The Beatles Lyrics

by Hunter Davies

  When he first played it to John, composing together at Forthlin Road, the working title was ‘Seventeen’ and the first two lines were ‘She was just seventeen, never been a beauty queen’. John made a face and Paul agreed it was a bit corny. He’d been thinking of beauty contests at places like Butlins holiday camps. But it did imply that she wasn’t very attractive. John suggested the line ‘know what I mean’; it’s a fairly meaningless, throat-clearing phrase, popular with Liverpudlian and British youth in general, but it does have a nudge-nudge quality, suggesting sexual experience. OK, so that’s another possible example.

  The rhyming of ‘standing there’ with ‘way beyond compare’ sounds a bit forced–something they might have avoided a few years later, when they began to put away childish things like rhyming couplets.

  It proved a very popular song and became a standard part of their repertoire; it was one of the five the songs they played on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964.

  Misery

  Written mainly by John in late January 1963, backstage at the Kings Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, hoping Helen Shapiro would sing it–but she never did. She was the star on their first nationwide tour, which started 2 February 1963–though by the end of it, their single ‘Please Please Me’ having gone to number 1, the Beatles had taken over as the prime attraction.

  Sixteen-year-old Miss Shapiro was a rather old-fashioned, staid, young woman who had become a sensation with a series of hits sung in a surprisingly deep, jazz-type voice. I interviewed her when she had her first number 1, and she seemed rather stunned by it all. I accompanied her out into Oxford Street to buy some shoes, where she was spotted by a gaggle of teenage girls, one of whom asked her, ‘Are you Alma Cogan?’

  While Paul’s ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ had been optimistic and happy, John’s ‘Misery’ was… well, miserable, and mournful at the way the world was treating him. If offers us a clue to their different personalities, though we were not quite in tune with their tunes at the time, unaware of who had written which lyric, how and why.

  Programme for the Beatles’ first national tour, supporting Helen Shapiro, which started in February 1963–by the end, they were the main attraction.

  Do You Want To Know A Secret

  Written by John, who was by this time living with Cynthia in a flat owned by Brian Epstein. The secret could have been that he had found out he did still love her; or that she was pregnant; or that they had secretly married on 23 August 1962 (Brian wanted it kept secret from the fans). The title and idea came from a song which John’s mother Julia used to sing from Walt Disney’s Snow White which included the line ‘wanna know a secret’. It’s very short, just two minutes, with limited lyrics. (And the secret? I’m in love with you.)

  John wrote it and then gave it to George to sing, maintaining that it suited George’s voice. ‘It only had three notes,’ said John, ‘and he wasn’t the best singer in the world.’ It was a sop to the youngster having a vocal solo, and a reward for all his hard work on the guitar. He also took the lead vocal on ‘Chains’–not written by them–on the Please Please Me LP.

  Poster for that tour supporting Helen Shapiro, February 1963.

  There’s A Place

  Another new song written for the Please Please Me album, which had not appeared already on a single. It has a hurried feeling, as if bashed out quickly. Aside from the usual ‘I love you’ sentiments, John is feeling blue for the third time (after ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘Ask Me Why’). We know they were working under pressure by now, doing national tours, knocking their new songs out quickly, but this dependence on ‘blue’ for an easy rhyme was becoming a bit slack.

  John does however manage a slight progression in his lyrics. The ‘place’ in the title–apparently suggested by Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us)’ from West Side Story–turns out not to be a physical location. The place where he goes when he feels low, when he feels blue, tra-la, is… his mind. Which was quite neat. According to Wilfrid Mellers, this was the first lyric that made him aware that ‘John might be an oral poet’. He liked the tune as well. ‘Long tied semibreves flowing into minims and into crotchet triplets–here is seed for later development in Beatles music.’

  From Me To You

  Their third single, which came out just after the Please Please Me album. It was written on 28 February 1963 while they were travelling by coach between York and Shrewsbury on what was still billed as the Helen Shapiro tour. John and Paul were keen to have some new songs ready to confound Tin Pan Alley–heart of London’s pop music world–where they were being dismissed as an overnight success, who had come from nowhere and would soon disappear back there.

  As they sat side by side, playing their guitars, looking for a catchy line or title to get them started, inspiration came in the form of the New Musical Express letters column ‘From You to Us’, which the band were reading on the coach. The main story in that week’s issue concerned Cliff and Elvis and whether Cliff was doing better.

  Considering the speed at which it was written, ‘From Me To You’ was neatly thought through and has a development of sorts–something few of their early songs had. Having come up with the notion of something going from me to you, they then list the possibilities: a heart that’s true, arms to hold you, lips to kiss you, everything you want in fact, which he will send along, from me to you. George Martin, when they came to record it, had John get out his harmonica again and Paul threw in a few falsettos, just to get the girls going.

  Looking back, Paul remembers being quite pleased with the song, feeling it showed progress, with a beginning, a middle and an end–a sign that they were getting better. But the critics at the time were not impressed: New Musical Express deemed it ‘below par’. John remember feeling furious, but at the same determined to try harder. ‘That’s when I first realized you’ve got to keep it up.’

  Sheet music for ‘From Me To You’, released April 1963. Northern Songs was now the publisher.

  Press handout from Parlophone for their new chart-topping, infectious tune, April 1963.

  Thank You Girl

  The B side of ‘From Me To You’ was not as well realized. There is no story, no catchline, poor rhymes–and the dreaded ‘feeling blue’ makes its fourth appearance. It was supposedly meant to be a genuine ‘thank you’ to their girl fans. They sound a bit bored and embarrassed by such a mechanical piece of pop. No wonder it got relegated to the B side.

  I’ll Get You

  Another B side, which I had long forgotten. It was a joint composition–written at Menlove Avenue, which was most unusual; as a rule, Mimi did not let Paul in to make music. Paul looks back on the song with affection and it was popular in their live shows. He even likes the words, suggesting they were reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, which is hard to see, his only example being the use of the word ‘imagine’. In the second line, John sings ‘Imagine, I’m in love with you’. Which is reminiscent of a Lennon song to come. The ‘I’ll Get You’ bit refers to the fact that he is sure he is going to get the girl in the end. When he thinks of her, he is never ever–wait for it–blue. It was the A side of this single, written a few days later, which caused all the real excitement…

  She Loves You

  This came out as a single after the release of the Please Please Me album in August 1963, and turned out to be a belter.

  It was another of those songs written on tour; they had just played a concert at the Majestic Ballroom in Newcastle and had one of their rare days off before the next gig, in Leeds. Paul remembers them in a room at the Turk’s Head Hotel, sitting on separate beds, each with their guitar. John agrees it was Newcastle–but in his recollection they composed it in the back of the van.

  Their first three singles–‘Love Me Do’, ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘From Me to You’–aside from all having ‘Me’ in the title, were all simple love songs, a declaration of love between the singer and someone else. This time they decided to remove themselves, get rid of the first person, and
write about third-person love, with the singer as the go-between trying to reconcile two lovers, one of whom (the boy) has been cruel and hurtful. He is told to apologize–he should know he is on to a good thing, because she loves him.

  Is there a hint of a threat–that if the boy does not apologize, the singer, i.e. John, might step in? Only perhaps by a slight suggestion in his voice, not the words, but it did give an undercurrent of menace, for those looking for it.

  When they were practising the falsetto oooh-oohs on the tour bus, one of the other singers, Kenny Lynch, warned that they might sound feminine. Real men did not sing in high-pitched voices, but the Beatles had found it went down well in ‘From Me To You’. They were oooh oohing for fun, amusing themselves–and the girls.

  The other distinctive feature of ‘She Loves You’ were the yeah yeah yeahs, which John later said were originally just to fill gaps in the lyrics. When Paul first sang the song to his dad, back in Forthlin Road, Jim said he would like it much better if they sang ‘yes yes yes’. This was a common reaction among an older generation brought up during the war; at school in the fifties I remember teachers telling me off for saying OK and yeah, expressions which they considered American and not proper English.

  The Beatles were not the first pop artists to use ‘yeah yeah’ as a gap-filler. Elvis had done it a few times, though more of an aside; the Beatles’ yeah yeahs were a prominent feature of the chorus, which was kept up all the way through.

  The lyrics followed the same old theme of boy–girl love, albeit in the third person; the same emphasis on rhyme; the phrasing was straightforward and the mood was resolutely upbeat, with only a hint of anguish. But then, who cared about the words? Interviews with the Beatles from that period seldom focus on the lyrics, how they were written, what they meant. It’s all about their hair, their next record, their clothes, will Paul now get married?

  Pretty pink paper for Parlophone’s press info for ‘She Loves You’, August 1963.

  The yeah yeah yeah angle was a gift to the headline writers in all the national papers, referring to them as the Yeah Yeah group. The general public, who had either been unaware of the Beatles till then or had dismissed them as just one more noisy, shouty pop group, now found it impossible to avoid them. They were everywhere. And whether you liked them or not, if you listened carefully it was obvious that there was something a bit different about them, their sound was distinctive.

  Pop music followers, and writers in the music press, had found ‘Love Me Do’ somewhat crude and unpolished. The tune was a pleasant enough and they liked the harmonica, but the group’s vocals and playing sounded hesitant, lacking in confidence. The same could not be said of ‘She Loves You’. The performance was bursting with energy, confidence and strength, with great harmonies and some full-blooded oooh-oooh falsettos, plus the yeah yeahs. The Beatles had finally found their own musical voice.

  The song seemed to sum up the essence of this new group from Liverpool: their energy and beat, their melodies and harmonizing, their wit and confidence. And yes, their sex appeal, shaking their mop tops as they reached the climax of the song, creating hysteria among girls in the audience.

  ‘She Loves You’ went straight to number 1–their second number 1, after ‘From Me to You’. Sales outstripped anything they had done so far, or anything any of their rivals were doing. By the end of 1963 over 1.3 million copies had sold in the UK. John’s old running joke about getting to the toppermost of the poppermost had come true. It was the song that announced and then defined the birth of Beatlemania.

  Proud boasts in the music press for a very good first year.

  2

  WITH THE BEATLES

  Second album and fifth single

  November–December 1963

  Programme for the Beatles’ tour of August 1963, now top of the bill, promoted by Arthur Howes.

  The Beatles had hardly been to London until 1963, and then only on a handful of visits, but in the summer of 1963 Brian found them a rented flat in Mayfair where they had a bedroom each, for when they were staying in the capital–though John and Cynthia, having a baby, had a flat on their own in Kensington, directly above Robert Freeman, the photographer.

  In April 1963 Paul met a seventeen-year-old actress called Jane Asher through a BBC programme and then in a photo-shoot for the Radio Times. They became friends and he started hanging around her house–eventually moving into an attic room in her family home in November 1963.

  It was a huge cultural and social and artistic shock for Paul. Shock is perhaps the wrong word; ‘sensation’ would be better, as Paul was impressed, fascinated and stimulated by the middle-class, bohemian, artistic Asher household and absolutely loved being a part of it. Having been brought up on a Liverpool council estate, he had no experience of such a life and such a home. This is not to suggest that his father was rough or uncultured; Jim was well dressed, charming, socially at ease in most company–like Paul himself–but their house was small, money was short, books and amenities few.

  The Ashers lived in a large, rambling Georgian terrace at 57 Wimpole Street, traditionally London’s medical area, but also with literary associations (Elizabeth Barrett Browning had lived a few doors along at number 50). Jane’s mother was a professor of music and her father an eminent doctor. They were cultured, intellectual, and encouraged their children to be creative and express themselves. Their house was filled with paintings, books and scientific journals.

  Paul lived there as a lodger, very simply, for around two years, which is surprising, when he was suddenly making so much money. He could have afforded a posh house of his own, out in the suburbs, which is what John, Ringo and George all opted for. But he loved Jane and the Ashers, their lifestyle, their friends. Being in central London meant he was handy for avant-garde galleries and exhibitions–and the night clubs–with no need for a long trail back home afterwards.

  The influence of this new social and cultural world in which Paul was moving soon began to have an effect on his writing. But he wasn’t the only one open to new experiences; once they moved to London, John and George began broadening their horizons too. They were not intellectually intimidated by the new circles in which they found themselves–after all, the Beatles weren’t the stereotypical overnight pop sensations who had left school at fifteen to become lorry drivers or labourers before hitting the big time. John, Paul and George had gone to excellent grammar schools, which meant they had to be clever enough to pass the entrance exams, and though they may have disliked school at the time, it had exposed them to Chaucer and Shakespeare as well as modern art and literature.

  When they weren’t in London they were rushing round the UK on tours, or doing TV and radio appearances, but in the summer of 1963 they managed to find time to start work on their second album, With the Beatles, which eventually came out in November of that year, just eight months after their first album.

  The recording sessions were spread over three months, as opposed to one day for Please Please Me, but this was due to their busy schedule. Double-tracking was now standard, so the sound is better and stronger, but once again only half the fourteen tracks were composed by them.

  The cover of the first album had featured a snap of them standing on a staircase at EMI’s London offices in Manchester Square, wearing inane smiles, as if in a school photograph–you can almost hear the photographer* shouting, ‘Cheese!’ For their second album, they wanted a much artier photograph. They had always admired the portrait of Stu Sutcliffe that Astrid Kirchherr had taken in Hamburg, with its dramatic half-light and half-shadow, but she had not photographed all the Beatles. So Robert Freeman was commissioned to do similar shot featuring all four of them. The result, shot in a hotel in Bournemouth, makes them look serious and sombre, and it was so successful that for a while Freeman became their official photographer.

  On both albums, press officer Tony Barrow wrote the sleeve notes in the breathless style that typified early sixties pop prose. ‘Pop picking is a fast n’ furiou
s business these days’, runs his first sentence on Please Please Me. He describes Paul and John as the band’s ‘built in tunesmith team’ and quotes one radio presenter as declaring that they are ‘musically the most exciting and accomplished group to emerge since The Shadows’. By the second album, they are being hailed not only as ‘remarkably talented tunesmiths’ but also ‘cellar stompers of Liverpool… sure-fire stage show favourites… rip roarin’… fabulous foursome…’

  The second album was made up of yet more love songs, happy or otherwise, still following the traditional pop format, but the interesting development was that at long last, after recording twelve of their own songs (plus twelve by other composers), young George was finally allowed to have one of his own compositions included on the album.

  It Won’t Be Long

  Written by John, and recorded as a single to follow ‘She Loves You’. They decided it wasn’t up to it, so used it to kick off the new LP instead. And it isn’t up to much, really, though the title leads into a nice play on words: ‘It won’t be long, yeah yeah–till I belong.’ Not belonging fits the mood of the song, but neither the tune nor the words develop or have an obvious hook to make the song lodge in your brain. Another one-dimensional song–about a one-dimensional problem: someone at home, waiting for their lover, dejected and rejected, though we don’t know why.