Sorry, the tours are top priority. Ok, we'll tour. Sorry, the records are top priority. So, they write in hotel rooms and record when they get back to the U.K. and at some point there's enough for an LP. The Australian release of this record was reissued in 1977 along with all the pre-Pepper albums and the cover art was a repeat of the local original: a photo of each member at a concert, playing their instruments against a canary yellow background. They look like they're having a blast. The original UK Parlophone release, however, is more like reality. Against a cold season woodland backdrop, the four lads are rugged up against the chill and they look like they haven't slept in years. Even Paul looks ordinary. On the back, it's the same but from a high angle. There's a gatefold with the characteristically daggy blurb and some touring photos, one live and one posed. All of it says one thing: we're famous but we're tired.
The thing is, that's not what you hear. Lennon's voice starts No Reply and it's in full definition. There's a rasp but it's style rather than exhaustion. "This happened once before..." On the last syllable the band come in with John's acoustic strumming out the front. The narrator knows that his object is home and that when he calls, her flatmates lie about her being out. He's seen her. The verses are descending melodies which vary from angry to weary but end with solid harmony flashes of passion before calming to an adaptation of the opening tune. The middle eight carries on the tradition taken very high on Hard Day's Night in that they are melodic and harmonic showcases that could only be at that part of the song. In this one ("If I were him...") the Lennon McCartney interplay is stunning. It only happens once and feels more dramatic for that. The son ends on the anguished repeat of the title in harmony blasts. We could be unkind and call this an ode to stalking but, more genuinely, it's a perfect understanding of the sense of powerlessness felt by the rejected one and the fade of his futility is touching.
I'm a Loser begins with those words sung in bright harmony through three different intervals before the line, " and I'm not what I appear to be," leads into the Dylanesque masochism of the song. The lines tying it to losing a love to someone more adept at it seem there to seal the Beatles deal on it but the body of the number is self accusation and pain. The melody is sweet but Lennon's vocal is raw. Paul's high harmony soften the piece a little but it's mind is made up. Harrison is appealing in this one with a range of country licks bending out of his big clean Gretsch.
Baby's in Black changes the time signature to a waltz. A twanging figure from George and they're straight into the harmonies. An acoustic rustle underneath and electric bends above a fairly busy tom tom-led performance from Ringo. The melody is quite playful and sweet for a song about a woman who is either in mourning or dressing like a black card and forbidding communication. The middle eight of this song is so delicious that it has to come back after the solo where Paul's soaring descant drives the lyrics: "Oh how long will it take, till she sees the mistake..." The final verse features an opening of the bed track with deft work on ride cymbals as Harrison plays the lowest notes he can and putting the Bigsby whammy bar to great effect. Short and utterly delectable.
And that's it, almost. The rest is covers done with varying skill and effect as well as some fine originals that feel dropped in at random. Rock and Roll Music is an energetic Chuck Berry number that's fine but outstays its welcome. Mr. Moonlight starts with a magnificent introductory scream from Lennon before it descends into the kind of guff that home organ salesmen would trot out to nail the sale. Kansas City is big and perky and feels like McCartney's replacement for the bellowing scream of Long Tall Sally only in another song. Buddy Holly's Words of Love does benefit from some cooling harmonies. Ringo gets to go all Carl Perkins with Honey Don't which George garnishes with some plunky rockabilly twangs. He gets the last word with a second Perkins standard featuring some vocal delay that was dated even for then but some fine chiming guitar licks.
This is all Hamburg and Cavern fare. Six out of fourteen songs on a fourth album that followed one of only originals. It smacks of desperation. While the rest of the originals are not up to the standard of that mighty opening hat trick, they're still pretty good. I'll Follow the Sun is a gentle whimsical Paul. Eight Days a Week is big Beatles jangle and harmony (another fine middle eight). Every Little Thing has real charm (love the tympanum in the chorus) but it runs out quickly. I Don't Want to Spoil the Party is a good stab at a kind of commercial Nashville toe tapper with another story of being on the outer (did ever such creatively and socially rich kids cry so poor?) What You're Doing is ok but feels last minute and undercooked. Eight originals but only three break through. These sessions were when the band also recorded the single I Feel Fine with its opening feedback and heavily doctored blues riff (well beyond what some people report as plagiarism), latin drumming, and business-meaning vocals. But they didn't like putting singles on albums. Why? The U.S, record company Capitol not only doubled up on the singles, they shortened the running time of each record so they could release more with the same price tag. I like the U.K. better, too, but if any Beatles album could have done with the concurrent singles on the LP it's this one.
Then again, neither I Feel Fine nor the b-side She's a Woman make a good fit on Beatles for Sale, even if you scrap Mr. Moonlight and, maybe, Everybody's Trying to be my Baby, it would sound as force-meat as the American albums (Meet the Beatles is a solid exception to this, just to say). What we got was almost the end of the early stage show. The next album, Help, added two more but these were well part of the stadium Beatles set, however goofy they sounded beside the other songs on that album.
Beatles for Sale does one thing well, though, it advances the scope of the bands recorded sound. There is a lot more space around the core of each of these songs. They are also more dynamic in the arrangements, allowing for a relief from the big shouty choruses and bluster so that John's lines about trying to telephone in No Reply after the huge middle eight sound like he's exhausted. This aids the song immeasurably: if it had just been played at the same intensity all through and Lennon had sung the lines like that it would have sounded like a bad take. As it is, it draws us in to the centre of the character's crushing sadness ... in a light and boppy Beatles song.
I used to skip a lot when listening to this one when I first got it. The covers felt old and stodgy and seemed to rub themselves off against the frailer of the originals. The sleeve art with its loud yellow field and old style photos of the band also felt a little senior. Where A Hard Day's Night pounds confidence and creativity, jingling with twelve strings and sophisticated vocal harmony, Beatles for Sale feels like a step over a cliff edge. The best songs here point to the next step which, at the end of the following year would sound as joyous as Rubber Soul and leave the old band back in the beer-stinking bar where the covers should have stayed. Could a couple of strong EPs been put out instead? Not when the album cost more per unit and the monster single compelled its purchase. Whatever other qualities that might now allow us to prise this disc from its commercial purposes, there is one thing it does tell us: it says, "we're shagged out but still moving. Keep listening."
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