Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

>>>I'd vote for Rain (B-side to Paperback Writer) as the best B-side.

Point well taken, Rain (Ringo's favorite Beatles song) was not the big commercial hit that ISHST was but it's a great song. But it's true.... most groups would KILL for even ONE of the Beatle's B-sides.

A few other Beatle singles with B-sides to kill (or die) for:

A Hard Day's Night / I Should Have Known Better
And I Love Her / If I Fell
I Feel Fine / She's A Woman
We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper
Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane
Hello Goodbye / I Am The Walrus

And how about:
Come Together/Something
Hey Jude/Revolution
Get Back/Don't Let Me Down


The Beatles were absolute masters of the single release, and pretty much made standard the double "A" sided hit. And remember, many of their singles weren't part of albums (the UK releases), making thier singles/album releases even more staggering.

yup.... it was truly amazing.

While we are talking about The Beatles having hits on both sides of the singles released, what other groups accomplished this.

I thought that the Rolling Stones may have been successful in this regard, however, outside of "Let's Spend The Night Together/Ruby Tuesday" the Stones are probably not deserving of this distinction.

Beach Boys had a few. Surfer Girl/Little Deuce Coupe. I Get Around/ Don't Worry Baby. God Only Knows/Wouldn't It Be Nice, for example. They may not have reached #1 but both sides got a lot of radio airplay.

I think The Stones or their managers were too smart to put out double sided hits at least it seems that way, they had plenty of hits and were smashes. I can remember stuff like Jumpin' Jack Flash and Satisfaction being hits for virtually the whole summer. But hen again after some thought maybe they didn't have enough good songs.

Elvis had a many good A/B 45's in the early stages of R&R:

Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel 1956
Jailhouse Rock/Treat Me Nice 1957
Loving You/Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear 1957

A few more in the 50's were really great on both sides, such as:

Heartbreak Hotel/I Was The One
Trying To Get To You/I Love You Because
Love Me Tender/Any Way You Want Me
All Shook Up/That's When Your Heartaches Begin

Overall, I'd say Elvis is 2nd to the Beatles in the quality of 45 rpm realeases on both sides or the record, but his were primarily in the 50's when R&R was brand new. His 60's & 70's issues usually contained non-hit b sides.

The Beatles here in UK released 4 sngles officially classed as double "A"sides

Daytripper/We can work it out
Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby
Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
Something/Come Together

In essence though radio sations really only played Something


The Stones official double A's were
Let's Spend The Night Together/Ruby Tuesday
Brown Sugar/Let It Rock again radio only played Brown Sugar
Miss You/Faraway Eyes

apart from the first one others were released in the 70's.

I don't think that the Stones had sufficient hits to have release the double A sides with the frequency of the Beatles. As to their smart management, they basically ignored Andrew Loog Olham to the point that he left. I think they were caught up in it Bob. 19th Nervous Breakdown may have been autobigraphical and while time is on their side, I consider that they have not had a great tune in decades.

I confess to not being a Stones fan as someone Bob I think succintly observed yu were either a Stones madn or a Beatles man. I tended to beleive that those who went for The Stones did so because they thought it gave them a more rebellious persona.

I did like their first ever single "Come On" though and one track on their debut album got a lot of plays at parties I went to "Tell Me"

"Tell Me" and "It's All Over Now" were creative both in there composition and performance. "Heart of Stone" is also a fine tune in my books. But after the first few years the Stones' tunes quickly became "same old, same old" as they did not have the depth to go beyond this. I consider that they are guilty of handing on far too long with limited material. In defence of this, how successful have any of them been in their solo recordings, and if you take away David Bowie, well ...

We were noodling around with "Tell Me" last night as a possible song for the band. Another Stone tune from that same time will definitely be on the list: Under Asst W Coast Promo Man

Andrew: You are exactly right. The quality of both sides of Elvis' singles boggle the mind. How did he record so many hits? He certainly could have, and probably did if the truth be known, give the Beatles' a marketing lesson on double A side material.

One of my bands did "Underassistant, etc." back in the '60s. Great fun and a rare sarcastic tune about the triviality of the music biz back then.

I thought they were great until Mick Taylor left the band basically, from then on they had the sporadic good song. I even liked "The girl With Far Away eyes", that sort of stuff. I still respect them for what they did. I actually liked both although I would vacillate between them sometimes. I was too young really when they first came out to know about rebeling against anything but my parents and school. I loved it all back then, all the groups, especially the British bands though.