The Beatles Got To Get You Into My Life/ Helter Skelter (Parlophone NZP 3546, ?)
The Beatles Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da/ While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Apple NZP 3318, 1963)
The Beatles The Long And Winding Road/ For You Blue (Apple NZP 3371, 1970)
The Beatles Eight Days A Week/ I Don't Want To Spoil The Party (Apple 5371, ?)
The Beatles produced a vast number of commercial songs that COULD have been issued as singles in the UK but never were.
The alternate Beatles' universe takes those songs and puts them out as singles.
All of these A sides could have been chart toppers if released. But they weren't. Bizarre.
Eight Days A Week for instance was released elsewhere as a single (U.S., Canada etc) and did okay (der - went #1 in the US - it's the bloody Beatles innit). It seems such an obvious choice too.
Ob-La-Di as well. Clearly a pop hit but they didn't release any singles from The Beatles double album so it wasn't a hit until Marmalade did their cover of it (der again as it also went #1).
Hidden gems: Helter Skelter as a B side? What are you mad? Often cited as evidence for the defence that Macca is a rocker like JWL. It's great, fits brilliantly on side 3 of the white album, but a B side?
Again George has a few B side licks. Both these feature some great guitar work, but not by George. While My Guitar... is a classic, of course, and features Slowhand; For You Blue features John on lap steel with a shotgun shell as his bottleneck.
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