Who Wrote the Beatle Songs

by Todd M Compton

  The Beatles Anthology DVD — The Beatles, April 1, 2003.

  McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr reminisced and sang some old songs for the Anthology documentary in June 1994. This session was not released until the DVD version of the series appeared.

  Baby What You Want Me to Do (COVER) (Jimmy Reed)

  This was recorded by blues musician Jimmy Reed in 1959.

  Raunchy (instrumental) (COVER) (Bill Justis, Sid Manker)

  This was a hit for Bill Justis and his band in 1957. It was one of the first instrumentals with pronounced lead guitar that became popular in early rock. George’s mastery of this song reportedly got him into the Beatles.

  Thinking of Linking — (McCartney-Lennon)

  Paul got the germ of this song in the movies, when a character said, “We’re thinking of linking.” Paul thought, “That should be a song. Thinking of linking, people are gonna get married, gotta write that!’ . . . Pretty corny stuff!” [96] So Paul said in 1988. However, in 1968, an interviewer, theoretically reflecting statements by Paul and John, wrote that the title came from “the television commercial for the Link Furniture Company.” [97]

  However the title came into being, the song was worked on in songwriting sessions with Paul and John — in about 1959, Paul put it in a list of songs he and John had written. [98] It was performed during the Get Back sessions, [99] purely out of nostalgia, because, as Paul said, “‘Thinking of Linking’ was terrible!”

  The words were fairly primitive, but the music is actually quite likable, very Buddy Holly, better than many other early Beatle songs.

  Blue Moon of Kentucky (COVER) (Bill Monroe)

  This was a hit single for Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in 1947, as a somewhat slow waltz. It became the B-side of Elvis’s first single, “That’s All Right,” in 1954, in a faster, more rock version, and was just as popular as the A-side.

  Let It Be . . . Naked album — The Beatles, November 17, 2003

  And yet another attempt to get the Get Back sessions right as an album! This strips all the Spector overdubs from the songs, and is a significant contrast to the original Let It Be for that reason. The song order is also completely different. A Lennon song, “Don’t Let Me Down,” formerly the B-side to the “Get Back” single, is added, while “Maggie Mae” and “Dig It” are jettisoned.

  Purists have objected to many aspects of this album. For example, “Across the Universe” is a studio recording, made long before the Get Back sessions. For our purposes, we can note that the main album includes no new Beatles songs. However, a whole extra disk, the Fly on the Wall disk, includes conversations and excerpts from songs. It is only twenty-two minutes long, a collection of fragments that is more tantalizing than satisfying. It does include snippets of some early Lennon-McCartney songs that have historical interest.

  Notable songs on the Fly on the Wall disk are as follows:

  Because I Know You Love Me So — 1:32 (Lennon-McCartney)

  After the Beatles played “One After 909” on January 3, 1969, John remembered and played this old Lennon-McCartney tune. [100]

  Taking a Trip to Carolina — 0:19 (Starkey)

  Ringo performed this fragment on January 3, 1969. [101]

  John’s Piano Piece — 0:18 (Lennon)

  Child of Nature — 0:24 (Lennon)

  See “Jealous Guy” in Lennon’s Imagine , above.

  All Things Must Pass — 0:21 (Harrison)

  See Harrison’s All Things Must Pass , above.

  John’s Jam — 0.19 (Lennon)

  Paul’s Bass Jam — 0.14 (McCartney)

  Paul’s Piano Piece — 1:01 (McCartney)

  See Let It Be , the movie, above.

  Fancy My Chances With You (or I Fancy Me Chances) — 0:27 (Lennon-McCartney)

  This song had been part of the Beatles’ live repertoire in 1962. [102] They played it in the Get Back sessions on January 24, 1969.

  McCartney album, Deluxe Edition — Paul McCartney, June 13, 2011

  Suicide — (McCartney)

  See McCartney , above. This bonus track on disk 2 of the McCartney remaster, deluxe edition, is the first complete recording of this song on disk. A 1974 version from the unreleased TV documentary, One Hand Clapping , is on the bonus film DVD.

  On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2 album — The Beatles, November 11, 2013

  Only unique songs are discussed below.

  I’m Talking About You (COVER) (Chuck Berry)

  (lead vocals: John)

  Chuck Berry released this as a single in 1961.

  Beautiful Dreamer (COVER) (Stephen Foster, Gerry

  Goffin, Jack Keller)

  (lead vocals: Paul)

  This classic song was written by Foster in 1862, thus is probably the oldest cover song the Beatles ever recorded. They followed a speeded up version by Tony Orlando that had been released in the U.K. exactly a hundred years later. It included new lyrics by Goffin and Keller.

  The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 album — The Beatles, December 17, 2013

  This was released through the iTunes Store. It includes 15 studio recordings and 44 live BBC recordings, reportedly released for copyright reasons.

  “Bad to Me” (Demo) — (Lennon-McCartney)

  The was released as a single by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas in July 1963, see above.

  “I’m in Love” (Demo) — (Lennon-McCartney)

  This was released as a single by the Fourmost in November 1963, see above.

  * * *

  [1] Liner notes from Doris Troy .

  [2] Liner notes from Billy Preston, Encouraging Words .

  [3] As quoted in the liner notes from Encouraging Words .

  [4] White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 62. See also Harrison, I Me Mine , 164; Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 218.

  [5] Self, “The ‘My Sweet Lord’/‘He’s So Fine’ Plagiarism Suit.” See also Leng, The Music of George Harrison, 45. For background, Winn, That Magic Feeling , 344.

  [6] Harrison, I Me Mine , 176.

  [7] Self, “The ‘My Sweet Lord’/‘He’s So Fine’ Plagiarism Suit,” citing George’s court testimony.

  [8] Ibid.

  [9] Ibid.

  [10] Harrison, I Me Mine , 176. For the comments of two Beatles on the suit, Lennon, in Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 162; Starr, in Badman, The Beatles Diary, Vol. 2, After the Break-Up , at Oct. 2, 1976.

  [11] White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 60, 62. Harrison, I Me Mine , 184.

  [12] See Timothy Leary’s Psychedelic Prayers After the Tao Te Ching (1966).

  [13] As quoted in Turner, Hard Day’s Write , 216.

  [14] Ibid.

  [15] See Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , index.

  [16] Ibid., 182, 269.

  [17] Harrison, I Me Mine , 206.

  [18] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 7-8, 270, 293, 296.

  [19] Winn, That Magic Feeling , 244. Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 55-56, 73-75.

  [20] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 169-70.

  [21] Glazer, “Growing Up at 33 1/3” (1977). Similar: White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 55.

  [22] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 1; see also Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 2.

  [23] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 140, 260.

  [24] Ibid., 194.

  [25] White, “Paul McCartney On His Not-So-Silly Love Songs.”

  [26] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 209. See on “Mother Nature’s Son” in the White Album, above.

  [27] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 9, 236; also see Let It Be . . . Naked , below.

  [28] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 197.

  [29] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 41-42, 102, 104.

  [30] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 221, 253. Winn, That Magic Feeling , 230. Sauter, “One John Lennon.”

  [31] Davies, The John Lennon Letters , 221.

  [32] Ibid: “I must thank Mark Allen
Klein publicly for the ‘line’ ‘just another day’, a real poet.” Klein also affirmed this. Felix Denis of Oz magazine, present when the song was being recorded, said that “Yoko wrote many of the lyrics. I watched her writing them and then watched her race into the studio to show John, and they’d burst out laughing.” Blaney, Lennon and McCartney , 55.

  [33] Alan Smith, “Beatles Music Straightforward.”

  [34] Winn, That Magic Feeling , 299.

  [35] The Autobiography of Donovan , 210.

  [36] White, “Paul McCartney On His Not-So-Silly Love Songs.”

  [37] Harrison, I Me Mine , 172. See also White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 57.

  [38] Harrison court testimony, May 6, 1998, as quoted in Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 41.

  [39] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 42.

  [40] Cott, “John Lennon: The Last Interview.”

  [41] Brown, “A Conversation with George Harrison” (1979).

  [42] Since it was a Kinfauns demo, it was actually written before the White Album sessions.

  [43] White, “George Harrison Reconsidered,” 55. See also Shapiro, Behind Sad Eyes , 85.

  [44] See Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 147. Mal Evans in 1968 (“Thirty New Beatles Grooves,” 7).

  [45] Unterberger, Unreleased Beatles , 198.

  [46] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1, quoted below. Lewisohn, Tune In , 818n47, holds that Paul wrote two piano songs, primitive versions of “Suicide” and “When I’m Sixty-Four,” before this, his first guitar song. See also Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter”; Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1973); Miles, Many Years from Now , (1995), 21, 34; Anthology (2000), 20. Interview, date unknown, in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 13; Paul, Autobiography, on myspace.

  [47] Lewisohn, Tune In , 153.

  [48] Sann, “The Beatles: The Intimate Portrait.”

  [49] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 254.

  [50] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1.

  [51] Giuliano, Glass Onion , 122.

  [52] Lewisohn, Complete Beatles Chronicles , 105.

  [53] Lewisohn, Beatles Recording Sessions , 6.

  [54] Paul McCartney’s Rock ‘n Roll Roots , BBC Radio 2, Dec. 25, 1999, as cited in Pedler, The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles , 232.

  [55] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview with John Lennon.”

  [56] Lennon, in Anthology , 11.

  [57] Miles, Many Years From Now , 155.

  [58] Lewisohn interview, Beatles Recording Sessions , 9.

  [59] Lennon, in Anthology , 11.

  [60] Howlett, Liner notes for On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2 , 35.

  [61] Leigh, “Cavern King,” Interview with Bob Wooler (1998).

  [62] Anthology , 68.

  [63] Everett II, 287.

  [64] Gobnotch, “Recording Sessions Update - Part 1.”

  [65] Ibid.

  [66] Ibid.

  [67] Anthology , 11.

  [68] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 6-7.

  [69] Anthology , 23. Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 6-7.

  [70] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 6-7. For young Paul, Elvis was the “ultimate groove,” Du Noyer, Conversations , 30.

  [71] Lewisohn, Tune In (extended), 444-46.

  [72] Quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 208-9.

  [73] Interview by Paul Drew, US Radio, April 1975, as cited in Lewisohn, Tune In , 178. Paul, however, had fuzzy (incorrect) memories that he sang the lead, see Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 6-7.

  [74] Ibid.

  [75] Lennon, 1974, in Anthology , 14.

  [76] Lewisohn, Liner notes on Anthology I , p. 8.

  [77] Miles, Many Years from Now , 38.

  [78] As quoted in Turner, Hard Day’s Write , 210.

  [79] Miles, Many Years From Now , 30.

  [80] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1. See also Anthology 22.

  [81] Anthology, 67.

  [82] See Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 7; Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Williams, “Produced by George Martin” (1971). More in Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 44-45.

  [83] Gobnotch, “Recording Sessions Update - Part 8.”

  [84] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 11.

  [85] Everett II, 289.

  [86] Gobnotch, “Recording Sessions Update — Part 5.”

  [87] Press Release for “Real Love.”

  [88] Anthology , 172.

  [89] Coleman, “Here We Go Again.”

  [90] Smith, “Beatles Music Straightforward On Next Album.” In a January 1, 1976 interview with Elliott Mintz, Lennon called it “a crazy song that I wrote,” Lost Lennon Tapes, Apr. 18, 1988.

  [91] See “Sexy Sadie” in the White Album, above.

  [92] Wikipedia, “What’s the New Mary Jane.” Winn, That Magic Feeling , 200.

  [93] Evans, “Thirty New Beatles Grooves,” 11.

  [94] Emerick, Here, There and Everywhere , 312.

  [95] Turner, Hard Day’s Write , 216. See also Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 155.

  [96] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 12 (1988).

  [97] Lydon, “Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters.”

  [98] Letter to Mr. Low, in Davies, The Beatles , 63.

  [99] Unterberger, The Unreleased Beatles , 260.

  [100] Sulpy and Schweighardt, Get Back , 37.

  [101] Ibid., 30.

  [102] Lewisohn, The Beatles Chronicle , appendix, “What They Played.”

  16

  Who Wrote the Lennon-McCartney Songs? —

  SWEEPING AWAY THE MYTHS

  T here are multiple levels of misapprehensions about the standard “Lennon-McCartney” songwriting attribution that appeared on most of the Beatle songs. In order to understand John, Paul and the Beatles, we must clear those away.

  “Lennon-McCartney”: The Beatles as Magical Synergy

  First, many have accepted the “Lennon-McCartney” attribution as literally true, which actually is not an unreasonable assumption. “Lennon-McCartney” suggests that all those songs were the result of systematic 50-50 collaboration (as in songwriting partnerships such as George and Ira Gershwin, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David, in which one person wrote music and the other words). To the best of our knowledge, once, but only once, did John and Paul come close to that, John writing most or all of the lyrics to a song and Paul writing the music — “In My Life.” [1]

  This idea, that all Lennon-McCartney songs represented full collaboration, is contradicted by all the best evidence, as is well known to anyone with more than a passing interest in the Beatles. Both Paul and John wrote lyrics and music. Some of their songs were “full” collaborations, “written eye-to-eye,” but many were entirely written by either John or Paul alone. Many, probably the majority until the White Album era, were “supportive,” “finishing,” collaborations: they were substantially started by either Paul or John, then were finished with some collaboration. In other words, John might have written the music and first verse of a song, then Paul came in and they had a songwriting session to finish it up. Paul might have worked with him on the second or third verse and “middle eight” — often a substantial middle section. [2] While this is not a full collaboration — the main song is John’s — it still includes some significant collaborative work, and the attribution Lennon-McCartney is valid (as long as we understand that it was not 50-50).

  In the same way, sometimes Paul would start a song, then bring it to John to finish it off. Though, again, this is not a full collaboration, there was joint work on the song, so a joint attribution again would be appropriate (though “McCartney-Lennon” would have been correct, rather than “Lennon-McCartney”).

  Sometimes Paul and John would combine songs that had been written independently (as with “A Day in the Life,” “Baby
I’m a Rich Man,” or “I’ve Got a Feeling”). However, this would not be full collaboration, as the writer of the “main” song would dominate — thus “A Day in the Life” is correctly attributed to “Lennon-McCartney,” though Paul made a major contribution to the song.

  Sometimes Paul or John would write a song, and the other would merely act as an “editor,” changing a word or two in the lyrics. Sometimes the “editor” would add just a bit to the other’s song, a phrase in the lyrics or a counter-melody.

  However, many of the Lennon-McCartney songs were actually written by either Paul or John entirely separately, and “Lennon” or “McCartney” would have been the correct attribution.

  Of the 203 “Lennon-McCartney” songs written from the “Love Me Do” single to Let It Be , only about twelve seem to have been literal, nearly-equal collaborations. [3] On all the rest of the songs, one or the other of the two writers either wrote the song entirely alone or substantially dominated the writing. “Full” collaborations were more common in the early Beatles period. However, “supportive” collaborations, in which one of the Beatles helped finish a song the other had begun, extended from the early Beatles period to Abbey Road .

  This only reaffirms what Beatle insiders have been saying through the years. John said, “All our best work — apart from the early days, like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ we wrote together, and things like that — we wrote apart, always .” [4] Tony Barrow, the Beatles’ early publicist, correctly wrote,

  Only a mere handful of songs were written in total and equal collaboration with each writer doing half the job. As a rule, most of the number was the solo work of John or Paul, the one thinking up the idea in the first place and creating most of the music as well as the words, whilst the other added useful trimmings towards the end of the whole operation. Very occasionally, the two lads really did sit down together and work out a new piece of material. [5]