It’s been 50 years since the first Beatles album was released. So let’s have a look back for a minute, and consider this.
Below are 100 songs written by the Beatles between late 1962 and late 1969. That’s right — the Beatles recorded their entire collection within seven years, in the time most bands these days produce 2 or maybe 3 albums. Moreover, they went from “She loves you, yeah yeah yeah” to “I read the news today, oh boy” in a period of a little over three years, dragging the rest of pop music behind.
So here’s the challenge: Can you name any other group that comes anywhere close to this record? Here, look at this list of their 100 best-known songs. See how many of these songs you know.
1962
Love Me Do
1963
Please Please Me
I Saw Her Standing There
Do You Want to Know a Secret?
From Me To You
She Loves You
It Won’t Be Long
All My Loving
I Want To Hold Your Hand
This Boy
1964
Can’t Buy Me Love
You Can’t Do That
A Hard Day’s Night
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
And I Love Her
I’ll Cry Instead
Any Time at All
Things We Said Today
I Feel Fine
She’s a Woman
Eight Days a Week
I’ll Follow the Sun
No Reply
Baby’s in Black
1965
Ticket to Ride
Help!
Yes It Is
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
I’ve Just Seen a Face
Yesterday
Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
You Won’t See Me
Nowhere Man
Michelle
Girl
In My Life
Day Tripper
We Can Work It Out
1966
Paperback Writer
Rain
Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
Here, There, and Everywhere
Yellow Submarine
She Said She Said
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
Got to Get You Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows
Penny Lane
Strawberry Fields Forever
1967
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
With a Little Help From My Friends
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
When I’m Sixty Four
Lovely Rita
A Day in the Life
All You Need is Love
Baby You’re a Rich Man
Hello Goodbye
I Am The Walrus
Magical Mystery Tour
The Fool on the Hill
1968
Lady Madonna
Across the Universe
All Together Now
Hey Bulldog
Hey Jude
Revolution
Back in the USSR
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Martha My Dear
Blackbird
Rocky Raccoon
Birthday
Mother Nature’s Son
Helter Skelter
1969
Get Back
Don’t Let Me Down
Two of Us
Let It Be
I’ve Got a Feeling
The Long and Winding Road
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Old Brown Shoe
Come Together
Something
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
Oh! Darling
Octopus’ Garden
Here Comes the Sun
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End
EDIT: Ten years after posting this, I included it in my book “The Beatles on the Charts” — and no one has been able to challenge it! 🙂
They warned us. If you legalize marijuana, it’s going to destroy civilization. Criminals will run rampant, and, as we all know, marijuana leads to harder drugs, just like how milk leads to alcohol.
And now we actually have some place where we can see the results.
In Colorado, since the legalization, many changes have happened.
The state has saved millions of dollars by not arresting, prosecuting, and jailing marijuana users.
The state has earned millions of dollars in registration costs, fees, and taxes on marijuana.
They’ve also earned millions in tourism. Everybody loves a “bud and breakfast.”
They warned us, they most certainly did.
They were absolutely wrong, but they did warn us.
One of the biggest insults politicians give is when they say they represent “real” America. Usually they say this while standing in front of a farm somewhere while a video plays showing rural Americans shopping, going to church, and watching an eagle fly by in slow motion.
They then will claim that real America loves traditional marriage and unfettered access to guns, wants to protect the rights of the unborn, and hates government involvement in health care.
And that’s just plain insulting.
The majority of Americans live in cities and suburbs, not rural farmlands. The majority supports gay marriage, thinks limits on gun ownership is a good thing, agrees with abortion rights, and actually likes the provisions of medicare, medicaid and yes, Obamacare.
It’s bad enough to claim to represent the majority when you clearly do not. But to also claim that you are “real America” — that you’re true and everyone else therefore does not support our country — well, we should all be insulted by that, even those these politicians are trying to claim as their own.
I feel patriotic when I walk down a street in Manhattan and am surrounded by people of all races, backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientation living together in relative peace. That to me is more of what America means than any bucolic rural scene. But both are “real” America, and anyone who tries to claim that it doesn’t include all of us just doesn’t understand what it means to be an American.
Maryland is the latest state to ban the death penalty.
When I discuss this issue with other people, strong feelings take over, and often emotion prevails. This is understandable; I cheer when the bad guy dies in the movies, and I’m happy Tim McVeigh and Osama bin Laden are no longer around.
The problem is that there is a balance to be met when dealing with the law: While you should not be Mr. Spock, ignoring your emotions, you cannot also be Dr. McCoy, letting your emotions overwhelm your logic. Yes, some people deserve to die.
The problem is this: Who makes that decision?
Some people would like to see rapists put to death. Others think anyone who commits a murder should automatically be given the death penalty. There are probably people who think drivers who don’t turn off their turn signals should get the death penalty.
If we say that it should only be applied in the most heinous of cases, then we still have that problem. Who decides that the crime is so terrible that the death penalty applies? Well, a jury first, of course, and then a judge. But wait a minute — that’s what we have now.
And this is where we meet the real problem: Our system of justice is not perfect.
Trust me, I do this for a living. Innocent people get found guilty all the time (and guilty people get found not guilty, too). I don’t think I have to cite all the cases of people on death row who have later been found to be innocent (including some who confessed — although usually the confessions were coerced or they have mental problems). And who knows how many we have already executed who we’ll never know if they were innocent because no one is researching their cases like they’re doing with those currently on death row?
So long as we have a system of justice that is not 100% perfect, we should not have a penalty that is 100% irreversible.
There’s this silly meme going around now, comparing the cuts being given to the military for education with programs helping illegal immigrant children get an education.
The reason he is giving her that expression is because the statement she makes is absolutely wrong (and stupid: “only” way? No one else gets aid? Give me a break.)
This is a false comparison. The federal government funds the military and thanks to the sequester, money is being cut from the military budget. Blame the Republicans for forcing the sequester through (it was their idea) and then trying to convince all of us it’s Obama’s fault.
The other example is from states like Colorado, and has nothing to do with federal funding. In Colorado, children who were brought here illegally by their parents and thus had no choice in the matter and who graduated from Colorado high school, were never arrested, were applying for citizenship, and who kept good grades were allowed to go to Colorado public colleges at the same rate as a Colorado citizen. Not greater than, exactly the same as. No tuition given to them, just the same discount as all the kids they went to High School with.
Isn’t that what we want? Good kids with good grades becoming good citizens, paying taxes, and then staying in the US to help our economy? Don’t we want to encourage that?
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