The Beatles' exhaustion after two solid years working in the spotlight made itself manifest in the downbeat tone of a number of the songs. Whereas A Hard Day's Night had showcased the group's cheeky and charming side to the world, Beatles For Sale was in many ways its antithesis.
Beginning with No Reply, the album began with three melancholy, mostly acoustic songs about romantic or personal loss. By the middle of 1964 The Beatles were keen fans of Bob Dylan, and his influence found its way into the lyrics, chords and arrangements.
No Reply was described by publisher Dick James as "the first complete song you've written where it resolves itself", according to John Lennon. Perhaps his first effort at telling a story in song, it was a breakthrough for Lennon as a writer, though it made perhaps an oddly downbeat opening to the album. The introspection continued through I'm A Loser and Baby's In Black.
I'm A Loser is me in my Dylan period, because the word 'clown' is in it. I objected to the word 'clown', because that was always artsy-fartsy, but Dylan had used it so I thought it was all right, and it rhymed with whatever I was doing.
Anthology
Prior to recording, The Beatles only rehearsed the original songs; the cover versions were well known from their stage act. While the likes of Rock And Roll Music and Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! were The Beatles at their early 60s peak, two of them in particular rank among The Beatles' weakest: Honey Don't is a plodding and lifeless vehicle for Ringo Starr's limited range; and Mr Moonlight, despite a sterling vocal from Lennon, is curiously old-fashioned for a group of The Beatles' calibre. What's more, they were included at the expense of the marvellous Leave My Kitten Alone, one of The Beatles' finest cover versions which remained unreleased until Anthology 1.
We all knew Honey Don't; it was one of those songs that every band in Liverpool played. I used to love country music and country rock; I'd had my own show with Rory Storm, when I would do five or six numbers. So singing and performing wasn't new to me; it was a case of finding a vehicle for me with The Beatles. That's why we did it on Beatles For Sale. It was comfortable. And I was finally getting one track on a record: my little featured spot.
Anthology
Elsewhere, Beatles For Sale contained Words Of Love, their only recording of a Buddy Holly song for EMI, and Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, George Harrison's tribute to his beloved Carl Perkins, recorded in a single take on 18 October 1964.
As with the UK albums With The Beatles, Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles (White Album), no songs on Beatles For Sale were issued as singles. The group considered releasing No Reply, I'm A Loser and Eight Days A Week, before Lennon and McCartney wrote I Feel Fine and She's A Woman, released as standalone single one week before the album on 27 November.
Chart success
The aptly-titled Beatles For Sale was released on 4 December 1964, and entered the UK charts on 12 December. It was an instant chart-topper, replacing A Hard Day's Night, and remaining there for seven consecutive weeks. It returned to the top for a week from 27 February 1965, and three further weeks from 1 May 1965. In all it spent 46 weeks in the charts.
One month prior to its release more than 500,000 advance orders had been placed. By the time Beatles For Sale hit the shops this had gone up to 750,000, the highest number of advance orders ever received for an album. It also briefly entered the singles chart at number 22, at a time when the hit parade was made up of sales regardless of the discs' diameters.
In the US, songs from Beatles For Sale were released on two separate Capitol albums. Beatles '65 was released on 15 December 1964 and included No Reply, I'm A Loser, Baby's In Black, Rock And Roll Music, I'll Follow The Sun, Mr Moonlight, Honey Don't and Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, along with I'll Be Back, She's A Woman and I Feel Fine.
Eight Days A Week was released as a US single on 15 February 1965, with I Don't Want To Spoil The Party as its b-side. Both songs were also included on the Beatles VI LP, released on 14 June 1965, along with the four remaining songs from Beatles For Sale: Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!, Words Of Love, What You're Doing and Every Little Thing.
Related articles:
- Honey Don't
- UK LP release: Beatles For Sale
- Rock And Roll Music
- Beatles iPod goes on sale at Bloomingdale's
- UK EP release: Beatles For Sale No 2
this album is one of their underrated albums...but this album contains a lot of great songs one of them is i'll follow the sun.
Great album, I need to pick it up sometime.
I just played this one again, twice, after many years. And I was really taken by many of the songs, including the strong opening 5 tracks, skipping Mr. Moonlight which I've always detested, and I especially liked I Don't Want To Spoil The Party, an early melancholic Lennon number. And adding in Eight Days A Week, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, and a few more great covers make this album quite an enjoyable listen. This record certainly gets overlooked unnecessarily.
I've noticed quite a few negative references to Mr. Moonlight, which I do like. Its got a powerful vocal. (Listen to John perfect it on the Anthology series. It also points to the fact that even from their early days they were playing a whole variety of different songs from different genres. This could also be said of many of the Beat boom groups from Liverpool. But it was this diversity as much as anything else which would define the Beatles as timeless.
This is probably my least favourite Beatles album (other than Yellow Submarine but that hardly counts). But when you look at each individual song, they're all great. Not sure what it's lacking, perhaps it's just they were still doing covers when they could have filled the album with self-written music. George didn't have any self-written songs on the album and only sang one, that's also a downside for me.
This album gets ragged on for being "war weary". Actually, I think Help is a better candidate for being tired (but I'll leave those comments for that page). Certainly it's not as varied or dynamic as Hard Days Night, but this is a very good album; especially when you add the single to the analysis. Alot is mentioned of the Dylan influence, but I think many of the acoustic tracks are also inspired by the success of the acoustic numbers from A Hard Days Night. Specifically, I believe they were building on the success of "if I Fell" and "I'll be Back". I know many of these tracks started out with a full electric line up, but I believe the above mentioned influences made it easy to go acoustic. To my mind they are doing the Everly Brothers and adding the folk/Dylan influence, along with their own awareness of their fantastic ability to sing duets. (Cynthia mentions how many times she and her friends were enraptured by the acoustic duets John and Paul would sing). As to the covers, Everybody and Moonlight are weak, but the rest are great. John dominates the writing, as Paul still seems to be looking for his voice (comparatively speaking); which I don't think he really finds until Rubber Soul. What your doing is not a very strong track. I rank it ahead of both Help and their first album and MMT and possibly Let it Be (even with Don't let me Down added). I love Georges 12 string , but it does seem to be getting old on some of these songs.
I really liked this album a lot... the covers and originals. It was an album made in a frenzied time, but you can start to hear the changes that were to be evident a year later with Rubber Soul.
What if the album lineup went like this:
No Reply
I'm a Loser
Baby's in Black
Rock and Roll Music
I'll Follow the Sun
Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby
Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey
Eight Days and Week
Words of Love
Honey Don't
Every Little Thing
I Don't Want to Spoil the Party
What You're Doing
Leave My Kitten Alone
Better? Post modern disc jockeying?
Hey Jerry, looks like you have my habit of mentally resequencing albums or adding unused tracks to see what happens. I do it all the time and my rejigged version of For Sale was pretty much the same except that I think Kansas City would have been a better closer. I agree with inserting Kitten, after hearing it on Anthology 1 I can't imagine why it wasn't used. I would have put it at the end of side one. Maybe I'd have switched round Baby's in Black and I'm a loser too. Otherwise I think you're spot on with this one. Incidentally, I think Mr.Moonlight sounds 10 times better on the remastered version - it's come to life.
This album took a long time for me to like, but once I matured with their music & came back to it, I realized how ridiculously strong it is. "I'll Follow The Sun" was my long time fav, but after really listening I realized "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" is one of John's great performances & "What You're Doing" is definitely one of the most slept on songs they've ever made. Add in "Baby In Black", which is one of the best Lennon/McCartney combo vocals of their entire catalog, and this album is among the strong of the pre-Studio band years. As a complete work, I'd take it over With The Beatles, Please Please Me & even A Hard Days Night.