5 Early Beatles Hidden Gems with Lauren | Infectious Groove Music 

ok...longer comment now that I'm on my laptop (because I love me some Beatles discussion): I grew up on the early Beatles (from my mom) and initially fell in love with the harmonies. Most of my favorite songs were covers (Chains, You Really Got a Hold on Me, etc). I didn't understand who wrote the songs or anything like that, but I did have a fairly advanced knowledge of music theory for my age, and I really loved harmonies. Once I got into high school and started to understand that they actually wrote their own songs and really got more advanced in music theory, my fascination with their songs started to take off. I started to really appreciate songs like I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, All My Loving, If I Fell, I Don't Want to Spoil the Party, etc. Still loved harmonies but appreciated some of the advances in the technical side of the music. I had heard Strawberry Fields, Lucy in the Sky, and some of John's other songs from the later years, but I didn't really get them. They were a little too something for me. So, I mostly stuck to the early years. In my 20's I found a Beatles show on the radio that essentially played nothing but Beatles songs for 4 hours straight. The more I heard some of those songs and the context of how they got there, the more I started to enjoy them. Not favorites, but I didn't turn them off. The Anthology series and albums really gave me the full appreciation of the journey and evolution, and the songs made sense to me in a way they never did before. Those songs that initially felt out of place to me eventually fit right in. This is why I haven't completely given up on getting Pink Floyd yet. There are times I don't turn their songs off on the radio these days...I don't seek them out, but I don't turn them off either. Maybe I'll get it if I make it to 70!

An early Beatles song that is truly MASTERFUL is "If I Fell". The way it modulates from the first key signature to the second is nothing special for a well-trained classical composer like Ludwig van Beethoven or Claude Debussy, for instance. But that an empirical musician like John Lennon, who just had his talent, creativity and the chords he learned on guitar (at least at that point in his life), could come up with such a smooth and highly technical (from a music theory standpoint) resource never ceases to amaze me (George Martin had nothing to do with it). An example of what being a genius means.

Although not really a hidden gem, ‘All My Loving’ is just a great song whether you are an early or late Beatles fan! Also, I am pleased that ‘Every Little Thing’ is on the list and you might want to also hear the Yes cover on their first album as well.

My favorite Beatles album is Relvolver. All good picks in the list.

Check out the first (and the first half of the second) anthology albums. It will give you a different perspective on the early Beatles.