200: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road
Album: The Beatles
Writer: McCartney
Singer: McCartney
Verdict: A song about two monkeys having sex in the street. Or two humans. The song leaves it up to your imagination. What doesn’t require imagination is the song’s lyric. There are a total of fourteen words here, repeated over and over. That seems to be a common theme among these songs down here.
199: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer: McCartney
Singer: McCartney
Verdict: See below
198: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer: McCartney
Singer: McCartney
Verdict: I don’t mind the idea of these two songs being the intro and the outro to the album and I don’t mind theme albums with theme songs. This one just doesn’t do it for me. Paul’s singing is fine, but it’s just not terribly interesting. I really like the french horn, but the tambourine and the maracas ruin things for me. If I was being honest, I would rank the first version a little higher than the reprise, but I really don’t feel like talking about this on two separate days. The one thing I’ll say is that both lead well into the songs that follow them.
197: Honey Don’t
Album: Beatles For Sale
Writer: Carl Perkins
Singer: Starr
Verdict: A rockabilly cover and I don’t care too much for rockabilly. The best parts of the song are Starr’s interjections. “Rock on George, one time for me!” Harrison’s guitar solos are decent, but nothing to write home about.
196: Chains
Album: Please Please Me
Writer: Gerry Goffin, Carole King
Singer: Harrison
Verdict: Man these covers are just so freaking awful. In addition to the bland lyrics the rhythm here is really off-putting. Probably ranked too high.
Death By Troggles 
The bottom 50 is a hard slog and it’s just quibbling to argue if a song is 201 or 186 but man that’s pretty low for SPLHCB. Partially because it’s part of the canon. Sure the reprise can be down here but the main song? I know you are ranking them on how much you like them but still. This from a guy who thinks Sgt Peppers doesn’t hold up well and has like 4 good songs on the entire album.
I think all lists should be “how you like them.” People who try to use objectivity to rank pop culture come off…something else.
And yeah, I could have easily ranked the main song around 160. But as I said, I didn’t want to talk about them twice so I lumped them together. Bottom line, I don’t want to listen to it.
Well, I still like Sgt. Peppers once in a while,
The song or the album? The song is ok and should be rated way higher. Like in the 120s. But I maintain the album doesn’t hold up. It’s too much part of the times it was recorded. There are like 4 really good songs, a bunch of meh ones and then some just plain goofy songs. Whereas I could listen to all of Abbey Road all day long.
After the countdown I plan to average the rankings and see how each album does. I imagine Pepper will rank around the middle. We’ll see.
Abbey Road was in the top 10 on my albums countdown. I’m curious if it will wind up first after this.
I guess I don’t hate Sgt. Pepper, but I’ll leave the arguments to the superfans.
“Why Don’t We Do it in the Road” is certainly atrocious, though. This was a favorite of friends of mine in high school. ‘Cause hey, sex!