Say Goodbye to Summer (with the Beatles)

The Beatles were officially together less than ten years, yet as the new "The Beatles: Rock Band" game makes clear, they reinvented themselves time and again. And we're not just talking haircuts. Charting a bold and innovative course through pop music, the fab four were a musically restless bunch, not content to repeat their sound from album to album. If you listen your way through their albums, The Beatles seem like they were about a hundred bands in one.

Lately in SparkLand we've been focused on summer (or, more specifically and tragically, end-of-summer) music, so we're focusing on that one side of The Beatles for this mix. These songs aren't necessarily from their tuneful moptop phase either—they simply represent the gauzy, laid-back side of a band that sounds particularly good as the bright days imperceptibly grow shorter.

"Golden Slumbers"
You can almost hear seeds of Kings of Leon in this very short McCartney classic from Abbey Road, the last album The Beatles recorded together.

"Sun King"
Also from Abbey Road, the Sun King is Lennon in pure psychedelic bliss-out mode, as he and McCartney sing in foreign languages and toast the Sun King for bestowing happiness and laughter. C'mon, you did the same thing at some point this summer.

"Drive My Car"
From much earlier in the band's history, "Drive My Car" is perfect Beatles driving music—a great first song to pop in for that one last road trip of summer. And it's not too bad for the ride home from the first day back at school either. "Beep beep and beep beep—yeah!" How you gonna beat that?

"Here, There and Everywhere"
Here's hoping the creators of The Beatles: Rock Band were smart enough to include this one. The great McCartney ballad is the song to listen to when recalling your summer crush, whether or not that crush is continuing into September with you or not. The Beatles pointedly included ooh-ahh background vocals to sound like the Beach Boys—and what's more summery than that?

"Across the Universe"
This one contains all the fragile atmosphere of those last hours before school begins for another year. Lennon conjures up wonderful imagery as words (including several in Sanskrit) weave in and out of the trippy melody and groove. Play this one soft or loud—the effect is the same.

Got a Beatles favorite of your own—one that sounds great in summer or fall?