Welcome to Nothing is Real, a podcast about the Beatles. Everybody thinks they know the Beatles,

but how much do we really know?

My name is Jason Carty. My name is Steven Cockcroft. And we are live on tape from Dublin.

Today we are going to talk about the Beatles double A-sides.

So in the official Beatles singles canon from 1962 to 1970 in the UK they put out 21 singles, 17 of those got to number one.

But four of those singles were double A-sided singles.

And each one came out at a different point in their career and tells a little bit of a different story.

So we're going to look at those four singles today.

Stephen, something I did not know until I started looking into it was that the Beatles invented the double A-sided single.

Yes, this had never happened before.

This is essentially just to explain where each side of a 45 is designated as an A side in its own right.

Never been done before.

I think it's indicative maybe the rivalry between John and Paul.

You have two top not songwriters producing material.

There's an embarrassment of riches. They're fighting over the primary spot. Yeah. And it's, I mean, you're right. They're a group

that was kind of perfectly designed for double A sides because you have two A side personalities

trying to drive the group forward. Now, there were certainly instances in rock and roll of B sides taking over and becoming the A side,

so rock around the clock famously was a B side originally until it became an A side.

But the first double A-sided single as we know today was, as I said, by the Beatles.

And so let's just get stuck in.

The first double A side that they put out was on the 3rd of December,

1965, and it was

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