5 Forgotten No. 1 Songs By The Beatles

It sounds counterintuitive to suggest that The Beatles, the most celebrated band of all time, has forgotten songs, and even more so to suggest the group has forgotten No. 1 hits. In fact, interest in the Fab Four has remained incredibly high in the decades since the band broke up back in 1970. But as the years have passed, the popularity of individual songs within The Beatles' discography has fluctuated. If we look at the numbers of streaming platforms such as Spotify, we can see at the time of writing that some of the band's iconic singles, such as "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be" — both of which hit the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 — continue to attract a huge listenership. Yet many of the most popular Beatles songs were not singles at all but album tracks that have aged particularly well, such as "Here Comes the Sun" and "In My Life."

With that in mind, we're revisiting five of the 20 Beatles singles that topped the charts in the United States but whose popularity has waned slightly within the band's discography. Don't get us wrong: These songs still have tens of millions of plays on streaming platforms (it's The Beatles, after all). But the truth is they no longer have a seat at the top table in terms of listener numbers in the way, say, "Come Together" or "Yesterday" have, and you might have even forgotten they were No. 1 singles at all. 

"Love Me Do" remains instantly recognizable as an early Beatles classic, but if we're honest, there is plenty to justify modern listeners' comparative lack of interest in the song. Unlike other early hits like "She Loves You" and "Can't Buy Me Love," the pace of the 1964 U.S. No. 1 is glacial rather than explosive. The lyrics are also exceptionally simple, even by the standards of early Beatles singles.

The song it resembles most among the early No. 1's is "I Want To Hold Your Hand," The Beatles' breakthrough single in America, which arguably beats "Love Me Do" on almost all metrics. But the truth is that "Love Me Do" is the one that started it all — well, in the U.K. at least, where it was The Beatles' first single. And it has to be noted that though the track may sound utterly inoffensive now, in the context of the very early '60s, it would have been something of a bombshell: A stripped-back love song featuring raw vocals that, when you actually listen to them, are subtly seductive.

Source: S. Flannagan/grunge.com

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