This all happened because I got my iPod stolen. True story.
With no iPod around, I was left to my iPhone as my source for music while commuting. Not knowing what to load it up with (2010 albums that are favorites/on the fence, personal favorites, or just random things), I turned to Twitter and the best friend proposed a challenge.
He tweeted at me that he was on a Beatles kick and told me to make an essentials list, or better yet something he had never seen in our decade of best friend-dom. A Rusty Beatles Mix. The rules were simple: no more than 30 songs, no more than 80 minutes long.
I sat at work all day gestating ideas: songs I had to have, songs I didn’t necessarily want to have, but felt were necessary to include. Other songs. I knew how I wanted it to end, what three songs would close it out, how the middle would go, and that one of three songs would open it. I had all 226 Beatles songs from their studio albums and singles loaded on to a playlist waiting for me until I got home, so I could start cutting songs I knew I didn’t want. That got me to 100. Another cut got me to roughly 60 which where I started to make the final selections.
I ended up with 26 songs, running a tight 79 minutes and 25 seconds long. It’s songs I have loved since being obsessed as a child, and songs that I’ve only really started getting into since the remasters a year ago today, ironically enough. After I got to these songs, I texted the best friend to say that I couldn’t do this anymore: I felt that if I started to edit, I would just be wanting to find ways to cut additional songs to make room for other songs. It’s definitely a mix that ends up missing lots still.
So, it goes like this:
01 Eight Days A Week
02 Lady Madonna
03 The Ballad of John & Yoko
04 Eleanor Rigby
05 I Am The Walrus
06 Back In The USSR
07 You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
08 Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
09 Here Comes The Sun
10 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
11 All My Loving
12 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
13 Two Of Us
—
14 Paperback Writer
15 Anna (Go To Him)
16 Don’t Let Me Down)
17 Day Tripper
18 Tomorrow Never Knows
19 Blackbird
20 Good Morning Good Morning
21 Rocky Raccoon
22 Blue Jay Way
23 Across The Universe
24 Helter Skelter
25 All You Need Is Love
26 Her Majesty
Fire off - what should have I included? what should I take off of mine? I will say I was this close to just having the entire Side B of Abbey Road because you can’t just pick one song from the epic suite that it is, hence there being no songs from it. No, “Her Majesty” is not a part of it.
