Who Wrote the Beatle Songs

by Todd M Compton

  The writing of this song dates to 1967, when one night John’s wife Cynthia was talking on and on in bed. But after she went to sleep, he kept hearing the words repeating over and over, “flowing out like an endless stream.” He went downstairs and created a “cosmic song” rather than an irritated song. “Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It’s not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed,” he said in an interview. [75] He wrote out the lyrics first, then added the music later. [76]

  John used a Sanskrit mantra in this song: “Jai guru deva om, “hail to the divine guru,” with the mystic syllable om added.

  The Beatles recorded this on February 4 and 8, 1968 (at about the same time as “Hey Bulldog” and “Lady Madonna”), before they flew to India. [77] So this song, which we associate with the last-released Beatle album, Let It Be , was actually recorded before most of the songs on the White Album were even written. There is a composing tape in which John sings part of this, which Winn dates to December 1967 or January 1968. [78]

  John disliked the Beatles recording, which he felt was out of tune because the other Beatles weren’t really involved or helpful. This is where he accused the Beatles, especially Paul, of “subconsciously” sabotaging his songs. [79] I read this critique of Paul as a byproduct of his ambiguous role as co-writer, and un-official arranger and producer for the Beatles. When he produced actively, in his typical driven, detail-oriented way, John and George often resented his bossiness and his relentless quest for perfection (which resulted in many takes); when he held back, they resented his not getting involved in their songs.

  The version found on the charity anthology album is the February 1968 studio version, with wildlife effects (birds chirping, children playing in a sandbox) added in the remix — this is also on the CD Past Masters, Volume Two . The Beatles played “Across the Universe” in the Get Back sessions, but the version that appears on the supposedly “live” Let It Be album is once again the February 1968 studio version, without the wildlife effects, but with Phil Spector’s orchestral additions! (The version on the Let It Be . . . Naked is also the 1968 studio version, without the Spector additions.) An alternate take, with pronounced Indian sitar and tambura, can be found on Anthology 2 .

  Both John and Paul ascribed this to John. “It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written,” he said in 1970, and the following year, he referred to it as, “One of my best songs.” [80] Paul, in 1995, agreed that “Across The Universe” was “one of John’s great songs.” [81]

  For the first release of this song, see No One’s Gonna Change Our World , charity album, above.

  I Me Mine — (Harrison-McCartney)

  (lead vocals: George)(recorded on January 3, 1970)

  George wrote this song quickly during the Get Back rehearsals, and one day came to Twickenham and played it for Ringo. This was filmed, and turned out to be an engaging moment, so was used in the film. However, this was not a proper recording, and the song would be needed for the soundtrack album, so the Beatles (minus John) re-recorded it from the ground up on January 3, 1970. George called it “a very strange song which I wrote the night before it was in the film,” in about five minutes. [82] It was “about the ego problem.” At the time, he said, he “hated everything about my ego — it was a flash of everything false and impermanent which I disliked.” [83]

  When John complained that the song was too short, “McCartney mended that problem by leading the group into an improvised, up-tempo middle section.” [84]

  Dig It — (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey)

  (lead vocals: John) (recorded January 24 to 29, 1969)

  All four Beatles are credited with this song, but John claimed it. [85] “I made this up on the spot. Sounds like it? Yes doesn’t it,” he said in an early interview. [86] However, according to Miles/McCartney, “Dig It” “was a studio improvisation led by John,” [87] but all the Beatles contributed lines.

  Let It Be — (McCartney)

  See “Let It Be / You Know My Name Look Up My Number” single, above.

  Maggie Mae (COVER) (traditional)

  (lead vocals: John) (recorded on January 24, 1969)

  “Maggie Mae” was a well-known Liverpool folk song.

  SIDE TWO

  I’ve Got a Feeling — (McCartney-Lennon)

  (lead vocals: Paul and John) (recorded January 30, 1969)

  As the “Get Back sessions approached, Paul had a song without a middle, “I’ve Got a Feeling.” John came to Cavendish one day with a song called “Everybody Had a Hard Year,” and they decided the two songs would fit well together. So this is a song such as “A Day in the Life” or “Baby I’m a Rich Man,” in which separately composed unfinished songs were combined and created a seemingly cohesive whole. In fact, both songs expressed general optimism (except for the first line of John’s song, oddly enough). [88] Paul taught the song to George and Ringo on January 2, the first day of the Get Back sessions.

  Paul and John agreed that Paul wrote the main song (which he sings), and John wrote the counter-melody, which he sings. “Paul,” said John in 1980. “And there’s part of me on it.” [89] In 1971, he put it on a list of songs he and Paul had collaborated on. [90] Miles/McCartney, in 1995, agreed: “Just as Paul had an inclusion in the middle of “A Day in the Life,” so John had one in the middle of Paul’s “I’ve Got a Feeling.” [91] Paul gave it as an example of how his collaboration with John had continued even into the late Beatles time period, though the song was probably written during or just after the White Album’s release. John had written his part by December 1968, when it shows up on a demo. The songs were joined together by January 2, 1969. [92]

  One After 909 — (Lennon-McCartney)

  (lead vocals: John) (recorded on January 30, 1969)

  During the Get Back sessions, the Beatles played this, one of the really early Beatle songs, out of good-humored nostalgia. John says he started writing the song when he was seventeen or eighteen, which would have been 1957 or 1958. After this start, he worked on it with Paul at the McCartney home at Forthlin Road. Paul stated, “It’s a great favourite of mine because it has great memories for me of John and I trying to write a bluesy freight-train song. There were a lot of those songs at the time, like ‘Midnight Special,’ ‘Freight Train,’ ‘Rock Island Line,’ so this was the ‘One After 909.’” [93]

  The song can be found on a summer 1960 Beatle rehearsal tape, and again on a 1962 Cavern Club recording. [94] They also played it in Hamburg. [95] A great early version was recorded in the studio on March 5, 1963 — this never made it onto a Beatle record, but can be found on Anthology 1 . The song was not performed or released till it was sung as an “oldie” during the Get Back sessions. Apparently, in the early Beatle period Paul and John were dissatisfied with this song; either they regarded it as unfinished, or felt the lyrics were lacking. [96]

  John claimed it starting in 1970, saying “it’s one I wrote when [I was] seventeen or eighteen in Liverpool separately from Paul.” [97] And in 1980, he remembered: “That was something I wrote when I was about seventeen.” [98]

  But in an early interview, in 1969, John talked about the song as something he and Paul hadn’t finished. “Paul: Our kid [Mike McCartney] has been saying, ‘You should do that [the song One after 909],’ for years. But, I said, ‘Well, you know, Mike, you don’t understand about these things, you know. . . . John: It’s like, we always thought it wasn’t finished. We couldn’t be bothered finishing it.” [99]

  Paul remembered collaboration. In a very early booking letter that he wrote in 1960 he listed “One After 909” among the songs he and John had written. [100] In 1969, he said:

  It’s from one of the first songs we ever wrote. Glyn Johns: “John wrote it when he was about 15, didn’t he? Paul: Yeah, we used to sag off every school day, go back to my house and the two of us would write: “Love Me Do,” “Too Bad About Sorrows.” [“Just Fun”] . . . . But we hated the words to “909.” [101]

  P
robably John started it, then he and Paul worked on it in collaborative sessions.

  The Long and Winding Road — (McCartney)

  (lead vocals: Paul) (recorded January 26 and 31, 1969, April 1, 1970)

  Paul wrote this in Scotland, during the White Album sessions, from May to October, 1968. He sat down at the piano and started playing and came up with the song. [102] He once played it, with the lyrics not yet finished, for Alistair Taylor after a White Album recording session. [103]

  It is a nexus for a number of influences. One was “the dissension and troubled atmosphere within the band at the time.” [104] Paul said that writing sad songs such as this one often serves as therapy. “It’s a good vehicle, it saves having to go to a psychiatrist.” [105] Counterbalancing the negative feelings from the looming Beatle breakup was the “calm beauty of Scotland.” [106] One theory is that the “long and winding road” is the road that led to his farm in Scotland, BH42. [107]

  On a musical level, Paul was channeling Ray Charles, which led to the song’s “slightly jazzy” chord structure. [108]

  Paul and John both ascribed this to Paul. In 1988, he affirmed, “John never had any input on ‘The Long and Winding Road.’” [109] In 1980, John had agreed: “Paul again.” John felt that “the shock of Yoko” caused Paul to have a little “creative spurt” just before the breakup, which produced this song. [110]

  As has been mentioned, this song later became the main victim of Phil Spector’s orchestrations on the Let It Be album, to the dismay of Paul and George Martin. Paul said, in 2000:

  So now we were getting a ‘re-producer’ instead of just a producer, and he added on all sorts of stuff — singing ladies on ‘The Long and Winding Road’ — backing that I perhaps wouldn’t have put on. I mean, I don’t think it made it the worst record ever, but the fact that now people were putting stuff on our records that certainly one of us didn’t know about was wrong. [111]

  “Plain” versions of this can be found on Anthology 3 (the January 26 version) and Let It Be . . . Naked (the January 31 version). I do prefer the plain versions, but have developed a fondness for Spector’s over-the-top orchestrated version over the years, which historically has been the most influential version. So we have three canonical versions of this great song — not to mention numerous recordings and live performances by Paul after the breakup.

  For You Blue — (Harrison)

  (lead vocals: George) (recorded on January 25, 1969)

  Harrison’s second song on Let It Be is slight. His songs on Let It Be are dwarfed by his great songs on the White Album and Abbey Road . This is a 12-bar song, in the blues tradition, but instead of the blues, it’s “happy-go-lucky.” [112]

  Get Back — (McCartney-Lennon)

  See “Get Back / Don’t Let Me Down” single, above.

  Let It Be , movie, May 13, 1970

  The Let It Be movie included some songs not on the Let It Be album.

  Paul’s Piano Piece — (McCartney)

  This song opens the film. Per Sulpy and Schweighardt, this is based on Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” but to me and some classical music friends, it does not sound like that piece at all. [113]

  Maxwell’s Silver Hammer — (McCartney)

  To state the obvious, the performances of this, “Oh Darling,” and “Octopus’s Garden,” predated the Abbey Road versions.

  Oh Darling — (McCartney)

  See Abbey Road , above.

  Jazz Piano Song — (McCartney-Starkey)

  A primitive blues improvisation.

  Suzy Parker — (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey)

  John seems to lead this improvised song, performed on January 9, 1969. [114] Some give it the title “Suzy’s Parlour.”

  Bésame Mucho (COVER) (Consuelo Velázquez, Sunny Skylar)

  This performance is one of the charming highlights of the Let It Be film. The Beatles performed the bizarre Coasters song at the Decca audition, January 1, 1962, and at the EMI audition, on June 6 of the same year. The EMI version can be heard on Anthology 1 .

  Paul said, in 1989, “You see we had a very sort of strange repertoire because of Hamburg and ’cause all these little B sides we’d looked up. We tried things like ‘Besame Mucho.’ ‘Du dududududu. Cha chacha, oy! Besame. Besame mucho.’ Weird song to do.” [115] Paul, typically, commented on the music and harmony of the song: “It’s a minor [key] song and it changes to major, and where it changes to major is such a big moment musically. That major change attracted me so much.” [116]

  Octopus’s Garden — (Starkey-Harrison)

  See Abbey Road , above.

  You Really Got a Hold on Me (COVER) (Smokey Robinson)

  John’s version of this is one of the high points of the movie. The Beatles first released it on With the Beatles , above.

  Medley:

  Rip It Up (COVER) (Robert Blackwell, John Marascalco)

  This was performed by Bill Haley and his Comets and Little Richard in 1956.

  Shake Rattle and Roll (COVER) (Jesse Stone, under his working name Charles E. Calhoun)

  Written in 1954, this was recorded by Big Joe Turner and Bill Haley and his Comets the same year. It became a rock standard.

  Medley:

  Kansas City (COVER) (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller)

  See Beatles For Sale , above.

  Miss Ann (COVER) (Richard Penniman, Enotris Johnson)

  A Little Richard song, released as the B-side of his 1956 single “Jenny, Jenny.”

  Lawdy Miss Clawdy (COVER) (Lloyd Price)

  A 1952 hit single by Lloyd Price, this song was successfully covered by Elvis four years later.

  Just Fun — (collaboration)

  Paul sings the first verse of this in the Let It Be movie, and reportedly performed the whole song on acoustic guitar during a soundcheck in Zurich in 2004. [117] In 1969, he said,

  Yeah, we used to sag off every school day, go back to my house and the two of us would write: “Love Me Do,” “Too Bad About Sorrows.” There’s a lot from then. We have about a hundred that we never recorded because they’re all very unsophisticated songs. (singing in a very dumb voice) “They said our love was just fun/ The day that our friendship begun,/ There’s no blue moon that I can see/ There’s no blue moon in history” and we just thought “great, too much.” [118]

  Twenty years later, Paul remembered: “One of the earliest [collaborations with John] I can remember, I can’t remember if it was exactly the earliest, was a song called ‘Just Fun.’” But the song had one bad line they never could fix: “‘There’s no blue moon that I can see, There’s never been in history.’ Terrible.” [119]

  * * *

  [1] Quoted in Torrance, “Don’t Let It Be.” See also Tobler and Grundy, “George Martin.” George Harrison, on the bonus fly-on-the wall disk Let It Be . . . Naked , also emphasized the necessity for no overdubs on this album.

  [2] Williams, “Produced by George Martin.” This is slightly unfair; Martin had given a Beatle song like John’s “Goodnight” a lush orchestration, though at John’s request. See also George Martin (interview in Melody Maker , quoted in Doggett, Abbey Road , 78); George Martin in Pritchard & Lysaght, The Beatles: An Oral History , 307.

  [3] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 4, cf. Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 120. See also 118-21.

  [4] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 4. Salewicz, “Tug of War,” 60.

  [5] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 4.

  [6] As quoted in The Plastic Ono Band Unfinished Discography website. See also Williams, “John & Yoko (part 2).”

  [7] As quoted in The Plastic Ono Band Unfinished Discography website.

  [8] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 15.

  [9] Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 210.

  [10] Williams, “John & Yoko (part 1)”.

  [11] Miles, Many Years from Now , 550. Thomson, “Paul McCartney,” (2005).

  [12] Anthology , 289.

  [13] Bill Collins, manager of Bad
finger, in Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 227.

  [14] For the session, Lewisohn interview, Beatles Recording Sessions , (1988), 11; Anthology 289; Matovina, Without You , 63; Tom Evans of Badfinger, in Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 480.

  [15] Matovina, Without You , 62.

  [16] For this performance, see Mal Evans, “John and Yoko’s Toronto Concert.”; Winn, That Magic Feeling , 321.

  [17] See Engelhardt, Beatles Undercover , 175. The Franklin album may have been delayed.

  [18] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 354.

  [19] George Harrison, quoted in liner notes from Doris Troy . Possibly from a 1970 interview, see Winn, That Magic Feeling , 376.

  [20] Everett II, 198.

  [21] Miles, Many Years from Now , 538.

  [22] As quoted in Turner, Hard Day’s Write , 180. Similar: Salewicz, “Tug of War,” (1986), 68; Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 4 (1989); McCartney interview, transcribed from “Sold on Song” website.

  [23] For Paul, Interview in Smith, Off the Record , 201. Coleman: McCartney: Yesterday . . . and Today , 38-39. Snow, “Paul McCartney.” For John, Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.

  [24] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 211.

  [25] Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 490.

  [26] See the relevant dates in Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back .

  [27] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 214.

  [28] McCartney 1988 (Lewisohn interview, 15).

  [29] As quoted in Winn, That Magic Feeling , 282.

  [30] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 214.

  [31] Smith, “Beatles Music Straightforward On Next Album.”

  [32] McCartney 1988 (Lewisohn interview, 15). Miles, Many Years from Now , 438. Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 116.