Who Wrote the Beatle Songs
Page 26
After telling this story, George said, in 1980, “The song was written especially for Juan Mascaró because he sent me the book and is a sweet old man. It was nice, the words said everything. Amen .” [25]
“Sour Milk Sea / The Eagle Laughs at You” single — Jackie Lomax, August 26, 1968 (U.S.), September 6, 1968 (U.K.)
Sour Milk Sea — (Harrison)
(recorded on June 24–26, 1968)
This was written in India, and Harrison recorded it in May 1968, as one of the Kinfauns demos. [26] George said that in Tantric cosmology, the central continent, Jambudvipa is surround by oceans, the “sour milk sea.” “I used ‘Sour Milk Sea’ as the idea of — if you’re in the shit, don’t go around moaning about it: do something about it.” [27] It was also a song about meditation.
The Beatles had founded Apple in January 1968, and began recruiting recording artists. They signed Jackie Lomax, an old friend they had known in Liverpool, in early 1968, and George Harrison ended up producing this single, and Lomax’s album, Is This What You Want? (released in March 1969), which included “Sour Milk Sea.” [28] Geoff Emerick engineered the “Sour Milk Sea” session, and was impressed with Harrison’s talents as a producer. [29] Ringo played drums, Paul bass, Eric Clapton guitar.
The Eagle Laughs at You (Jackie Lomax)
“Hey Jude / Revolution” single, August 30, 1968
Hey Jude — (McCartney)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded July 31 to August 2, 1968)
This McCartney song reflects the intertwined stories of Paul, John, John’s first wife, Cynthia, their son Julian, and John’s second wife, Yoko. John had met Yoko on November 9, 1966, and gradually developed a serious relationship with her. John went to India with Cynthia from February to April, 1968, but wrote songs for Yoko when he was there. He and Cynthia separated in about May 1968, John moving out of Kenwood and starting to live with Yoko.
Paul wrote “Hey Jude” after this separation. He had always been good friends with Cynthia, and was very fond of Julian, so he drove out to Kenwood to visit them. “I happened to be driving out to see Cynthia Lennon,” he said in 1973. “I think it was just after John and she had broken up, and I was quite mates with Julian. He’s a nice kid, Julian.” As he drove, he turned off the radio and began “just vaguely singing this song, and it was like ‘Hey Jules.’” [30] “You know, Don’t be too brought down by this divorce, lad. It’ll be all right kind of style. And I’d basically written that on my own.” [31]
He later finished the song at Cavendish, changing the title to “Hey Jude.” [32]
When Paul first played the song for John, he “took it very personally,” as John remembered in 1968. “‘Ah, it’s me,’ I said, ‘It’s me.’ He [Paul] says, ‘No, it’s me.’ I said, ‘Check. We’re going through the same bit.’ So we all are.” [33]
Paul said that John contributed to the lyrics by keeping him from changing the line, “The movement you need is on your shoulder.” When he played the song for John and Yoko, he said in 2007, “I turned round to John and said: ‘I’ll fix that if you want.’ And he said: ‘You won’t, you know, that’s a fucking great line, that’s the best line in it.’” So it stayed. [34]
Paul’s girlfriend at the time, Francie Schwartz, claimed that the song was about Paul and her. “‘Hey Jude’ was ‘our song’, written and rewritten while I lived with Paul. I know it, he knows it, and now, you do,” she said. [35]
The ending melody, repeated at length, was not a song fragment added on but an integral part of the song. Paul said, “The end refrain . . . wasn’t intended to go on that long at the end but I was having such fun ad-libbing over the end when we put down the original track that I went on for a long time. So then we built it with the orchestra.” [36]
Both Paul and John ascribed this to Paul. He said, in 1989, “That was basically my song.” [37] In 1980, John praised its lyrics and said he did not contribute to it. [38] As often in the Beatle songs, we apparently have arrived at great clarity. But then — according to Mal Evans, in 1968, this song was collaborative:
“Hey Jude” is a more recent number [than ‘Revolution,’ written in India], based on one of Paul’s ideas, but worked on with much joint effort from both John and Paul before it reached the recording studios. . . . On Friday, July 26, John and Paul spent most of the day at Paul’s house putting the final touches to their latest composition, “Hey Jude.” [39]
Evans’s statements are impressively contemporaneous. But John and Paul’s statements are more firsthand, so I accept them. I think it is probable that John and Yoko came to Paul’s house and Paul simply performed the song for them, or played a demo, and asked for comments, and Evans assumed they had been collaborating.
Revolution — (Lennon)
(lead vocal: John) (fast version, recorded on July 9-13, 1968)
This is the second, hard rock recording of this song. “Revolution 1,” on the White Album, is the slower, original recording.
John wrote “Revolution” in India, [40] and hoped to make it a single, to give the Beatles a political voice, and put them on record as opposing the Vietnam War. “When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday, I made ‘Revolution,’ which is on the LP, and ‘Revolution No. 9,’” he said in 1970. [41]
However, Paul and George didn’t think the slow version of this song would work as a single. [42] So John decided to do a faster, hard rock version, which became the B-side of the “Hey Jude” single. This story, Paul and John objecting to “Revolution” as a slow song, is odd, as “Hey Jude,” the A-side, is a slowish rock ballad. One could understand political objections better.
John claimed this song: “Completely me,” he said in 1980. [43] Paul, in 1995, stated, “It was a great song, basically John’s. . . . I don’t think he was sure which way he felt about it at the time, but it was an overtly political song about revolution.” [44] I conclude that this is a full Lennon song.
“Thingumybob / Yellow Submarine” single —
Black Dyke Mills Band, September 6, 1968
Thingumybob — (McCartney)
(recorded on June 30, 1968)
In this song, a brass band instrumental, Paul returned to his northern heritage. In 2000, he said, “I was also asked to write the theme tune for a London Weekend Television series that Stanley Holloway was going to be in, called Thingumybob. I’ve always loved brass bands, so I wrote and produced a song for the Black Dyke Mills Band.” [45] In northern England, mills and factories would each have a band, and these would compete. The Black Dyke Mills Band had won that year. [46] Bands are “a roots thing for me,” Paul said, “my dad’s type of music.” [47]
They recorded the song up north, in Saltaire, near Bradford. They did “Yellow Submarine” in a big hall, but, Paul said, “For the A side, I wanted a really different sound so we went out and played it on the street. It was lovely, with very dead trumpety sounding cornets.” [48]
Yellow Submarine
See Revolver album, above.
Wonderwall Music album — George Harrison, November 1, 1968
In 1968 Joe Massot asked George Harrison to do the music for his movie Wonderwall , about a man peeping through a wall at a model living next door, and becoming obsessed with her. “I don’t know how to do music for films,” George protested, and Massot replied that he would use whatever music George gave him. George agreed, and decided he would do the score as a “mini-anthology of Indian music” to popularize Indian music. [49]
The album was recorded in London in December 1967, with English performers, and in Bombay, India, in January 1968, with Indian performers. The London songs were performed by Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr, under pseudonyms, and session musicians, the Remo Four, a Liverpool group. The London songs are by George, but the Indian songs are traditional Indian pieces. He did not play on any of them.
Wonderwall premiered at Cannes on May 17, 1968.
Microbes
Recorded in India.
Red Lady Too
Recorded in England.
/>
Tabla and Pakavaj
Recorded in India.
In the Park
Recorded in India.
Drilling a Home
Recorded in England.
Guru Vandana
Recorded in India.
Greasy Legs
Recorded in India.
Ski-ing
Recorded in England.
Gat Kirwani
Recorded in India.
Dream Scene
Recorded in England.
SIDE TWO
Party Seacombe
Recorded in England.
Love Scene
Recorded in India.
Crying
Recorded in India.
Cowboy Music
Recorded in England.
Fantasy Sequins
Recorded in India.
On the Bed
Recorded in India.
Glass Box
Recorded in England.
Wonderwall to Be Here
Recorded in England.
Singing Om
Recorded in India.
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins album — John Lennon and Yoko Ono, November 11, 1968 (US) November 29, 1968 (UK)
(recorded on May 19, 1968)
This is experimental music, with no real composed songs. It continues the tape loop style of “Revolution 9.” John said,
Well, after Yoko and I met, I didn’t realize I was in love with her. I was still thinking it was an artistic collaboration, as it were — producer and artist, right? . . . My ex-wife was away . . . and Yoko came to visit me. . . . we went upstairs and made tapes. I had this room full of different tapes where I would write and make strange loops and things like that for the Beatles’ stuff. So we made a tape all night. She was doing her funny voices and I was pushing all different buttons on my tape recorder and getting sound effects. [50]
Paul said, in 1994, in his letter to John, “After that I set up a couple of Brennell recording machines we used to have and you stayed up all night and recorded Two Virgins .” [51]
The Beatles (White Album ), November 22, 1968
Back in the U.S.S.R. — (McCartney)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded August 22–23, 1968)
Paul wrote this in India as a parody of Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.” In 1968, he said that the track, “just sort of came. Chuck Berry once did a song called ‘Back In The U.S.A.,’ which is very American, very Chuck Berry. Very sort of, uhh . . . you know, you’re serving in the army — And when I get back home I’m gonna kiss the ground.” [52] He also said that the song was “a kind of Beach Boys parody. . . . I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know? It was also hands across the water, which I’m still conscious of.” [53]
Adding to these two influences was Jerry Lee Lewis: “I remember trying to sing it in my Jerry Lee Lewis voice, to get my mind set on a particular feeling. We added Beach Boy style harmonies.” [54] So this song is actually a complex combination of early rock influences.
According to Mike Love, he (Love) suggested that Paul talk about girls all over Russia:
I was sitting at the breakfast table and McCartney came down with his acoustic guitar and he was playing “Back in the USSR,” and I told him that what you ought to do is talk about the girls all around Russia, the Ukraine and Georgia. He was plenty creative not to need any lyrical help from me but I gave him the idea for that little section. [55]
So this song that is in part a Beach Boys pastiche was actually influenced by a Beach Boy.
In 1971 John wondered if he helped a bit on this, but doubted it: “Paul. Maybe I helped a bit, but I don’t think so.” [56] And in 1980, he said, “Paul completely.” [57]
Dear Prudence — (Lennon)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded August 28–30, 1968)
John wrote this at Rishikesh when Prudence Farrow, Mia Farrow’s sister, would not come out of her hut for three weeks, and he and George were deputized to try to get her to come out. [58] So John wrote this song, “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out and play.” As Paul remembers, “We walked up to her chalet, a little delegation, and John sang it outside her door with his guitar. And she looked out, she improved after that.” [59]
Prudence herself remembered the incident differently. “At the end of the meditation course in India, just as we were leaving,” she said, “he mentioned that they had written a song about me, but I didn’t hear it until it came out on the album. I was flattered by it.” [60]
Donovan felt that this song was influenced by his folk “finger-style guitar method.” John “wrote ‘Dear Prudence’ soon after learning the new style,” [61] he said.
All the best relevant sources view this as a John song. [62]
Glass Onion — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on September 11, 1968)
As he began this song, John had the idea of writing a “joke tune” which contained “all kinds of answers to the universe.” [63] Then he brought it to a collaboration session with Paul, and they worked on it together. It referred back to enigmatic lines from earlier Beatles songs. Since many people had written to John, asking who the walrus was, John decided he would give the answer: the walrus would be Paul. Which caused John and Paul a “great giggle.” [64] John remembered doing this partly as an act of generosity, because he felt guilty that he was starting a major relationship with Yoko and leaving Paul as a creative partner:
At that time [I was] still in my love cloud with Yoko, I thought, well, you know, I’ll just say something nice to Paul, that it’s all right and ‘You did a good job over these few years holding us together.’ He was trying to organize the group and that; and do the music and be an individual artist and all that. [65]
Lennon claimed this song in 1971 and 1980. [66] But Paul had definite memories of collaborating on it. “John wrote the tune ‘Glass Onion,’ I mean he wrote it mainly, but I helped him on it,” he said before 1979. [67] And in 1995, he asserted: “We still worked together, even on a song like ‘Glass Onion’ where many people think there wouldn’t be any collaboration.” [68]
I regard this as a song started by John, finished with collaboration.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da — (McCartney-Scott)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded on July 3, 1968)
A friend of Paul whom he knew in the clubs, Jimmy Scott, a Nigerian conga player, used to say, “‘Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.” [69] Paul liked the phrase, and used it as the basis for the lyrics of this song. He developed it in India, achieving the chorus. “And it was very very pleasant; walking along in the dust slightly downhill through a path in the jungle from the meditation camp with my guitar and singing ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da,’ which I was writing, accompanying the process on the way.” [70] Paul Saltzman remembered Paul and John repeating the chorus over and over again as they worked on the song. [71]
Then the verses started to come. Paul remembered singing “Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace” as he walked down a jungle path to see a movie in a nearby village. [72]
Both Paul and John remember this as a Paul song. In 1968, Paul, asked if he’d written the song alone, answered, “I think it was mainly me. Mainly me. (jokingly ) John’s a bit more Nigerian influenced.” (laughter )” [73] Paul later sent Scott a check “because even though I had written the whole song and he didn’t help me, it was his expression. It’s a very me song, inasmuch as it’s a fantasy about a couple of people who don’t really exist.” [74]
In 1971, John attributed the song directly to Paul. [75] But nine years later, he left open the possibility that he had contributed to the lyrics, saying “I might’ve given him couple of lyrics, but it’s his song, his lyric.” [76] In view of John’s lack of certainty, I attribute this entirely to Paul.
John influenced the performance of the song in a major way. Evidently, Paul was playing it slower, and was requiring the Beatles to do the song over and over
again in the studio. Finally, John, one day, lost patience, left, then hours later burst into the studio and yelled, ‘I AM FUCKING STONED!!’ ‘I am more stoned than you have ever been. In fact, I am more stoned than you will ever be!’ ‘And this,’ Lennon added with a snarl, ‘is how the fucking song should go.’ He lurched to the piano and played the opening chords for “Ob-la-di” at a breakneck speed. Paul accepted the new tempo and the piano introduction. [77]
Jimmy Scott’s contribution to the song is significant — providing the title and the mantra of the chorus. This is not to deny that the essential magic of the music and lyrics are from McCartney, and Jimmy Scott’s phrase never would have amounted to a song without Paul’s eye for a good phrase and his musical talent. On the other hand, Paul’s talent saw the phrase as charming and profound, in its way. It was “found poetry” — but does a found phrase, if it comes from another human being, amount to collaboration? Jimmy Scott thought it did, and Paul agreed with him enough to send him a check at one point.
Wild Honey Pie — (McCartney)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded August 20, 1968)
Paul was in an experimental mood after doing John’s “Yer Blues,” and he asked, “‘Can I just make something up?’ and was given permission. He made up this song in the studio, having fun with double-tracking, adding layers of harmony to it.
It was very home-made; it wasn’t a big production at all. I just made up this short piece and I multitracked a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and built it up sculpturally with a lot of vibrato on the strings, really pulling the strings madly. Hence “Wild Honey Pie,” which was a reference to the other song I had written called “Honey Pie.” It was a little experimental piece. [78]