81. I've Just Seen A Face

 

(Wings 1976 version)

 

"I've Just Seen a Face" is a song by The Beatles. It appears on their 1965 album, Help!, as well as the American release of their album Rubber Soul from the same year.

 

"I've Just Seen a Face" was written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon-McCartney), and features McCartney on vocals. Before its release, the song was briefly titled "Aunty Gin's Theme," after his father's youngest sister, because it was one of her favorites.

 

The Help! version was recorded on 14 June 1965, at Abbey Road Studios in London in the same session with "Yesterday."

 

McCartney live versions

The song has remained a favourite of McCartney's as indicated by live performances during his solo career. It was one of only five Beatles numbers performed on his Wings Over America Tour in 1976. Post-Beatles live versions appear on the 1976 album Wings over America, on the 1991 album Unplugged (The Official Bootleg), and on the 2005 DVD, Live In Red Square.

 

 

Cover versions

Notable covers of "I've Just Seen a Face" have been done by The Dillards, Arlo Guthrie and Warren Zevon, Holly Cole, The Living End, Kenny Rankin, Eddie Vedder, Lucy Kaplansky, Gray Matter, John Pizzarelli, Thrice, and Brandi Carlile. Travis used the section of "Had it had been another day..." in "All I Want to Do Is Rock. The song is also sung in the second trailer of the upcoming movie, "Across the Universe"."

82. Yesterday

 

 

Yesterday" is a pop song originally recorded by The Beatles for their album Help! (1965). According to the Guinness Book of Records, "Yesterday" has the most cover versions of any song ever written (although there is strong evidence to suggest that Gershwin's aria "Summertime" is in fact that most widely covered song, with in excess of seven thousand recorded covers in existence). In defense of the "Yesterday" claim, however, BMI asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone, probably cementing the song as the most performed composition of all time. The song remains popular today with more than 3000 recorded cover versions, the first hitting the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!.

 

"Yesterday" takes the form of an acoustic ballad about a lost loved one. It was the first official recording by The Beatles that relied upon a performance by a single member of the band: McCartney was accompanied solely by a string quartet. The final recording differed so greatly from other works by The Beatles that the other three members of the band vetoed the song's release as a single in the United Kingdom. Although credited to "Lennon/McCartney", as were all Beatles songs written by either member of the pair, the song was written solely by McCartney.

 

 

Origins

According to biographers of McCartney and The Beatles, McCartney composed the entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano, turned on a tape recorder, and played the tune to avoid letting it slip into the recesses of his mind.

 

McCartney's initial concern was that he had subconsciously plagiarised someone else's work (known as cryptomnesia). As he put it, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before."Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it".

 

Upon being convinced that he had not robbed anybody of his melody, McCartney began writing lyrics to suit it. As Lennon and McCartney were known to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, entitled "Scrambled Eggs", was used for the song until something more suitable was written. In his biography, "Many Years From Now", McCartney wrote: "So first of all I checked this melody out, and people said to me, 'No, it's lovely, and I'm sure it's all yours.' It took me a little while to allow myself to claim it, but then like a prospector I finally staked my claim; stuck a little sign on it and said, 'Okay, it's mine!' It had no words. I used to call it 'Scrambled Eggs'."

 

During the shooting of Help!, a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted. McCartney would take advantage of this opportunity to perform "Scrambled Eggs" accompanied by the piano. Richard Lester, the director, was greatly annoyed by this, and eventually lost his temper, telling McCartney to finish writing the song, or he would have the piano removed. McCartney's original lyrics were, "Scrambled eggs, Oh, baby how I love your legs."

 

McCartney originally claimed he had written "Yesterday" during The Beatles' tour of France in 1964; however, the song was not released until the summer of 1965. During the intervening time, The Beatles released two albums, Beatles for Sale and A Hard Day's Night, both of which could have included "Yesterday". Although McCartney has never elaborated his claims, it is likely that the reason for such a long delay, if it existed, was a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song's arrangement, or, equally likely, the distaste of the other Beatles for the song.

 

Lennon later indicated that the song had been around for a while before:

 

"The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. We called it 'Scrambled Eggs' and it became a joke between us. We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn't find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we'd had so many laughs about it."

 

McCartney said the breakthrough with the lyrics came during a trip to Portugal in May 1965:

 

"I remember mulling over the tune 'Yesterday', and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse. I started to develop the idea ... da-da da, yes-ter-day, sud-den-ly, fun-il-ly, mer-il-ly and Yes-ter-day, that's good. All my troubles seemed so far away. It's easy to rhyme those a's: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there's a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. Sud-den-ly, and 'b' again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it."

 

On 27 May 1965, McCartney and Asher flew to Lisbon for a holiday in the Algarve, and he borrowed an acoustic guitar from Bruce Welch—whose house they were staying in—and completed the work on "Yesterday".

 

The song was offered as a demo to Chris Farlowe prior to The Beatles recording it, but he turned it down as he considered it too soft.

 

 

Recording

Two days after returning home, the track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on the 14 June and 17 June 1965. There are conflicting accounts of how the song was recorded, the most quoted one being that McCartney recorded the song by himself, without bothering to involve the other band members. Alternative sources, however, state that McCartney and the other Beatles tried a variety of instruments, including drums and an organ, and that George Martin later persuaded them to allow McCartney to play his acoustic guitar, later on editing in a string quartet for backup. If so, none of the other band members were included in the final recording. However, the song was played with the other members of the band in a 1966 Tokyo concert.

 

McCartney performed two takes of "Yesterday" on 14 June 1965. Take 2 was deemed best and used as the master take. A string quartet was overdubbed on take 2 and that version was released. Take 1 was later released on the Anthology 2 compilation without the string overdub. On take 1, McCartney can be heard giving chord changes to George Harrison before starting, but George does not appear to actually play. Take 2 had two lines transposed from the first take: "There's a shadow hanging over me"/"I'm not half the man I used to be,"though it seems clear that their order in take 2 was the correct one, because McCartney can be heard, in take 1, suppressing a laugh at his mistake.

 

 

Release

 

Eleven years after the U.S. release, EMI released "Yesterday" in the UKAlthough McCartney had fallen in love with the song, he had a much harder time convincing the other members of the band that it was worthy of an album place, the main objection being that it did not fit in with their image, especially considering that "Yesterday" was extremely unlike other Beatles' songs at the time. This feeling was so strong that the other Beatles—Lennon, Harrison and Ringo Starr—refused to permit the release of a single in the United Kingdom. This did not prevent Matt Monro from recording the first of many cover versions of "Yesterday" to come. His version made it into the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release in the autumn of 1965. Other artists to perform cover versions of this song include McFly and Sting.

 

In the United States, The Beatles' influence on their record label, Capitol, was not as strong. A single was released there, pairing "Yesterday" as the B-Side of "Act Naturally", featuring Ringo as a singer who was the most popular member of The Beatles in the U.S. at that time. After the tremendous success of "Yesterday", the sequence in which the songs appeared on the sleeves was changed. The single was charting by 29 September 1965, and topped the charts for a full month, beginning on October 9. The song spent a remarkable total of 11 weeks in the American charts, selling a million copies within five weeks. "Yesterday" was the most-played song on American radio for eight consecutive years, its popularity refusing to abate.

 

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom (UK), Help! debuted at number one on August 14, 1965 (the first album ever to do so), and continued to top the charts for nine weeks. According to a website, "Yesterday" was dedicated to Iris Caldwell on the show "Blackpool Night Out". Her mother, Violet, told McCartney that her daughter didn't want to speak to him again because he "didn't have any feelings". During this performance, McCartney sang the song and played acoustic guitar, backed by a string quartet, but not by his fellow Beatles. When The Beatles played "Yesterday" during their 1966 world tour, however, the band played the song with their usual live instrumental lineup of McCartney on electric bass guitar, Harrison and Lennon on electric guitars, and Starr on drums.

 

On 4 March 1966, "Yesterday" was released as an EP in the UK, joined by "Act Naturally" on the A-side with "You Like Me Too Much" and "It's Only Love" on the B-side. By 12 March it had begun its run on the charts. On 26 March 1966, the EP went to number one, a position it held for two months.

 

Ten years later on 8 March 1976, "Yesterday" was released by Parlophone as a single in the United Kingdom, featuring "I Should Have Known Better" on the B-side. Entering the charts on 13 March, the single stayed there for seven weeks, but it never rose higher than number 8. The release came about due to the expiration of The Beatles' contract with EMI, Parlophone's parent. EMI released as many singles by The Beatles as they could on the same day, leading to 23 of them hitting the top 100 in the United Kingdom charts, including six in the top 50.

 

 

Awards, accolades and brickbats

"Yesterday" has achieved recognition as being the most recorded song in the history of popular music; its entry in the Guinness Book of Records suggests over 3000 different cover versions to date, by an eclectic mix of artists including Joan Baez, Liberace, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Wet Wet Wet, Plácido Domingo, The Head Shop, and Boyz II Men. In 1976, David Essex did a cover version of the song for the ephemeral musical documentary All This and World War II. After Muzak switched in the 1990s to programs based on commercial recordings, Muzak's inventory grew to include about 500 "Yesterday" covers. At the 2006 Grammy Awards, McCartney performed the song live as a mash-up with Linkin Park and Jay-Z's Numb/Encore.

 

"Yesterday" won the Ivor Novello Award for 'Outstanding Song of 1965', and came second for 'Most Performed Work of the Year', losing out to another McCartney composition, "Michelle". The song has received its fair share of acclaim in recent times as well, ranking 13th on Rolling Stone's 2004 list The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) placed "Yesterday" third on their list of songs of the 20th century most performed on American radio and television, with approximately seven million performances. "Yesterday" was surpassed only by The Association's "Never My Love" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Loving Feeling".

 

"Yesterday," however, has also been criticised for being mundane and mawkish; Bob Dylan had a marked dislike for the song, stating that "If you go into the Library of Congress, you can find a lot better than that. There are millions of songs like 'Michelle' and 'Yesterday' written in Tin Pan Alley". Ironically, Dylan ultimately recorded his own version of "Yesterday" four years later, but it was never released.

 

Shortly before his death in 1980, Lennon explained that he thought the lyrics didn't "resolve into any sense... They're good — but if you read the whole song, it doesn't say anything; you don't know what happened. She left and he wishes it were yesterday — that much you get — but it doesn't really resolve. ... Beautiful — and I never wished I'd written it."

 

 

Music and lyrics

The tonic key of the song is F major (although, since McCartney tuned his guitar down a whole step, he was playing the chords as if it were in G), where the song begins before veering off into the relative minor key of D minor. It is this frequent use of the minor, and the ii-V7 chord progression (Em7 and A7 chords in this case) leading into it, that gives the song its melancholy aura. The A7 chord is an example of a secondary dominant, specifically a V/vi chord. The G7 chord in the bridge is another secondary dominant, in this case a V/V chord, but rather than resolve it to the expected chord, as with the A7 to Dm in the verse, McCartney instead follows it with the IV chord, a Bb. This motion creates a descending chromatic line of C B Bb A to accompany the title lyric.

 

The string arrangement supplements the song's air of sadness, especially in the groaning cello melody that connects the two halves of the bridge (on the line, "I don't know / she wouldn't say") as well as the descending line by the viola that segues the chorus back into the verses. This simple idea is so striking, McCartney mimics it with his vocal on the second pass of the chorus. This viola line and the high A sustained by the violin over the final verse are the only elements of the string arrangement attributable to McCartney rather than George Martin.

 

An unusual aspect of this song is that its first phrase is only seven measures instead of the customary eight measures found in most all popular music. The use of the IV to I cadence (called a plagal or "Amen" cadence) at the end of this first phrase results in the seven measure phrase sounding perfectly natural and almost religious in nature.

 

McCartney's eventual lyric for the song was sombre and fitted the reflective melody. Although the lyric is rather vague, it could be interpreted to reveal sadness about a lost loved one. Most believe that it revealed sadness about a breakup, while some believe that there is an obscure connection to this song with the death of his mother when he was a teenager. When the song was written, the lyric was considered unusual for a McCartney composition. Until then, most of McCartney's songs had been positive and upbeat; Lennon was considered the Beatle with the more introspective and sad lyrics.

 

When the song was performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, it was done in the above-mentioned key of F, with McCartney as the only Beatle to perform, and the studio orchestra providing the string accompaniment. However, all of The Beatles played in a G-major version which was used in the Tokyo concerts during their 1966 tours.

 

When McCartney appeared on "The Howard Stern Show", he stated that he owns the original lyrics to "Yesterday" written on the back of an envelope.

 

In July 2003, British musicologists stumbled upon similarities between the lyric and rhyming schemes of "Yesterday" and Nat King Cole's "Answer Me", leading to speculation that McCartney had been influenced by the song. McCartney's publicists denied any resemblance between "Answer Me" and "Yesterday". From the story:

 

“ ["Yesterday"] begins with the line: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away/Now I need a place to hide away". Answer Me has the line: "Yesterday, I believed that love was here to stay, won't you tell me where I've gone astray." ”

 

Ian Hammond speculated that McCartney subconsciously based "Yesterday" on Ray Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind," but closed his article by saying that despite the similarities"Yesterday" is a "completely original and individual [work]."

 

In 2006, Italian producer and songwriter Lilli Greco claimed "Yesterday" to be a cover of a 19th century Neapolitan song called Piccere' Che Vene a Dicere'. In the same article, Greco claimed that McCartney and Lennon had an "encyclopaedic knowledge" of world music and were particularly fond of Neapolitan songs. Neither Lennon nor McCartney could read sheet music, and the article does not indicate when—or if—McCartney or Lennon heard a performance of the song.

83. Dizzy Miss Lizzy

 

 

"Dizzy Miss Lizzy" is a song composed and sung by Larry Williams in 1958.

 

The song has been covered many times, including — famously — by The Beatles on the 1965 Help! album (though the recording was initially intended for the 1965 American Beatles compilation Beatles VI along with the Larry Williams cover "Bad Boy," recorded by the Beatles on the same day). Paul McCartney has stated that he believes this song to be one of the Beatles best recordings. It features loud, rhythmic instrumentation, and John Lennon giving the vocal his all. The song also appeared in a live solo version by Lennon on the Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto 1969.

 

In the United States, the Beatles' version was on the album Beatles VI. In the UK, it was on Help!.

 

The title is playfully misleading. The actual lyric is, "You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy". It may sound like a love song, but it is a pure rock-and-roll bonanza.

 

The song was originally thought about by band manager Brian Epstein, and was later introduced to Ringo Starr, the band's drummer. He made sure that the band recorded it after loving its upbeat rhythm and interesting lyrics.

 

84. Bad Boy

 

No Video

 

"Bad Boy" was a song written by Larry Williams. This is one of several Larry Williams songs which The Beatles covered. "Bad Boy", along with "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" were recorded by the Beatles on May 10, 1965 and intended for American release only. This song was first released on Beatles VI in June 1965. It eventually got a UK release on A Collection of Beatles Oldies in December 1966.

However, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was on the British "Help!" album that year.

 

The song features John Lennon on lead vocal and rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on bass, George Harrison on double-tracked lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums.

 

The Canadian progressive rock band Rush featured "Bad Boy" in a Led Zeppelin-type arrangement in their early live shows. The Cleveland bootleg "New In Town" features the song, as well as an extended solo from guitarist Alex Lifeson. Vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee introduces the song as being from the "Beatles VI" albums. After 1974, the group no longer performed the song.

85. We Can Work It Out

 

 

"We Can Work It Out" is a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and released by The Beatles as a "double A-sided" single with "Day Tripper", the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release. Both songs were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions. The song is a brilliant example of Lennon-McCartney collaboration, at a depth that happened only rarely after they wrote the hit singles of 1963. This song, and "A Day in the Life", are among the notable exceptions.

 

 

Composition

McCartney wrote the words and music to the verses and bridges, with lyrics that "might have been personal" and thus a reference to his relationship with Jane Asher. McCartney then took the song to Lennon, and Lennon wrote the words and music to the middle eight.

 

With its intimations of mortality, Lennon's sixteen-bar bridge contrasts typically with what Lennon saw as McCartney's cajoling optimism. As Lennon told Playboy in 1980, "You've got Paul writing, 'We can work it out / We can work it out'—real optimistic, y'know, and me, impatient: 'Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.'" Based on those comments, some critics overemphasized McCartney's optimism, neglecting the toughness in passages written by McCartney, such as "Do I have to keep on talking until I can't go on?". Lennon's middle shifts focus from McCartney's concrete reality to a philosophical perspective in B minor, illustrating this with a waltz-time section suggested by George Harrison that leads back to the verse, possibly meant to suggest tiresome struggle. Ian MacDonald said, "[Lennon's] passages are so suited to his Salvation Army harmonium that it's hard to imagine them not being composed on it. The swell-pedal crescendos he adds to the verses are, on the other hand, textural washes added in the studio, the first of their kind on a Beatles record and signposts to the enriched sound-palette of Revolver."

 

 

Recording and release

The Beatles recorded "We Can Work It Out" on 20 October 1965, four days after its accompanying single track, with an overdub session on 29 October. They spent nearly 11 hours on the song, by far the longest expenditure of studio time up to that point.

 

In a discussion about what song to release as a single, Lennon argued "vociferously" for "Day Tripper", differing with the majority view that "We Can Work It Out" was a more commercial song. As a result, the single was marketed as the first "double A-side," but airplay and point-of-sale requests soon proved "We Can Work It Out" to be more popular, and it reached No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, The Beatles' fastest-selling single since "Can't Buy Me Love," their previous McCartney-led A-side in the UK.

 

 

Cover versions

In 1968, Deep Purple recorded a cover version of the song on their album The Book of Taliesyn.

In 1970, Stevie Wonder covered the song on his album Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, and released it as a single in 1971. That single reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"We Can Work It Out" has been covered by both Petula Clark and Valerie Simpson.

In 1976, The Four Seasons did a cover version of the song for the ephemeral musical documentary All This and World War II.

In 1990, Tesla covered the song on their live album Five Man Acoustical Jam.

In 2002, Heather Nova recorded a version for the I Am Sam soundtrack, which contained many Beatles covers, only some of which were in the I Am Sam film (released in 2001).

In 1991, McCartney played an acoustic version of the song for his MTV Unplugged performance, memorable for his flubbing the first verse and his good-natured reaction, later released on Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)

 

Cultural references

The song is mentioned in the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, starring Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier and Spencer Tracy.

In 1989, Bad Religion quoted the line "There is no time for fussing and fighting my friend" from "We Can Work It Out" in the song "You" on their album No Control.

 

 

 

86. Day Tripper

 

 

"Day Tripper" is a riff-driven rocksong written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and released by The Beatles as a "double A-side" single with "We Can Work It Out". Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the Rubber Soul album.

 

 

Composition

Under the pressure of needing a new single for the Christmas market, Lennon wrote most of the lyrics and the famous guitar break, while McCartney helped with the verses. "Day-tripper" was a typical play on words by John: "Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But [the song] was kind of ... you're just a weekend hippie. Get it?" In the same interview he said, "That's mine. Including the lick, the guitar break and the whole bit." In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, however, he used "Day Tripper" as one example of their collaboration, where one partner had the main idea but the other took up the cause and completed it. For his part, McCartney claimed it was very much a collaboration based on Lennon's original idea.

 

The lyric may be partly about McCartney's reluctance to experiment with LSD. (Lennon and Harrison had been using LSD since the spring of 1965, when a London dentist slipped it into their coffee after an evening meal. In August, Lennon confessed that he "just ate it all the time.") On the face of it, however, the song is about a girl who leads the singer on. The line recorded as "she's a big teaser" was originally written as "she's a prick teaser." In this sense, it may equally be about the aloof heroine from "Norwegian Wood." In Many Years From Now, McCartney admitted that "Day Tripper" was about drugs.

 

According to Ian MacDonald, the song "starts as a twelve-bar blues in E, which makes a feint at turning into a twelve-bar in the relative minor (i.e. the chorus) before doubling back to the expected B—another joke from a group which had clearly decided that wit was to be their new gimmick." Indeed, in 1966 McCartney said in Melody Maker that "Day Tripper" and "Drive My Car" (recorded three days prior) were "funny songs, songs with jokes in." Lennon may have arrived at the song's signature riff in an attempt to better The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." McCartney provides the lead vocal and Lennon the harmony, in contrast to the Beatles' usual practice of a song's principal composer singing lead.

 

 

Recording

The song was recorded on 16 October 1965 at Abbey Road Studios. The Beatles recorded the basic rhythm track for "If I Needed Someone" after completing "Day Tripper".

 

The released master contains one of the most noticeable mistakes of any Beatles song, a drop out at 1:58 (1:50 in the version on Past Masters, Volume Two) in which the lead guitar part momentarily disappears; this may have been due to cover tape damage or some other recording mishap. This recording mishap was fixed for the compilation album 1.

 

 

Cover versions

Year Band Record Notes

1966 Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 Herb Alpert presents

Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 album

1966 Nancy Sinatra Boots album

1966 Otis Redding Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul album

1967 Jimi Hendrix Experience Radio One Sessions album of recordings from 5 days with BBC's Radio One, released in 1988.

1974 Electric Light Orchestra Long Beach live album and single in Germany and the Netherlands

1975 Anne Murray Highly Prized Possession album, and a minor hit single, reaching #59 on the Billboard charts

1978 Whitesnake Trouble

1979 James Taylor Flag album

1980 Cheap Trick Found All The Parts live 10" EP

1980 Sham 69 The Game

1980 Yellow Magic Orchestra Public Pressure live album

1984 Glass Museum Glass Museum album, also released as single

1987 Bad Brains The Youth Are Getting Restless live album

1991 Daniel Ash Coming Down album

1994 Gene Wooten "The Great Dobro Sessions album of dobro players.

1996 Ocean Colour Scene single with members of Oasis

1999 Type O Negative World Coming Down album

2001 Ian Hunter Missing In Action live album

 

 

Cultural references

In 1984, Devo reused the famous guitar riff in "The 4th Dimension" on their Shout!.

2 Live Crew used the riff on the As Nasty As They Wanna Be album track "Fraternity Record."

The Wildhearts cover part of the song in "My Baby is a Headf***", appearing on their album Earth Vs The Wildhearts.

April Wine used the riff in the song "I Like to Rock", simultaneously with the The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" riff.

On the 1966 John Mayall album Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, a faster version of the riff is interspersed within the closing section of their cover of "What'd I Say," the 1959 rhythm & blues signature hit by Ray Charles, perhaps drawing attention to the similarity of both tunes, or acknowledging the Beatles fondness for "What'd I Say", which was a staple of their live act before Beatlemania.

The Eagles play the riff in the outro for "In the City" from The Long Run.

Buffalo Springfield borrowed the riff for "Baby Don't Scold Me" (at the 1:54 mark) on their debut album.

 

 

 

87. Drive My Car

 

 

"Drive My Car" is a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and first released by The Beatles on the UK version of the 1965 album Rubber Soul; it also appeared in the US on the Yesterday and Today collection. The opening track for both albums, it is the second written of the album's "comedy numbers," (the first being "Norwegian Wood") as McCartney referred to it in Melody Maker two days after its recording.

 

 

Lyrics

The song's male narrator is told by a woman that she's going to be a famous movie star, and she offers him the opportunity to be her chauffeur, adding "and maybe I'll love you." When he objects that his "prospects are good", she retorts that "working for peanuts is all very fine/but I can show you a better time." When he agrees to her proposal, she admits that she doesn't have a car, "but I've found a driver and that's a start."

 

According to McCartney, "'Drive my car' was an old blues euphemism for sex".

 

 

Composition

When McCartney arrived at Lennon's Weybridge home for a writing session, he had the tune in his head, but "The lyrics were disastrous, and I knew it." The chorus began, "You can buy me diamond rings", a hackneyed phrase with diamond rings having already been referenced twice before in "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Feel Fine". Lennon dismissed the lyrics as "c**p" and "too soft". They decided to rewrite the lyrics and after some difficulty—McCartney said it was "one of the stickiest" writing sessions—they settled on the "drive my car" theme (which Bob Spitz credits to Lennon) and the rest of the lyrics flowed easily from that.

 

 

Recording

"Drive My Car" was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 13 October 1965 in the Beatles' first recording session to extend past midnight. McCartney, working closely with George Harrison, laid down the basic rhythm track, doubling similar riffing lines on bass and low guitar, as per Harrison's suggestion. Harrison had been listening to Otis Redding's "Respect" at the time and, as a result of its influence, "Drive My Car" has more bottom than any previous Beatles recording, mimicking the bass-heavy sound generated in Redding's Memphis studio. (Often regarded as its sister track, "Day Tripper" was cut by Redding himself, up-tempo, for the Stax Records in 1967.)

 

McCartney played the lead guitar solo, although Harrison composed the guitar riff which underpins the verses. McCartney doubled this figure an octave lower on the bass.

 

 

Other appearances

The song appears on Cape Cod Covers, Vol. 2 "The Beatles", performed by Kate Taylor for the benefit of Angel Flight, NE.

 

This song was one of four that McCartney performed live on the Super Bowl XXXIX half-time show, and one of the five performed at the Live 8 Concert in London, with George Michael adding backing vocals.

 

Samples from this song feature heavily in the track "Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing" on Love album released in November 2006. Even though it's called that, during Drive My Car, the Taxman guitar solo happens with the end of the Drive My Car solo.

88. Norweigan Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

 

 

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is a song by The Beatles which first appeared on the 1965 album Rubber Soul. While credited to Lennon-McCartney, it was primarily written by John Lennon, though Paul McCartney contributed to the middle eight section. It is notable as one of the first Western pop songs with an Indian musical instrument — John Lennon's guitar is accompanied by George Harrison on the sitar. The song is a lilting acoustic ballad featuring Lennon's lead vocal and signature Beatle harmonies in the middle eight.

 

"Norwegian Wood" was one of several songs on Rubber Soul in which the singer faces an antagonistic relationship with a woman. In direct contrast to earlier Beatles songs such as "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand", the songs on Rubber Soul were considerably darker in their outlook towards romantic relationships.

 

As the second song on the Rubber Soul album, following the more conventional "Drive My Car" ("I've Just Seen a Face" on the US version), the exotic instrumentation and oblique lyric represented one of the first indications to fans of the expanding musical vocabulary and experimental approach that the group was rapidly adopting.

 

 

Eastern influence

It was Harrison, who would later be strongly influenced by transcendental meditation and eventually become a Hindu for the remainder of his life, who decided on using a sitar when the Beatles recorded the song on 12 October and 21 October 1965. As he recounted later:

 

We were waiting to shoot the restaurant scene [in Help! the movie] ... where the guy gets thrown in the soup and there were a few Indian musicians playing in the background. I remember picking up the sitar and trying to hold it and thinking, "This is a funny sound." It was an incidental thing, but somewhere down the line I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name.... So I went and bought a Ravi record; put it on and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed very familiar to me. It just called on me.... I bought a cheap sitar from a shop called India Craft in London. I hadn't really figured out what to do with it. But when we were working on "Norwegian Wood" it just needed something. It was quite spontaneous ... I just picked it up and found the notes and just played it. We miked it up and put it on and it just seemed to hit the spot.

Complementing the Indian instrumentation, most of the song is in the Mixolydian musical mode. Although the motif for the melody, the first six notes, sounds like it is directly lifted from the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, they are in fact drawn from the antarã [upper-octave variation] of a well-known gat [fixed composition set to a rhythmic accompaniment] of the late-night rāga Bageshree, in Hindustani classical music.

 

 

Lyrics

The lyrics of the song sketch an encounter between the singer and an unnamed girl (or "bird" in British slang). They drink wine in her room and talk into the night. The consummation of their flirtation at first seems promising when the unnamed girl states "it's time for bed" followed by an interlude of acoustics and sitar giving the impression that they have gone to bed together, however, in the following verse, the singer crawls off to "sleep in the bath" presumably alone.

 

"Norwegian Wood" evidently refers to the cheap pinewood that often finished the interiors of working class British flats. The last verse implies that the singer sets fire to the girl's flat, presumably as revenge for not sleeping with the singer.

 

McCartney himself states the final line of the song indicates that the singer burned the home of the girl. As he explained:

 

Peter Asher [brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend Jane Asher] had just done his room out in wood, and a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, just cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, is it, "Cheap Pine"? It was a little parody, really, on those kind of girls who, when you'd get back to their flat, there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view, but not from John's. It was based on an affair he had. She made him sleep in the bath and then, finally, in the last verse, I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as a revenge. She led him on and said, "You'd better sleep in the bath." And in our world, that meant the guy having some sort of revenge, so it meant burning the place down....

This exchange took place in a press conference in Los Angeles:

 

Reporter: I'd like to direct this question to messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute...

Paul: Oh yeah.

Reporter: ...and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian.

Paul: Oh yeah.

Reporter: I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.

Paul: We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all.

 

Inspiration from infidelity

The song was apparently inspired by Lennon's extra-marital flings. Ironically, he wrote it while he was on a holiday with his wife, Cynthia, at St. Moritz in the Swiss Alps. They were joined by the Beatles' producer George Martin, who had injured himself early in the holiday, and his wife.

 

Martin recalled:

 

It was during this time that John was writing songs for Rubber Soul, and one of the songs he composed in the hotel bedroom, while we were all gathered around, nursing my broken foot, was a little ditty he would play to me on his acoustic guitar. The song was "Norwegian Wood".

When asked what the lyrics were about, Martin answered:

 

My wife is going to give me a hard time for saying this. It was one of John's indiscretions. I remember we were sitting at the veranda outside our hotel rooms in St. Moritz and John was playing at his guitar and working out the text: "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me." He felt that Cynthia had tricked him to marry her.

Martin referred to the words as "a very bitter little story".

 

 

Lennon said of the song: "I was trying to write about an affair, so it was very gobbledegooky. I was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was having one. I was sort of writing from my experiences ... girls' flats, things like that." He also said:

 

"Norwegian Wood" is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair ... but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn't tell. But I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with.

Lennon's friend Pete Shotton speculated that the woman in question was a journalist of their acquaintance (possibly Maureen Cleave).

 

Many also believed that Norwegian Wood was a play on the phrase "knowing she wood" which gives more to the story of the affair or a one night stand.

 

Influence

Lennon acknowledged being strongly influenced by Bob Dylan during this time period, and the rather opaque lyrics of "Norwegian Wood" seem to reflect this. Dylan responded with "4th Time Around", a song boasting a similar melody, subject matter and lyrical delivery. Rock journalists and even Lennon himself felt it to be a rather pointed parody of "Wood" (some thought the song's closing line - "And I, I never took much/I never asked for your crutch/Now don't ask for mine" - to be directed toward Lennon), though Lennon later told his biographer that he considered Dylan's effort to be more a playful homage.

 

"Norwegian Wood" has been covered many times by such artists as Alanis Morissette, The Fiery Furnaces, Jan and Dean, Acker Bilk, Buddy Rich, Herbie Hancock, P. M. Dawn, Victor Wooten (who uses it as a solo spot live), Milton Nascimento and Cornershop; Cornershop's version, from their album When I Was Born for the 7th Time, is entirely in Punjabi. It was played live during U2's Vertigo Tour. Artist Frank Zappa recorded a version satirising the sex scandal involving Jimmy Swaggart, but it is only available on bootleg recordings. The Alan Copeland Singers' recording of the lyrics of "Norwegian Wood" to the tune of the Mission: Impossible theme song won a 1969 Grammy for "Best Contemporary Pop Performance, Chorus."

 

The song has had impact outside musical circles as well. For instance, Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote a novel entitled Norwegian Wood, a reference to the song. Norwegian-American presidential nominee Walter Mondale was nicknamed "Norwegian Wood" during the 1984 presidential election.

 

The Norwegian music festival Norwegian Wood, which takes place in Oslo, is named after the song.

89. You Won't See Me

 

(Paul Live 2005 version)

 

"You Won't See Me" is a song by the British 1960s rock group The Beatles, on the album Rubber Soul. Though it is credited to Lennon/McCartney, it was written exclusively by Paul McCartney.

 

The song is about a crisis in McCartney's relationship with his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. She was rejecting him by not returning phone calls and ignoring him — for once, he was in a vulnerable position. The more biting tone of the song marks a change away from his earlier, happier love songs. "You Won't See Me" was recorded during the last session for Rubber Soul.

 

"You Won't See Me" was never a part of the Beatles' concert repertoire, but Paul McCartney played the song live during his 2005-2006 concert tour.

 

The song was covered by Bryan Ferry on his 1973 album, These Foolish Things.

 

The following year, "You Won't See Me" became a big hit for Anne Murray, reaching #8 on the US Pop Billboard charts and #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts. John Lennon is said to have told Murray that her version of "You Won't See Me" was his favorite Beatles' cover ever. Murray herself is a confessed Beatles fanatic and later covered several other of their songs as singles, including "Day Tripper" and "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You."

 

 

Trivia

Mal "Organ" Evans (one of The Beatles' roadies throughout their career) is credited on the album sleeve as having played Hammond organ on this track, his contribution consisting solely of an A note quietly held throughout the last part of the song.

The song's backing vocals are parodied in the movie School of Rock, when the backup singers sing, "Ooh La La La".

90. Nowhere Man

 

 

"Nowhere Man" is a song by British 1960s rock group The Beatles, from their hit album Rubber Soul (in the U.S. on the Yesterday ... and Today album). Though the songwriting credit is Lennon-McCartney, it was actually penned almost entirely by John Lennon. (Paul McCartney helped to "polish off the rough edges".) It was recorded on October 21 and 22, 1965. "Nowhere Man" is among the very first Beatles songs to be entirely unrelated to romance or love, and marks a notable instance of Lennon's philosophically-oriented songwriting.

 

 

Interpretation

When the song first appeared during the 1960s, many of the Beatles youthful fan base interpreted the rather hard-edged lyric, which satirizes the "Nowhere Man" as someone who "just sees what he wants to see" and who "don't know what [he's] missing", as directed against their parents' generation and conformism generally.

 

Lennon, however, claimed that he himself was the subject of the song. He wrote it after wracking his brain in desperation for five hours, trying to come up with another song for Rubber Soul. "I'd actually stopped trying to think of something," he said. "Then I thought of myself as Nowhere Man — sitting in his nowhere land." Lennon told Playboy: "I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then 'Nowhere Man' came, words and music, the whole damn thing as I lay down."

 

If factual, Lennon's explanation places the song with Lennon's earlier "I'm a Loser" and later introspective and self-critical songs, both as a Beatle ("Yer Blues") and as a solo artist ("Jealous Guy"), rather than Lennon's "counter-culture" songs such as "The Word" and "All You Need is Love" (as it was perceived at the time).

 

McCartney said of the song: "That was John after a night out, with dawn coming up. I think at that point, he was a bit...wondering where he was going."

 

 

Other recordings

The British folk group The Settlers recorded the song in 1966. In 1976, Jeff Lynne of ELO recorded it for the evanescent musical documentary All This and World War II. The song was also performed by the Bee Gees in the 1978 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band film, with Barry Gibb on lead vocals.

 

Also, in 1967, the Carpenters performed a piano/vocal version in Joe Osborn's garage studio. In the late '90s/early '00s, Richard tried to de-noise the tracks after it was nearly destroyed from a fire in Joe Osborn's house in 1973, and added strings and woodwind lines to the song.

91. Think For Yourself

 

 

"Think for Yourself" is a song by the 1960s pop group The Beatles which first appeared on the 1965 album Rubber Soul. It is written and sung by George Harrison and is a warning against listening to lies, unlike the misconception that the song is about his then-girlfriend (and later wife) Pattie Boyd. In his book I Me Mine he writes, "But all this time later, I don't quite recall who inspired that tune. Probably the government."

 

The song is in a key of G major.

 

The song is famous for its early use of fuzz bass.

 

Trivia

The line "and you've got time to rectify" is featured in the film Yellow Submarine, where it's used to revive Pepperland's mayor.

 

 

 

92. The Word

 

 

"The Word" is a song by The Beatles first released on their 1965 album Rubber Soul. It is often cited as the first instance in which The Beatles began writing about love in more abstract terms, versus concrete girl/boy terms, a la "She Loves You." In the lyric, "the word is love," and the singer preaches, "Say the word and you'll be free."

 

Though officially credited to Lennon/McCartney as were all songs by either of the duo, the song is primarily a John Lennon composition and is in fact one of Lennon's first attempts at an anthemic political song, although the politics are obscured by references to love rather than any more overtly political messages. It did, however, point the way to Lennon's later songs espousing the power of love to overcome barriers (such as "All You Need Is Love").

 

Musically, the song is based upon a driving rhythm with few chord changes and a simple melody in the key of D major. Paul McCartney said of this song, "John and I would like to do songs with just one note like 'Long Tall Sally'. We get near it in 'The Word'".

 

George Martin plays the harmonium solo in the track. McCartney, Lennon, and George Harrison sing the song in three-part harmony, with Lennon singing the middle eights.

 

Samples from this song are also included on Love released in November 2006, in the track Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing.

 

 

 

 

93. Michelle

 

(Paul live 1989/90)

 

"Michelle" is the title of a love ballad by The Beatles, mainly written by Paul McCartney, which is featured on their Rubber Soul album. The song departs from most of the Beatles' other recordings in that some of the lyrics are in French (like Sun King, which is partly in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese).

 

"Michelle" has its origins in the popularity of French Left Bank culture during McCartney's Liverpool days. McCartney had gone to a party of art students where a student with a goatee and a striped T-shirt was singing a French song. He soon wrote a farcical imitation to entertain his friends that involved French-sounding groaning instead of real words. The song remained a party piece until 1965, when Lennon suggested he rework it into a proper song for inclusion on Rubber Soul.

 

McCartney decided to remain with the French feel of his song and asked Jan Vaughan, the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, who was also a French teacher, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. "It was because I'd always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I can't speak French properly so that's why I needed help in sorting out the actual words," McCartney said.

 

Vaughan came up with "Michelle, ma belle," and a few days later he asked for a translation of "these are words that go together well" — "sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble". When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the "I love you" bridge. The previous evening, Lennon had attended a cabaret show by Nina Simone; her rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" featured the plaintive wail "I love YOU." Lennon suggested using the phrase in a different way, and he and Paul then wrote the song's bridge.

 

Although this is one of the most famous McCartney compositions, many other individuals contributed to the song, other than Vaughan and Lennon, Beatles producer George Martin has always claimed to have written the lead guitar melody, which is played twice — in the middle, and at the end of the song, in the coda.

 

The song was a huge hit in 1966 by The Overlanders, who released a cover version of it after The Beatles declined to release it as a single themselves in the United Kingdom and United States (although the original version was released in some Continental European countries. It won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. In 1999, BMI named "Michelle" as the 42nd-most performed song of the 20th century.

 

 

 

94. What Goes On

 

 

"What Goes On" is a song by The Beatles, featured as the eighth track on their sixth UK album Rubber Soul. The song was later released as the tenth track on the American-only album Yesterday and Today. The song-writing credit is Lennon-McCartney-Starkey. The original version of the song was written by John Lennon in the Quarrymen days and considered as a follow-up to "Please Please Me" in early 1963, The song was not used until 1965 as Ringo Starr's vocal piece for Rubber Soul. According to Lennon, "it was resurrected with a middle eight thrown in, probably with Paul's help" for Rubber Soul. Barry Miles also claimed that McCartney and Starr combined for the middle eight. There is no formal middle eight in the song, though one chorus and one verse are extended; Ian MacDonald believes those longer sections were written by McCartney. Starr contributed to the lyrics, his first-ever composing credit on a Beatles song. However, when asked what his contribution was to the song, Starr said, "About five words." To his chagrin, the first pressing of the single accidentally omitted "Starkey" in the song-writing credit.

 

Richie Unterberger, in the All Music Guide, said the song was an enjoyable, but lightweight, country & western-flavored entry in the Beatles catalog. Unterberger praised George Harrison's guitar work, which "again marks him as the finest disciple of Carl Perkins," and the guitar work is indeed similar to "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby", a Perkins cover version the Beatles released on Beatles for Sale.

 

Recording

As mentioned above, an early version was considered as a follow-up to "Please Please Me", and the Beatles hoped to record it on 5 March 1963, but there was only time for the other songs recorded that night: "From Me to You", "Thank You Girl", and an early version of "One After 909".

 

The Rubber Soul version was recorded in one take, with overdubs, on 4 November 1965. During this session the Beatles recorded a long (6:36) instrumental tune called "12-Bar Original" for lack of a better name. "12-Bar Original" was not included on Rubber Soul, and was not commercially available until 1996 when an edited version of take 2 of this song was included on the Anthology 2 album.

 

 

Cover versions

In 2005, Sufjan Stevens covered the song on the compilation This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Sufjan's version only keeps the lyrics of the original, as he takes his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement

In 2006, Ringo Starr performed "What Goes On" live as part of that year's All Starr Tour.

95. Girl

 

 

"Girl" is a Lennon/McCartney song, mainly written by John Lennon, which was first released in 1965 on The Beatles' album Rubber Soul, and was the last complete song recorded for it. The song's lyrics describe a girl the singer loves, but with misgivings: "She's the kind of girl who puts you down / When friends are there, you feel a fool."

 

Backing the bridges is a refrain sung by Lennon while Paul McCartney and George Harrison repeatedly sing a syllable for vocal percussion ("tit-tit-tit-tit") as a joke. The deep breaths in the chorus were rumoured to have symbolised taking a long inhalation (drag) off of a marijuana joint.

 

According to McCartney, he wrote the lines "Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure" and "That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure." But in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, John Lennon claimed this was his own early dig at the Catholic Church.

 

In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine on 5 December 1980, Lennon said his 1980 song "[Woman] reminds me of a Beatles track, but I wasn't trying to make it sound like that. I did it as I did 'Girl' many years ago. So this is the grown-up version of 'Girl.'" ("Woman" was the second single released from the Double Fantasy album, and the first Lennon single issued after his death on 8 December 1980.)

 

November 1977

In November 1977, Capitol Records scheduled the US release of "Girl" backed with "You're Going to Lose That Girl" as a single (Capitol 4506) to accompany the release of Love Songs, a Beatles' compilation album that contains both of these songs. However, the single was cancelled before it was issued.

 

 

 

96. I'm Looking Through You

 

 

"I'm Looking Through You" is a Lennon-McCartney song, written mainly by Paul McCartney, that first appeared as the tenth song on The Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul.

 

It was written about Jane Asher, McCartney's girlfriend of five years. "You don't look different, but you have changed," the lyrics declare, reflecting his dissatisfaction with their relationship.

 

 

Recordings

The stereo US version of the song contains a false guitar start.

 

The Beatles recorded three versions of the song in October and November, 1965. The last version was included on Rubber Soul. The original version recorded on 24 October, 1965, was slower than the released version, had a significantly different rhythm, and lacked the "Why, tell me why..." middle eighth of the final version. It was eventually released in 1996 on the Anthology 2 compilation.

 

Covers

Country star Steve Earle included a version on his Train A-Comin' album. Mark Heard covered the song on his album Second Hand. The Wallflowers recorded a version of the song for the film I Am Sam, whose soundtrack was composed entirely of contemporary Beatles covers.

 

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists recorded a version of the song for the 2005 release of This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul, an album comprised of Beatles covers by various artists.

97. In My Life

 

 

"In My Life" is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that first appeared on The Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was ranked 23rd on the Rolling Stone article "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and was placed second on CBC's 50 Tracks. Mojo magazine named it the best song of all time in 2000.

 

Composition

John Lennon wrote the song in the form of a long poem reminiscing on his childhood/teenage years. The original version of the lyrics was based on a bus route he used to take in Liverpool, naming various sites seen along the way, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Field.

 

However, Lennon found it to be "ridiculous" and called it "the most boring sort of "What I Did On My Holidays Bus Trip" song" and reworked the words with Paul McCartney, replacing the specific memories with a generalized meditation on his past. "Very few lines" of the original version remain in the finished song.

 

Lennon's friend and biographer Peter Shotton related in his book (titled John Lennon "In My Life") that Lennon told him the lines "Some [friends] are dead and some are living/In my life I've loved them all" referred to Stuart Sutcliffe (who died in 1962) and to Shotton.

 

As for the music, Lennon claimed in 1980 that McCartney's contribution was limited to helping out with the "middle eight" or bridge section of the song (an odd claim, because there is no middle eight in this song), but McCartney claimed he set Lennon's lyrics to music from beginning to end, claiming that he wrote the whole melody by taking inspiration from two Smokey Robinson songs: "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and "Tears of a Clown". Of the disagreement, McCartney said, "I find it very gratifying that out of everything we wrote, we only appear to disagree over two songs." (The other song in question is "Eleanor Rigby".)

 

 

Recording

The song was recorded on 18 October 1965 and was complete except for a "hole" which was left for an instrumental bridge between verses. At that time, Lennon had not decided what instrument to use, but he subsequently asked George Martin to play a piano solo, and "play it like Bach". Martin wrote a Baroque-styled piece that he could not play at the song's tempo. On 22 October, the solo was recorded at half-tempo (one octave lower) and the tape speed was doubled for the final recording, which solved the performance challenge and gave the piano solo a unique, harpsichord-like timbre.

 

Covers

The song has been covered by a number of artists, including Mary Hopkin, Judy Collins, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Selah, Jose Feliciano, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne,Marie Osmond, Keith Moon (Two Sides of the Moon), Allison Crowe and Johnny Cash (American IV: The Man Comes Around).

 

Twiggy coverd the song on The Muppet Show (Season 1 Episode 21).

 

A cover by Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk was used as the theme for the NBC show Providence. Bette Midler also recorded this song for the 1991 film soundtrack For the Boys. Dave Matthews played the song during a tribute show honoring John Lennon.

 

During George Harrison's 1974 US tour, the band played a version of the song that was drastically slower than the Rubber Soul version.

 

George Martin borrowed the song title for an album of various artists covering Beatles songs. In the tribute song, Sean Connery narrates the lyrics with minimal support from Martin's piano.

 

Kevin Kern borrowed the song title for his album that covered many artists' songs in piano, including In My Life. In this version, the barouque piano solo that written by George Martin had been deleted.

 

A cover by Matt Scannell is also featured heavily in the 2005 motion picture Little Manhattan.

 

The Ten Tenors performed the song during their 2006 "Here's To The Heroes" tour, an arrangement a little slower than the original, with more emphasis harmonies, showcased in an A Cappella section in the middle of the song.

98. Wait

 

No Video

 

"Wait" is a song recorded by The Beatles, from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. The songwriting credit is Lennon/McCartney, and is one of the real joint efforts between the two (Lennon wrote the verses and refrain in F# minor, and McCartney wrote the bridge in A major). It is a simple love song about a couple who have broken up but are now back together.

 

The song has the dubious distinction of being originally recorded (and discarded) for Help! in June 1965 and brought back only when Rubber Soul did not contain enough songs for a Christmas release — it was a song short. A cover version was issued as a single by Frankie Vaughan but failed to chart.

 

99. If I Needed Someone

 

 

"If I Needed Someone" is a song by The Beatles which first appeared in the UK on the 1965 album Rubber Soul and was later included in the 1966 U.S. release Yesterday...and Today. It was written by George Harrison and recorded on October 16 and October 18, 1965.

 

The song was heavily influenced by the music of The Byrds. Reportedly, Harrison sent an acetate of the song to Roger McGuinn — on which he had written, "This is for Jim" — because the riff in "If I Needed Someone" was based on McGuinn's riff in "The Bells of Rhymney." The song's introduction and coda are also very similar to those of The Byrds' song. Coincidentally, The Byrds' own use of electric 12-string guitar was influenced by George Harrison's use of the instrument in the film A Hard Day's Night.

 

The song as recorded by the Beatles is in the key of A, switching to E minor during the breaks. The verses are heavily harmonized, with George Harrison taking the lead line on the first two lines, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing above him throughout on each subsequent verse. Harrison sings the break solo, but double tracked in the studio with himself as was customary during the period the Beatles recorded "Rubber Soul".

 

"If I Needed Someone" was virtually the only Harrison composition played during any of the Beatles' tours; The Quiet Beatle otherwise only sang covers onstage. "If I Needed Someone" is included in the Beatles' Tokyo concerts in July 1966. It was also performed on the Beatles' very last concert in Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. It is suspected, but not confirmed, that "If I Needed Someone" was performed at every Beatles concert in 1966. It was one of the songs at "The Concert For George"

 

Other versions

Harrison included the song on his Live In Japan album in 1992. Harrison and Eric Clapton play considerably longer guitar interludes between verses. Harrison's voice is also much more prominent than on The Beatles' original.

 

Clapton played a succinct version of the song at the Concert for George in 2002.

 

It was the first George Harrison song to be a hit for another act, when The Hollies covered it. Their version reached No. 20 in January 1966, but by their standards it was one of their least successful singles. Dismissive comments in the press led to angry exchanges between both groups.

 

It was covered by Type O Negative, as part of a medley also containing "Day Tripper" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". It appears on their 1999 album World Coming Down.

100. Run For Your Life

 

 

"Run for Your Life" is a song recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Rubber Soul.

 

The song, while credited to "Lennon/McCartney" (as were all Beatles songs by either composer), was primarily a John Lennon composition. Reflecting his negative, even misogynistic view of male-female relationships at the time, the song lyrics establish a threatening tone towards the singer's unnamed girlfriend (referred to throughout the song as "little girl"), claiming "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man". Lennon designated this song his "least favorite Beatles song" in a 1973 interview, and later said it was the song he most regretted writing.

 

The line "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man", which was the initial inspiration of the song, is actually a direct lift from the Elvis Presley song "Baby, Let's Play House". Lennon admitted this in a number of interviews. He also stated that this song was one of George Harrison's favourite songs on Rubber Soul at that time despite Lennon's dislike of it.

 

Lennon would revisit this theme in a more apologetic fashion with his post-Beatles song "Jealous Guy".

 

A 1966 version of "Run for Your Life" performed by Nancy Sinatra was released on her album Boots. Although it did not chart nationally, this version experienced regional success at such stations as WPTR in New York.

 

Beatles' spoof thrash metal band Beatallica recorded a version of this song in a live gig in Cleveland, Ohio, with only some alterations to the lyrics, and not changing the title.

 

The song was also recorded by Gary Lewis & the Playboys on their album "She's Just My Style," released in March 1966, and by Robert Gordon on "Lost Album Plus...," released May 20, 1998.