Pass Me a Fifth: MORE "Fifth Beatle" Shit!

It makes you want to reach for a drink. Or a gun.

After ALL these years, people are still playing the fucking "FIFTH BEATLE" game?

A fairly obscure drummer dies, and his obit, all over the world, is that he was...THE FIFTH BEATLE.

Sapristi! At least CNN merely said he was "A" Fifth Beatle. They know there have been MANY.

IF I'M BEING HONEST, I am not SUCH a fuckin' Beatles nerd that I could instantly have told anyone what the fuck Andy White did with the Fab Four.

Turns out he played drums on a 3rd take of "Love Me Do." The Pete Best version was scrapped. The Starr version managed to get released in England in 1962. BUT the Andy White take was on American pressings and the British "Please Please Me" album and other album releases. Wonderful.

I do have all three, 'cause I have that stupid "Rarities" vinyl LP as well as the "Past Masters" CD and the somewhat frustrating "Anthology 1" with its hodge podge of oddities and so-whats. I barely listened to ANY of these valuable "alternate takes."

It's like most of those bootlegs (and even "Anthology" tracks) where you're supposed to be impressed by the insertion of a tambourine, or a few extra drum beats at a fade out. I didn't notice or care about the differences on the three "Love Me Do" versions.

Drumming doesn't make 'Love Me Do' much better or worse than what it is; a cute if minor Beatles song. The lyrics are pretty lame, and the stop-start tempo is novelty-annoying. When the song gets going, and stops being a gestapo march, it's just creepy. John's spittle-in-your-ear nasal intimacy "Love me do, ahhh..." might've thrilled some female idiot fan back in '62 but if you do care to listen to it a few times or analyze it, it comes off as smarmy, condescending, wheedling and obnoxious.

HOW many fucking FIFTH BEATLES were there? Sutcliffe. Best. Mal Evans. Epstein. Murray the K. Yoko. Billy Preston. The list goes ON AND ON AND ON.

There were clearly FOUR Beatles that anyone cares about. The rest of the musicians are minor players and session men, and the others were...a roadie, a manager, a disc jockey, etc. so HOW the FUCK do you even dare say "FIFTH BEATLE?"

It's nice that this guy gets an obit, which he wouldn't have gotten without that silly FIFTH BEATLE trivia tag. Oh yeah, and the obit is padded out by a note that his wife was in some group that recorded some rotten thing called "We Love You Beatles." Please! If any other "FIFTH BEATLE" is still alive and dies, PLEASE PLEASE ME and DON'T MENTION THAT STUPID PHRASE!