The sneaking suspicion that the Beatles stayed away from the blues for so long because they were incapable of it disappears after "Yer Blues." Lacking a guitar virtuoso like Jeff Beck or Clapton, the Beatles have fashioned their own version of the medium, a kind of pop-blues that is faithful to the spirit and style of the real blues. It is so exciting to hear the Beatles play the blues that one is tempted to wish that they might fully commit themselves to it.

George Harrison has come up with one of his finest songs in a long time with "Savoy Truffle," which is all about getting your teeth pulled out because you have had too many irresistible desserts to eat. Written with uncommon (for Harrison) felicity the song is uncommonly (for Harrison) witty

You might not feel it now

But when the pain cuts through

You're going to know and how

The sweat is going to fill your head

When it becomes too much

You're going to shout aloud --Creme tangerine.

Bad Songs

Using the term "bad" for the Beatles always means using it in a relative sense. Nevertheless, the entire slew of slow love songs on the two records, presumably McCartney's work, are surprisingly undistinguished. The '30's type ballads ("Sexy Sadie," "Honey Pie") have lost their novelty and much of their charm, remaining now as just so much old-fashioned schmaltz, "I Will" and "Julia," the love songs, are not inventive or gripping enough. McCartney's great period of love ballads seems over because he has not done much since the fervent days of "Things We Said Today" and "And I Love Her" and "Girl." Songs like "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son" are done much better by the Incredible String Band and that is that.

Good Songs

The rest of the songs on the album are of varying degrees of goodness, with many many Beatle-like touches of genius (the glittering horns and Paul's singing in "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"; the two tempos in "Helter-Skelter"--Ringo's medium and George's very fast and the precise interchange between them; the ponderous massive build-up to an electrifying flourish in "I'm So Tired"); but they are too often only unsustained touches.

Typical of such half-heartedness is the treatment of the song "Why don't we do it in the road?" A song with such a simple structure needs, and is ideally suited for, extensive musical exploration. The Beatles waste this opportunity with pedantic and sluggish guitar work and a generally uninspired musical conception, though Ringo tries hard. As a result the song falls flatter than it might have; particularly so because the shock value of the first line--"Why don't we do it in the road?"--is undercut by the second line which goes "No one will be watching us."

When the Beatles sing good night it is to "Everybody Everywhere," and it is true because we are all caught up in this fierce love-hate (but mostly love) affair that we will never be able to explain to our children. Mad records and glad records and bad records and sad records and one day it will all end. But it hasn't yet, I don't think. Where is the foolhardy soul who dares to admit that he thought in 1965 that the Beatles were all washed-up?   --SALAHUDDIN I. IMAM