Curated playlist
Capitol Records singles
- What Goes On (Beatles song)"What Goes On" carries one of the most unusual writing credits in the Beatles catalogue: Lennon-McCartney-Starkey. It is the only song the band ever attributed to all three of those names, and it is the only track on Rubber Soul where…
- I Am the Walrus"I Am the Walrus" arrived in 1967 with a specific and mischievous mission: to break the minds of people who were trying too hard to understand the Beatles. John Lennon had received a letter from a student at his former school, Quarry Bank…
- She Loves You"She Loves You" arrived in British record shops on the 23rd of August 1963, and by the time the year ended it had sold more copies in the United Kingdom than any other single released that year. It would go on to hold the title of…
- Roar (song)"Roar" arrived on the 10th of August 2013, two days before Katy Perry's label had planned, after a digital leak forced Capitol Records to release it early. That accidental early debut did nothing to slow the song down. Within its first…
- Help! (song)"Help!" is a song that John Lennon would later call one of the most honest things he ever wrote. It arrived in the summer of 1965 dressed as a pop single, racing along at a tempo that Lennon himself came to regret. Beneath the exclamation…
- Ticket to Ride (song)"Ticket to Ride" arrived in April 1965 and sounded like nothing the Beatles had released before. Recorded at EMI Studios in London on the 15th of February that year, the track carried a weight and a drone that sat uneasily alongside the…
- All You Need Is Love"All You Need Is Love" reached over 400 million people in 25 countries on the 25th of June 1967, making it one of the most witnessed moments in television history up to that point. A live satellite broadcast called Our World, the first of…
- Eleanor RigbyEleanor Rigby is a 1966 song by the Beatles, and it arrived on the charts with none of the guitars, drums, or amplified roar the band had built its name on. In its place: eight strings, a minor key, and two characters nobody in a pop song…
- Paperback Writer"Paperback Writer" arrived in May 1966 as the A-side of the Beatles' eleventh single, and it came loaded with an unusual distinction: it was the first Beatles single since "Love Me Do" in 1962 to generate something less than universal…
- Helter Skelter (song)'I got blisters on my fingers!' That shout, at the close of 'Helter Skelter,' is one of the most famous unscripted moments in rock history. It arrived during a September 1968 recording session, after Ringo Starr threw his drumsticks across…
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is a song the Beatles nearly tore themselves apart making. Paul McCartney wrote it in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968, while he and his bandmates were studying Transcendental Meditation. Prudence Farrow, a fellow…
- Strawberry Fields Forever"Strawberry Fields Forever" arrived on the 13th of February 1967, and almost nobody knew what to make of it. Derek Johnson of the NME confessed in print that he was both fascinated and confused, writing: "Quite honestly, I don't really…
- I Want to Hold Your Hand"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was recorded by the Beatles on the 17th of October 1963, and within weeks it had upended the American music industry in ways no British act had managed before. Advance orders in the United Kingdom alone exceeded…
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (song)"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" begins with the sound of an audience chattering and an orchestra tuning up, and within seconds the listener is somewhere else entirely. Written by Paul McCartney and officially credited to…
- The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" begins with a name: Virgil Caine. He served on the Danville train until Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks. It is the winter of 1865, and he is hungry, barely alive. By the tenth of May,…
- Act Naturally"Act Naturally" began as a throwaway line and became one of the most traveled songs in country music history. Johnny Russell was in Fresno, California, in the early 1960s when some friends from Oklahoma asked him to join a recording…
- Baby, You're a Rich Man"Baby, You're a Rich Man" was born at midnight in May 1967, when the Beatles spent six hours at an independent studio in Barnes, south-west London, stitching two unfinished songs into one. John Lennon had been wandering through London's…
- Love Me Do"Love Me Do" by the Beatles arrived in British record shops on the 5th of October 1962, a date that marks one of the more consequential releases in the history of popular music. Built on just three chords and a wailing harmonica, it…
- Mull of Kintyre (song)"Mull of Kintyre" was recorded outdoors on the 9th of August 1977, with Paul McCartney's vocals and acoustic guitar captured in the open air at High Park Farm in Scotland. The tapes nearly didn't survive. Insects threatened the recording,…
- Penny LanePenny Lane is a road in a south Liverpool suburb, and it is also one of the most celebrated songs the Beatles ever made. Released in February 1967 as a double A-side single alongside "Strawberry Fields Forever", it arrived at a moment when…
- Rain (Beatles song)"Rain" by the Beatles arrived on the 30th of May 1966 as the B-side to "Paperback Writer", and it carried something listeners had never quite encountered before. Hidden inside a three-minute rock song was a backwards vocal coda, a droning…
- The Inner Light (song)"The Inner Light" arrived in record shops on the 15th of March 1968, tucked away as the B-side to "Lady Madonna", and most listeners probably flipped the disc over without a second thought. What they missed was something without precedent…