Most people agree that the fourth Beatles album, called for a joke “Beatles for sale”, is not one of their best ones at all.

Explications talk about the hurry and the stressed mood the Beatles were involved in during recording sessions. When the four came in studio on August the 11th 1964, they came from mounths over mounths of hard work with no break at all. On June they had finished “A Hard Day’s Night”, new album and soundtrack of their first movie. Then they had travelled around the world for a couple of mounths, playing from June to July in Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zeland, Sweden and doing a lot of performances for radio and tv shows. In the meantime, on July the 6th there had been the premiere of the movie in London. All this effort led to another great ammount of success: at the beginning of August “A Hard Day’s Night” was on the top of the UK and US charts. And there was a tour in the United States to be done between August and September.

It sounds strange for a band, being so busy, to start recording new stuff. But marketing was different at that time, and the Beatles had to release at least two albums a year. So they decided to spend some breaks from touring recording a new album to be released during Christmas time.

It looks clear, then, that they had no songs enough for a new record. Don’t forget the album before was the first one to present only Lennon-McCartney songs: such an effort in creativity was hard to repeat after few weeks.

So the band tried to find a solution using some old material not released on record yet. Basically they chose some rock n’ roll evergreens they were used to play live; but they were forced, too, to record some of their previously unreleased songs.

As matter of facts, if you read the tracklist, you’ll notice there’re 14 songs, 6 of which are covers (Rock And Roll Music, Mr Moonlight, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, Words of Love, Honey Don’t, Everybody’s Trying to Be my baby); plus 5 new songs and “I’ll Follow the Sun”, that McCartney wrote in his teenage.

Dispite all of this, the album was just another hit over the world: that proves just the Beatles at that time could make gold out of everything they touched. Realeased in the UK on December the 4th, and in the US on the 15th as “Beatles ‘65”, it topped soon both the charts.

As he told Mark Lewisohn, George Martin is not so proud about this album. He thinks it came out of hurry and tiredness and it represents a lack of creativity of the band.

I don’t agree completely. It’s sure it’s an album without much coherence and first choice material. Most of the covers anyway show the Beatles as good as usual in terms of improving others’ songs. Try comparing “Rock And Roll Music” or “Kasas City” with the original versions: you’ll notice the Beatles’ ones are stronger and much more exciting.

It’s true new songs are not all good the same. But technically they show some little experiments, as to prove the Beatles were just tired and simply had no time, but they were all but in lack of creativity. “I Feel Fine” presents the very first feedback on a rock record; “Eight Days a Week” starts with an unusual fade-in; “Every Little Thing” and the delicious “What You’re Doing” offer some interesting experimental drum parts. Not to forget that during those sessions they recorded “She’s A Woman” (not to be put on the album), which about a year and a half before “Rain” and “Paperback Writer” show one of the first attempts to innovate bass sound, that would be one of their main interests during 1966-67.

About lyrics, instead, “I’m a Loser” was one of the first songs Lennon, influenced by Bob Dylan, tried to write autobiographically, apart from the “boy meets girl” cliché.

At the end I think it’s a good album, not a masterpiece anyway, but it deserves attention for a number of reasons.

p.s. or maybe it’s just that it reminds me my teenage, since it was the last one I bought for my collection of vynils. I came in the shop to buy only “With the Beatles” and they told me they were about to switch to Cds only; so I thought I should hurry buying “Beatles for Sale” too…