The Beatles are the most successful group in history, with over 183 million records shifted.
But for every Strawberry Fields, She Loves You or Let It Be, there is a hidden gem that’s been (relatively) overlooked by the masses.
Here we count down the nine underrated songs in the Fab Four’s catalogue.
It Won’t Be Long (1963)
Packing a punch in its 2.13 minutes, the opening track on With The Beatles might just be the most under-appreciated early Beatles number.
It Won’t Be Long crams in countless twists in its allotted time including a dropped bar in the verse, crafty wordplay, a charismatic middle eight and even a Barbershop-style ending. Unconventionally, it kicks off with a chorus, and its E and C chord sequence in the verse would feel at home on a grunge record.
It is a mystery to some why It Won’t Be Long failed both to make the grade for a single release or The Beatles’ live set.
Despite Liam Gallagher name-checking It Won’t Be Long as his favourite Beatles track in 2020, the 27 million streams it has amassed on Spotify (according to this 2022 list) are dwarfed by other early-era efforts such as Twist and Shout (302m), I Wanna Hold Your Hand (307m), A Hard Day’s Night (159m) and She Loves You (127m).
Rain (1966)
Not featuring on any album and being just the B-side to Paperback Writer, it’s fair to say that Rain isn’t the best-known mid-Beatles tune.
The musical equivalent to smoking a joint, it lazily hovers mostly around one chord and fails to muster any unexpected twists (barring Lennon’s backwards vocals in the coda). But it is the sheer sonic experience that makes this Oasis-like track so remarkable and ahead of its time.
Ringo reportedly rated it as one of his favourite performances on a Beatles’ record.
And it does have a very cool video.
What You’re Doing (1964)
This McCartney number is among the more obscure tracks on The Beatles’ least listened-to album.
Buried towards the end of 1964’s Beatles For Sale, What You’re Doing isn’t even highly regarded by McCartney himself.
“You sometimes start a song and hope the best bit will arrive by the time you get to the chorus…but sometimes that’s all you get, and I suspect this was one of them,” he reportedly wrote in his book Many Years From Now.
But at the risk of contradicting one of the greatest song writers of the 20th century, we feel Macca may have sold himself short. The distinctive drum intro, the emphatic shouting of the words ‘LOOK’, ‘I’M’, ‘YOU’VE’ and ‘AND’ in the verse, the barrelhouse piano drop in in the middle eight, and intriguing chord changes make this a hidden gem in the early Beatles back catalogue.
And that’s despite it having no discernible chorus!
I Call Your Name (1964)
With just 2.4m streams on Spotify, this unheralded Lennon tune is off the beaten track.
A filler on 1964’s Long Tall Sally EP, The Beatles had given it to Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas the previous year, whose version peaked at number one (albeit as a B side to Bad To Me).
Although dismissed as a “curious song” that is “lyrically a mess” by music critic and Beatles aficionado Ian McDonald, it’s the middle-eight of I’ll Call Your Name that elevates it to hidden-gem status (who else would have plumped for that unexpected penultimate chord?).
Long Long Long (1968)
As the 24th song on The White Album, Harrison’s Long Long Long cowers in the long shadow of his primary track on the same album, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
The haunting waltz has just 15m streams on Spotify, compared with 194m for the latter. You could easily be a Beatles fan and struggle to hum it. But it is arguably one of the third Beatle’s finest tracks.
Harrison revealed in his 1980 autobiography that the song was about his joy at finding God.
It’s Only Love (1965)
Dismissed by Lennon as “the only song of mine I really hate”, It’s Only Love is a relatively obscure track on The Beatles’ fifth album Help!.
But considering he was also disparaging about his masterpiece I Am the Walrus (as well as The Beatles’ back catalogue in general) Lennon’s appraisals of his own work should perhaps be taken lightly.
1965’s It’s Only Love is, in fact, a minor triumph. That Lennon saw it as a trite filler is proof only of his genius.
If anyone else had written this song, the chorus’ opening chord would have been an F or D minor – and that would have been just fine. Lennon, however, plumps for a less obvious, but infinitely more compelling, B flat.
Though Help and Ticket to Ride are the stand-out tracks on the album, this acoustic number deserves more credit than it gets.
I’ll Be On My Way (1963)
If you want an example of the young Lennon and McCartney’s nascent song-writing abilities, look no further than this little-known track recorded in 1963 (but apparently written by the latter in 1959).
Although it sounds more like standard late 50s/early 60s pop than a Beatles track (indeed, they gave it to Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas), the mirrored chord sequences in the intro and outro hint at what’s to come from the Fab Four.
In a mark of its relative obscurity, I’ll Be On My Way has been streamed a relatively paltry 568,000 times on Spotify, making it a concealed jewel.
The Word (1965)
It is mystifying that The Word is one of the least celebrated tracks on 1965’s Rubber Soul with just 14m streams on Spotify (only Ringo’s What Goes On has fewer streams from that album).
The blues chord sequence is standard enough. But the effect of Ringo’s tight drum work, Harrison’s syncopated, stabbed guitar and the multi-layered falsetto vocals will have you singing along like a lunatic by the final chorus.
Written at the height of The Beatles’ mid-60s marijuana period, the track sees Lennon preaching about the importance of love with an evangelical zeal (“I’m here to show everybody the light”).
“It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the Rubber Soul album. My first expression of it was a song called ‘The Word’,” Lennon said in Anthology.
You Can’t Do That (1964)
Lennon suffers an attack of the green-eyed monster in this Motown-esque track, which went on to be covered by The Supremes.
Though not completely overlooked, this B-side to 1964 single Can’t Buy Me Love (and Hard Day’s Night filler) certainly flies under the radar among modern listeners relatively speaking (with a comparatively modest 12.6m streams on Spotify).
But for our money, this is early-era Beatles at their very best. Smack that cowbell, Ringo!
