Beatles For Sale

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By the end of 1964, The Beatles were exhausted. In June, they took their first world tour, traveling from Denmark to the Netherland, then to Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, often playing two shows a day to make good on the trip. Between mid-August and late September, they played 30 shows in 23 US citie, getting an introduction to pot from Bob Dylan in New York and, a couple of weeks later, drunkenly confessing their mutual love for each other while waiting out a hurricane in Key West—a night later recalled by Paul McCartney on 1982’s John Lennon remembrance “Here Today.” Their fame was inarguable, their pace unsupportable. So while attributing any real cynicism to the title <i>Beatles for Sale</i> is probably a stretch, it’s not out of the ballpark—they were, on some level, a commodity, and finally feeling the squeeze of being trafficked like one. Here’s the first time you get to hear The Beatles really yell, not once (the snarling middle section of Lennon’s “No Reply”) but twice (the background vocals on “What You’re Doing”). Lennon’s songs in particular—“I’m a Loser,” “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” (“I’ve had a drink or two and I don’t care”), the bleakly jealous “No Reply”—showed a writer giving himself over to his least marketable mood. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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