The Beatles Lyrics

by Hunter Davies

  It took a long time to record and the music has a jerky, staccato feeling to it, in keeping with the ‘conversation’, and there’s an Indian influence going on in the background. According to Ian MacDonald, it is the best performance of any track on the Revolver album. He is thinking musically, of course. I would not be so bold.

  The manuscript, which John gave me (now part of the collection in the British Library), is a very early draft and does not include the ‘When I was a boy’ line.

  The interesting bit is in the middle, where several lines have been scribbled out. They appear to read:

  I said who put that crap in your head

  —will think you are mad

  You know what it is to be mad

  And it’s making me feel like my mind / head trousers were torn.

  ‘Crap’ was changed to ‘things’; thinking that she was mad was changed to him feeling mad; and the torn trousers were dropped.

  His trousers being torn would have been an awful rhyme for ‘never been born’ and a ludicrous image. I suspect he wrote it just to fill up that line, while sucking his pen, mocking his own tortured thoughts and making himself and the others in the studio laugh.

  ‘She Said She Said’, from Revolver, September 1966, in John’s hand. ‘Trousers were torn’ never made it.

  The lyrics, while they may have been initially drafted while still remembering or under the influence of LSD, were recollected in tranquillity and reflect John’s genuine disquiet and anguish about the world, himself and his relationships

  She said I know what it’s like to be dead.

  I know what it is to be sad

  And she’s making me feel like I’ve never been born.

  I said Who put all those things in your head?

  Things that make me feel that I’m mad

  And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.

  She said you don’t understand what I said

  I said No, no, no, you’re wrong

  When I was a boy everything was right

  Everything was right

  I said Even though you know what you know

  I know that I’m ready to leave

  ’Cos you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.’

  I said Even though you know what you know

  I know that I’m ready to leave

  ’Cos you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.

  She said I know what it’s like to be dead

  I know what it is to be sad

  I know what it’s like to be dead

  Good Day Sunshine

  After all the angst and confusion with which ‘She Said’ finished off side one, what could be nicer than to turn over your album on your Dansette for side two and immediately have something jolly, simple and foot-tapping to hum along to, with nothing to worry about or even think about. There is no story, no development, no images–and no, it is not about drugs, though there are those who believe every song on Revolver is about drugs. It’s a nice day and he has a nice girlfriend, end of song.

  The Beatles did try to carefully balance the tracks on each album, alternating difference styles and moods and sounds, which of course is forgotten now when most people listen to their songs on downloads, in no particular order, just because they like them.

  Paul wrote it one hot sunny day in 1966, while at John’s house. No tricks or fancy stuff in the lyrics, but while the music appears equally simplistic, it does have some subtle references. Paul said later he had in mind the Lovin’ Spoonful, a folksy, lyrical American sixties group, but listening to it now, forgetting any contemporary influences that might have been going through his head that day, I can hear echoes of old British music-hall tunes, the kind his father probably played for the whole family to sing along to at Xmas, hence the hint of a pub piano bashing away. On the word ‘laugh’ in the third line, I can detect Paul deliberating doing a short, flat Northern ‘ah’ just to amuse himself.

  I have tracked down two versions of the manuscript–one written in capitals in Paul’s hand, which includes the chords they were going to play and the breaks. He also has fun adding ‘forte, fortas, fortissimos’ like a real composer. Today it is in the collection at Northwestern University. It consists of two pages, the second, shorter page consisting of notes on how it was to be played.

  The other one, also in Paul’s hand, but with the title in John’s hand, is owned by a private collector in California, who has kindly sent me a scan of it. He has also supplied a scan of the reverse side of the scrap of paper–which turns out to be an envelope sent to John by Miss Marguerite Libera of Connecticut. I can’t quite make out the date, but it is the twenty-seventh of some month in 1966. The envelope is quite big, so she was probably sending John cuttings of some sort, or a photo to be signed. She has got his address right, apart from the spelling of Kenwood. I wonder if she ever knew that Paul picked up her envelope at John’s house and used it to scribble down the words of a new song?

  ‘Good Day Sunshine’, from Revolver, September 1966, two pages in Paul’s hand, complete with chords.

  Another, earlier manuscript version of ‘Good Day Sunshine’, also in Paul’s hand, written on the back of an envelope sent to John by an American fan.

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine.

  I need to laugh, and when the sun is out

  I’ve got something I can laugh about,

  I feel good, in a special way.

  I’m in love and it’s a sunny day.

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine.

  We take a walk, the sun is shining down,

  Burns my feet as they touch the ground.

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine,

  Good day sunshine.

  And then we lie, beneath a shady tree,

  I love her and she’s loving me.

  She feels good, she knows she’s looking fine.

  I’m so proud to know that she is mine.

  And Your Bird Can Sing

  John rubbished this song in later interviews, saying it was a ‘horror’ a ‘throwaway’ and ‘fancy paper round an empty box’. He could have been playing games, so that we would reply, oh no, John, it’s really good, you’re putting yourself down. Or perhaps he looked back and remembered that he had done it as a trickle if not a stream of self-consciousness, to see if he could get away with it, to out-Dylan Dylan, confusing the fans and throwing in some nonsense. Why is the bird green (out of envy?)? How can a bird be broken (unless it is a toy?)?

  It is their first lyric to feature deliberately rambling, incoherent psychedelic lines–but of course it contains some amusements, such as the wordplay. Firstly his bird can sing, and then she can swing–the words ‘bird’ and ‘swing’ having sixties meanings. Marianne Faithfull believes it is a reference to her–as she was Mick Jagger’s bird and she could sing, so John was taking a dig at her and Mick. But it could also have been a dig by John at Paul, who was so awfully busy in the London arty scene, seeing all the wonders, that he couldn’t see John. The song describes two people not communicating–not getting near each other, not seeing each other. ‘You can’t see me’ was a metaphor John had used in the past.

  The manuscript–top six and bottom seven lines in John’s hand, but the middle lines look like Paul’s (D.J. Hoek believes all the writing is Paul’s)–is another of those in the Northwestern University collection–and it reveals that the title was originally ‘You Don’t Get Me’–which is the third line of the song, though he ended up using the second line instead. In the third line of the manuscript he appears to have written ‘But you don’t get it–’ changing it to ‘But you don’t get me.’

  The drawing is in blue biro, using the same pen as the lyrics, and it has gone a bit purple with age (don’t we all). It looks a bit like a mitre, or an alien face, but is probably just a squiggle.

  Paul’s signature a
t the end is in Yoko’s hand.

  ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, from Revolver, 1966, top and bottom in John’s hand with the middle in Paul’s, shows that the song’s original title was ‘You Don’t Get Me’.

  You tell me that you’ve got everything you want

  And your bird can sing

  But you don’t get me, you don’t get me

  You say you’ve seen seven wonders and your bird is green

  But you can’t see me, you can’t see me

  When your prized possessions start to weigh you down

  Look in my direction, I’ll be round, I’ll be round

  When your bird is broken will it bring you down

  You may be awoken, I’ll be round, I’ll be round

  You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is

  And your bird can swing

  But you can’t hear me, you can’t hear me

  For No One

  After Paul’s sunny day sunshine song, this is back to a love ballad, but a sad, regretful, wistful, heartbreaking song. It appears to describe the breakup between Paul and Jane.

  Paul wrote it in 1966 when he and Jane were on a skiing holiday together in Switzerland. He remembers writing this song while in the bathroom. Originally he said it wasn’t really about Jane, just a relationship that was going wrong, but later he admitted it had followed an argument with Jane. The rift must have healed though. The couple subsequently got engaged (in 1968).

  From a literary point of view, it is interesting that he constantly flits between the second person–‘Your day breaks’ and third person: ‘She wakes up’. Quite tricky, keeping a pattern without confusing the listener, and avoiding clichés. ‘You see nothing’–meaning it literally and metaphorically–is, I suppose, a Lennon–McCartney cliché by now, but it’s their own cliché.

  The music is impeccably put together, with a wonderful French horn solo by Alan Civil, perhaps the best-known hornist of his day and Principal Horn Player with the London Philharmonic. Civil came in, was told roughly what was wanted by George Martin and Paul, composed his own bit, played and went home, earning only his session fee.

  The manuscript version, again at Northwestern University (they say in Paul’s hand), shows that this too had a different title–‘Why Did It Die?’–which is more brutal and explicit than the one eventually used. The line that the original title was taken from appears halfway down the page and was cut, along with all the others which followed:

  Why did it die?

  You’d like to know

  Cry and blame her

  –you wait

  You’re too late

  As you’re deciding why the wrong one wins the end begins

  And you will lose her

  Why did it die

  I’d like to know

  Try–to save it

  You want her

  You need (love) her

  So make her see that you believe it may work out

  And one day you may need each other.

  Your day breaks, your mind aches

  You find that all the words of kindness linger on

  When she no longer needs you

  She wakes up, she makes up

  She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry

  She no longer needs you

  And in her eyes you see nothing

  No sign of love behind the tears

  Cried for no one

  A love that should have lasted years!

  You want her, you need her

  And yet you don’t believe her when she said her love is dead

  You think she needs you

  You stay home, she goes out

  She says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone

  She doesn’t need him

  Your day breaks, your mind aches

  There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head

  You won’t forget her

  And in her eyes you see nothing

  No sign of love behind the tears

  Cried for no one

  A love that should have lasted years.

  Another song, in Paul’s hand, which began with a different title–‘Why Did It Die?’, which became ‘For No One’, from Revolver, 1966.

  Dr Robert

  The first song overtly about drugs. It is pretty clear that Dr Robert was supplying substances in a special cup, to pick you up–but it need not have been illegal drugs. LSD–or acid, as it was usually called–was not made illegal until 1966 and along with amphetamines it was prescribed by doctors. Almost all the Beatles experts have subsequently identified a well-known New York society doctor called Dr Robert who prescribed drugs to celebrity patients. Personally I think it was more likely that John had in mind a young and trendy London dentist. It was at a private dinner party at this individual’s house that John and George had their first LSD trip in 1965–after it was slipped into their coffee disguised as a sugar lump. The reference to the National Health in the lyrics does suggest a UK setting.

  John later said that he himself was Dr Robert, for he was the Beatle who carried the pills on tour in the early years.

  It is a fairly mocking song about fashionable medical people who supply anything–again, a most unusual topic for a pop song. And it is witty. There is a short chorus–‘Well, well, well, you’re feeling fine’–where they sing in harmony like a chiming Christmas choir–making a pun on the word well.

  I Want To Tell You

  George’s third song on the album, and the lyrics are well up to John or Paul’s standards, with well-polished lines and serious subject matter. The topic is the difficulty of communicating, the games we play, and how we don’t know why we feel the way we do.

  Although there are no Indian instruments, there is an Indian feel to the bit of wailing at the end, and it’s there in the lyrics too, with the suggestion of karma, meeting ‘next time around’–i.e. in the next life–and also ‘I could wait forever’. Lines like these gave a clue to the sort of Indian mysticism and philosophy George was getting into. And in due course the rest of the Beatles would follow. George, in a sense, was taking over from John as the group leader, as Indian music and thought began to dominate their lives over the next two years.

  George didn’t have a title for it at first, and it was filed in the studio as ‘Laxton’s Superb’, the name of another apple, then it became ‘I Don’t Know’–the response George Martin got from George when he asked what it was called. It would have made a good title. In the end, it took its name from the first line.

  The early manuscript, which George reproduced in I Me Mine, has quite a few differences from the finished song and includes some rather limp phrases, such as ‘you rang me up’ and ‘pass the time’.

  ‘ “I Want to Tell You” is about the avalanche of thoughts that are so hard to write down or say or transmit,’ writes George. He goes on to add that, if he were to write it again, he would change the line in the middle from ‘it’s only me, it’s not my mind’ and make it ‘It isn’t me–it is my mind’.

  Then he adds a final thought: ‘The mind is the thing that hops about telling us to do things and that–when what you need is to lose (forget) the mind. A passing thought.’

  I want to tell you

  My head is filled with things to say

  When you’re here

  All those words, they seem to slip away

  When I get near you

  The games begin to drag me down

  It’s alright

  I’ll make you maybe next time around

  But if I seem to act unkind

  It’s only me

  It’s not my mind

  That is confusing things

  I want to tell you

  You rang me up, and I don’t know why

  Maybe you will be that one thing to get me by

  I don’t mind

  I could wait forever

  I’ve got time

  Sometimes I wish I knew you well

&nb
sp; Then I could speak my mind

  And tell you

  Maybe you’d understand

  I want to tell you

  I feel hung up, and I don’t know why

  I don’t mind

  I could wait forever

  I’ve got time

  I’ve got time

  I’ve got time

  ‘I Want To Tell You’, from Revolver, 1966, an early, corrected manuscript in George’s hand.

  Got To Get You Into My Life

  I always took this as another of Paul’s love songs–about a girl he wants in his life, whom he can’t do without. It has a fast, thumping beat, and Paul enjoys himself putting on his high-pitched voice when he repeats ‘Got to get you into my life’. It ends with him singing the final refrain in a sort of jazz or soul improvisation, which is interesting as the Beatles, back when they were starting out at the Cavern, always said they hated jazz and the jazz fans in their Marks & Spencer pullovers–partly because the Cavern had originally been a jazz club and they were not allowed to play rock’n’roll in the early days.

  Now that I have reread the words carefully, I realize there is no mention of a girl, or any female presence. So could it, shock horror, have been about drugs all along? Was that the ride he was taking, in order to see another kind of mind there? Was it a joint or suchlike that he wanted to get into his life, and not a girl?