These are the Beatles’ best songs in their infancy. Imagine a time when Paul McCartney introduced “Yesterday” by saying, “It goes E minor to A-7th to D minor. Ready?” Or when “Strawberry Fields Forever” was a touching little folk song, stripped of all that experimental ’60s goo. The Beatles weren’t sure the world should hear all this, but they were smart to let us in on a few of their secrets. Even the lamer efforts here–a weirdly affectless version of “Norwegian Wood,” a hornless, triumphantly bad “Got to Get You Into My Life”–are stunning in their strange way. They don’t deflate the Beatles mystique one iota. They just make you wonder how four such fallible musicians made one such infallible band.
J. G.
