MONEY (1962) by the Beatles with Pete Best

I haven't heard many Beatles tracks with Pete Best in the band. I've looked, but I've never made a science of it. This cut is from the Decca auditions, and I think it's a very successful track. It shows what I've said all along: the Beatles were a damn good bar-band at this time. 

But of course, at least three of them had big ambitions, and John had huge pretensions. Being big-time in the bar-band business brought in small crowds and little money. The real money was in big selling records, with band members holding the publishing rights, and big venue shows. So that's where the Beatles steered their course. I usually say that they "sold out," but in my kinder moments I don't think that's exactly fair. Maybe they were just confident. They were, after all, very good for a bar-band. They looked for people who could help them, and got rid of someone who they thought would hold them back. A little on the cold side, but if the Beatles were not a cold-hearted, self-interested bunch of guys, they'd have stayed together until death overtook them. That would have been the smart thing to do. 

"Money," a perfect song choice for this lot. 

Pete Best here is unspectacular but inoffensive. He's not as bad as a lot of people make him out to be. He just wasn't in the mold of what the Beatles wanted to become. Which was a very polished Moon-Spoon-June, Tin Pan Alley, Brill Building act that appealed to all age groups. Pete probably had more fun with his own band after he left, excuse me, was kicked out.