Take Me On a Magical Mystery Tour

First off, let me send love and cheer to "N," who just keeps posting the nicest comments here.

So... yesterday I spent the day with my friend Adam. We ate southern food in three different restaurants and talked about our experiences, and then I turned the entire day into a pithy little story about Dixie culture in NYC that will appear in the summer of issue of "Sights," the in-flight magazine for ATA Airlines.

But don't worry... I don't use any space in the article to describe how sick I felt after eating three meals' worth of fried. And yes, I do mean "fried" as a noun. Specifying that I ate "fried chicken" would imply that other things on my plate weren't fried, and that just wasn't the case. I think even the red velvet cake was fried. By the end of this little adventure, my brain certainly was.

As we were walking off some of the 8,000 calories we consumed, Adam and I started talking about music, and he threw down a bit of a gauntlet for me.

"Mark," he said, "You should really know more about The Beatles. Like their more obscure songs. They're great, and I think you'd enjoy them."

It's true. I don't know that much about The Fab Four. I mean, obviously I know "Yesterday" and "Paperback Writer" and "Hey Jude" and the other 20 Beatles songs you can't avoid if you grow up as a hearing person in the Western world. But the album cuts? Not so much. I've just never walked down that long and winding road, if you will.

However, I'm willing to travel. After all, if Elton John's old album tracks can be so awesome (and they are!), then the same might be true of the mop toppers.

Which leads me to a question for all of you: Where should I begin? I need, like, four or five songs to get me started. Suggestions? Anything I should avoid?

All your help in my Beatle-fication is greatly appreciated.