The Beatles Lyrics

by Hunter Davies

  You could of course read into it that John’s rejection was not caused by some unknown girlfriend but by his own parents, who abandoned him at the age of five to be brought up by his aunt. When his mother did eventually reappear in his life, she was cruelly taken away from him–killed in a traffic accident. Perhaps this is why he feels that the world is against him. Seen in this light, the lyrics can be read as a genuine cry of anguish.

  The characters of John and Paul are forever being contrasted, with Paul typified as the happy, cheerful, optimistic one, and John the tortured soul, thanks to his troubled background. But Paul had his own traumas, most notably the loss of his mother at a young age, so why did that not make him a misery guts? Or did the loss make him determined to overcome such a blow by putting on a cheerful front?

  Despite losing his mother, Paul was brought up in a happy family, with a loving caring constant father. John, regardless of things he said later, also had a happy childhood, at least until he was about twelve, and was lovingly and well cared for. It was as a teenager that he rebelled against school and teachers and the strict, unbending Aunt Mimi, maintaining he wasn’t really loved and his genius not recognized.

  Paul and John are indeed very different characters, and this difference, as the years went on, was reflected in their songs, but I find it hard to agree that it was circumstances that made them the way they were and formed their general outlook on life. I prefer to think that that was how each was born, though it took a while for their innate differences to emerge.

  All I’ve Got To Do

  John wrote this in 1961, at a time when he was trying to sound like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, so he is attempting his sweetest, smoothest voice and nicest harmonies. It ends on a few bars of humming, which doesn’t sound much like him. One can imagine him laughing at himself as he did it. The words are equally unoriginal: ‘Whisper in your ear, the words you want to hear.’ There is a reference to ‘calling on the phone’, which enforces the American influence–as few people in Britain had telephones.

  All My Loving

  Another love song, this time by Paul, and probably the best love song they had produced to date. The words are fairly conventional, sending all his love to someone who is away, promising he will always be true, rhyming ‘kissing’ with ‘missing’, ‘you’ and ‘true’, but it rings sincere and genuine. It’s the tune that really makes it, the first four bars being especially haunting. So it’s strange that, according to Paul himself, it all began with the words and not the tune. ‘It was the first song I ever wrote where I had the words before the music.’ They came to him while shaving, and he wrote the words down as a poem.

  The girl he was missing was Jane Asher, his new London girlfriend.

  Paul with Jane Asher, to whom he got engaged on Christmas Day, 1967.

  Don’t Bother Me

  This is the first George song–though not all Beatles fans registered how unusual it was to have George singing his own song. I certainly didn’t, assuming at the time it was another Lennon–McCartney composition. This was partly because it didn’t lead to a spate of George songs–that came very much later–so it was easy to forget it had ever happened.

  George wrote it in August 1963 while on tour, at the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth where Robert Freeman shot the cover photo. George had fallen ill, and was recovering by staying in bed, so decided to try and write a song, just to see if he could do it. It was the first song with lyrics he had ever written on his own. In 1967, when I was doing the biography, George was dismissive about it: ‘It was a fairly crappy song. I forgot about it completely once it was on the album.’ He said he gave up all thought of writing songs for another two years–he was too involved with other things.

  In his memoirs I Me Mine, published in 1980, he repeated the assertion that it wasn’t much of a song, ‘It might not even be a song at all, but it showed me that all I needed to do was keep writing and then eventually I would write something good.’

  Perhaps the lyrics suggested themselves because at the time he wrote the song he did not want to be bothered, by anyone, as he was feeling poorly, but he turns it into a love song. He is missing his love, who has left him all alone, so please keep away. The sex of the person bothering him is not stated–one assumes it began with one of the other Beatles knocking on his bedroom door–but in the lyrics it sounds as if it could have been a girl who was after him.

  Bill Harry, editor of Mersey Beat, has another theory. Whenever they met in Liverpool, Bill would ask George if he was going to compose another instrumental like ‘Cry for a Shadow’, the tune he had co-written back in 1961. George’s response would always be, ‘Don’t bother me.’ According to Bill, George later told him that this phrase had lodged in his mind–and that he had turned it into a song. The phrase certainly sounds typical of George. He could be very serious, concentrating hard on whatever he was doing, and didn’t like being interrupted or asked idiot questions.

  It’s a good song, as good as anything the Beatles had written up to that time, which was why I had assumed it was a Lennon–McCartney composition. George’s voice gets a bit low at times, till you fear he will hit the floor. It has a vaguely Latin American rhythm, with Ringo on bongo and drums, which trundles it along.

  The manuscript is in George’s hand, without any changes or corrections, so it was presumably written out neatly at some stage. George’s hand looks young and hesitant, rather childlike compared with the bolder handwriting of Paul and John, as if perhaps he was not used to writing stuff down. Which was roughly the case. John had been writing reams of poems and stories as well as songs since about the age of ten; likewise Paul had written hundreds of songs. George, despite having gone to the same grammar school as Paul, had not knuckled down to his essays and schoolwork, abandoning sixth form and A levels by leaving at sixteen to take on a fairly menial job. ‘Don’t Bother Me’ was written at a time when he felt he couldn’t write lyrics, unlike the fab two.

  ‘Don’t Bother Me’, George’s first composition, in George’s handwriting–released on the LP With The Beatles, December 1963.

  Since she’s been gone I want no one to talk to me.

  It’s not the same but I’m to blame, it’s plain to see.

  So–go away, leave me alone, don’t bother me.

  I can’t believe that she would leave me on my own.

  It’s just not right when every night I’m all alone.

  I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me.

  I know I’ll never be the same if I don’t get her back again.

  Because I know she’ll always be the only girl for me.

  But ’till she’s here, please don’t come near, just stay away.

  I’ll let you know when she’s come home. Until that day,

  Don’t come around, leave me alone, don’t bother me.

  Don’t bother me.

  Little Child

  A sad and lonely boy wants someone to dance with him–it sounds very much like John, but the song was a joint effort. Why though would he be asking a little child to dance with him? Did it really mean a child, as in some sort of game, or did it mean a young girl, a babe, with whom he was going to have some teenage fun? You wouldn’t get away with such a title today.

  The song follows a pattern set by other Beatles songs–particularly in the repetition of ‘come, come on, come on’ and ‘feel so fine’, and of course the harmonica, with John playing quite an extensive solo. It was supposedly written with Ringo in mind, for him to sing, as it was a simple song, then John decided to sing it himself.

  The manuscript would appear to be an early version, written in Paul’s hand. It varies slightly from the finished version; the line which became ‘If you want someone to make you feel so fine’ was originally ‘If you want someone to have a ravin time’ (though in writing it out he has missed out the word want). The word ‘ravin’ does rather jar, and doesn’t fit in with the notion of a little child, which probably explains why it was dropped.
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  The terminology Paul has used is quite interesting. He describes the first bit as the chorus (rather than writing it out, he simply puts ‘chorus’); then we have two verses, although rather than use the word ‘verse’ he numbers the two sets of five lines as 1 and 2–with the chorus in the middle and then the chorus again at the end.

  Wilfrid Mellers, in his analysis of Beatles songs, described their typical song pattern as ‘Edenic’–by which he meant they began with the Verse, consisting of four or five lines, then the melody was reprised with another set of words, which Mellors termed the Repeat. This was followed by the Middle, before ending with the Da Capo, which I take to be another repeat of the Verse. It does seem to complicate a simple song, and Paul’s divisions between Chorus and Verse are perfectly adequate. As their songwriting progressed from a simple repetition of chorus, verse, chorus, they began to elaborate on the basic formula.

  When the Beatles referred to the ‘middle’ or the ‘middle eight’, they meant the middle section, the development of the tune, and some new words, before they repeated the beginning. This was often the hardest part to write. Getting the beginning–the initial theme, in words and music–often came to them quite quickly, but they tended to struggle with the next bit. Particularly John, who would often leave songs unfinished, undeveloped, because he was stymied by the middle bit.

  John and Paul had come to songwriting with no knowledge of how others had done it. Their approach was simply to study songs they liked, breaking them down into components, and then copy the format. Since they couldn’t read music they were incapable of transcribing the notation, but they got round that obstacle by jotting down the chords, for example G D E, to remind themselves how they had played it.

  In this example, the progression of a chorus (which is actually repeated twice on the record) followed by a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, follows one of the traditional patterns of composition.

  ‘Little Child’ in Paul’s hand, from the LP With The Beatles, December 1963, includes some lines that never made it.

  Little child, little child,

  Little child, won’t you dance with me?

  I’m so sad and lonely,

  Baby take a chance with me.

  If you want someone

  To make you feel so fine,

  Then we’ll have some fun

  When you’re mine, all mine,

  So come, come on, come on.

  When you’re by my side,

  You’re the only one,

  Don’t you run and hide,

  Just come on, come on,

  So come on, come on, come on.

  Little child, little child,

  Little child, won’t you dance with me?

  I’m so sad and lonely,

  Baby take a chance with me.

  Hold Me Tight

  This number was influenced by the Shirelles, an all-girl group from New Jersey who had several hits in the early sixties. On their early albums the Beatles did cover versions of a few Shirelles songs, including ‘Baby It’s You’. Once the Beatles had stormed the USA the following year, launching an ‘invasion’ of British groups, the Shirelles were one of the many American groups who fell from favour and went into decline.

  The song is written and sung by Paul, who does his best with a few oooh-oooh falsettos but then seems to lose interest and the song–words and music–runs out of steam. It was written in the Forthlin Road days and when asked years later, Paul couldn’t remember much about it, dismissing it as a ‘work’ song.

  The manuscript is in Paul’s hand and is an early version–written in a notebook by the look of it–with a couple of drawings, one of which is a face (could it be John?). There are several crossings outs and changes. The final version was longer, possibly because after he had played it to John they had gone on to do more work on it together. But not to much effect.

  ‘Hold Me Tight’, from the LP With The Beatles, an early version in Paul’s hand. With a drawing by him of John–possibly.

  Hold me tight,

  Tell me I’m the only one,

  And then I might,

  Never be the lonely one.

  So hold me tight, to-night, to-night,

  It’s you, you you you–oo-oo–oo-oo.

  Hold me tight,

  Let me go on loving you,

  To-night to-night,

  Making love to only you,

  So hold me tight, to-night, to-night,

  It’s you, you you you–oo-oo–oo-oo.

  You don’t know what it means to hold you tight,

  Being here alone tonight with you,

  It feels so right now, feels so right now.

  Hold me tight,

  Let me go on loving you,

  To-night, to-night,

  Making love to only you,

  So hold me tight, to-night, to-night,

  It’s you, you you you–oo-oo–oo-oo

  You oo-oo

  I Wanna Be Your Man

  Paul wrote this with Ringo in mind. In most of their stage shows, there had been a Ringo number, a song chosen for him which was within his limited vocal range. But the song was never finished, barely progressing beyond the title and chorus.

  Then came a chance encounter in a London street with Andrew Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones. Oldham, who had once done some publicity work for the Beatles, told them that the Stones were looking for a new song. At that stage they had released only one record, a cover version of a Chuck Berry number. The Beatles had been to see them play live in a couple of London clubs and had become friendly with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

  John and Paul went to where the Stones were rehearsing and played what they had written so far, telling the Stones that if they liked it, they would finish it off for them, no bother. Which they did, there and then, showing off their expertise–much to the admiration of Jagger and Richards. The Stones were roughly a year behind the Beatles in their development, but this song got them into the Top Twenty, helping to make them a major act–and of course a major rival to the Beatles from then on. It also encouraged Jagger and Richards to write and record their own songs, having seen how easy John and Paul had made it look.

  When the Beatles returned to working on their own new LP, they got Ringo to sing it. The Stones might have been impressed–or desperate–enough to record the song, but it was never really finished and never gets anywhere. The title line is repeated thirteen times–which suggests an element of desperation. Later, John admitted that it wasn’t one of their best: ‘We weren’t going to give them [the Stones] anything great, right?’

  Not A Second Time

  This one is wholly a John song–and typical of him in that it has him crying and hurt because some girl has let him down, and he won’t be giving her a second time. But something surprising happened: the tune was picked up by William Mann, music critic of The Times, and subjected to the first intellectual analysis of any Beatles song. On 23 December 1963, just a month after With the Beatles was released, Mann extolled ‘the Aeolian cadence at the end of “Not a Second Time” ’ raving about the Beatles’ ability to ‘think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes’.

  It must have come as a shock to those parents who were still dismissing the Beatles as long-haired talentless Scousers. John too affected surprise. He was quoted in 1965 as saying that Mann ‘just used a whole lot of musical terminology and he’s a twit’. But by the seventies John was admitting rather proudly that Mann’s review had marked the start of intellectual analysis of their music–while the phrase ‘Aeolian cadence’ was picked up by newspaper columnists, none of whom had any idea what it meant, employing it as a form of shorthand to convey pretentiousness.

  Listening to the tune again now, after all these decades, I still can’t see anything exceptional about it musically. John sings it well, with heart, but the tune is totally unmemorable. And so are the lyrics. Beatles fans are very fond of listing their top 100 f
aves, but this rarely makes it.

  This Boy

  One week after With the Beatles came out they produced another single–the B side of which was ‘This Boy’. It received little attention, compared with the A side. Featuring a lead vocal by John, the song was knocked out in a hotel room on tour. John dismissed it as having no content, ‘just a sound and a harmony’. They were trying to do a three-part harmony, aping the Everly Brothers. The lyrics are short, staccato, with no narrative; reading them now, it can be said that they reveal John’s struggle with a split personality. On the one hand there is This Boy, who is happy and loves you, on the other there is That Boy, who isn’t good for you.

  Despite their success in the Mersey Beat poll in January 1962, there is still a problem spelling Paul’s surname.

  I Want To Hold Your Hand

  One of the attractions for Paul of staying at Jane’s was that there were musical instruments all over the house. And they came in handy one day in October 1963 when Paul and John were composing ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, allowing them to try bits out on the piano and organ kept in the basement where they were working. For the most part though they were happiest carrying on the way they always had: side by side, playing their guitars.

  ‘I remember when we got to the chord that made the song,’ said John later. ‘ “Oh you-ooo… got that something”, Paul hit this chord and I turned to him and said, “That’s it–do it again!” In those days we used to write like that–playing into each other’s noses.’