Behka’s Breakfast with The Beatles Recap: Week of September 1

This week on the BWB&TB segment, I've been going through and playing my favorite Beatle songs. I've loved them since I was 12, so picking one favorite is close to impossible. A top five, though - that I can do.I didn't pick the "top five most famous" or "five most important" or whatnot.  I picked my top five personal favorites.  The ones I like the best.

On Monday, I played "I'm So Tired".

Lennon wrote the song at a Transcendental Meditation camp when he could not sleep; the Beatles had gone on a retreat to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India. After three weeks of constant meditation and lectures, Lennon missed his soon-to-be wife, Yoko Ono, and was plagued by insomnia that inspired the song. One of dozens of songs the Beatles wrote in India, "I'm So Tired" detailed Lennon's fragile state of mind. It was also an open letter to Ono, whose postcards to Lennon in India were a lifeline.

On Tuesday, I played "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".

John Lennon started composing the song on his acoustic guitar in January 1965, while on holiday with his wife, Cynthia, in the Swiss Alps. He later explained that the lyric was about an affair he had been having. This version is from the Beatles Anthology series. It was an earlier take with more added harmony and sitar than what ended up on the album.

On Wednesday, I played "Here, There, and Everywhere".

This one was recorded for the Beatles' 1966 album Revolver. In his biography Many Years From Now, McCartney said the song is one of his favorites. Beatles' producer George Martin has also mentioned it as one of his favorite McCartney songs. John Lennon reportedly told McCartney it was "The best tune on the album" and said in his 1980 Playboy interview it was "one of my favorite songs of the Beatles." It was ranked the 4th greatest song of all time by Mojo in 2000.

On Thursday, I played "For No One".

McCartney recalls writing "For No One" in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps while on holiday with his then girlfriend Jane Asher. He said, "I suspect it was about another argument." The lyrics end enigmatically with "...a love that should have lasted years..." The song's working title was "Why Did It Die?".

On Friday, I played "I'll Be On My Way".

"I'll Be on My Way" is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, which was first released on 26 April 1963 by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas as the b-side of their single "Do You Want to Know a Secret", a song also written by Lennon–McCartney. The single reached number two in the UK charts while "From Me to You" by the Beatles was occupying the number 1 position. According to Lennon, the song was written by McCartney: "This was early Paul." The Beatles, featuring Lennon and McCartney, recorded a version of the song, first released in 1995 on the Live at the BBC compilation. This one has been probably, if push came to shove, my favorite Beatle song since I heard it in the mid-nineties.

Let me know if there's something you want to hear next week!

Favoritely yours,

Behka