Who Wrote the Beatle Songs
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[160] Miles, Many Years from Now , 423.
[161] Ibid., 490. “Nature Boy” was written by eden ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle).
[162] Miles, Many Years from Now , 490.
[163] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror . Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 209.
[164] See Paul in 1968 (Interview, Radio Luxembourg). The song “says ‘Born a poor young country boy’ and I was born in Woolton hospital actually — so it’s a dirty lie.”
[165] Miles, Many Years from Now , 490.
[166] “Your Album Queries,” 10.
[167] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 200-1.
[168] Harrison, quoted in Everett II, 180.
[169] Miles, Many Years From Now , 486.
[170] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 200-1.
[171] Miles/McCartney, Many Years from Now , 486.
[172] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 27. Here John said that the Maharishi tried to rape Mia Farrow or seduce her, which seems unlikely. Mia Farrow, in her autobiography, does mention that the Maharishi put his arms around her unexpectedly at one point, and that she misinterpreted it initially. Prudence told her that an embrace was customary after meditation. Nevertheless, Farrow immediately left the ashram. Farrow, What Falls Away , 141.
[173] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 201. See also Lennon 1970 (Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 27-28); Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror (1971).
[174] Miles, Many Years from Now , 422. Mardas later denied that he had concocted the story, and once again affirmed that Maharishi had made advances toward a woman. Incidentally, he said that he was not at the ashram when Mia Farrow was. Kozinn, “Meditation on the Man Who Saved the Beatles.”
[175] Anthology , 286.
[176] George and John in Anthology , 286. Miles, Many Years from Now , 422.
[177] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. (1971): John said, of the song, “Me. That was about the Maharishi.” In 1995, Paul asserted: “John wrote ‘Sexy Sadie.’” Miles, Many Years from Now , 422.
[178] Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil” (1980), 98. Miles, Many Years from Now , 488.
[179] Miles, Many Years from Now , 488. “I was always trying to write something different, trying to not write in character, and I read this and I was inspired, Oh, wow! Yeah!” See also Garbarini and Baird, “Has Success Spoiled Paul McCartney?” 61; Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 4; Anthology , 311.
[180] McCartney, Interview, Radio Luxembourg, Nov. 21, 1968.
[181] Radice, “A Welter Of Helter Skelters.”
[182] Miles, Many Years from Now , 488.
[183] Anthology , 311.
[184] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror ; Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 210.
[185] Anthology , 311.
[186] I Me Mine , 132.
[187] Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 159; Harrison, I Me Mine , 132.
[188] Miles, Many Years from Now , 497. See “When I’m Sixty-Four,” in Sgt. Pepper’s , above.
[189] McCartney, Interview, Radio Luxembourg. See also Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil,” (1980), 46.
[190] McCartney, Interview, Radio Luxembourg, Nov. 21, 1968.
[191] Miles, Many Years from Now , 497.
[192] Ibid. Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[193] Harrison in Glazer, “Growing Up at 33 1/3” (1977).
[194] Harrison, I Me Mine , 128.
[195] Ibid. Taylor also remembered this, Somach et al., Ticket to Ride , 221. He had a friend, Barry Feinstein, who had just done a film called You Are What You Eat.
[196] Davies, The Beatles , 277.
[197] Many Years from Now , 487.
[198] Winn, That Magic Feeling , 150.
[199] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Miles, Many Years from Now , 487.
[200] “Thirty New Beatles Grooves,” 7.
[201] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 209.
[202] Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 155.
[203] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 198.
[204] Here, There and Everywhere , 241-42. “I spent more time on ‘Revolution 9’ than I did on half the other songs I ever wrote,” he said ten years later. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 198.
[205] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 4; cf. Wenner, Lennon Remembered , 111. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 198.
[206] Williams, “Produced by George Martin.” See also Chris Thomas before 1999 (Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: An Oral History , 266).
[207] Blackburn and Ali, “Lennon and Ono interview.”
[208] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 198.
[209] Letter to George Martin/Richard Williams, Sept. 1971, in Davies, The John Lennon Letters , 213.
[210] Ibid.
[211] Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 397. See also Yorke, Interview with George Harrison (1969).
[212] Shotton & Schaffner, The Beatles, Lennon and Me, 338.
[213] Ibid., 321-24.
[214] Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 135-39.
[215] Many Years from Now , 487.
[216] B. P. Fallon, Interview with John Lennon, Melody Maker , Apr. 12, 1969 (Sandercombe, The Beatles , 262).
[217] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 209; Miles, Many Years from Now , 487.
[218] Emerick, Here There Everywhere , 245.
[219] Fallon, “Will the Real John Lennon” (1969). Also quoted in Schaffner, The Beatles Forever , 115. See also Paul, Interview, Radio Luxembourg.
[220] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[221] Fallon, “Will the Real John Lennon.”
[222] McCartney, Interview, Radio Luxembourg, Nov. 21, 1968.
[223] Lewisohn interview, 12 (1988). See also Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday . . . and Today (1995), 98.
[224] Beatles, Illustrated Lyrics , 40. See also Ringo in Anthology , 306.
[225] “The Eighteenth Single,” 8.
[226] “Thirty New Beatles Grooves,” 7.
[227] Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday . . . and Today (1995), 98; Du Noyer, Conversations , 27. “Girl of My Dreams,” by Sonny Clapp, was first recorded by Blue Steele and His Orchestra with Vocal Chorus in 1927. “Little White Lies,” by Walter Donaldson, was first recorded by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians in 1930.
13
“I wanted to do something bigger, a kind of operatic moment” —
THE GET BACK SESSIONS AND ABBEY ROAD
A s the formal Beatles breakup approached, full collaboration between Paul and John became less frequent, and most Lennon-McCartney songs were pure John or pure Paul. [1] However, in a few songs from the Get Back sessions — such as the title song, which was developed in live performance in the studio — there was some significant collaboration. In “I’ve Got a Feeling” Paul and John put separate songs together, just as they had sometimes done in the Sgt. Pepper era.
In Abbey Road , the last album the Beatles recorded, even those minor moments of limited collaboration were few and far between. Only “Come Together,” seems collaborative, though John clearly dominated the song. There is no substantial songwriting collaboration between Paul and John on any of the other songs. As the two main Beatle songwriters reached their collaborative nadir, the album achieved a triumphant culmination of the Beatles’ musical career — a paradox that has rarely been recognized.
The Get Back Sessions
After the elaborate instrumentations and orchestrations of Revolver , Sgt. Pepper’s , Magical Mystery Tour , and the White Album, the Beatles had the idea to do a back-to-basics album, with just them, the band, playing live, without overdubs. In addition, they owed United Artists another movie, and so it was agreed that they would tape the sessions on film, and end the movie with a live show. These sessions became known as the Get Back sessions. [2]
So the Beatles began rehearsing at Twickenham Film Studios, with
the cameras rolling, on January 2, 1969. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who had directed some short Beatle films previously, acted as film director. Since the Beatles often brought songs to the studio unfinished, the film footage documents various Beatle songs in primitive form, and shows the group working on them together. In addition, the Beatles played many covers during these sessions, often in fragmentary form, some of their early songs, and a number of songs that later appeared on their solo albums after the breakup. One of their early songs, “One After 909,” ended up on the Let It Be album. Some of the covers ended up in the movie.
George Martin was still formally the music producer, but the format of the album (rehearsals, then “live” performance) did not lend itself to his normal role in the studio. In Martin’s absence, Glyn Johns, the engineer, often functioned as producer.
After the rehearsals, the Beatles began recording at the new recording studio at Apple headquarters on January 22. Finally, on January 30, they gave an impromptu performance on the top of the Apple building in central London, which later became the climax of the movie Let It Be . They recorded again in the studio on January 31, and continued to add overdubs to the Get Back songs in the following months.
Glyn Johns made four possible album lineups, more or less within the boundaries of the original idea of the album, and all were rejected by the Beatles, or some majority of the Beatles (Paul later said he liked them). The release of the album for this movie, and the movie itself, both titled Let It Be , were delayed until after the Beatles’ real final album, Abbey Road . (And then, the album Let It Be was radically re-produced by Phil Spector.) Although many of the songs seemed to have a valedictory tone, from “Let It Be” to “Long and Winding Road,” they were generally written much earlier than the Abbey Road songs (though a few of the Abbey Road songs were played in the Get Back sessions). To understand the Beatles’ progression as songwriters, we must always remember that the Let It Be songs were written during and soon after the White Album sessions.
The Get Back sessions sometimes continued the miserable, combative tone of the White Album studio experience. John’s continued drug use and his focus on Yoko made it difficult to communicate with him. George Harrison called the Get Back sessions “the low of all time.” Lennon agreed: he said that the Get Back sessions were “hell . . . the most miserable sessions on earth.” [3] George Martin said, “Let It Be was such an unhappy record (even though there are some great songs on it) that I really believed that was the end of The Beatles, and I assumed that I would never work with them again. I thought, What a shame to end like this.” [4]
Paul had a more mixed view:
We were being constantly filmed or taped. We suddenly realized there were these tensions and being under the glare of the camera, there was no way you could keep it out. I think Michael Lindsay-Hogg realized this and he sort of said “This is the film; it’s cinema vérité, let’s shoot what happens.” It was painful for us and I think it did contribute to the break-up. At the same time we had some great times. [5]
On January 10, Harrison, bitterly resentful of Lennon and McCartney, announced he was leaving the band, and walked out of the rehearsal studios and off the movie set. [6] He only returned, after setting definite conditions, on the 14th. However, while he was gone, he attended a Ray Charles concert, and met an old friend, keyboardist Billy Preston, whom the Beatles had known earlier when Preston had toured with Little Richard. Billy joined the Get Back sessions and became, for a while, a welcome Fifth Beatle.
Despite the occasional misery of these sessions, as the group was slowly, agonizingly breaking up, John and Paul had written some great songs for this album, and the cameras captured some magnificent performances. If the Beatles were sometimes bored, bitter, resentful, petulant and angry, their musical instincts clicked in when they were performing to create recordings with magical live chemistry. In fact, some insiders, such as Glyn Johns, remembered the sessions as essentially funny and positive. Johns said:
John Lennon only had to walk into a room, and I’d just crack up. Their whole mood was wonderful. There was all this nonsense going on at the time about the problems surrounding the group . . . in fact, there they were, just doing it, having a wonderful time and being incredibly funny. I didn’t stop laughing for six weeks. [7]
In addition, we might underline the difference between songwriting and recording sessions in the Beatles’ history (not to mention personal and legal conflicts). An author looking for obvious dramatic personal stories, from a storytelling point of view, would highlight the conflicts during these sessions. However, for a historian of the Beatles’ creativity (as evidenced by their songwriting), the recording is less important than songwriting (though the recording sessions are easier to document and dramatize). Songwriting was sometimes finished at the studio, but the main structure of songs was usually done by the writer alone, at home, without the cameras running. (For example, Paul wrote “Long and Winding Road” during the White Album sessions, at his farm in Scotland.) This kind of creativity is more elusive, and arguably more important, than the recording sessions. (“Get Back,” developed in the studio, is the exception.)
Yellow Submarine album, January 17, 1969
The animated movie Yellow Submarine was released in November 1968. There were four new Beatle songs on the soundtrack album, including two by George. These aren’t top drawer Beatle songs, by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re nevertheless good fun — especially John’s “Hey Bulldog.”
Yellow Submarine
See Revolver album, above.
Only a Northern Song — (Harrison)
(lead vocals: George) (recorded February 13–14, April 20, 1967)
This song, which represents the Beatles’ growing business sophistication, was written by George for Sgt. Pepper . [8] George referred to it as a “joke.” [9] He said that when he signed the contract with Dick James, he didn’t realize he was giving up ownership of his own songs. “It was just a blatant theft. By the time I realized what had happened, when they were going public and making all this money out of this catalog, I wrote ‘Only A Northern Song’ as what we call a ‘piss-take,’ just to have a joke about it.” [10]
Though it was recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, George Martin did not think it measured up to the other Sgt. Pepper songs. “I suggested he [George Harrison] come up with something a bit better,” Martin said. [11] So the recording was shelved, then resurrected two years later for Yellow Submarine .
The following is a good example of how completely non-factual anecdotes pop up even around the lesser Beatle songs. Al Brodax, producer and screenwriter for Yellow Submarine , said:
At two o’clock in the morning, in EMI’s studio, with the London Symphony Orchestra patiently waiting to go home, we were still one song short for the film. George told me to sit tight while he knocked out another tune. After an hour or two, he returned to the studio with the final song, “Here, Al,” he said, “it’s only a northern song.” [12]
Not only was this song not written for Yellow Submarine , it had been recorded two years earlier, in February and April 1967!
All Together Now — (McCartney-Lennon)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded on May 12, 1967)
This is another of Paul’s songs written for children. He took the title from a music hall catchphrase. “When they were singing a song, to encourage the audience to join in they’d say ‘All together now!’” said Paul in 1995. “So I just took it and read another meaning into it, of we are all together now. So I used the dual meaning.” His evaluation of the song is entirely realistic: “A bit of a throwaway.” [13]
Both Paul and John ascribed this to Paul as the main writer. [14] In 1980, he described it with one word: “Paul.” But then, not to leave a song attribution without ambiguity, he continued, “I put a few lines in it somewhere, probably.” [15]
It was recorded in May 1967, during the Magical Mystery Tour era of the Beatles.
Hey Bulldog — (Lennon-McCa
rtney)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on February 11, 1968)
In February 1968, just before the Beatles left for India, Paul told John that they needed to do a “real song in the studio” for Yellow Submarine , and could “John whip one off?” John had “a few words” for this song at home, so he brought them to the studio. [16] At some point John recorded a home demo of the chorus called “She Can Talk to Me.” At the studio, Paul helped finish the song. [17] Reportedly, it was originally titled “Hey Bullfrog,” but after Paul started barking at the end, they kept the barking in and John re-titled the song ‘Hey Bulldog.’ [18] Paul also misread “Some kind of solitude is measured out in news” as “Some kind of solitude is measured out in you,” and John decided to keep the mistake.
In 1980, John described the song as something he’d “knocked off” when the movie people requested another song. [19] Paul agreed that it was mainly a John song, but remembered some collaboration on it: “I helped him finish it off in the studio.” [20]
It’s All Too Much — (Harrison)
(lead vocals: George) (recorded on May 25–26 and June 2, 1967)
This is George’s psychedelic song — as he said, “written in a childlike manner from realizations that appeared during and after some LSD experiences and which were later confirmed in meditation.” [21] As he remembered that era, you’d “trip out . . . and then you’d just be back having your evening cup of tea!” [22]
It was recorded in May and June 1967, and so was another Magical Mystery Tour vintage song.
All You Need Is Love
See the “All You Need Is Love” single, above, and the Magical Mystery Tour album.
SIDE TWO
Side two of the album was orchestral music by George Martin. [23]
Goodbye album — Cream, February 15, 1969
Badge — (Clapton-Harrison-Starkey)