The Beatles Lyrics

by Hunter Davies

  Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright

  Alright, alright, al…

  You say you’ll change the constitution

  Well you know

  We all want to change your head

  You tell me it’s the institution

  Well you know

  You better free your mind instead

  But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao

  You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow

  Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright

  Alright, alright

  11

  THE WHITE ALBUM

  November 1968

  The Beatles with Maharishi on the train in 1967: (left to right) Hunter Davies, Paul, Ringo, John, Maharishi, George.

  The Beatles had first met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Hilton Hotel in London on 24 August 1967. The next day they went off to Bangor in North Wales to meet him again. I went up with them on the train–sitting with the four Beatles in their colourful finery, along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. They been given their mantra by the Maharishi and joined in his Transcendental Meditation meetings. It was this same weekend, while we were still in Bangor, that news came through of the death in London of Brian Epstein. Not suicide–although he had made an earlier attempt–but an accidental overdose of drugs.

  While Brian had ceased to play a vital role in their lives, they had lost someone who had in some senses been a spiritual leader, who had always believed in them and loved them, guided them at a vital stage in their development. In the Maharishi they found, for a while, another spiritual leader. Of a different sort.

  In February 1968 all four of the Beatles, plus wives and, in the case of Paul, his fiancée Jane Asher, went out to India. At this stage, although John had met Yoko, he was still officially with Cynthia, and she accompanied him. They all went to stay and study at Rishikesh, away from the media circus that had surrounded them for the last five years.

  It brought them together, whereas in London various petty squabbles had been tearing them apart, and it removed them from boring business meetings and worries. It also reduced their individual egos, as they were supposed to be thinking of higher things. It confirmed George as the most influential figure, as he was the most knowledgeable and devoted and spiritual. But probably the greatest effect of the Indian trip was in their music.

  They had a lot of free time to play and think and be with each other, and the result was that they returned to their former methods of songwriting–instead of being holed up in their individual mansions or stuck in a studio with a deadline and the latest electronic wizardry, they were able to sit around with their acoustic guitars, making music.

  Ringo and his wife Maureen returned first–he missed some of the essentials of his life back at home, such as baked beans. John wrote him a postcard: ‘Just a little vibration from India. We’ve got about two LPs worth of songs now so get your drums out.’

  Two LPs! That suggested something in the region of thirty songs, since the standard LP at that time had about fourteen songs. All that, in just the few weeks they had been in India? It turned out not to be an exaggeration. John and Paul, while out in India,* had indeed worked on at least thirty new songs. Not all of these appeared on their next record–probably about half made it–and not all were completed, but they came home very excited, keen to start work again and knock their new creations into shape. They decided to keep it fairly simple, not as elaborate or as way-out as some of their songs on Sgt. Pepper. A return, in many ways, to simple songwriting.

  The album–their ninth, and the first to appear on their own Apple Records label-turned out to be a whopper. They had so many ideas, so many songs, that it became a double album–two whole records, with twenty-eight new songs in all. It took them almost six months to record–from May to October 1968–and during this time various difficulties began to emerge between the four of them. Sources of conflict included Yoko’s influence over John, and problems with Apple, their new company, and all its various bits (some of them fairly mad and eccentric). Even the normally placid George Martin began to get fed up with them and their demands.

  The album was at first going to be called ‘A Doll’s House’, until they discovered another rock group, Family, were calling their latest album Music in a Doll’s House (it came out while the Beatles were still recording).

  After all that jazzy, snazzy, busy, fizzy, colourful packaging of Sgt. Pepper, the album cover this time was minimalistic–all white, front and back, with no photos, no printed lettering. A blank cover, in fact. Each record was numbered, like a collector’s edition. (The numbers stopped in 1969–the highest known number being 3,116,706.)

  The album was actually called The Beatles, but this was so discreet, embossed so subtlety, that it was easy to miss. Most people, then and now, called it The White Album or perhaps The Double White Album. Referring to it as The Beatles, its official title, was too confusing.

  Tucked inside the sleeve was a large sheet with photos on one side, including one of John in bed with Yoko. By the time the album came out–on 22 November 1968–John had left Cynthia and was living with Yoko. They were also making records together, Two Virgins being the first, as well as becoming involved in various other excitements of an artistic nature.

  The other side of the sheet contained all the words of all the lyrics, a practice they’d started on Sgt. Pepper. Hurrah for that. Such a help, then and now, for all fans and for all lyricalists. Is there such a word? Definitely a species.

  Back In The USSR

  It still makes me smile, after all these years, one of the wittiest songs they ever did. The fun–well, I think it’s funny–is that it sounds just like an American rock song, sung in an American accent, but it’s about the USSR. Which of course does not exist now, so young people today might not get it. It’s a pastiche, in both words and in music: not an easy trick to pull off.

  It was one of fifteen songs that Paul wrote in Rishikesh, and was inspired by a suggestion from Mike Love of the Beach Boys, so he has claimed (Mike was also in India, along with the singer Donovan). The idea was to do a version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Back in the USA’ but set it all in the USSR. There were also hints of the Beach Boys own song ‘Surfin’ USA’.

  Some right-wingers in the USA did not get the joke. Russia was their deadly enemy, backing the baddies in the Vietnam War, and thousands were being killed, so the Beatles were accused of being Communists. These right-wingers did not seem to realize that in the USSR, the Fab Four were considered by the Communist Party as being capitalist lackeys.

  When I visited the USSR in 1988, still under Communism, every young person I met knew the words of every song–and of course one of their faves was ‘Back in the USSR’, getting the jokes many Americans had missed. (I discovered that they had all read my biography of the band as well–not officially but in dissident samizdat versions, duplicated and passed around.) Today, the Russians remain passionate Beatles fans. There have recently been academics, in the USA and the USSR, who have written learned articles arguing that it was the influence of the Beatles that helped bring down the USSR.

  ‘Back In The USSR’, from The White Album (officially The Beatles), November 1968, in Paul’s hand.

  The record starts with a sound of an aeroplane, which was a bit confusing, for the first number on a brand-new album when you didn’t know what was coming. This was to let us know our Russki hero was arriving back from the USA, looking forward to the delights of Ukraine and Moscow girls. It was a change to have a song that mentioned Russian places as opposed to the endless references to California. ‘Georgia’s always on my mind’ still works, in both the USA and Russian worlds, though the reference to BOAC (a British airline which eventually landed for good) is now meaningless.

  During the recording session, Paul and Ringo fell out. Ringo had increasingly felt he was being marginalized, ever since the touring stopped and their work became entirely studio based. On this occasion he got upset when Paul criticize
d his drumming. He said he was leaving the Beatles, and went off on holiday on Peter Sellers’ yacht in the Med. Paul therefore played drums and piano on ‘Back In The USSR’ as well as singing. He might even have made the aeroplane noises–he is multi-talented.

  Ringo did come back, two weeks later, and found his drum kit wreathed in flowers and a banner saying Welcome Back.

  The manuscript has turned up in two versions. One is in capitals written by Mal, and one in Paul’s flowing handwriting, both clean versions, except for a couple of corrections.

  Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC

  Didn’t get to bed last night

  On the way the paper bag was on my knee

  Man, I had a dreadful flight

  I’m back in the USSR

  You don’t know how lucky you are, boy

  Back in the USSR

  Been away so long I hardly knew the place

  Gee, it’s good to be back home

  Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case

  Honey disconnect the phone

  I’m back in the USSR

  You don’t know how lucky you are, boy

  Back in the US

  Back in the US

  Back in the USSR

  Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out

  They leave the west behind

  And Moscow girls make me sing and shout

  That Georgia’s always on my my my my my my my my my mind

  Oh, come on

  Hu hey hu, hey, ah, yeah

  Yeah, yeah, yeah

  I’m back in the USSR

  You don’t know how lucky you are, boys

  Back in the USSR

  Oh, show me round your snow peaked

  Mountains way down south

  Take me to your daddy’s farm

  Let me hear your balalaika’s ringing out

  Come and keep your comrade warm

  I’m back in the USSR

  Hey, you don’t know how lucky you are, boy

  Back in the USSR

  Another version of ‘Back In The USSR’, written out possibly by Mal Evans, with four lines from the end, a rather rude line which for some reason didn’t make it. (Or it could have been a complicated reference to a song John liked at the time, ‘Short Fat Fannie’ by Larry Williams.)

  Dear Prudence

  Prudence was Prudence Farrow, sister of Mia, which indicates that they were not cut off totally from the celeb world in their little commune in Rishikesh. Prudence was a true believer–overmuch so, thought John. She was so busy meditating that she could not come and play with the rest of them. In fact, he thought she was going a bit barmy. The words and music are a soft, gentle, melodic attempt to encourage her to come out, to greet the brand-new day. The music is beautiful, John’s voice very sensitive, but the lyrics hardly move forward, repeating the same theme–come out and smile. ‘The clouds will be a daisy chain’ is a nice childlike image.

  Only one copy of the manuscript exists–in John’s hand, small and neat–and is easy to read, though with some lines slightly different.

  ‘Dear Prudence’, from The White Album, November 1968, in John’s neat hand.

  Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?

  Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day?

  The sun is up, the sky is blue

  It’s beautiful and so are you

  Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play?

  Dear Prudence open up your eyes

  Dear Prudence see the sunny skies

  The wind is low the birds will sing

  That you are part of everything

  Dear Prudence won’t you open up your eyes?

  Look around round round

  Look around round round

  Oh look around

  Dear Prudence let me see you smile

  Dear Prudence like a little child

  The clouds will be a daisy chain

  So let me see you smile again

  Dear Prudence won’t you let me see you smile?

  Glass Onion

  Having said that in India they shed their egos and went back to basics–it didn’t quite come off, judging by this song. John throws in references to many of their own earlier songs–including ‘Strawberry Fields’, ‘Walrus’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘Fixing A Hole’, ‘Fool On The Hill’–which suggests he was getting carried away by their own importance, or too many drugs. The random lyrics, with no narrative, no connections, were intended to confuse the fans, to teach them not to over-analyse, but also to amuse them, if they insisted on trying to work it all out.

  Even random stuff has to come from somewhere though. The ‘bent back tulips’, so Derek Taylor explained, were spotted by John on a table at a posh restaurant. The ‘cast iron shore’ referred to a shore near Liverpool, awash with junk, which had an iron factory. ‘Dove-tail joints’ were what we all learned to do, or not to, in woodwork at school.

  John may have been mocking people who over-interpreted their lyrics–and having a dig at the conspiracy theorists, such as those who later insisted that Paul was dead. By throwing in all this apparent nonsense, he was encouraging crackpots to find crackpot meanings.

  The manuscript is on the back of an envelope, written in John’s hand. There was going to be a reference to yet another Beatles song, ‘Yellow Submarine’, but this was replaced by a dove-tail joint. Having checked my 1968 address book, I don’t recognize the phone numbers at the bottom as having anything to do with the Beatles. I think they were added later.

  ‘Glass Onion’, from The White Album, November 1968, written by John on the back of an envelope. Second line from the end, yellow submarine got deleted.

  I told you about strawberry fields,

  You know the place where nothing is real

  Well here’s another place you can go

  Where everything flows.

  Looking through the bent backed tulips

  To see how the other half lives

  Looking through a glass onion.

  I told you about the walrus and me-man

  You know that we’re as close as can be-man.

  Well here’s another clue for you all,

  The walrus was Paul.

  Standing on the cast iron shore-yeah,

  Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet-yeah.

  Looking through a glass onion.

  Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

  Looking through a glass onion.

  I told you about the fool on the hill,

  I tell you man he living there still.

  Well here’s another place you can be,

  Listen to me.

  Fixing a hole in the ocean

  Trying to make a dove-tail joint-yeah

  Looking through a glass onion

  Ob La Di Ob La Da

  This is Paul’s take on a Jamaican ska number, about a very West Indian-sounding couple called Desmond and Molly. The title was a catchphrase used by a friend of Paul’s called Jimmy Scott–a conga player whom he used to meet in the London clubs. He was in fact from Nigeria and the phrase ‘Ob la di ob la da’, supposedly meaning ‘life goes on’, was Yoruban. Paul wrote it while in India, playing and singing it one evening as they all walked out of the ashram in a little procession down to the local village.

  John never liked the song, considering it twee, and there was some tension between them during the recording session, not helped by the fact that John insisted on having Yoko in the studio while they worked–which was most unusual. The other wives were normally not allowed on the actual studio floor–only upstairs, behind the glass panel in the control room.

  The lyrics have a narrative, which Paul always liked, and concern two people, but don’t have the power or imagery of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or ‘She’s Leaving Home’. The manuscript, in Paul’s hand, is the one he meant to sing, but in the repeat of the last four lines, he sang ‘Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face’ instead of Molly and her pretty face. They all liked it, so left it in. One of several transvestite lines
in Beatles lyrics.

  ‘Ob La Di Ob La Da’, from The White Album, in Paul’s hand, before the transvestite changes.

  Desmond has a barrow in the market place

  Molly is the singer in a band

  Desmond says to Molly, ‘Girl I like your face’

  And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand

  Ob-la-di, ob-la-da life goes on bra

  La la how the life goes on

  Ob-la-di, ob-la-da life goes on bra

  La la how the life goes on

  Desmond takes a trolley to the jeweller’s store

  Buys a twenty carat golden ring

  Takes it back to Molly waiting at the door

  And as he gives it to her she begins to sing

  In a couple of years they have built a home, sweet home

  With a couple of kids running in the yard

  Of Desmond and Molly Jones

  Happy ever after in the market place

  Desmond lets the children lend a hand

  Molly stays at home and does her pretty face

  And in the evening she still sings it with the band

  In a couple of years they have built a home, sweet home

  With a couple of kids running in the yard

  Of Desmond and Molly Jones, hey

  Happy ever after in the market place

  Molly lets the children lend a hand

  Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face

  And in the evening she’s a singer with the band

  And if you want some fun take ob-la-di-bla-da