149. Mr. Moonlight
This delightfully weird cover track gets a lot of criticism that's pretty understandable (but also wrong)
Mr. Moonlight is often cited as a contender for worst Beatles song. I can already hear the gnashing of teeth from some readers who have made precisely that case to me. And look, I understand. If you asked me to write an essay on why it’s the worst song, I could certainly assemble an argument. It doesn’t really make a ton of sense as a Beatles song. It’s campy. It’s very silly. The organ solo. I get all that.
But the reality is that none of those things actually make sense to me. Because I listen to the song and it’s just such a joy. The Hammond solo, for example, is genuinely bizarre. But isn’t it wonderful that it’s so strange? Wouldn’t the song be worse if it were just a normal guitar solo?1 The conga drums are ridiculous. But also fun.
And if you take a step back and ask yourself what exactly is this thing doing on a Beatles record, the obvious answer is that it’s doing what so many other odd things do in the Beatles catalog: it’s just being itself.
I would not be particularly interested in The Beatles if they mostly played songs that sounded like this. I’m not invested in the works of Dr. Feelgood. But I do think that their restless need to discover new things and to grab influences from everywhere is a huge part of what made them the best band in the world. So it’s nice to see that reflected here and there in the history. It’s actually quite delightful that they found this random b-side of a single that didn’t exactly drawn a lot of attention to itself, and said ‘this one is ours now.’ Because they didn’t just add it to their repertoire; they actually made it a feature of their live shows.
And come on, even if you don’t get it in some cosmic sense, you have to admit that John’s opening “MISTEEEEEEEER MOOOOOOOONLIIIIIIIGHT” is incredible. Honestly, the rest of the song could be absolute trash and I’d still probably give this at least two and a half stars.
Some of the haters note that the energy of this intro doesn’t really bear out through the rest of the song, but I also think that’s kind of the charm. The harmonies feel almost intentionally flat, like they weren’t searching for ways to lift John’s lead vocals but were actually trying to cancel out its peaks and valleys. If anything, it sounds like an early intro into the sort of drone-sound that would become far more popular a few years later. It’s not the most tuneful experience, but it’s weird and fun.
I also really dig the percussion, particularly the buildup to the refrain—the dum-dum-dum-dum-BAM that segues into John belting out “Mr. Moonlight,” which is then reversed at the end of the section in order to lead back out to the next verse. It doesn’t sound remotely like ‘The Beatles’ which is why it works so well.
So look: I do recognize the credible arguments against the song. I have no problem if someone else wants to put this at the bottom of their list. For me, though, this song is just a lot more interesting than yet another straightforward (even if technically excellent) cover of some classic rockabilly or rock and roll number would have been. In fact, we know exactly what the alternative was, since they recorded Mr. Moonlight in the same session as Leave My Kitten Alone. Which is a good song, which they covered well. And I’m glad that we have all the outtakes and can hear it. But Kitten doesn’t really takes us anywhere we haven’t already been. Mr. Moonlight does. Its weird, legitimately weird. And I really appreciate that.
I mean, listen to the version from the Anthology, before they added the Hammond solo. It’s...not good.