On the other hand, rock critics naturally tend to be interested in lyrics of songs, which connect the song with the artist’s life and thought. Talking about a song’s use of harmony can be technical and academic. For example, one critic wrote of “All My Loving,” “The next cluster of chords consists of the relative Major chords — the supertonic II, the submediant VI and the mediant III.” [15] This is not the kind of gripping prose that sells magazines. On the other hand it makes valid musicological points.
Critics and listeners will come to rock, folk and popular music from different backgrounds — some will focus on music, others on words. Because of this, it will be important to understand who wrote the music and who wrote the lyrics in the “Lennon-McCartney” songs, to the extent that it is possible, so we can understand the idiosyncratic achievement of each of these great songwriters.
In the following pages I will look at the corpus of Beatle and Lennon-McCartney songs. Having surveyed all the relevant valid quotes about authorship that I have been able to find, I will briefly tell the story of how the song was written (which gives evidence on who wrote the song), then summarize evidence on who wrote the song.
As I did my research, I produced a register of all quotations on a particular song, arranged chronologically. In my book, I will quote and cite liberally from these quotes, choosing the most important ones. I will give each quote in its earliest extant appearance, to the best of my ability. I will include some quotes that are unfootnoted in their source books; if they are relevant quotes, I have no choice, and look forward to finding their first appearance at some future time.
If a song has a main writer, I will focus first on the statements of that writer, then the statements of the other member of the Lennon-McCartney team. Then I will include statements by the other Beatles and George Martin, ending with statements by members of the inner circle. I will try to avoid, for the most part, statements from people who were not eyewitnesses to the songwriting in some way.
I will include some quotes that indirectly indicate authorship. For instance, if Paul or John comments extensively on a song, saying what the lyrics meant, that could be evidence that they were involved in the writing of the song, even if they do not explicitly say they wrote it.
I regard important experimental sections of such Beatle songs as “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Day in the Life” as composed, and so will try to reflect the source of experimental features in such songs.
Though my primary interest is in songs by Paul and John, I will look at all Beatle songs. This allows one to look at the Beatle albums holistically; but in addition, I also include the songs by Harrison and Starr because one finds that the songwriting of one Beatle bleeds into another. For example, Lennon stated that he helped write the words to Harrison’s “Taxman.” Harrison, in turn, contributed lyrics to some Lennon-McCartney songs.
I will discuss the range of possibility, probability and seeming certainty in the relevant statements on the writing the Beatle songs, and attempt a synthesis, ascribe each song to collaboration, collaboration John emphasis, collaboration Paul emphasis, Lennon-McCartney, McCartney-Lennon, Lennon, McCartney (or to Harrison or Starr, or Beatle insiders occasionally). “Collaboration” means extensive collaboration between John and Paul, usually writing 50-50 from the ground up, though the finished song might “lean” toward John or Paul in some way, so we occasionally have “collaboration, John emphasis” or “collaboration, Paul emphasis.” “Lennon-McCartney” or “McCartney-Lennon” mean songs in which one writer is clearly dominant, even though the other writer also contributed to the song.
I should emphasize that my ascription is not meant to be authoritative or certain — when you’re dealing with eight conflicting statements, certainty is impossible. Nevertheless, I will make an educated attempt at a valid ascription, based on the evidence I’ve been able to find.
Some readers — including some Beatle fans — will inevitably look at this project as an excessive focus on one narrow aspect of a rock group, important as that group is. But, in my view, not looking at the Beatles’ songwriting, music and lyrics, is a way of not taking them seriously. Given their impact on modern popular culture, and given the continued popularity and reputation of their songs and albums, the Beatles’ songwriting cries out for our painstaking attention. [16]
* * *
[1] Anthology , 96. “I was not amused. I always sang that: me and Little Richard.” See also Coleman, Yesterday and Today, 100.
[2] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 150.
[3] For the precise documentation on the quotes in this section, see the sections on the relevant songs in the following chapters.
[4] Barrow, “Why John and Paul,” 21.
[5] The Beatles Ultimate Experience website. In the Beatles’ first interview (October 27, 1962, for Radio Clatterbridge), Paul simply said that he and John had written most of the Beatle songs.
[6] Response to letter to the editor in Beatles Book Monthly 41 (Dec. 1966): 19. We should remember that sometimes material in these fan magazines was ghost-written.
[7] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 149-50.
[8] Miles, Many Years From Now , 278.
[9] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview” (1988), 10.
[10] See Beatles, Indianapolis Press Conference, September 3, 1964.
[11] Lewisohn, Complete Beatles Chronicles , 363.
[12] Earle, “The Ten Most Important Beatles Songs,” 309.
[13] Rorem, “The Music of the Beatles,” 149.
[14] I also come to the Beatles from a classical music background, so I tend to listen to rock and pop music first, and lyrics second.
[15] Tillekens, “Word and Chords.”
[16] For the Beatles’ impact on popular culture, see McGrath, “Cutting up a glass onion.” For the impact of the Beatles’ music, see the prologue to the Sgt. Peppers album, below.
2
“The result wasn’t a bit like ‘Apache’” —
THE EARLY BEATLES
P aul McCartney and John Lennon began writing songs when they were young teenagers, before they met each other. Soon after they met, on July 6, 1957 (John was sixteen, Paul was fifteen), they began writing together “eyeball to eyeball,” creating songs from scratch, completing songs that one or the other had started, or adding minor edits to songs the other had written. Some songs that later entered the Beatles canon, such as “Love Me Do,” “When I’m 64,” and “One After 909,” date from this era. Many other songs fell by the wayside, and have never been heard again. The Beatles would sing snippets of some of the obscure early songs in the Get Back rehearsals in 1969. They had a certain affection for them, but knew that most of them were very much apprenticeship work.
Paul and John wrote many unreleased songs during the Beatles period, both individually and together, that have been mentioned in interviews, have been played live, played in rehearsals, or recorded as demos. I am intentionally excluding such unreleased Lennon-McCartney and Harrison or Starr songs from the overview of Beatle songs that I make in this book. In theory, there was a valid winnowing process that kept these songs from being released, or that kept the Beatles from even giving them away to other groups. I believe the Beatles should be judged primarily on the songs they thought were worthy of release.
I say in theory. In reality, sometimes this process was not at all straightforward. For example, some songs from the McCartney album, from Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Imagine , and from Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (including the title cut), albums I regard very highly, were written long before the Beatles breakup, were played in Beatle rehearsals, and somehow never made it onto a Beatles record, while lesser songs did achieve release. (For example, Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” played during the Get Back rehearsals, entirely overshadows his “For You Blue,” which was released on Let It Be .) So I will look at songs that were released after the Beatles period if it is well documented that they were written before the breakup. I will
treat them formally at the time of their release, though sometimes I will refer to early songs briefly at the time of their creation or early performance. Thus I will formally look at some of the Decca audition songs, recorded on January 1, 1962, at the time a few of them were finally released, on Anthology 1 in 1995. However, I’ll refer briefly to the Decca audition at the time it occurred.
“That’ll Be the Day” / “In Spite of All the Danger” recording, 1958
On July 12, 1958, the proto-Beatles (at the time, The Quarrymen) recorded a demo single, “That’ll Be the Day,” a Buddy Holly cover with John singing lead, and “In Spite of All the Danger,” a Paul song attributed to McCartney-Harrison, again with John singing lead. (Paul sings harmony and melodic embellishments.) These songs show up on Anthology 1. The Beatles era in modern recorded music begins here.
Buddy Holly was one of the Beatles’ great inspirations. John once said that most of the early Beatle songs were “Buddy Holly rip-offs.” [1] Paul remembered that in the early songwriting sessions he and John would listen to a Holly song over and over, then try to write something like it. [2] “That’ll Be the Day” had been the first song John had learned on guitar.
Home rehearsal tape, 1960.
We have a tape of a home rehearsal of the Beatles, without drummer, from spring-summer 1960. It has historical interest and little musical value. Three of these songs can be found on Anthology 1 .
The Hamburg sessions with Tony Sheridan, June 22-23, 1961
The first professional recordings of the Beatles are the Hamburg sessions with Tony Sheridan in June 1961, during which they recorded nine songs. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, at these sessions the Beatles recorded, with Sheridan on lead vocal, “My Bonnie,” “The Saints,” “Why (Can’t You Love Me Again),” “Nobody’s Child,” and “Take Out Some Insurance on Me Baby.” [3] Without Sheridan, the Beatles recorded “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Cry for a Shadow.” All of these have been commercially released. At a later date, May 24, 1962, the Beatles and Sheridan recorded “Swanee River” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” [4]
These recordings have limited musical value, except for completists. First, the great majority of the seven songs had Sheridan singing lead, and the Beatles were merely playing backup. John correctly said: “It’s just us banging about in the background as an accompaniment to Tony. I wish they’d shut up about it. It’s terrible. It could be anybody and we think it’s unfair on the fans to put it out as a genuine release by us.” [5] Second, Pete Best, not Ringo, played drums. Third, with one exception, “Cry for a Shadow,” the songs were not written by the Beatles.
Nevertheless, the “My Bonnie” single attracted the interest of Brian Epstein, an important milestone in the Beatles’ career. As John said, in 1964, “We’d already made ‘My Bonnie,’ and all those other rubbishy records for Polydor. And kids from the Cavern, ’round about Liverpool, were going into his record shop and saying ‘Have you got ‘My Bonnie’ by The Beatles?’ So he [Brian Epstein] got interested and he asked one of the kids who we were. He thought we were German. And he came ’round when we were playing at the Cavern.” [6]
“Ain’t She Sweet,” with Lennon, not Sheridan, on vocals, is the earliest commercial recording of the near-standard lineup Beatles. And “Cry for a Shadow” is the first commercial recording of a song written by the Beatles, though it is rather atypical, an improvised instrumental.
“My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur) / The Saints” single, Germany — Tony Sheridan, backed by the “Beat Brothers,” October 23, 1961
Someone walked into Brian Epstein’s record store and asked for this record on October 28, 1961. The rest is history. After this German release, the song was also released as a single in the U.K. on January 5, 1962.
My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur) (COVER) (traditional)
During this time period, British groups often played older, traditional songs in rock style. “The group also derive a great deal of pleasure from re-arranging old favourites (‘Ain’t She Sweet’ . . .),” Paul wrote in about 1959. [7] Apparently, producer Bert Kaempfert had heard the Beatles perform this song, and thought a version with Sheridan singing lead would work well. [8] This is available on Anthology 1 .
The Saints (COVER) (traditional)
Another traditional song (“When the Saints Come Marching In”) in rock style.
Mister-Twist EP, including “Cry for a Shadow,” released in France in January 1962 [9] — When the Saints / Cry for a Shadow / My Bonnie / Why
Cry for a Shadow — (Harrison-Lennon)
“Cry for a Shadow,” originally called “Beatle Bop,” an instrumental, was the first song attributed to the Beatles as songwriters that was released commercially. However, it was more an improvisation than a real act of songwriting. In fact, the song allegedly derived from a failed attempt to play someone else’s song, the instrumental, “Apache,” by the Shadows. [10] The Shadows, often with lead singer Cliff Richards, were probably the major British rock group in the years before the Beatles; “Apache,” written by British songwriter Jerry Lordan, and released in July 1960, was the Shadows’ first major hit.
“Cry” was “written” in this manner. In Hamburg, Rory Storm, the band leader of Ringo’s group at the time, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, asked the Beatles if they knew the recently released “Apache.” [11] They didn’t, but just “to take the mickey out of” Storm, [12] John began playing something that sounded like the song on a new guitar he’d bought, a Rickenbacker with “a funny kind of wobble bar on it,” and George added the lead guitar part, making it up on the spot. “The result wasn’t a bit like ‘Apache,’” George said in 1963, “but we liked it and we used it in the act for a while.” [13]
The attribution “Harrison-Lennon” is thus correct. In the 1963 interview, George said, “I did actually write one number, if you could call it ‘writing.’” So he definitely dominated, though Lennon was part of the original improvisation. In 1987, George told the story again, and said that the song was “really a joke.” [14] Paul, in 1962, agreed the song was one that “George and John wrote themselves.” [15]
After the Beatles made their first big splash, “Cry for a Shadow” was released as a single in England, in March 1964. It is now available on Anthology 1 .
“Ain’t She Sweet” (COVER) (Milton Ager, Jack Yellen)
(lead vocals: John)
“Ain’t She Sweet” was a pop standard, first published in 1927. Gene Vincent had recorded a fairly slow version in 1956, which John had originally followed, but the pressure for more rhythmic performances in Germany had caused the Beatles to quicken the tempo. [16]
This recording has historical importance, as the first all-Beatles recording (pre-Ringo) with vocals. And it was a staple of the early Beatles’ live shows. [17] It was not released until May 29, 1964, in England. It is available on Anthology 1 , while another version of the song, recorded in 1969 in the Get Back sessions, is on Anthology 3 .
Other songs from the Hamburg sessions, all with Sheridan singing lead and the Beatles as backing band, were:
Take Out Some Insurance on Me Baby (aka, If You Love Me Baby) (COVER) (Charles Shingleton, Waldenese Hall), first released in 1959 by Jimmy Reed.
Why (Can’t You Love Me Again) (COVER) (Tony Sheridan, Bill Crampton)
Nobody’s Child (COVER) (Cy Coben, Mel Foree), recorded by Hank Snow in 1949
Swanee River (COVER) (Stephen Foster), written in 1851. The Sheridan-Beatles recording of this has been lost.
Sweet Georgia Brown (COVER) ( Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard, Kenneth Casey), written in 1925.
The Decca Audition, January 1, 1962
About half a year after the Hamburg sessions, Brian Epstein got the Beatles an audition with Decca. It was recorded, and represents another important historical record of the early Beatles. This audition included twelve covers and, most importantly, three songs written by Paul and/or John (though none of these are top-drawer Lennon-McCartney songs). The Decca audition
is inferior to the recordings that the Beatles would make at EMI, but is nevertheless a fascinating recording. [18] The songs recorded were:
“Like Dreamers Do ” (Lennon–McCartney). Paul sings lead. The song was first released by the Applejacks in 1964, see below. The Decca performance can be found on Anthology 1 .
“Money (That’s What I Want) ” (Berry Gordy, Janie Bradford). John sings lead. See With the Beatles , below.
“Till There Was You ” (Meredith Willson), from the musical, The Music Man . Paul sings lead. See With the Beatles , below.
“The Sheik of Araby ” (Harry B. Smith, Francis Wheeler, Ted Snyder). George sings lead. The song, written in 1921 as a tribute to Rudolph Valentino, became a jazz standard. This can be found on Anthology 1 .
“To Know Her Is to Love Her ” (Phil Spector). John sings lead. This was released in 1958 (as “To Know Him Is to Love Him”) by Phil Spector’s group, the Teddy Bears. Another version of this by the Beatles is on Live at the BBC .
“Take Good Care of My Baby ” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King). George sings lead on this song, which was a hit for Bobby Vee in 1961. No Beatle version of it has been released. John and Paul revered Goffin and King as songwriters, and John once said, “When Paul and I first got together, we wanted to be the British Goffin and King.” [19]
Who Wrote the Beatle Songs Page 3