Claude says:Past Masters Vol. One is where the Beatles' pre-album singles and B-sides live—the scrappy, hungry stuff from 1963-64 that didn't fit the album narratives, including the German-language versions that almost nobody touches. You cycled through it between 2009 and 2012, gravitating toward the obvious touchstones like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" but also finding something in the deeper cuts and oddities, the kind of record that rewards revisiting when you're trying to understand where the mania actually started.