Beatles for Sale Review

Everything about this record says tired. The sleeve is four unsmiling men in autumn light, the title is a shrug, and six of the fourteen tracks are covers because there was no time to write more. What saves it from being a write off is the opening run. No Reply is a small piece of paranoid theatre with a genuine key change of a chorus. I'm a Loser is Lennon trying on Dylan and finding the coat fits better than expected.

Baby's in Black is a waltz about grief that nobody asked a mop top band to write. After that the record thins badly. Rock and Roll Music and Kansas City are the old club set replayed with less appetite than a year earlier, and Mr Moonlight is the worst thing they released under their own name. Eight Days a Week is a hit and a slight one. Play it next to what came either side and the drop is obvious. Useful as a hinge into the darker writing that followed, weak as an album you would actually reach for.