101. Paperback Writer

 

 

"Paperback Writer" is a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon released by The Beatles on the A side of their eleventh single. It went to the number one spot in Britain, the United States, West Germany, Australia and Norway. This was the first UK Beatles single that was not a love song (though "Nowhere Man", which was a single in the U.S., was their first album song released with that distinction). On the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, "Paperback Writer"'s two-week stay at number one was interrupted by Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night".

 

"Paperback Writer" was one of the last new songs by The Beatles to be featured in concert, as it was included on their 1966 tour.

 

Although the song was not included on an original Beatles album, it was included in several compilation albums:

 

A Collection of Beatles Oldies... but Goldies

Hey Jude/The Beatles Again

The Beatles 1962-1966 (Red Album)

Past Masters, Volume Two

1

 

Instrumentation

The track was recorded between April 13 and 14, 1966, and is marked by the boosted bass guitar sound throughout. With some studio tweaking, the bass is the most prominent instrument in the mix. American musicians like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett had used heavy bass sound before and now The Beatles were catching on, with tracks like this and "Drive My Car".

 

The song is one of The Beatles' most distinctive forays into "mod" rock and owes much to the contemporary work of The Who, with its distorted, circular guitar hook, high-pitched harmonies, and pounding drums, complete with tambourine touches à la "I Can't Explain". Other noteworthy aspects of the song include its distinctive a cappella intro, which reappears after each verse, and the distorted guitar riff that explodes from it leading into the next verse. A similar melody can be heard in another McCartney number, "Got To Get You Into My Life".

 

 

Song lyrics

One of McCartney's aunts reportedly requested that he write a song with some other theme than boy-girl relationships. British disc jockey Jimmy Savile claimed that McCartney's inspiration came from seeing drummer Ringo Starr reading a book. "He took one look and announced that he would write a song about a book," he said. In a 2007 interview, McCartney recalled that he wrote the song after reading in the Daily Mail about an aspiring author, possibly Martin Amis.

 

The song's lyric is in the form of a letter from an aspiring author addressed to a publisher. The author badly needs a job and has written a paperback version of a book by a "man named Lear." This is a reference to the Victorian painter Edward Lear, who wrote nonsense poems and songs of which John Lennon was very fond (though Lear never wrote novels). The Daily Mail was Lennon's regular newspaper and was often in the studio when The Beatles were writing songs.

 

Aside from deviating from the subject of love, McCartney had it in mind to write a song with a melody backed by a single, static chord. "John and I would like to do songs with just one note like 'Long Tall Sally.' We got near it in 'The Word.'" He also claimed to have barely failed to achieve this goal with "Paperback Writer," as the verse remains on G until the end, at which point it pauses on C. The backing vocals during this section are from the French children's song "Frère Jacques".

 

 

The "butcher" cover

In Britain, the single was released with the infamous "butcher cover" art, depicting The Beatles with raw meat and decapitated baby dolls tossed about. This photograph was also originally used as the cover for the Capitol U.S.-only album "Yesterday and Today". The image was soon replaced with a normal picture of the band as it had caused great controversy in America. For the American release of "Paperback Writer" single, the cover depicted The Beatles playing live, but with John Lennon and George Harrison's images reflected so that it appears they are playing left handed.

 

 

In popular culture

The song's title was used by rock writer Mark Shipper as the title of a humorous, semi-biographical novel (Ace Books, 1978) that retold the Beatles' story, distorting the events for comic effect.

In the liner notes for The Monkees box set Listen to the Band, it is revealed that the song Last Train to Clarksville was inspired by this song, when the composer heard the end of Paperback Writer on the radio and misheard the lyrics as "Last train to... something..."

Radiohead's song Paperbag Writer, the B-Side on the There There single, is meant as a playful allusion to Paperback Writer. Both songs are dominated by bass.

British Science Fiction writer and Humanitarian Douglas Adams was very fond of this song, to the point of having it played at his funeral.

 

 

 

 

102. Rain

 

 

"Rain" is a song by The Beatles, first released in 1966 . The song was released as a B-Side to Paperback Writer as a single on 30 May 1966 in the United States and 10 June 1966 in the United Kingdom. "Rain" is not featured on an original album and was not released as part of a compilation album until Hey Jude in the US and Rarities in the UK.

 

The two songs were recorded during the sessions for Revolver. "Paperback Writer" was sung live in concert during The Beatles' last tour in 1966, but "Rain" was only performed in the studio. It is notable for being the first song to contain backwards vocals.

103. Taxman

 

 

"Taxman" is the title of a song by The Beatles, appearing on the Revolver album, based on a common personification of tax collection agencies such as the HM Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue or the Internal Revenue Service. The song's writer, George Harrison, performs the role of a taxman on the song in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

 

 

Taxation leads to inspiration

Harrison was inspired to write "Taxman" when he discovered how much he was earning after accounting for taxes. Apparently each Beatle kept only 5% of what they earned. As Harrison said, "'Taxman' was when I first realised that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes. It was and still is typical." The reason for this was that due to how much The Beatles were earning, they were in one of the top tax brackets in the United Kingdom. In a 1984 interview with Playboy magazine, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney agreed with Harrison's depiction of the circumstances surrounding the writing of "Taxman": "George wrote that and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what he'll do with your money."

 

Harrison got some assistance in the lyrics from fellow Beatle John Lennon, who wrote a few one-liners on the song for him. In 1980, Lennon recalled in an interview with Playboy magazine, "I remember the day he [Harrison] called to ask for help on 'Taxman', one of his first songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he couldn't go to Paul [McCartney]. Paul wouldn't have helped him at that period. I didn't want to do it. I just sort of bit my tongue and said OK. It had been John and Paul for so long, he'd been left out because he hadn't been a songwriter up until then."

 

One quirk in the lyrics was Lennon's throwing in the names of the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson and Edward Heath (a future Prime Minister). Harrison pulled no punches in his bipartisan bashing — Wilson and Heath were the leaders of the British Labour Party and British Conservative Party respectively. The garage rock group The Music Machine's cover version of Taxman replaced Wilson and Heath with President Lyndon Johnson and then-U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk respectively.

 

As for the riff, "Taxman" refers to the Batman theme song from the 60's TV series. The chorus of the song (when Harrison sings "Taxmaaan") is where the similarities lie.

 

In 1987, Harrison stated that he had been pleased McCartney agreed to play the guitar on "Taxman". In reference to McCartney's guitar solo, Harrison said, "I was pleased to have Paul play that bit on 'Taxman'. If you notice, he did like a little Indian bit on it for me."

 

 

The release, and after

The song was eventually released on Revolver; although Lennon and McCartney had always been the more prolific songwriters, they made allowance for a few Harrison songs on each album The Beatles released, in much the same way they would attempt to ensure at least one album track always featured drummer Ringo Starr's singing. Because it was the first track, a fake count-in was added at the beginning. A heavily distorted voice counts along with George Harrison; if you listen closely, you can hear McCartney shouting the actual count-in underneath the distorted one (In the stereo version, McCartney's count-in is in the left speaker). There are minor differences in the stereo and mono versions, particularly the entry points for the cowbell and tambourine.

 

On the song, Harrison sings as if he is the taxman, who is depicted as a malicious man looking for ways to rob people of their money, with lines like "If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat". The taxman tells the listener to appreciate that he is not left empty-handed: "Should five percent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all" and "one for you, nineteen for me" (referring to the 95% top tax rate at the time in the UK). He even goes as far as advising those who die to "declare the pennies on your eyes." The song closes with the taxman declaring that the listeners are enslaved by him: "And you're working for no one but me."

 

"Taxman" featured in Harrison's concert repertoire even after The Beatles had dissolved; on his tour of Japan in 1991 with Eric Clapton, "Taxman" was on the set list. "It's a song that goes regardless if it's the sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties," Harrison declared. "There's always a taxman."

 

In the U.S., radio disc jockeys and TV news reporters annually feature the song in the days leading up to April 15 (or one to three days after the 15th due to weekends and holidays), the date by which U.S. income tax returns must be filed. Some post offices have even been known to sardonically play the song on in-house audio systems for the long lines of bemused last-minute tax filers. In 2002, tax preparation service H&R Block used the song in television commercials.

 

 

Other versions

The song has also been played and recorded by Junior Parker, Black Oak Arkansas, The (Bonniwell) Music Machine, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nickel Creek, Garrison Starr, and Mutual Admiration Society.

 

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played the song in tribute to Harrison at 2002's Concert For George.

 

In the show Love, the guitar solo was sampled in the piece Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing, being primarily in the key of D major, like the rest of the song.

 

 

Cultural references

"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of this song in late 1981 called "Pac-Man", during the height of the game's popularity. The song has not yet seen a major release, but can be found on the compilation Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes No. 4.

 

The Beatallica recorded a parody called "Sandman", which also was a parody of one of the most popular Metallica songs "Enter Sandman".

 

British indie band the Stone Roses' song "I Am The Resurrection" was inspired by the song's bassline; guitarist John Squire said that bassist Mani used to play it backwards and Squire would improvise over the top. This was a "joke" song they played in rehearsals, then they realised that it was strong enough to flesh out into a full song. Similarly, "Seagull" a song by another British shoegazer band, Ride, is also based on a bass riff very similar to the bass line in Taxman.

 

The song "Start!" by British Mod revival band The Jam has a remarkably similar bassline to the intro of "Taxman."

 

The British band Mansun has a song called "Taxloss". It's clearly inspired by "Taxman", referring to the same backing vocals on both songs. Also the meaning of the song is quite similar.

 

 

 

 

104. Eleanor Rigby

 

 

"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, originally released on the 1966 album Revolver. The song was primarily written by Paul McCartney, although in an interview conducted with Playboy magazine in 1980 shortly before he was killed, John Lennon claimed that "the first verse was his and the rest are basically mine." Pete Shotton, a close friend of Lennon who was present at the time, said "Though John (whose memory could be extremely erratic) was to take credit, in one of his last interviews, for most of the lyrics, my own recollection is that 'Eleanor Rigby' was one 'Lennon-McCartney' classic in which John's contribution was virtually nil." McCartney also says that Lennon helped on about "half a line". It remains one of the Beatles' most recognizable and unique songs, with an eight-person string section working from a score by George Martin and its striking lyrics about the loneliness of old age, continuing the transformation of the Beatles started in Rubber Soul from a mainly pop-oriented act to a more serious and experimental studio band.

 

Inspiration

As is true of many of McCartney's songs, the melody and first line of the song came to him as he was playing around on his piano. The name that came to him, though, was not Eleanor Rigby but Miss Daisy Hawkins. In 1966, McCartney recalled how he got the idea for his song:

 

“ I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head... 'Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church'. I don't know why. I couldn't think of much more so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me, and all the lonely people. But I thought that people would think it was supposed to be about my Dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book and I got the name McKenzie. ”

 

Others believe that Father McKenzie refers to 'Father' Tommy McKenzie, who was the compere at Northwich Memorial Hall.

 

McCartney originally imagined Daisy as a young girl, but anyone who cleaned up in churches would probably be older. If she were older, she might have missed not only the wedding she cleans up after but also her own. Gradually, McCartney developed the theme of the loneliness of old age, morphing his song from the story of a young girl to that of an elderly woman whose loneliness is worse for having to clean up after happy couples.

 

 

A promotional poster for the single from the UK.McCartney said he came up with the name Eleanor from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the Beatles in the film Help!. Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers, that he noticed while seeing his then-girlfriend Jane Asher act in The Happiest Days Of Your Life. He recalled in 1984, "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. Eleanor Rigby sounded natural."

 

In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was discovered in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name McKenzie scrawled across it. During their teenage years, Paul and John [Lennon] spent time "sunbathing" there; within earshot distance of where the two had met for the first time during a fete in 1957. Many years later McCartney stated that the strange coincidence between reality and lyric could be a product of his subconsciousness, rather than being a meaningless fluke. The actual Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895 and lived in Liverpool, possibly in the suburb of Woolton, where she married a man named Thomas Woods. She died on 10 October 1939 at age 44. Whether this Eleanor was the inspiration for the song or not, her tombstone has become a landmark to Beatles fans visiting Liverpool. A digitized version was added to the 1995 music video for the Beatles' reunion song "Free as a Bird".

 

The Beatles finished off the song in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood. John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and their friend Pete Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas. Someone suggested introducing a romance into the story, but this was rejected because it made the story too complicated. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear " and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked, and Harrison came up with the line "Ah, look at all the lonely people". Shotton then suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character in the song for McCartney's own father.

 

McCartney couldn't decide how to end the song, and Shotton finally suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea to finish off the song, later acknowledging Shotton's help.

 

 

Recording

 

The "Eleanor Rigby"/"Yellow Submarine" single issued by Parlophone in the UK. "Eleanor Rigby" stayed at #1 for four weeks on the British pop charts."Eleanor Rigby" does not have a standard pop backing; none of the Beatles played instruments on it, though John Lennon and George Harrison did contribute harmony and backing vocals. Instead, McCartney used a string octet of studio musicians, composed of four violins, two cellos, and two violas all working off a score written by producer George Martin which had been influenced by Bernard Herrmann's driving, strings-only score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. (It had previously been reported that Martin was influenced by François Truffaut's film Fahrenheit 451, but the release date of the film and the recording sessions for the song render this scenario virtually impossible). For the most part, the instruments "double up"—that is, they serve as two string quartets with two instruments playing each part in the quartet. Microphones were placed close to the instruments to produce a more vivid and raw sound. George Martin asked the musicians if they could play without vibrato and recorded two versions, one with and one without, the latter of which was used. McCartney's choice of a string backing may have been influenced by his interest in the composer Vivaldi. Lennon recalled in 1980 that "Eleanor Rigby" was:

 

"Paul's baby, and I helped with the education of the child ... The violin backing was Paul's idea. Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi, and it was very good."

The octet was recorded on 28 April 1966 in Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios and completed in Studio 3 on 29 April and on 6 June. Take 15 was selected as the master.

 

The original stereo mix had Paul's voice only in the right channel during the verses, with the string octet mixed to one channel, while the mono single and mono LP featured a more balanced mix. On the Yellow Submarine Songtrack and Love versions, McCartney's voice is centred and the string octet appears in stereo in an attempt to create a more "modern" sounding mix.

 

 

Releases

"Eleanor Rigby" was released simultaneously on 5 August 1966 on both the album Revolver and on a double A-side single with "Yellow Submarine" on Parlophone in the United Kingdom and Capitol in the United States. It spent four weeks at number one on the British charts, but in America it only reached the eleventh spot.

 

The song was nominated for three Grammies and won the 1966 Grammy for Best Contemporary Rock and Roll Vocal Performance, Male for McCartney. Thirty years later, George Martin's isolated string arrangement (without the vocal) was released on the Beatles' Anthology 2. A remixed version of the track was included in the 2006 album Love.

 

 

Significance

 

The "Eleanor Rigby"/"Yellow Submarine" single from Japan. The photo shows the Beatles on stage at Tokyo in 1966.Though "Eleanor Rigby" was not the first pop song to deal with death and loneliness, it was certainly among the first to present such a serious attitude. The Shangri-Las' 1964 hit "Leader of the Pack" gave a rendition of star-crossed lovers ending in one of their deaths, but the subject matter was purely in a romantic vein and far from a serious look at loss. In fact, in the mid-1960s, the pop format hardly seemed the right vehicle for such a message, but pop music consistently had a more rosy outlook on life. Nevertheless, "Eleanor Rigby" took a message of depression and desolation, written by a famous pop band, with a sombre, almost funeral-like backing, to the number one spot of the pop charts. "Eleanor Rigby" marks a midpoint of sorts in the Beatles' evolution from a pop, live-performance band to a more experimental, studio-oriented band though the track contains no obvious studio trickery. Whereas many of the other tracks on Revolver lend themselves to a rock group, "Eleanor Rigby" in a sense is a precursor to the psychedelic tracks of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The subject matter also reflects a band in transition. The bleak lyrics were not The Beatles' first deviation from love songs, but were some of the most explicit. Eleanor Rigby's lonely existence shares more in tone with the sense of detachment of "A Day in the Life" than with "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

 

It is the second song to appear in the Beatles' 1969 animated film Yellow Submarine, after "Yellow Submarine," the only songs in the film where the Beatles are not seen to be singing. Eleanor Rigby is introduced just before we see the Beatles in the film in their hometown, Liverpool, and its poignancy ties in quite well with Ringo Starr (the first member of the group to encounter the submarine) who is represented as quietly bored and depressed.

 

In some reference books on classical music, Eleanor Rigby is included and considered comparable to art songs (lieder) by the great composers. Howard Goodall said that the Beatles' works are "a stunning roll-call of sublime melodies that perhaps only Mozart can match in European musical history" and that they "almost single-handedly rescued the Western musical system" from the "plague years of the avant-garde". About Eleanor Rigby, he said it is "an urban version of a tragic ballad in the Dorian mode.

 

In 2004, this song was ranked number 137 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

 

In a 1966 press conference, an American reporter asked Paul what Eleanor Rigby was supposed to be about, and John jumped in saying "two queers." John was making a mockery of it, because at that time it was rumored that Day Tripper was about a prostitue and Norwegian Wood was about a lesbian.

 

 

Covers

Numerous artists have covered "Eleanor Rigby" in a variety of styles, at least 61 released on albums by one count:

 

Joan Baez's 1967 version was sung to classical orchestration.

Ray Charles also released a famous cover version as a single and on the album A Portrait of Ray. This soul cover one steers closer to the original, retaining a string section, but adds a driving drum part and a more subdued chorus.

Aretha Franklin, on the album This Girl's In Love With You and as a single, released one of the more notable covers, switching the song to first person and replacing the string quartet with a driving soul backing, complete with a chorus.

Jazz musicians such as Wes Montgomery, Stanley Jordan, and John Pizzarelli covered it as an instrumental, with lead-guitar taking over the vocal line.

The Band Godhead also covered this song, on their 2001 album 2000 Years of Human Error. This version is done in an Industrial sounding way, a unique track on the album.

 

 

105. I'm Only Sleeping

 

 

"I'm Only Sleeping" is a song by The Beatles that appeared on their studio album Revolver (in the US on the Yesterday and Today album). Though the song-writing credit is Lennon-McCartney, it was written solely by John Lennon. It is unique because it features a dual guitar solo by George Harrison played backwards and an electronically compressed rhythm guitar track. The solo is consistent with the rest of the song because Harrison took great pains to practice the entire melody of his solo backwards, so that when reversed and mixed in, it would fit the overall dreamlike mood of the rest of the song.

 

This hazy, disjointed mood on top of the lyrics suggest a drug-induced state rather than actual dreaming, and this is the most widely accepted interpretation of the song. However, the first draft of Lennon's lyrics for "I'm Only Sleeping", written on the back of a letter from 1966, suggest that he actually was writing about the joys of staying in bed rather than any drug euphoria. In fact, Lennon loved staying in bed or on a couch, and when he wasn't sleeping, he would sit in it and read, write, or watch television. In a March 1966 interview with Maureen Cleave, the same interview in which Lennon made his "more popular than Jesus" remark, Cleave said, "He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England." Lennon's "Bed-In" for Peace in 1969 with Yoko Ono may have been an unconscious extension of this habit.

 

Interestingly, during the break before the second bridge at about 1:57 minutes into the song, a barely audible voice (probably Lennon's) can be heard saying, "Yawn, Paul." Following this, the slightly more audible sound of McCartney yawning can be heard at about 2:00 minutes into the song.

 

 

Beatles versions

The mono and stereo versions "I'm Only Sleeping" differ greatly as to the positioning and tracking of the backwards guitar:

 

U.K. stereo version: Features the backwards track during the second verse, through the entire instrumental break, and at the end of the song (immediately after the last verse).

U.S. stereo version: Same as U.K. stereo, except that the track fades in a second after the beginning of the instrumental break, thus the first fragment is not heard.

Mono version: No backwards track during the second verse, but a quick fragment is heard between "taking my time" and "lying there and staring at the ceiling" that does not appear on the stereo versions. The track is fully intact during the instrumental break. However, the first fragment from the ending is not heard as it fades in a second later.

 

Cover versions

A cover of "I'm Only Sleeping" was the first solo single by British singer Suggs, best known as the lead singer of Madness. Released in August of 1995, the song reached #7 on the UK charts.

In 2001, the song was covered for the movie I Am Sam by Australian alternative rock band The Vines (The Beatles is their lead singer's; Craig Nicholls favourite band.)

The song was also covered by pop band The Backstreet Boys. The version is unpopular among Beatles fans.

Stereophonics and Oasis also covered this song live in 2006.

Quorthon has a cover which can be heard on the third CD of In Memory of Quorthon.

The song has also been covered by Elliott Smith as part of a series of unofficial live recordings.

 

 

106. Love You To

 

 

"Love You To" is a song by The Beatles from the album Revolver. It is sung and written by George Harrison and features a tabla, an Indian drum played with the hands, as well as a sitar and a tamboura drone. Ringo Starr is the only other Beatle playing on the song, shaking a tambourine. Paul McCartney originally recorded background vocals for the song, but those went unused.

 

It was the first Beatles song that seriously attempted to incorporate classical Indian music. George Harrison was learning the sitar from Ravi Shankar, who inspired him to learn more about Indian music and Eastern religion.

 

A few years later, a brief portion of the song was included in The Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine when George's character is first introduced.

107. Here, There And Everywhere

 

 

"Here, There and Everywhere" is a song largely written by Paul McCartney (though credited to Lennon-McCartney), recorded for The Beatles 1966 album Revolver. In his biography, "Many Years From Now", McCartney is quoted as saying that the song is one of his favourites.

 

 

Origins

The song is known for its bittersweet tune, harmonic scheme, and subtle arrangement. The cheerful melody of the verses is counteracted by the more haunting minor modes of the bridge. McCartney, in fact, mentioned in the 1989 radio series McCartney On McCartney that the beginning with its ooh-aah backing vocals was meant to have a Beach Boys sound.

 

This track features one of McCartney's highest vocals; he said in his autobiography that he was actually trying to sing it in the style of Marianne Faithfull. His vocals are multi-tracked.

 

 

Cover versions

Noted performers who have covered "Here, There and Everywhere" include Emmylou Harris, Clay Aiken, Jose Feliciano (instrumental), The Lettermen, John McDermott, Céline Dion (for a George Martin/Beatles tribute album), George Benson, Perry Como and Sissel.

 

 

Culture references

In the TV series Friends, this song is played on steel drums when Phoebe Buffay walks down the aisle during her wedding.

108. Yellow Submarine

 

 

"Yellow Submarine" is a 1966 song by The Beatles (written by the Lennon-McCartney duo) and the theme song for the 1968 animated United Artists film based on the music of the Beatles. It is also the title for the soundtrack album to the film, released as part of The Beatles' music catalogue.

 

 

Recording

"Yellow Submarine" was recorded on 26 May and 1 June 1966, at Abbey Road Studios.

 

 

Promotion

The "Yellow Submarine" single was the Beatles' thirteenth UK single. Ringo Starr performed lead vocals. It was released in the UK on 5 August as a 'double A side' with "Eleanor Rigby", and in the United States on 8 August.

 

 

Charts

 

United States

In the United States, the single was #2 on the Billboard "Hot 100", #1 in Record World, and #2 in Cashbox, where it was held off #1 by The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love".

 

 

United Kingdom

The single went to #1 on every major British chart, remained at #1 for four weeks and charted for 13 weeks. It won an Ivor Novello Award for the highest certified sales of any single issued in the UK in 1966. No promotional film clip was made, so some TV programs (including the BBC's Top Of The Pops) created their own clips from stock footage.

 

 

Controversy

 

Drug rumors

Following its release in August 1966, the song received bad publicity through rumors that it referred to hallucinogenic Nembutal capsules. Paul McCartney vehemently denied the allegations, saying he had written the song as a children's tune.

 

 

"Bigger than Jesus"

The single was released at the height of the controversy surrounding John Lennon's remarks about Christianity and this has been cited as part of the reason that it failed to reach #1 on all US charts. Despite this, it sold 1,200,000 copies in only four weeks and earned the Beatles their twenty-first US Gold Record award, beating the record set by Elvis Presley.

 

 

Cover version

In 1968, Apple Records issued a single by the Black Dyke Mills Band—a brass band—which featured a cover version of "Yellow Submarine" as the B-side.

109. She Said She Said

 

 

"She Said She Said" is a song by The Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver.

 

 

Inspiration

It was primarily written by John Lennon about one of his first LSD trips. Even though the song is called "She Said She Said" the opening lyric, "I know what it's like to be dead" was a remark made to Lennon while he was on acid with Peter Fonda. Fonda recalled that in an attempt to soothe George Harrison, who he says was having a bad trip, Fonda remarked that he knew what it's like to be dead, recalling an incident in his childhood in which he had almost died after accidentally shooting himself. Fonda also recalled that an annoyed Lennon said in response, "You're making me feel like I've never been born." Legend has it that Lennon had Fonda removed immediately because he was "freaking him out". In a surviving early demo of the song the lyric is 'He Said He Said' in clear relation to Fonda, with Lennon later changing the gender to female.

 

 

Recording

This was the final track recorded during the Revolver sessions, and was hastily added when the album lineup was found to be a song short. After the recording of the song, The Beatles producer George Martin is reported to have said: "All right, boys, I'm just going for a lie-down."

 

Paul McCartney's degree of participation in the song remains unclear. McCartney recalls that the band had a row before the track was recorded, with McCartney walking out and thus not participating in the recording. McCartney does not contribute a vocal to the song, and it is not known whether George Harrison or McCartney played bass on the song.

 

 

Music

The song uses mostly just 3 chords: B-flat (I), E-flat (IV), and A-flat (flat-VII). The song is in the key of B-flat Mixolydian modulating to E-flat major during the bridge sections. The modulation is affected with an f-minor (v minor) chord, a pivot chord they'd used to modulate to the key of the subdominant before on 'From Me To You' and 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.

 

The coda features a canonic imitation in the split voice parts, an interesting development of the idea originally presented by the lead guitar in the verse.

 

The song is also often noted as one of Ringo Starr's most innovative contributions. The spinning, whirling drumming seems to have no connection to the vocals or any other instrument, yet still connects with them somehow in a remarkable way. Some drum enthusiasts have referred to Starr's performance on this track as one of the best drum tracks ever recorded in pop music.

 

 

Covers

The Chords covered the song in 1980 and included it on their debut album So Far Away.

Ween covered the song for their 1987 album Axis: Bold as Boognish.

The Snake River Conspiracy included their version on the "Vulcan" single in 1999.

The Black Keys covered it on their first album The Big Come Up in 2002.

Gov't Mule perform the song live, quite frequently, as a medley with "Tomorrow Never Knows". The song appears on their 1998 album Dose.

The Dead with Joan Osbourne had covered the song on their 2003 tour, 7/1, 7/7 & 8/3.

Yellow Matter Custard performed the song live in 2003.

 

Trivia

It is documented in the Anthology book that the line "no,no,no, you're wrong" was contributed by George Harrison.

Some of the lyrics are used in the the Chameleon's track "Singing Rule Britannia (While the Walls Close In)".

 

"Paul is dead" Significance

People have interpreted the opening line ("I know what it's like to be dead") as a clue that Paul McCartney died and was replaced. And according to the "Everyone BUT Paul is Dead" parody theory, this line is taken as a clue that Lennon (like all the other Beatles except McCartney) died and was replaced.

110 Good Day Sunshine

 

 

"Good Day Sunshine" is a song by The Beatles on the 1966 album Revolver. It was written by Paul McCartney, though like all songs written by either of them, it is credited as Lennon/McCartney.

 

Recording

McCartney and Ringo Starr are the only members of the band to appear on this track instrumentally. John Lennon and George Harrison add harmony vocals during the choruses. George Martin played the solo on the piano.

 

McCartney's bass provides the opening line before Starr enters with a drum roll.

 

There is a phrase hidden in the song, just after Paul McCartney sings the line, "she feels good." Ringo can be heard very softly in the right channel. While it is not clear what he is saying, some Beatles enthusiasts say that he responds to McCartney's line, saying "she f***ing does."

 

 

Influences

McCartney said that he was influenced by The Lovin' Spoonful in writing this song, whose bouncy harmonies and upbeat lyrics recall the Spoonful's "good-time music."

 

 

Cover versions

A cover version was recorded by The Tremeloes and released as their first single after they signed with CBS Records in 1966, though it never charted.

 

 

Cultural references

"Good Day Sunshine" was played as the wake-up music on the final day of the "Return to Flight" Discovery Space Shuttle mission in July 2005, as well as the wake-up music on day 4 of Shuttle Flight STS-121.

The song is also played at Safeco Field, home of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners when the retractable roof is retracted.

 

 

 

111. And Your Bird Can Sing

 

 

And Your Bird Can Sing" is a song by the The Beatles, released on their 1966 album Revolver in the UK and on Yesterday...and Today in the U.S. The songwriting credit is Lennon/McCartney, though the song was written solely by John Lennon. The working title was "You Don't Get Me". The song, with references to "green birds", "prized possessions," and "seven wonders" seems to be an inspired psychedelic vision of reality. Lennon was later very harsh on the song, referring to it as "another of my throwaways", "fancy paper around an empty box". Though Lennon's judgement is hard on the song, it endures as one of The Beatles' many vibrant and inventive works from this period, and a favourite of fans.

 

The song itself has a guitar sound similar to that found on the rest of Revolver, and a dual-harmony lead guitar intro played by George Harrison and Paul McCartney (along with his usual bass guitar contributions).

 

A Byrds-like version of the song featuring 12-string guitar was recorded on April 20, 1966, but this was scrapped and the group recorded the album version on April 26. This rejected version is heard on the Anthology 2 album, and features a vocal track in which Lennon and McCartney are giggling hysterically. While the Anthology liner notes do not indicate why they are laughing, some have suggested that they were under the influence of marijuana at the time of recording.

 

A number of incidents have been proposed as inspirations for the song's cryptic lyrics. Prior to the Revolver sessions, Lennon had received a singing mechanical caged bird as a gift from his first wife Cynthia, which he took as a horrible metaphor of his unhappy marriage. While high on marijuana, McCartney had reportedly jotted down that the secret of life was in "seven levels" ("seven wonders" in the song), which later became a joke with the group. The song is also sometimes said to be a message from John to Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, in reference to Jagger's pop star girlfriend ("bird" in slang) Marianne Faithfull. The popular Beatles-influenced band The Jam covered this song as a B-side. The Georgia-based college band Guadalcanal Diary also covered this song, released as a CD bonus track on their 1987 album 2X4. Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs covered it on their 2006 album Under the Covers, Vol. 1. Jack Black used its opening riff for inspiritation in a fight against Satan at each show of the Tenacious D 2006-2007 Tour.

112. For No One

 

 

"For No One" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) that originally appeared on The Beatles seventh album, Revolver. It was inspired by McCartney's failing relationship with Jane Asher. The song ends abruptly, just like the relationship it describes. The original title of the song was "Why Did It Die?", obviously referring to the relationship with Asher.

 

John Lennon said of the song, "One of my favourites of his—a nice piece of work."

 

Writing and recording

McCartney recalls writing "For No One" in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. "I suspect it was about another argument."

 

The song was recorded on May 9, 16 and 19, 1966. McCartney sang, played clavichord (rented from George Martin's AIR company), piano, and bass, while Ringo Starr played drums and tambourine. Lennon and George Harrison did not contribute to the recording.

 

The French-horn solo was by Alan Civil, a British horn player. Prior to the session, Civil thought he was playing for a classical album, mistaking the words "For No One" on a lead sheet as "For No. One", an abbreviation for "Symphony Number One". During the session, McCartney pushed Civil to play a note that was beyond the usual range of the instrument (Pitched on an F horn, it is a Super-D sharp, that is, an octave above the standard 'high D#'). The result was the "performance of his life", high praise for someone who was known as the best French horn player in London at the time.

 

 

Alternate versions

Country singer Emmylou Harris included the song on her debut album in 1975.

In 1992, Maureen McGovern released this and "Things We Said Today" as a 2-song medley on her album Baby I'm Yours.

Paul McCartney also released a different version on the soundtrack for his 1984 movie Give My Regards to Broad Street.

In 2005, Meret Becker performed "For No One" on the television programme "Juke Box Memories" on arte (in German and in French).

Elliott Smith played a live version of this song.

Rickie Lee Jones released a version of "For No One" on her 2000 album It's Like This.

In December of 2006 Meredith Briden played the song at a benefit concert to raise funds for Africa.

113. Doctor Robert

 

 

"Doctor Robert" is a song by The Beatles originally released on the album Revolver in the UK and on Yesterday and Today in the US. The song was written primarily by John Lennon but credited to Lennon/McCartney. It was recorded in 7 takes on April 17, 1966 with vocals overdubbed April 19.

 

The Beatles were often accused of putting drug references in their songs though they claimed that they hadn’t intentionally done so; ironically, the drug references in this song went largely unnoticed. John Lennon has said that Dr. Robert was actually himself, "I was the one who carried all the pills on tour ... in the early days."

 

Cultural references

The title of the song was used as a pseudonym by Robert Howard, lead singer with 80s group the Blow Monkeys.

This song is referenced in Regina Spektor's song "Edit" from her album Begin to Hope.

114. I Want To Tell You

 

George Harrison live 1992

 

"I Want to Tell You" is a Beatles song on the 1966 album Revolver. It was written by George Harrison and recorded on June 2, 1966 (with the bass overdubbed on June 3). Working titles were "Laxton's Superb" and "I Don't Know."

 

The song marks the first time the band included three Harrison songs on a Beatles album, reflecting his growing stature as a songwriter.

 

Music

Although a melodic pop song similar to the others on the album, the song hints at Indian influences, although less overtly so than "Love You To", another Harrison composition from the same album. It is largely built around a drone, rarely straying from its home key of A major, not even for the bridge. It features a flat Harrison vocal, supported heavily by Lennon and McCartney on backup vocals, in a fashion similar to Harrison's earlier "If I Needed Someone". It is largely driven by the bass and the persistent, almost hypnotic, piano pounding throughout the song. A distinctive guitar part opens and closes the song and recurs between verses, which lends the song some structure where it might otherwise sound formless (given the subtle variation).

 

Interestingly, it is one of the few Beatles songs to begin with a fade-in ("Eight Days a Week" being another notable example). The ending — where the group repeats the line "I've got time" over the opening guitar riff — makes notable use of melisma by McCartney (recalling, again, the song's understated Indian influences, as well as adding an increasing sense of disarray as the ensemble falls apart).

 

 

Lyrics

The lyrics are, in Harrison's own words, "about the avalanche of thoughts that are so hard to write down or say or transmit." The frustration in the lyrics is reinforced by the song's dissonant atmosphere — a product of numerous elements, including the continuous piano chord in the background and the contrast between Harrison's modest lead vocal and Lennon and McCartney's descant harmonizing — which creates an air of uneasiness.

 

The bridge reveals some of Harrison's thinking at the time, reducing his internal difficulties to conflicts within his being:

 

But if I seem to act unkind

It's only me, it's not my mind

That is confusing things

In his 1980 autobiography I Me Mine, Harrison suggested that the second line be reversed. "The mind is the thing that hops about telling us to do this and do that — when what we need is to lose (forget) the mind."

 

Other versions

An upbeat live version of the song opens Harrison's Live In Japan album, recorded and released in 1992. Harrison and bandmate Eric Clapton extend the song with a few guitar solos. Harrison uses the lyric reversal mentioned in his autobiography, singing the bridge "it isn't me, it's just the mind."

 

Another notable live recording was played by Jeff Lynne at the Concert For George — again opening the main set and again featuring Clapton as a sideman — in 2003 for the then-recently deceased Harrison.

 

This song was covered by Ted Nugent on State of Shock (1979) and is also on Super Hits (1998).

 

 

Trivia

On his recent tours, Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (and later The Rutles) said the Bonzos' first studio experience was at Abbey Road Studios while the Beatles were recording "I Want to Tell You". Innes said he took a break in one of the studio's hallways and heard The Beatles playing back the song, blasting it at full volume. Innes recounted that he was in a state of immense awe over the song's beauty, and sheepishly returned to the Bonzo session, where they were recording the 1920s Vaudeville song "My Brother Makes the Noises for the Talkies".

115. Got To Get You Into My Life

 

Wings live 1979

 

"Got to Get You into My Life" is a song by The Beatles on the album Revolver. It was released as a single in the US in 1976, a decade after its initial release. This was the single that was released as a promo for the Rock 'n' Roll Music compilation album. It hit #7 on the pop charts- this was 6 years after the band broke up, The Beatles' last top ten hit there until their 1995 release "Free as a Bird". A cover version by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers made the British Top 10 in the summer of 1966. Another cover version by Earth, Wind & Fire topped the US R&B charts and reached number 9 on the US pop charts in 1978.

 

 

Development of song

Though officially credited to Lennon-McCartney, Paul McCartney was primarily responsible for the writing of this track, to which he also contributes lead vocals. John Lennon was said to have been very fond of the song, saying this was, "Paul at his best," according to a 1980 Playboy interview. McCartney attempted to write in the style of American soul music for this song, as particularly inspired by the Stax label. The soul revue-style horns are especially allusive to the Stax "Memphis soul" sound. Traces of Motown influence are apparent as well. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios between 7 April and 17 June 1966 and evolved considerably between the first takes and the final version released on album.

 

 

Song structure

Following the outro chords of "I Want to Tell You", the song immediately starts with the horns. McCartney's vocals clock in at 0:07. The predominant instrument playing is the horns, similar to the soul records of the late '50s and early '60s. The chorus of the song appears at 1:04, with the song's title sung. The song switches between a verse and the refrain. The electric guitar solo clocks in at 1:53, and at 2:10 the horns come in, playing the same chords as the song opened with. The song closes with fading vocals of McCartney, much akin to the soul records of the time. The percussion instrument most predominant is the tambourine, overdubbed onto the standard drum kit.

 

 

Meaning

Although many believed it was a love song Paul was writing for a girl, he later disclosed the song was about marijuana in Barry Miles' book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. Many lyrics from the song suggested this - "I took a ride I didn't know what I would find there / Another road where maybe I could see some other kind of mind there.", "What can I do, what can I be when I'm with you I want to stay there / If I am true I will never leave and if I do I know the way there."

116. Tomorrow Never Knows

 

 

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver, but the first to be recorded for the album. Though the songwriting credit is Lennon-McCartney, the song was written primarily by John Lennon.

 

"Tomorrow Never Knows" ends the Revolver album in a more experimental fashion, probably contributing to Revolver's reputation as one of the group's most influential and expressive albums, in addition to consistently being regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 20th century. The album was voted as the greatest album of all time in the Virgin All Time Top 1,000 Albums. (The slower and radically different first take of this song appears on the second of the series of Beatles out-take albums, Anthology 2.)

 

Inspiration

John Lennon wrote the song in January 1966, closely adapted from the book The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, which they based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead with the understanding that the "Ego Death" experienced under the influence of LSD and other psychedelic drugs is essentially similar to the dying process and requires similar guidance. At the time of the song's release, it was reputed to have been written to facilitate the "letting go" process of psychedelic voyagers. The book The Love You Make, written by Beatles insider Peter Brown, claims that Lennon's only source of inspiration for the song came from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which it says he read while tripping on LSD.

 

 

Title

The title never actually appears in the song's lyrics, but was instead taken from Ringo Starr's interesting collection of malapropisms. Lennon chose to do this because he was embarrassed about the spiritual theme of the lyrics in the song, so he decided to give the song a throwaway title. The piece was originally titled "Mark I". "The Void" is cited as another working title; according to Mark Lewisohn this is an Urban Legend, but the books, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles and The Beatles A to Z both cite "The Void" as the original title.

 

 

Recording

Lennon first played the song to Brian Epstein, George Martin and the other Beatles at Epstein's house at 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia. McCartney remembered that even though the song was only one chord of C, Martin accepted it as it was. The recording was started on 6 April 1966, during the first session for the Revolver album. Lennon told producer Martin that he wished it to sound as if he were the Dalai Lama singing from a mountain top. Engineer Geoff Emerick wired Lennon's voice through a Leslie speaker, thus obtaining the desired effect.

 

 

Experimentation and tape loops

The track was one of the first pieces of psychedelia, including highly compressed drums, reverse guitar, processed vocals, looped tape effects, a sitar and a tambur drone. (The backwards guitar solo is often reported as being the guitar solo from the song "Taxman;" but this can not be the case, as "Taxman" was recorded weeks after "Tomorrow Never Knows".)

 

McCartney supplied a bag of quarter-inch tape loops which were played on five individual BTR3 tape machines, and controlled by non-plussed EMI technicians in studio two at Abbey Road on 7 April. The four Beatles controlled the faders of each machine, while Martin varied the stereo panning. The tapes created a 'seagull'/'Red Indian' effect (which was McCartney shouting) and were made (like most of the other loops) by superimposition and acceleration (0:07)

 

The tape loops also contained:

 

An orchestral chord of B flat major (0:19)

A Mellotron Mk.II, played on the "flute" tape set (0:22)

Another Mellotron played in 6/8 from B flat to C, using the "3 violins" tape set (0:38)

A rising scalar phrase on a sitar, recorded with heavy saturation and acceleration (0:56)

The Beatles further experimented with tape loops in "Carnival Of Light", an as-yet-unreleased (even by bootleggers) McCartney piece recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, and "Revolution 9", a John Lennon experimentation released on The White Album. The song's harmonic structure is derived from Indian music, and is based upon a C drone. The "chord" over the drone is generally C major, with some changes to B flat major.

 

 

Mono and stereo versions

One known difference between the mono and stereo mixes is the intro. The opening chord fades in gradually on the stereo version. The mono version features a more sudden fade-in. The mono and stereo versions also have the tape loop track faded in at slightly different times and different volumes (in general, the loops are louder on the mono mix). On the stereo version there is a bit of feedback after the guitar solo which was edited out of the mono mix. There is also an alternate mono mix which only appeared on a limited number of early pressings of Revolver. This version has additional, though slight variations in the volume and timing of the "loop track", as well as a slightly less processed guitar solo (the common mono and stereo versions have the solo double tracked), and a slightly longer fadeout featuring Paul's piano.

 

 

Remix

On the Beatles remix album Love, the rhythm to "Tomorrow Never Knows" was mashed up with the vocals and melody from Within You Without You, creating a seamless harmonic musical atmosphere between the two songs. This, like all of the sounds on the album, were created and imagined by Beatles producer Sir George Martin with his son Giles.

 

 

Cover versions

Cover versions of the song include those by Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Umphrey's McGee,U-Melt, 801, Danielle Dax, The Chameleons on Strange Times, Monsoon and by Phil Collins on his 1981 album Face Value; where a brief clip of Phil singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" at the end is quietly heard. Our Lady Peace also covered the song on The Craft soundtrack. Gov't Mule perform the song live, quite frequently, as a medley with She Said She Said. The song is also featured on Coldplay's Twisted Logic Tour when it plays as one of the introduction songs. Additionally, Ratdog (Bob Weir) has added the song to its repertoire, and it is featured often as a show-opener. Colonol Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade has often covered this song at live shows. Night Ranger covered the song as part of a medley of it and Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do" on their 1995 album Feeding Off The Mojo. David Lee Roth recorded it on his 2003 Diamond Dave album under the title "That Beatles Tune." Living Colour covered it on their Collidescope album in 2003. Michael Hedges recorded an acoustic version of the song for his 1996 album, Oracle. Noel Gallagher from Oasis also paired with the band Cornershop, to perform a live version of the song at a Cornershop Concert. Junior Parker's cover appears in the film Children of Men. Argentinan bass player Pedro Aznar also covered this song in his 2003 record "Mudras. Billy Idol does a cover of it on the various artists album "Butchering The Beatles A Head Bashing Tribute To The Beatles". The dB's repretoire included a live cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows" that featured strikingly faithful sonic reproductions of the vocals, backwards guitar solos, mellotron and distinctive drumming. Pioneer doom metal band Trouble, known for their psychedelic and spiritual themes, recorded a version as the closing track of their 1995 album Plastic Green Head.

 

 

Extracts and references in other musical works

The Oasis song "Morning Glory" includes the line, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon."

The Bangles's song "Everything I Wanted" which appeared on their Greatest Hits album, and was released as a single in Australia and parts of Europe (though not the UK), uses most of the "Tomorrow Never Knows" melody for its verses.

Public Enemy recorded a track entitled "Psycho of Greed" for their album Revolverlution that contained a continuous looping sample from this track. However, the clearance fee demanded by Capitol Records and the surviving Beatles was so high that the group decided to pull the track from the album.

The Dave Matthews Band sometimes alludes to the song during the introduction to their own songs titled "Minarets" and "Bartender" including but not limited to the opening lyric "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream."

Australian rock band Silverchair have a biography entitled, Tomorrow Never Knows.

The Chemical Brothers' first UK number one "Setting Sun" features an uncannily similar drumbeat. Their later single Let Forever Be also has some similarities. Both records feature Noel Gallagher on vocals, who is known for his appreciation of Beatles' music. Lawyers for the (then) three remaining Beatles later wrote to the Chemical Brothers, claiming mistakenly that they had sampled Tomorrow Never Knows. Virgin Records hired a musicologist to prove that they had not sampled the song.

Beck's song "New Pollution" from the Odelay album, shares a similar chord and drum pattern. The bass line of the song is similar to that of "Taxman", the opening track on Revolver.

The psychedelic version of the Simpsons theme in the end-credits of the episode D'oh-in in the Wind is a copy of "Tomorrow Never Knows", and is performed by Yo La Tengo.

The Sexy 2 references the song in "The Sky is Falling", a track from the band's debut EP Os Os stating "Revelation's crazy. Paul was wrong. Brainwashed George was right. Tomorrow never knows."

117. Strawberry Fields Forever

 

 

"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a 1967 song recorded by The Beatles. Widely considered to be one of the group's best recordings, it is also one of the defining works of the psychedelic rock genre. Although conventionally credited to both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "Strawberry Fields Forever" is known to have been composed solely by Lennon. It has been covered numerous times.

 

Release

The single was first released on 13 February 1967, in Britain, and subsequently on 17 February 1967, in the United States, as one side of a double A-side single, paired with the McCartney composition "Penny Lane". Both "Strawberry Field" and "Penny Lane" are locations in Liverpool, and during the production of these songs, the idea to make their next album a further exploration of themes and landmarks from the group's childhood in that city was considered. When manager Brian Epstein pressed producer George Martin for a new Beatles single, Martin told Epstein that the group had recorded what were, in his opinion, their two finest songs to date ("Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane"). Epstein suggested that Martin issue the songs as a double A-sided single, as they had done with their previous single, "Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby". Following UK protocol in the 1960s not to include songs released as a single within a new album, both songs were ultimately left off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band altogether; Martin regrets this decision.

 

The single reached #2 in the UK charts, behind Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me". "Penny Lane" reached #1 in the United States, while "Strawberry Fields Forever" peaked at #8.

 

In the U.S., both songs were also subsequently included on the LP Magical Mystery Tour, which was only released as a six-track double-EP in the UK. The LP format is now the official version in the Beatles' discography. This song also appears on the John Lennon Imagine soundtrack.

 

 

Composition

Lennon began writing the song in late 1966, while in Almería, Spain filming Richard Lester's How I Won the War. Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever" and McCartney's "Penny Lane" shared the theme of nostalgia for their childhood in Liverpool, and both referred to actual locations there, but they also had strong surrealistic and psychedelic overtones. Strawberry Field was the name of a Salvation Army orphanage just around the corner from Lennon's boyhood home in Woolton. Lennon and his childhood friends Pete Shotton and Ivan Vaughan used to play in the trees behind the orphanage. One of Lennon's childhood treats was the garden party held each summer on the grounds of Strawberry Field. Lennon's Aunt Mimi recalled: "As soon as we could hear the Salvation Army band starting, John would jump up and down shouting, 'Mimi, come on. We're going to be late.'"

 

The period of its composition was one of momentous change and dislocation for Lennon. The Beatles had just retired from touring after one of the most difficult periods of their career, including the infamous "more popular than Jesus" controversy and their disastrous tour of the Philippines. Lennon's marriage was failing, and the psychological wounds of his childhood were causing him renewed pain. He was also using increasing quantities of drugs, especially the powerful hallucinogen LSD. Although there are no obvious references to drugs, the song's style, tone, and oblique, stream of consciousness lyrics often are thought to have been influenced by his LSD experiences.

 

There exists a rich documentary record of demos and studio takes which reveal the evolution of the song. The earliest demo version of the song has a single verse with no refrain:

 

No one is on my wavelength, I mean, it's either too high or too low; That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right, I mean it's not too bad.

 

In later demo versions Lennon altered this verse to make it more obscure and added a second verse substantially identical to the third verse on the released version. The last verse was written fairly close to the time of the song's recording, though it is the first verse on the released version.

 

 

Recording

The song's groundbreaking production by recording engineer Geoff Emerick and complex arrangement gave clear evidence of the band's near-total mastery of the recording studio and their increasingly avant-garde approach to their music. It featured extensive overdubbing, the prominent use of reverse tape effects and tape loops, and extensive audio compression and equalisation. In addition to the standard guitar-bass-drums backing, the arrangement also included piano, Mellotron (played by McCartney), trumpets, cellos and some unusual instruments including the swarmandel, an Indian stringed instrument which provided the sitar-like sound at the end of each chorus.

 

The released version of the song is an edit of two different performances. The band recorded multiple takes of two quite distinct versions of the song. The first version was reputedly an attempt to emulate the acid rock sound of American bands like Jefferson Airplane, and it featured relatively basic instrumentation comprised of Mellotron, guitars, bass and drums. For the second version, recorded some weeks later, Lennon opted for a much more complex arrangement (scored by George Martin) that included trumpets and cellos, along with the prominent sound of backwards cymbals during the verses.

 

Lennon decided that he liked the first minute of Take 7 (the "acid rock" version) and the ending of Take 26 (the "orchestral" version). He wanted the finished master to combine these sections from the two versions, so he nonchalantly gave producer Martin the task of joining them together.

 

Martin's and Emerick's problem was that the two versions were played in different keys and tempos (Take 7 in A major and Take 26 in C major). Fortunately for Martin and Emerick, the faster version was also in the higher key. That the two pieces of the song, when joined, have the same tempo and the same key is the result of slowing down the faster and higher-keyed version and speeding up the slower and lower-keyed version to a speed at which both tempo and key matched. (Decreasing the playback speed of a recording has the effect of lowering its key, while increasing a recording's playback speed has the opposite effect.) That the two takes were able to match when tempered in this way and fit together so seamlessly was, according to George Martin, a happy coincidence; when Lennon had first asked Martin to make this edit, the latter observed the two different takes and insisted it would be impossible. There are two edits in the released version: one just after the first verse, before "Let me take you down" (where a superfluous verse was removed); and the second a few seconds later, a more prominent edit between the words "'cause I'm" and "going to" at exactly one minute into the song (where Take 7 blends into Take 26). The pitch-shifting in joining the versions also gave Lennon's lead vocal a slightly other-worldly "swimming" quality.

 

The instrument that produced the flute-like sound in the song's introduction was a Mellotron, purchased by Lennon the previous year and brought in to the Abbey Road studio especially for the song. However, it was McCartney who discovered the potential of this new instrument composing the introductory passage and playing the Mellotron during the recording. This innovative British-made electronic keyboard used eight-second tape segments (or samples) of real instruments such as brass, strings (used on take 1 of the song), and flutes (on takes 2 through 7). The Beatles were one of the first rock bands to acquire a Mellotron, and "Strawberry Fields Forever" is believed to be the first use of the instrument on a pop recording. As a result of the Beatles' patronage, the instrument was rapidly taken up by other groups and used on other famous recordings of the psychedelic era by Traffic, The Moody Blues, and the Rolling Stones.

 

Contrary to belief of the Paul Is Dead urban legend supporters, Lennon says "cranberry sauce" at the end of the song rather than "I buried Paul", a fact that Lennon himself confirmed in a 1980 Playboy interview. He said that it was a kind of icing on the cake of the weirdness of the song, where anything he might have imagined saying would have been appropriate. On the sessions released in The Beatles Anthology, the words "cranberry sauce" are more clearly heard, especially during the edit piece joined onto the end of take 7.

 

 

Promotion and reception

The song reached number two on the British charts. The number one single at the time was Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me". (An interesting note is that until February 1969, there was no single definitive singles chart in the UK. The retroactive determination of "British chart history" flows smoothly from NME's 1950s chart through Record Retailer's expanded chart, which began in 1960, into the one compiled by the British Market Research Bureau that is used today. "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane" was ranked as a number one entry on Melody Maker's weekly singles chart.)

 

The promotional film for the song is now recognized as one of the first and most successful conceptual music videos, featuring reverse film effects, stop motion animation, disconcerting jump cuts from daytime to night-time and (among other things) the Beatles playing and subsequently pouring paint over and smashing an upright piano. It also featured the use of jarring juxtaposition of setting with props - such as a table in the middle of an open field - often seen in more recent 'eccentric' music videos. It was filmed on January 30, 1967 in Knole Park in Sevenoaks, and directed by Peter Goldmann. Goldmann was a friend of Klaus Voormann who recommended the Swedish TV director to the group.[3] The location of the filming is easy to find, as it is on one of the main roads through the park with a recognisable tree. Both videos were selected by New York's MoMA as two of the most influential music videos in the late 1960s; both were originally broadcast in the United States in early 1967 on the variety show Hollywood Palace, with Liberace as host.

 

The song gave its name to the Strawberry Fields memorial in New York City's Central Park, near the site of Lennon's assassination.

 

Brian Wilson claimed that 'Strawberry Fields Forever' was partially responsible for the collapse of the Beach Boys' legendary unfinished album 'SMiLE'. Wilson first heard the song on his car radio while driving, and was so affected by it that he had to pull over until the song finished. He then remarked to his companion (either wryly or in despair, according to the version of the story) that the Beatles had "got there first" (i.e., to the sound he was trying to achieve with the new album). SMiLE was shelved shortly afterwards.

 

Before playing the song on his radio show in January 2006, BBC Radio 2 DJ Mark Radcliffe said it could be described "without fear of contradiction as the greatest double-A side ever".

 

According to AcclaimedMusic.net (a site which combines hundreds of musicians' and critics' best-of lists from around the world), "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the Beatles' most critically acclaimed song of all time, ranking at #12 on the All Time Top 3000 Songs.

 

However,WLS afternoon disk jockey Dex Card declined after a few weeks to play the song, remarking that "I just can't stomach that."

 

 

Covers and derivations

Floater from Portland, Oregon performs the song during their live shows in a medely with their song "Weary" from their 1994 concept album Sink.

Tomorrow cover the song on their 1968 album, Tomorrow.

Mark Cunningham recorded a faithful version of the song in 1987 as part of a complete re-recording of the Sgt. Pepper album and associated 1967 Beatles songs to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pepper.

Odetta covered "Strawberry Fields Forever" on Odetta, her 1967 album.

Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso evidently pays tribute to The Beatles' collage technique in his own "Sugarcane Fields Forever", on his experimental 1973 album Araçá Azul.

The Jamaican group The Pyramids sing "Let me take you back, cause I'm goin, goin, goin to Ethiopia" on their (late 1960s?) tune "Ethiopia".

Peter Gabriel covered the song for the 1976 transitory musical documentary All This and World War II.

A capella group The Bobs covered the song on Cover the Songs of....

Argentinean band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs covered the song in Spanish during the 1990s (with Debbie Harry).

Candy Flip had a hit single(UK #3) with a suitably psychedelic cover of the song in the early 1990s.

The Apples in Stereo pay homage to the song with "Strawberryfire" from their 1998 album Her Wallpaper Reverie. Frontman Robert Schneider stated in an interview: "I wanted it to be about - and to sound like - a girl listening to 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' I wasn't trying to mask that at all. We tried to duplicate the way the drums go 'abugga-bugga-ba' at the end of 'Strawberry Fields' by putting Hilarie's bass drums through a tape delay."

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes recorded a live version of the song on their album Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah.

Ben Harper recorded a cover of the song in 2001 for the soundtrack to the film I Am Sam.

Frank Zappa covered the song in 1988, but with different lyrics, to satirize Jimmy Swaggart's sex scandal. The number is not available on the regular Zappa catalogue, due to legal reasons.

The alternative band Bush makes a reference to strawberry fields in their hit single "Glycerine".

A live cover of the song also appears on the Definitive Collection album by Mother's Finest.

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet recorded an instrumental cover of the song on their 2003 album, Tails Out.

Richie Havens does a cover, on the album Richard P. Havens, 1983, also available on the collections The Classics and Sings Beatles & Dylan (1987).

The Real Group rewrote this chart for five vocalists. It can be found on their 1996 album "Live in Stockholm".

Composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and music producer Todd Rundgren covered it on his 1976 album Faithful, reproducing it almost perfectly.

In 2006, a newly mixed version of the song was included in the album Love. This version builds from an acoustic demo and incorporates elements of "Hello, Goodbye", "Baby You're a Rich Man", "In My Life", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Penny Lane", and "Piggies"

The Replacements opened their song "Mr. Whirly" with the opening tune to "Strawberry Fields Forever". (As an added note, the final verse of "Mr. Whirly" is set to the tune of the Beatles' song "Oh Darlin.' The songwriting credit to "Mr. Whirly" is attributed to "Mostly stolen.")

In the summer of 2000 the Progressive Rock supergroup Transatlantic, consisting of Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Pete Trewavas and Roine Stolt included the song in a medley surrounding their original song "Mystery Train" along with the Beatles tune "Magical Mystery Tour". The result can be heard on Transatlantic's double live album Live in America (2001).

Plastic Penny recorded a standard cover of the song, which appears on the collection The Best Of & Rarities.

The bluegrass band Hayseed Dixie covered the song on their album Weapons of Grass Destruction.

 

Pop culture

American baseball player Darryl Strawberry was known as a "good hit, no field" kind of player during his career in the 1980s and 1990s, and was also a troubled man off the field. A wag at Sports Illustrated hypothesized what his version of Purgatory would be like: "Strawberry fields forever!"

 

After he was arrested for illegal drugs, parody music maker Bob Rivers recorded a parody of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (titled "Strawberry Rehabs Forever") which popped up on radio stations (mostly morning "comedic" radio shows such as John Boy and Billy).

The tune to the song's beginning is played in EarthBound as the character Tessie's theme.

Jack Jones' biography of Mark David Chapman (John Lennon's murderer) is entitled Let Me Take You Down, which is the first line of the song's chorus.

Dominic Monaghan (of Lord of the Rings fame, and who played Charlie Pace on Lost) has "Living is easy with eyes closed" tattooed on his left arm.

In the movie Head, starring the Monkees, Peter Tork can be heard whistling the chorus.

This is one of the songs played on I Am Sam.

Captain Beefheart's song Beatle Bones and Smokin' Stones makes reference to Strawberry Fields Forever in the opening lines.

The lead female character in the 1978 film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is named Strawberry Fields.

On the popular virtual pet website, Neopets.com, Strawberry Fields Forever is the name of a color you can paint your pets.

 

Trivia

There is a town in New Freedom, Pennsylvania named "Strawberry Fields" after the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever". Some of the street names within the neighbourhood are named for each of the Beatles, while others are named after other Beatles works, such as Abbey Road, and the song Penny Lane.

John Lennon's Mellotron - which is featured so prominently in the intro of the song - is now owned by Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine and was featured in the "Closer" video for Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor is seen playing the Mellotron in the video while floating in space.

118. Penny Lane

 

 

"Penny Lane" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney, recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, and released in February 1967 as one side of a double A-sided single, along with Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever". Beatles producer George Martin has stated he believes the pairing of these songs resulted in probably the greatest single ever released by the group. Both songs were later released on the US Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967. The song features contrasting verse-chorus form and was credited "Lennon-McCartney", although McCartney was the main contributor to the song (Lennon reportedly helped with one of the verses). The song's title is derived from the name of a street in the band's hometown, Liverpool. The area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road is also commonly called Penny Lane. Locally the term "Penny Lane" was the name given to Allerton Road and Smithdown Road and its busy shopping area. Penny Lane is named after James Penny, an 18th century slave trader.

 

McCartney and John Lennon grew up in the area and they would meet at Penny Lane junction to catch a bus into the centre of the city. The street is an important landmark, sought out by most Beatles fans touring Liverpool. In the past, street signs saying "Penny Lane" were constant targets of tourist theft and had to be continually replaced. Eventually, city officials gave up and simply began painting the street name on the sides of buildings. This practice has now stopped (2007) and more thief resistant "Penny Lane" street signs have been installed.

 

Following the success of the double A-side "Yellow Submarine"/"Eleanor Rigby", Brian Epstein inquired if they had any new material available. Therefore, both songs, though recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, were ultimately left off it altogether — a decision George Martin regrets to this day. This single was also the first in the UK to come in a picture sleeve, a practice rarely used there. However, packaging singles in individually designed sleeves was a standard in the US and various other countries (such as Japan).

 

Instruments

The Beatles used a variety of different instruments including drums, guitar, bass, violin, harmonica, cello, and (famously) piccolo trumpet.

 

 

Context

 

A penny lane street signOne reason they came up with this song is from John's friend Tess who found a dog called Penny in a lane. The barber shop mentioned in the song was, according to McCartney, a shop owned by a Mr. Bioletti, who has claimed to have cut hair for Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison when they were children. The fire station in the song ("It's a clean machine") was not at Penny Lane junction, but a short walk away along Allerton Road. It was around the corner near to where Mather Avenue meets Rose Lane. The station is very close to the site of Quarry Bank School, which Lennon attended. Mather Avenue leads to Forthlin Road, home of McCartney. The line about the banker with a motor car probably refers to an employee of the Penny Lane branch of Barclays bank, which was situated on one of the corners of the junction. However, there were also two other nearby banks. These were TSB (now Lloyd's TSB) and Martin's Bank (later to be merged into Barclays Bank).

 

The promotional film for the song was not in fact filmed at Penny Lane — The Beatles were reluctant to travel to Liverpool. Street scenes of the Beatles were actually filmed in and around Angel Lane in London's East End. The outdoor scenes were filmed at Knole Park in Sevenoaks, where the promotional film for "Strawberry Fields Forever" was also shot. Both videos were selected by New York's MoMA as some of the most influential music videos in the late 1960s. Film of Penny Lane was included - with some scenes of green Liverpool buses and a brief overhead view of the 'shelter in the middle of the roundabout', but none of the Beatles attended.

 

 

Sgt. Peppers Bistro in the middle of the roundabout as it appears todayThe 'shelter in the middle of a roundabout' refers to the old bus shelter, now a cafe/restaurant with a Beatles theme. This is Penny Lane Bus Terminus and is officially on Smithdown Place.

 

 

Lyrics and music

Penny Lane is prime example of McCartney's ability to match tonal movement with lyrical movement.

 

1. The Verse and Chorus are in the different keys of I, B Major, and VIIb, A Major, respectively. The lyrics reflect the different tonal contexts in how McCartney's relationship with Penny Lane changes from being in the 3rd person in the Verse ("In Penny Lane there is...") to the 1st person in the Chorus ("Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes"); in a sense, the metaphorical 'Penny Lane' is represented by the new key of A Major.

 

2. The song conflates different temporal moments. The sky is referred to as blue, and yet it is raining. Events are apparently occurring in November, since the "pretty nurse" is selling poppies for Remembrance day (11 November), yet the "fish and finger pie" (a reference to heavy petting) is "in summer".

 

3. An example of McCartney's gift for mirroring the mood of the words in the music is evident in the lyrics "Very strange", which is sung at the end of a short modulatory phrase designed to take us to the new key of VIIb. At the end of the Verse the music lands on B Minor, the parallel minor that will act as the ii of V of the new key of A Major. When we consider that other popular songwriters of the 20th Century, for example Bruce Springsteen, rarely stray outside the domain of safe, diatonic harmony, this must certainly have been a strange sound for the listener.

 

4. Penny Lane's instrumental shows influence of The Beach Boys' song "God Only Knows", released a few months earlier. McCartney has repeatedly listed "God Only Knows" as one of his favourite songs of all time. The links between the two songs are especially noticeable in the four-in-the-bar block chords on piano and the loping rhythm of the bass guitar — both of which were played by McCartney. The piano part was multi-tracked supposedly by all four Beatles playing the same descending chord sequence individually.

 

5. An innovative and highly effective feature of the song was the piccolo trumpet solo played by David Mason. This is thought to be the first use of this instrument (a distinctive, speciality instrument pitched an octave higher than the standard B-flat trumpet) in pop music, where it is now (in certain genres) almost a commonplace. McCartney was dissatisfied with the initial attempts at the song's instrumental fill (one of which is released on Anthology 2), and was inspired to use the instrument after hearing Mason's performance in a BBC radio broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

 

Penny Lane today

 

A view down Penny Lane It is a tribute to the creative genius of The Beatles that they were able to fashion a distinguished song from memories of an undistinguished suburban road junction. Prior to securing international fame, Penny Lane's chief renown was as the terminus for several bus routes from the city centre and as the site, in the middle of the roundabout, of a handily located public convenience. The area remained largely unremarkable for the remainder of the 1960s and the 1970s; its most distinguishing feature was, perhaps, the regular arrival of tour buses from which tourists who would alight, take a photograph or two, and then get back on the bus.

 

Towards the end of the 1970s, businesses that set up shop there included Penny Lane Records, Sven Books (Liverpool's first high-street sex shop), and a wine bar known in the early years as Harper's Bizarre, now called Penny Lane Wine Bar. In the mid-1980s, the bus shelter and public convenience were converted into a café that marketed itself as Sgt. Pepper's. Following privatisation, the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive bus depot, slightly up the hill past Bioletti's, was knocked down and turned into a shopping precinct complete with a supermarket and a public house.

 

Since then, the general Penny Lane area has acquired a distinct trendiness and desirability. The "alternative" businesses (wholefood outlets, charity shops), the now expanded array of cafés, bars, bistros, and takeaway food emporiums, as well as handily located traditional businesses (Woolworths, WHSmiths and Clarke's cake shop) make the neighbourhood the most sought-after among Liverpool's large student population. Though the song refers to the "Penny Lane junction" on Smithdown Road, the street itself also leads down at the other end to the University of Liverpool's student halls of residence, near Sefton Park.

 

In July 2006, a Liverpool Councillor proposed renaming certain street names because they were linked to the slave trade. It was soon discovered that Penny Lane, named after James Penny, a wealthy 18th-century slave ship owner and strong opponent of abolitionism, was one of these streets. Ultimately, city officials decided to forego the name change and re-evaluate the entire renaming process.

 

Quotes

From Journal of Mundane Behavior, February 2001 2(1):

 

But back to The Beatles: consider if you will, McCartney's "Penny Lane", a portrait of a village virtually teeming with Nowhere Men. Penny Lane is a study in mundanity, the simple sights and sounds of a suburban British neighbourhood; it's also one of the most stunningly gorgeous songs in the world. The descriptions of completely generalized, almost homogenous people and practices off set with small details and punctuated by a central contradiction (example: "And the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain; very strange"), the revolving chorus ("And mean while back in Penny Lane is in my ears..."), all set to that rich melody, with the horns, the flute, augh! Splendid! Additionally, it contains the lines that probably most influenced my own artistic point of view: "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the blue suburban skies..." The persistence of memory, the importance of experience, the way the smallest visual and aural details build up to form and inform this amazing thing we call A Life, all summed up in these simplest of lines. Or perhaps I'm imagining things. It's been known to happen.

 

Facts and figures

The original mix of "Penny Lane" had an additional flourish of piccolo trumpet notes at the end of the song. This mix was quickly superseded by one without the last trumpet passage, but not before a handful of promotional copies had been pressed and sent to radio stations. These recordings were among the rarest and most valuable Beatles collectibles but are now available on the "anthology 2" CD.

The mysterious lyrics "A four of fish and finger pie" are British slang. "A four of fish" refers to fourpennyworth of fish and chips, while "finger pie" is sexual slang of the time(see above), apparently referring to intimate fondlings between teenagers in the bus shelter, which was a familiar meeting place. The combination of "fish and finger" also puns on fish fingers. The lyrics as printed on the Blue (1967-1970) Album, however, are "Full of fish and finger pies" which are incorrect.

In August 1987, the piccolo trumpet played by David Mason on "Penny Lane" and two other Beatles tracks ("All You Need Is Love" and "Magical Mystery Tour") was sold in an auction at Sotheby's for $10,846.

Upon the release of the "Penny Lane" single, Douglas Adams claimed to have beaten up a child who'd heard the song on the radio, reportedly just to get him to hum the tune.

In the 1968 film Wonderwall, Jane Birkin's character, a suicidal model, is named Penny Lane. Also, in the 2000 film Almost Famous, Kate Hudson's character, the famous "Band Aid" who travels with the band is named Penny Lane. Hudson's character also attempts suicide. Another fictional Penny Lane is a minor character on the animated show Daria.

Rolling Stone ranked the song at #449 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

119. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 

 

120. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

 

(audio only)

 

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a song by the The Beatles written by Paul McCartney, but credited to Lennon/McCartney, and first released as the opening track on the album of the same name.

 

McCartney conceived a concept in which the entire album would be role-played, with each Beatle assuming an alter-ego in the Lonely Hearts Club Band, who in turn would perform a concert in front of an audience. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" introduces the band and thus introduces the concept.

 

Song structure

On the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, the song opens to the sound of chatter in an audience, and instruments tuning. (The sound of the band warming up comes from the 10 February orchestra session for "A Day in the Life".) When the song itself begins, the band introduces itself with the lead singer revving up the crowd. The crowd sounds edited into the song were recorded in 1960 by George Martin, during live recordings for the Goon Show. The song's structure is:

 

Verse

Bridge (instrumental)

Refrain

Bridge

Verse

Instrumental bridge and transition into "With a Little Help from My Friends".

The instrumental sections are made up of a French horn quartet that lends the song the feeling of a home-town band.

 

 

Reprise

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" is a reprise of the song at a faster tempo. While the opening track stays largely in the key of G major (except for transient modulation to F and perhaps C in the bridges), the reprise starts in F and modulates back to G. The track opens with a distorted guitar strumming a Hendrix chord (augmented ninth). McCartney counts 1..2..3..4, and between 3 and 4, Lennon jokingly adds "Bye!".

 

The idea for a reprise was conceived by the Beatles' road manager, Neil Aspinall,[4] who thought that as there was a "welcome song", there should be a "goodbye song". The song contains the same melody as the opening version, but with different lyrics. At 1:18, it was one of their shortest songs. (The shortest is "Her Majesty" at 0:23.)

 

The reprise was recorded on 1 April 1967, a month after the full version that opens the album.[5]

 

The sound of a chicken clucking at the very end of "Good Morning Good Morning" (the preceding track) fortuitously mixed perfectly with the opening distortion guitar (that is, its pitch matched that of the guitar). At the end of the track, applause simulates a live performance and segues into the final track of the album, "A Day in the Life".

 

 

1978 release

When the Beatles' recording contract with EMI expired in 1976, EMI was free to re-release music from the Beatle catalogue. At one point in 1976, there were 23 Beatles singles in the UK top 100. In 1978, 11 years after the original album release, EMI released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"/"With a Little Help from My Friends" as the A-side of a single with "A Day in the Life" as the B-side. The single was released on Capitol in the U.S. on 14 August and on Parlophone in the UK in September. The single releases closely followed the 24 July 1978 U.S. release of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band film.

 

Country Chart Rank

UK Music Week 63[8]

U.S. Billboard Hot 100 71[9]

U.S. Cash Box 92[10]

U.S. Record World 103[11]

 

 

Mal Evans claimed writing credit

According to Mal Evans' diaries—from which extracts have recently been released—he helped McCartney write the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" song. Evans wrote in his diary, on 27 January 1967:

 

“ Sgt Pepper: Started writing song with Paul upstairs in his room, he on piano. What can one say about today — ah yes! Four Tops concert at Albert Hall. Beatles get screams they get the clap. Off to Bag after gig. Did a lot more of "where the rain comes in". [Evans' title for "Fixing a Hole"] Hope people like it. Started Sergeant Pepper. ”

 

He also wrote on 1 February 1967:

 

“ "Sergeant Pepper" sounds good. Paul tells me that I will get royalties on the song — great news, now perhaps a new home. ”

 

According to TIMESONLINE:

 

“ "Keith Badman, author of The Beatles Off the Record, said he had obtained a tape of Evans talking months before his death in which he repeated the claims. 'Mal said he was asked if he minded if they did not put his name on the song because Lennon-McCartney was a really hot item,' said Badman." ”

 

Evans never received royalties and had to make do with his £38-a-week wage. McCartney and Apple Records have not commented about the diaries or the songwriting credits.

 

 

Other versions

 

McCartney live versions

McCartney played "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" live on his world tour that began in September 1989 and on subsequent tours. His live version has a much harder rock sound with a lot of distortion. During the part where "With a Little Help from My Friends" enters, there's a lengthy guitar solo between Paul and guitarist Robbie McIntosh. After the solo, the song ends with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)".

 

 

2005 Live 8 version

Paul McCartney and U2 played the song at the start of a Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London on July 2, 2005. The song, starting with "It was twenty years ago" was chosen amongst others to commemorate that Live 8 took place approximately twenty years after Live Aid. The single was released for charity on iTunes within 45 minutes, setting a world record for fastest release of a single It reached number one on the UK download chart. Since then, U2 have sometimes played portions of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and "Here Comes the Sun" or "Blackbird" during live performances of their song Beautiful Day.

 

 

Love

In 2006, the reprise was rereleased on the album Love. The updated version opens with the orchestral arrangement from "Hey Jude", leading into the guitar part. The song also closes with a fade out, instead of entering "A Day in the Life" like the 1967 version. The orchestral bridge from the main piece became a part of "Strawberry Fields Forever"'s outro sequence.

 

 

Track listing

Digital download released July 3, 2005 from recordings made at the Live 8 concert in London

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (Paul McCartney and U2)

"The Long and Winding Road"

 

Covers

Jimi Hendrix played the song live three days after it was released. McCartney was in the audience and later said he was honored. A live version recorded at the Isle of Wight was included on a posthumous live album, Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight.

Bill Cosby recorded this track on his 1968 album Bill Cosby Sings Hooray for the Salvation Army Band!.

In 2007, Bryan Adams and Stereophonics re-recorded the album's two versions of the song for It Was 40 Years Ago Today, a television film with contemporary acts recording the album's songs using the same studio, technicians and recording techniques as the original.

On May 23, 2007, at the American Idol season six finale, Kelly Clarkson and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry covered the song during a Beatles medley.

 

Cultural references

Apu sang this song while in the company of McCartney and his wife Linda McCartney in an episode of The Simpsons. He plays the bongos and does a pretty poor job with the lyrics: "I'm Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club man, I hope that I'll enjoy my show." The album cover is also parodied in the couch gag in the opening sequence of this episode.

The song is referenced in the Johnny Rivers hit "Summer Rain".

The opening drums of this song were sampled for the Beastie Boys track "The Sounds of Science" from their 1989 album Paul's Boutique.

Manchester, England hip-hop act the Ruthless Rap Assassins used the break on their track "Law of the Jungle".

The cover of Swedish band Roxette's 20th-anniversary box-set, The Rox Box, bore the line "It Was Twenty Years Ago Today..." - a nod to frontman Per Gessle's lifelong adoration of the Beatles.

121. With A Little Help From My Friends

 

(Ringo live 2005)

 

"With a Little Help from My Friends" (originally titled A Little Help from My Friends) is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, released on The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The song was written for and sung by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

 

 

Origins

The song was written specifically as Starr's track for the album. It was briefly called Bad Finger Boogie, later the inspiration for the band Badfinger. Lennon and McCartney deliberately wrote a tune with a limited range - except for the last note, which McCartney worked closely with Starr to achieve. Speaking in the Anthology, Starr insisted on changing the first line which originally was "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw ripe tomatoes at me?" He changed the lyric so that fans would not throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live. (In the early days, after George made a passing comment that he liked jelly babies, the group was pelted with them at all of their live performances.)

 

The song's composition is unusually well documented as Hunter Davies was present and described the writing process in the Beatles' official biography.

 

The song reads like a conversation between the singer and a group of people. For example, "Would you believe in a love at first sight/Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time". In the preceding quotation from the lyrics, the other three Beatles sing the first line, with Starr answering in the following one.

 

The band started recording the song the same day that they posed for the Sgt. Pepper album cover (30 March 1967). The session finished at 7:30 the following morning.

 

 

Billy Shears

Billy Shears was Starr's alias on the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Billy Shears is mentioned in the title song and, implicitly, as the singer of the segued-into "With a Little Help from My Friends." The cheering between the songs was taken from stock sound effects at the EMI studios. They had stopped touring by then.

 

 

Cover interpretations

The song has been number one on the British singles charts three times; once when it was recorded by Joe Cocker in 1968, a second time when it was covered by Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and finally when it was sung by Sam and Mark in 2004. A second recording of Cocker singing the song was made at Woodstock in 1969 and can be seen in the documentary film about the concert, "3 Days of Peace and Music". The drummer on the 1968 Joe Cocker hit single version of the song was Procol Harum's B.J. Wilson. In 1976, Jeff Lynne of ELO recorded the song for the evanescent musical documentary All This and World War II.

 

In 2007, Razorlight re-recorded the song for It Was 40 Years Ago Today, a television film with contemporary acts recording the album's songs using the same studio, technicians and recording techniques as the original.

 

 

Joe Cocker version

Joe Cocker's version was a radical re-arrangement of the original, in a much slower blues tempo, in a different key, using different chords in the middle eight, and a lengthy instrumental introduction (featuring memorable guitar lines from Jimmy Page). It was used as the opening theme song of the American television series The Wonder Years. This cover has become one of Joe Cocker's most famous songs. It was played during the Woodstock Festival. This is one of the few Beatles covers that the Beatles themselves reportedly loved.

 

 

Wet Wet Wet version

 

Wet Wet Wet's version was released on 1 May 1988. The proceeds from sales of the single, which spent four weeks at Number One in the UK chart, were around £600,000, all of which was donated to ChildLine, the UK-based charity for abused children. Billy Bragg's performance of "She's Leaving Home" was the B-side. Keeping his part of the deal, Bragg included "With a Little Help..." as the B-side on his "She's Leaving Home" single.

 

 

Sergio Mendes version

Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 picked up the title line of the song and made their own jazz inspired tune at about the same time Joe Cocker did. The song, which goes by the same title became an instant hit.

 

The song also appears on the album Herb Alpert's Ninth, rendered in the band's mariachi style.

 

 

Cultural legacy

It became well-known in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Cocker's cover version was the theme song for the television series The Wonder Years.

 

The song is ranked #304 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 

The song was performed by the characters on the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float in the 80th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Since it was public and mainly intended for children, they censored the line "I get high with a little help from my friends" by repeating the preceding line "I get by with a little help from my friends."

 

The title of the song gave inspiration for the title of a British reality television show 'With a little help from my friends'. In the show, numerous British celebrities would undertake a charitable task while enlisting help from their friends.

 

In the "English, Fitz, or Percy" episode of Prison Break, Micheal Scofield refers to this song when he says "with a little help from my friends"

 

The song also plays an integral part in the plot of the 1971 novel "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin.