Break Out the Floorspeakers: What if the Beatles ...
An alternate history 1990 reunion tour playlist
I’m not usually much for “what if” games, but Ted Gioa’s recent post about The Beatles and how wrong many big-name critics were about them in hindsight got me to thinking:
John and Paul had privately reconciled by the early 1980s, and were discussing the possibility of working together in the future.
What if John wasn’t killed that night in 1980? What if they’d talked George and Ringo into a tour?
What might a set list have looked like?
All four Beatles had released multiple solo albums in the 1970s, to varying degrees of success.
Paul had had the most hits with his new band, Wings — he’d even done a theme song for a James Bond movie.
Ringo may have had the most fun, and had managed on various projects to get all his former bandmates into the studio at one time or another.
But by 1980, John’s career was again in ascendancy while Paul’s had already peaked and was in a bit of a slump. George, too, was coming into his own as a solo artist.
Assuming a 90-minutes show, we’re looking at about 25 songs.
It’s difficult to imagine any of them, but particularly George, willing or interested in doing an all-Beatles program. In fact, John, Paul and George had written some of their best songs after the Beatles broke up — though it be heresy to say so out loud.
And Ringo had become a star in his own right.
So a 1990 Beatles reunion would have been different from the band that broke up in 1970.
Given that both John and Paul had revisited their early rock ‘n’ roll roots with a dedicated solo record each, and that George’s later participation in the Traveling Wilburys mined a deep vein of rock ’n’ roll, it’s not hard to imagine them opening the show with some throwbacks to their early days at the Cavern.
And I could see wanting to close out the show with some of their latter, studio-era Beatles stuff they never got to play live.
But it’s fun to think about what they might have chosen from their solo work. (Or maybe they would have chosen for each other — John and George choosing their favorite Wings stuff, Paul and George picking from John’s solo work, etc.)
Here’s my stab at what that playlist might have looked like:
“Kansas City” — This hard-rocking cover was a staple of their early live shows, included on “Beatles VI,” and one Paul later re-recorded on his Russian LP
“Please Please Me” — The first Lennon-McCartney song to go to No. 1
“I Saw Her Standing There” — The song that made Lennon-McCartney a songwriting force to be reckoned with
“Hard Day’s Night” — And now they were movie stars!
“Ticket to Ride” — In their second film, the band begins moving away from the pure rock ‘n’ roll of their early albums into something ... different.
“Taxman” — Wait — George can write and sing, too?
“Yellow Submarine” — Ringo, master of the Beatles novelty song
Okay, in my imagining of a make-believe Beatles reunion tour in the early 1990s, after opening with 20-some minutes of early Beatles songs, the band then segues into their post-Beatles catalog:
“Give Peace a Chance” — John’s first iconic solo song
“If Not for You” — George’s rambling multi-disc concept album, “All Things Must Pass,” was highlighted by this gem
“Maybe I’m Amazed” — Paul’s first post-Beatles hit finds him still firmly in Beatles territory
“It Don’t Come Easy” — Wait, Ringo can write songs, too?.
“Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” — George’s new Hari sound gelled here
“Live and Let Die” — C’mon, you know the other three would have dug playing a Bond theme on stage
“Jet” — The hit single from “Band on the Run” started a run where McCartney and his band Wings dominated the charts for a five-year period in the mid-1970s
“Listen to What the Man Said” — Wings’ high point: a rhythmically complex, lyrically poetic number that still became a hit
“Silly Love Songs” — The last great Wings hit, Paul poking fun at, well, Paul
“Love Comes to Everyone” — George starts coming into his own as writer and singer of hit pop songs; his most gorgeous melody since “Here Comes the Sun”
“(Just Like) Starting Over” — John rediscovers the love song
“Watching the Wheels” — Is this the same John Lennon who wrote all those angry protest songs in the early 1970s?
“Nobody Told Me” — Following up on “Double Fantasy,” “Milk and Honey” promised so much more
As mentioned above, I think the band might have wanted to close out with the late-period Beatles songs they never go to play in concert — their psychedelic period and then final foray into the rock ’n’ roll that both launched and wrapped up their shared career:
“I Am the Walrus” — the beginning of the psychedelic; not much ever surpassed it
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” — No explanation needed
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” — One of George’s two best songs with the Beatles
“Octopus’ Garden” — Ringo at his most charming
“Here Comes the Sun” — For all the credit given the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, it is the overlooked George who wrote the most purely beautiful song the Beatles ever recorded
“Revolution” — The band not only rocks harder here than on any other song, but John holds a mirror up to the left (and caught grief for it)
“Get Back” — The song that brought an end to the Beatle’s catalogue
I look forward to reading your thoughts on this list!
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