was also the single that broke the tie between the Beatles and Elvis in the US for the act with the most #1 singles. It was also the Beatles' only single that credited another artist at their request, being credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston.".

As an album track, a Phil Spector remix of the same take, it was the closing track of the last studio album the Beatles released. It was also the last song to be played on their last concert of sorts, the gig on the roof of the Apple Records building on January 30th. In both cases, after the song we hear applause and then Lennon says: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition". It was certainly the Beatles' goodbye to the world.

There is also the business of a verse of the song that peaked my interest as a teenager and makes me feel that the song has an LGBT connection. The verse goes:

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman

But she was another man

All the girls around her say she's got it coming

But she gets it while she can

Am I the only one who thinks that this song preceded Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side as the first trans-inclusive hit?

The original lyrics to Get Back satirized the anti-immigrant sentiments in England at the time: "Don't dig no Pakistanis taking all the people's jobs" went one line. McCartney dropped the parodic race-baiting, leaving the tales of wandering Jo Jo and gender-flipping Loretta Martin. Lennon called Get Back, which features his bluesy lead guitar as well as a funky keyboard solo from Billy Preston, "a better version of Lady Madonna . . . a potboiler rewrite." But he also suspected that the song was secretly aimed at Yoko Ono: "You know, 'Get back to where you once belonged.' Every time [Paul] sang the line in the studio, he'd look at Yoko." This is the album version:

At #29, here's one paradox of Revolver: the album marks the period when the Beatles began exploring the myriad creative possibilities of the recording studio, yet at the same time, it contains some of the most streamlined, straightforward pieces in the group's catalog — among them McCartney's radiantly soothing love song Here, There and Everywhere. McCartney wrote it at Lennon's house in Weybridge while waiting for Lennon to wake up. "I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E," McCartney recalled. "And soon [I] had a few chords, and I think by the time he'd woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up." McCartney has cited the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds as his primary influence for Here, There and Everywhere. McCartney had heard the album before it was released, at a listening party in London in May 1966, and was blown away.

The tune's chord sequence bears Brian Wilson's influence, ambling through three related keys without ever fully settling into one, and the modulations — particularly the one on the line "changing my life with a wave of her hand" — deftly underscore the lyrics, inspired by McCartney's girlfriend, actress Jane Asher. (The couple, whose careers often led to prolonged separations, would split in July 1968.) When George Martin heard the tune, he persuaded the musicians to hum together, barbershop-quartet style, behind the lead vocal. "The harmonies on that are very simple," Martin recalled. "There's nothing very clever, no counterpoint, just moving block harmonies. Very simple . . . but very effective."

McCartney has repeatedly identified it as one of his best compositions, a sentiment echoed by his songwriting partner: Lennon told Playboy in 1980 that it was "one of my favorite songs of the Beatles."

The group spent three days in the studio working on the song, an unusually long time for a single track during this period. After agreeing on a satisfactory rhythm track, the band did backing vocals, then McCartney recorded his lead vocal — which had a surprising inspiration. "When I sang it in the studio, I remember thinking, 'I'll sing it like Marianne Faithfull' — something no one would ever know," he said. "I used an almost falsetto voice and double-tracked it. My Marianne Faithfull impression."

Here's one of the takes:

Here's the final version that appears on the album:

Here, There And Everywhere

At #28 we find I Feel Fine, written by John Lennon and released on November 1964 as a single, topping almost all major markets.

I Feel Fine opens with a brief, throaty growl from Lennon's amplifier. The clipped distortion sounds polite next to the noise Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix would soon put on record, but the Beatles got there first. "I defy anybody to find a record — unless it's some old blues record in 1922 — that uses feedback that way," said Lennon. "I claim it for the Beatles."

According to George Martin, feedback was a routine nuisance at Beatles sessions. "John always turned the [volume] knob up full," the producer said. "It became kind of a joke. But he realized that he could do this to advantage." The feedback on I Feel Fine was very much on purpose, existing on the master tapes from the first take.

I Feel Fine also showcased the Beatles' evolving musicianship, with Starr chipping in a calypso-flavored dialogue between cymbal and tom-tom. "Ringo developed from a straight Rock drummer into quite a musical thinker," said Martin. "He was always trying out different ideas."

At #27 is You're Going To Lose That Girl (1965). The last song the Beatles completed for the Help! soundtrack before heading off to the Bahamas to begin filming, You're Going to Lose That Girl was knocked out in two takes. The song started with Lennon, and McCartney helped him complete it at Lennon's home in Weybridge.

Like She Loves You, You're Going to Lose That Girl is the rare Pop song in which a male singer addresses a wayward boyfriend. But where the earlier hit offered empathy, now Lennon issues a more aggressive warning: "I'll make a point of taking her away from you." Distinguished by Lennon's falsetto and Starr's manic bongo-playing, the song really comes alive through the background vocals. The bright call-and-response parts that comment on the action ("Watch what you do") illustrate the influence that the early-Sixties girl-group records still had on the Beatles. The band recorded a number of girl-group songs (Chains by the Cookies, Baby It's You and Boys by the Shirelles), flipping the genders in the lyrics as necessary.

In the film, the song is done in a smoky studio; McCartney wanted to show the material in a more natural setting than provided by most movie musicals. Ringo does the whole performance with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

You're Going To Lose That Girl

Finally for today, at #26, is one of the standout songs from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Written and sung primarily by Lennon, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is forever followed by the speculation that the first letter of each of the title nouns intentionally spelled LSD.

Lennon always insisted that Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was not a drug song. As he told Rolling Stone in 1970, "I swear to God or swear to Mao or to anybody you like, I had no idea it spelled LSD." The inspiration was a picture that his four-year-old son, Julian, painted of Lucy O'Donnell, the girl who sat next to him at school. "He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," Lennon said. "Simple."

Lennon showed McCartney the painting one morning over tea, and they decided it was too great a title to pass up. The song is dominated by Lennon's love of childish whimsy like Through the Looking-Glass. Lennon came up with the image of "kaleidoscope eyes," McCartney with "cellophane flowers" and "newspaper taxis," and before long, they had a psychedelic nursery rhyme with wordplay worthy of Lewis Carroll. "The images were from Alice in Wonderland," Lennon said in 1980. "It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg, and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep, and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere, and I was visualizing that."

In the Weybridge mansion where he wrote the song, Lennon spent most of his days alone, feeling numb in a collapsing marriage, watching TV and doing drugs. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was an image of hope. As he explained in 1980, "There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me — a 'girl with kaleidoscope eyes' who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn't met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be Yoko in the Sky With Diamonds."

Sadly, Lucy herself died in September 2009 of lupus, at the age of 46. Julian Lennon paid tribute to his former classmate by releasing a benefit single, Lucy, a few weeks later. (Julian's original "Lucy" drawing is currently owned by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour.) When she first heard Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds as a teenager, she told her friends she was the Lucy who had inspired it. But they didn't believe her, informing her the song was about LSD. Lucy didn't argue because, as she admitted, "I was too embarrassed to tell them I didn't know what LSD was."