In an alternate universe where the Marvelettes’ definitive original recording of “Please Mister Postman” didn’t exist, the Beatles’ version would serve as a totally adequate substitute. John Lennon delivers a solid vocal and the musicianship is more than competent…but the lads brought nothing new to the table here, aside from swapping the gender in the lyrics.

Well, for the narrator at least. A female mail carrier would have been a little too progressive for 1963.

That said, while I’m fantasizing about alternate universes, I wouldn’t mind living in a world in which John Lennon had released an album of 60s girl group covers. I realize that seems odd considering that the Beatles recorded plenty of them on their early albums and I’m ranking them all so low, but his cover of Rosie and the Originals’ “Angel Baby” (“one of my all-time favorite songs,” he notes in the intro) was a highlight of the contentious and controversial 1973-4 Rock ‘n’ Roll sessions…yet it remained officially unreleased until six years after Lennon’s death.