#2. "Here Comes the Sun" (The Beatles)

Have you ever had a song literally stop you in your tracks?  Where you're in the middle of something, and suddenly you hear a piece of music that commands your attention so completely you have to stop whatever you're doing and just listen?
I've had it happen three times in my life.  Once was in early 1982 when I was 4 years old.  
I remember it had been a cold, exceptionally damp winter, and it had overstayed its welcome by creeping into what should have been spring.  As much as I enjoyed snow, hot chocolate, and the smell of woodsmoke, I'd had it with frozen gloom.  The weather had been making every adult I'd encountered cranky, and it also had been keeping me from finishing an outdoors project that I'd started earlier in the fall, which made me cranky.  (A relative of ours in Western NC had a small creek running through her property, and I got it in my head that we should have a creek at our house, too.  So, I borrowed a little pickaxe from my dad's tool shed, and I started digging my own "creek" in our backyard: a 6-inch wide, 4-foot long mini-trench that I just assumed would fill with running water after a good rain.  It didn't quite work out like that.  And when my dad kind of stumbled upon it—or into it—while mowing the grass later that spring, he logically assumed some animal had destroyed a patch of his yard, and he filled it back in.)
Anyway, I remember getting up this one morning, and it was like someone had flipped a switch: it had been cold and disgusting the day before, but suddenly it was warm and sunny.  The South is notoriously fickle when it comes to March-April weather; however, this felt like spring had officially sprung.
My mom sensed it, too.  She opened every window in the house, turned on the radio, and started her spring cleaning routine while I finished watching my daily episode of Sesame Street over a bowl of Cheerios.  
Normally, I would have been glued to the set, watching Big Bird trying to convince the grown-ups that his pal Mr. Snuffleupagus wasn't imaginary.  But then I heard a song with this beautiful plucked guitar line coming from the radio, and I immediately turned off the T.V. so I could listen.  The DJ (the late Russ Cassell on WFBC-FM out of Greenville, SC) made a brief announcement about a listener requesting "the perfect spring song," and then came the refrain: Here comes the sun / Doo-doo-doo-doo / Here comes the sun / I say, it's alright... 
I sat in front of our stereo, transfixed as the verses unfolded.  Every time I thought the song had gotten as good as it could get, some new layer of vocals or strings would drop in, and it would get even better.  But nothing prepared me for the descending bridge section (Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...) with its syncopated handclaps and Moog synth buzzing away.  I think my jaw literally dropped.  It somehow was gorgeous, cheerful, and rocking, all at the same time.  I'd never heard anything like it.
I didn't budge until the very end.  After the very last droplets of guitar had faded, I ran into the kitchen where my mom was mopping the floor and started trying to describe it to her.  I sang a few bars of what I could remember, when she put down the mop and went right to her record collection.  
"Is this it?" she asked, dropping the needle on the B-side of Abbey Road (1969).
And there it was again, pouring out of the speakers in glorious, static-less stereo.
She gave me a kiss on my noggin.  "You have good taste in music, kiddo," she told me.
Years later, reading about what had inspired George Harrison to write "Here Comes the Sun," I discovered that his muse had been a spring day after a long period of dreariness, not unlike how I'd first experienced the song.
Apparently, winter in England had been particularly long in 1969.  Furthermore, Harrison and his bandmates had been mired in endless meetings with accountants regarding The Beatles' cash-bleeding venture, Apple Corps Ltd.  In short, Harrison was burnt out.  
So in the middle of the tedium, along came a pleasant spring day, and Harrison decided to blow off his business meetings and hang out at his pal Eric Clapton's house instead.  
As he stated in his autobiography I, Me, Mine (1980), "The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote 'Here Comes The Sun'."

"Come Together" (The Beatles)

I wasn't always in love with "Come Together."  I hated it as a child, actually.  

More than anything, John Lennon's eerie, whispered Shoot me's followed by those echoey handclaps scared the hell out of me when I was little.  But there also were his lyrics: not one word seemed to be in its proper place.  It was as if he'd taken the language that my little kid brain was still trying to learn and chopped it up before also turning it inside out.  It bothered me profusely.

That's why for years when my mother would play Abbey Road (1969), I'd often ask her to start the album with George Harrison's "Something" instead of the Lennon-penned opener.

But then I hit puberty.  Half the time, my thoughts and feelings didn't make much sense, and even when they did, I wasn't all that interested in articulating them.  Suddenly, Lennon's bizarre, purposely inscrutable lyrics and twisted blues resonated with me, and all of my hormone-fueled moodiness and awkwardness—especially when it came to communication—had a theme song.

Today, I simply appreciate the song as an example of Lennon's genius and humor.  I mean, who the hell else could have gotten away with a line like Got to be good lookin', 'cause he's so hard to see?

I also feel this song is a perfect example of how this band was more than the sum of its parts.  Would the track be half as memorable without Paul McCartney's slinky bass?  Would it be half as sexy without Harrison's understated, upper-octave lead guitar?  Would it groove half as hard without Ringo Starr's thumping tom-toms and hi-hat work?

The obvious answer is "no" on all counts.

That's also the reason why no cover version of this song will ever come close to matching the rawness and animal magnetism of the original.

"You Never Give Me Your Money" (The Beatles)

When it comes to The Beatles and songwriting, I've always been more of a John Lennon fan.  But it was never really a conscious "Lennon vs. Paul McCartney vs. George Harrison" kind of thing.  I just always liked the quirkier, snarkier, R&B-tinged numbers on my mom's Beatles records, and 90% of those songs just happened to be written primarily by Lennon.
McCartney's "You Never Give Me Your Money" from Abbey Road (1969) is one of a few exceptions, though.
If you're familiar with the album, you know the track is the starting point for the lengthy 8-song medley that comprises most of the album's second side.  But it's more than just a transition piece or bookend for the medley; it's a smart, funky mini-suite featuring one of McCartney's best-ever hooks that concisely summarizes the history of the Beatles up to that point.
Despite public perception that The Beatles were wealthy beyond belief, they actually were bleeding cash following the death of their original manager, Brian Epstein, in 1967.  So they brought on a new financial manager, Allen Klein—a hard-nosed American businessman who also managed The Rolling Stones in the 60s (and screwed Mick & Keef out of the rights to their back catalog).  McCartney wasn't a fan of Klein from the start and felt that his tactics were a little too smoke and mirrors.  
In short, the song opens with McCartney expressing his frustration with Klein always presenting them with vague financial statements on paper instead of actually showing them where the money was.  Hence the line: You never give me your money / You only give me your funny paper.
From there, he reminisces about "the good ol' days" when they were just getting started—no money, no obligations, and no managers, and then shuttles back to the present through a dizzying series of key changes, essentially thanking his new wife Linda for extricating him from the hell of business meetings and whisking him away to the countryside (Step on the gas and wipe that tear away).
Apart from it being a strong track lyrically, the song is one of the tightest final performances of the entire band together.  McCartney treats us to some damn fine boogie-woogie piano and his baritone "Elvis voice," à la "Lady Madonna," not to mention his inimitable melodic/rhythmic bass playing (especially on the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 / All good children go to heaven coda).  But then there's also Lennon's raunchy distorted guitar, Harrison's bell-like guitar (fed through a rotating Leslie speaker), and Ringo Starr's simple but effective drumming, which punches and punctuates at all the right times.
Most bands don't sound this good when they're at the peak of their powers, much less when they're imploding.