8
“He’d say, ‘Nowhere land,’ and I’d say, ‘For nobody.’ It was a two-way thing” —
RUBBER SOUL
T his album marked a major watershed for the Beatles. Though their previous albums and songs had been generally superb, and showed signs of the songwriting ambitions of the two lead songwriters, Rubber Soul seemed a quantum leap forward, both in its unique and personal lyrics and in its musical depth and creativity. Instead of producing standard boilerplate love lyrics, Paul and John started to write songs that were enigmatic and unsentimental. Some of the love songs that were on the album, such as “In My Life,” “Girl,” and “Michelle,” were unique and deeply felt. There are hints of the innocent, exuberant early Beatles on Rubber Soul , and suggestions of the mature Beatles that were to come.
With Rubber Soul the Beatles made a conscious effort to shed their “teen-age” image. “Rubber Soul for me is the beginning of my adult life,” Paul said, in 1966. [1] “You don’t know us if you don’t know Rubber Soul ,” John said in the same year. “All our ideas are different now.” [2] In fact, the songs on this album are generally more mature, more complex, and simply better than most of the songs on the previous albums. Perhaps as a result, song attribution in later interviews became more conflicted. One of the most disputed songs in the Beatles canon is Rubber Soul ’s “In My Life.”
Paul and John wrote this for Help! . “The song is a ballad which Paul and I wrote for the film,” John said in 1965. [3] Though this early evidence points to collaboration, John later ascribed the song to Paul, so the collaboration probably came from a song Paul had started, or he dominated the writing session. [4]
The Beatles did record this, on February 20 and March 30, 1965, but it didn’t make it into the Help! movie or album. John’s story was that he and Paul didn’t sing it very well. Paul said they just weren’t that keen on the song. [5] It never appeared on a Beatles album until it was released on Anthology 2 .
Then John ran into one P. J. Proby at a nightclub one night. Proby (an American, born James Marcus Smith) had a moderately successful singing career in England from 1964 to 1966, and was a friend of the Beatles, especially John. Proby asked John to write him a song, and John agreed. They met a week later and John gave him “That Means a Lot.” [6] Proby’s recording of it went to number 24 in England.
Working from the available evidence, one could view this as a pure Paul song (based on John’s late evidence), as a collaboration dominated by Paul (based on John’s early evidence), or as a John song (which seems to be Proby’s view). My vote goes for option two, as major or minor collaboration was characteristic of early Beatles songs. In addition, this is the earliest evidence.
As Paul tells the story, he worked out the melody to this — “the tune was there, I’d done the melody” [7] — and had a basic idea of a “bitchy girl” talking to the narrator about gold rings. He took the song to John, but he didn’t like the ring idea — “Crap!” [8] — and Paul realized that the lyrics were “disastrous.” So they spent hours trying fruitlessly to get something better. It seemed like they were going to have to admit defeat and end up with a “dry” writing session (a rarity for them), when they came up with “‘Baby, you can drive my car.” Then the lyrics and the story fell into place. For Paul, it was a perfect example of how he and John could work together successfully. [9]
In 1971, John described the song as collaborative. [10] But in 1980, he ascribed it to Paul, and couldn’t remember if he’d added anything to it. “His song, with contributions from the . . . eeahhh, don’t know if I put anything in.” [11]
This is mostly Paul’s song, but both Paul and the earliest evidence from John show that it was finished with collaboration. John’s editing and feedback were crucial for the lyrics. It’s another example of the new Beatle songs whose lyrics weren’t hackneyed romantic clichés. In fact, these new lyrics were often enigmatic, as the next song would show.
Apparently John had the opening lines to this song — “I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me” — in 1964. [12] He started to put music to the words while he was on a skiing holiday in Switzerland with Cynthia, and George Martin and his wife, from January to February, 1965. He filled out the first verse, developing lyrics reflecting an affair he was having. So he had to be careful to make sure that the relationship would not be explicit. [13]
According to Paul, when John came back in England, he and Paul had a work session on the song at Kenwood. John played the first stanza, and they developed the song from there. [14] Paul added the middle eight, then had the idea to burn down the flat at the end. [15] The song was finished.
In some interviews John claimed this song, denying collaboration. In 1980, he described it as “my song completely.” [16] In 1968, he had put it in the list of personal songs “that really meant something to me.” [17] In other interviews, he affirmed Paul’s contributions. In 1970, he said that Paul helped with the middle eight, [18] and the following year he said “Me, but Paul helped me on the lyric.” [19]
Paul never denied that John was the main songwriter for the song, but always stated that the song was finished with collaboration. For example, in 1973, he said that “Norwegian Wood” was “mainly John’s,” but was nevertheless co-written, and one of the co-written songs he really liked. [20] Six years later he explained that it was one of “certain ones John wrote and I just helped a little bit.” [21] In some interviews, he emphasized the collaboration more. [22]
I conclude that this was a song started by John, but finished with substantial collaboration, including Paul contributing much of the middle section.
The sitar is a remarkable feature of the recorded song. According to Lennon, he asked George to play it, and in one interview, George agrees. In another, he said that he picked the sitar up and tried it when they were looking for a new, unique sound. Indian culture had entered the Beatles’ music for the first time. [23]
Paul remembered writing the tune for this song against a descending chromatic scale. “I changed it but it was still a two-note thing but instead of it going down I pushed it up and then came down again; just a slight variation.” [24] It was very Motown-influenced, with its James Jameson bass lines. [25] According to Merseybeat journalist Bill Harry, the lyrics reflect that Paul wrote this at a time when Jane Asher wouldn’t answer his calls. [26]
Both Paul and John agree that this song was written by Paul. [27]
One day John was at his house, trying to write a song, and nothing would come. So he gave up, frustrated, and went to lie down. He thought of himself doing nothing and going nowhere — the nowhere man. Then the words started to come. [28]
In 1984, Paul said, “That was John after a night out, with dawn coming up. I think at that point in his life, he was a bit wondering where he was going.” [29] He thought it reflected John’s dissatisfaction with his marriage, living in the suburbs. [30]
John claimed this song, [31] and Paul generally agreed. However, in two late interviews he described contributing to it. In 2000, he said that it “was one of John’s” and that “he’d already got most of it.” But “I maybe helped him with a word here or there.” One of the characteristics of their collaboration was that they liked each other, Paul said. “He’d sing something and I’d say, ‘Yeah,’ and trade off on that. He’d say, ‘Nowhere land,’ and I’d say, ‘For nobody.’ It was a two-way thing.” [32]
And in a 2005 interview, after describing how he and John wrote together, face to face, with acoustic guitars, he said,
If he was in C, I’d go to C, and maybe a little idea would come though that one of us had, or something might pop in to your head to the chords. Sings, “He’s a real nowhere man / Living in. . . dah dah dah.” Write it down, write it down! And, it’d start flowing. Middle eight. Hey! Now we go somewhere . . . and y’know, that just became the system. [33]
I conclude that this is a song by John, finished with minor collaboration from Paul.
This is George’s best song yet, but he couldn’t recall much about writing it, or even what it was about, beyond, possibly the Government. [34]
John and Paul wrote this at Kenwood. Though they usually didn’t use drugs during songwriting sessions, this time they smoked some pot, said Paul, “then we wrote out a multicoloured lyric sheet, the first time we’d ever done that.” [35]
In 1971 John remembered working with Paul on this and put it on a list of collaborative songs. [36] But in 1980, while not denying that collaboration was there, he claimed it as mostly his own: “‘The Word’ was written together, but from my — mainly mine, let’s put it that way.” [37] In his last interview, John emphasized that the song came from his realization: “It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album. My first expression of it was a song called ‘The Word.’ The word is ‘love.’. . . [this] seemed like the underlying meaning to the Universe.” [38]
Paul, however, always seemed to remember substantial collaboration in this song’s creation. In 1965, he said, “To write a good song with just one note in it — like ‘Long Tall Sally’ — is really very hard. It’s the kind of thing we’ve wanted to do for some time. We get near it in ‘The Word.’” And thirty years later, Miles wrote, “It was a song that John and Paul wrote together at Kenwood.” [39]
I conclude that the song was a collaboration with John emphasis.
In its musical form “Michelle” was one of Paul’s older songs; it dates back to his years at the Liverpool Institute grammar school (from 1953 to 1960). [40] He would play it as a joke song at “arty, bohemian” parties. “We’d be hanging out and being very far out,” Paul said. “So there’d always be a guy in the corner with a guitar. So I used to pretend I was French.” [41] It became his “French joke, on guitar.” [42] He played it for years, as an instrumental, as a country-western tune in “Chet Atkins’ finger-pickin’ style. . . . based on Atkins’ ‘Trambone.’” [43] It was recorded in a Beatle rehearsal tape in summer 1963, without the later middle eight. [44]
But as the Beatles were preparing songs for Rubber Soul , John suggested that Paul resurrect this. “John said, ‘D’you remember that French thing you used to do at Mitchell’s parties?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Well, that’s a good tune. You should do something with that.’. . . So I did.” [45] Without John’s encouragement, this song may have never been developed. The joke tune became a haunting ballad.
Paul worked on “Michelle” and came to a songwriting session with the beginnings of the song. In 1966, John said, “he just sort of had a bit of a verse, and a couple of words, and the idea. . . . He just brought it along and just sort of started fiddling around trying to get a middle-eight.” [46] John thought of Nina Simone’s version of “I Put a Spell on You,” [47] in which she repeats, “I love you” four times, and they developed a version of that for the middle section. [48]
Paul and John often added to the lyrics of a song in informal sessions with friends, and in this case, Paul worked out the French lyrics with Jan Vaughan, a French teacher, the wife of his friend Ian Vaughan, who had introduced Paul to John on that fateful day in July 1957. [49]
I said, “I like the name Michelle. Can you think of anything that rhymes with Michelle, in French?” And she said, “Ma belle .” I said, “What’s that mean?” “My beauty.” I said, “That’s good, a love song, great.” We just started talking, and I said, “Well, those words go together well, what’s French for that? Go together well.” “Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble .” I said, “All right, that would fit.” And she told me a bit how to pronounce it, so that was it. I got that off Jan, and years later I sent her a cheque around. I thought I better had because she’s virtually a co-writer on that. [50]
George Martin wrote the guitar solo, which was played by George Harrison. [51] And the song was finished.
Paul often claimed this. “Most of the ballady stuff I wrote on my own. ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Michelle,’ ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ ‘Let It Be,’ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’” he said, before 1989. [52] In the same year, he said, “‘Yesterday,’ ‘Michelle’ and some of those very McCartney ones I’d written on my own because they’d come quickly and I hadn’t had time to take them to John. I just started on my own at home and it had all happened. Like premature ejaculation. By the time I’d taken them to John it might just be one little word he’d want to change.” [53] He remembered bringing the song in and “showing the guys how it went.” [54]
John readily agreed that the main song was by Paul, but he always mentioned that he contributed to the middle section, with the Nina Simone “nick.” “I wrote the middle with him,” he said in 1971. [55] In 1967, John had said, “I think Paul wrote that one. I remember saying, Why don’t you pinch that bit from so and so’s song, and he said, Right.” [56]
The main song was written by Paul, then, and the chorus was collaborative, with John. In addition, there were important additions from Jan Vaughan and George Martin.
SIDE TWO
This country-western ditty apparently started off as a very early song by John, which he then worked on with Paul in Liverpool, perhaps at 20 Forthlin Road. As he considered using it for Rubber Soul , it was unfinished, lacking a middle eight, and Paul supplied that (with a minimal contribution from Ringo, according to Ringo: “About five words.” [57] ).
John correctly attributed this to Lennon-McCartney-Starkey. “Me,” John said in 1971. “A very early song of mine. Ringo and Paul wrote a new middle eight together when we recorded it.” [58] Neil Aspinall, in 1966, stated that it was a co-written song, and that Paul made a demo of it for Ringo. “John and Paul wrote it years ago in Liverpool. Then Ringo added things, including some new lyrics, when he’d heard Paul’s special tape.” [59] An early press report said that Paul wrote it, “a five-year-old country and western song,” but this is not first hand. [60]
This is a Lennon song, but Paul contributed the middle section, with a few words from Ringo.
John wrote the beginnings of this as a love song, the search for the “dream girl” [61] who later, for him, turned out to be Yoko. [62] Then he worked on it with Paul.
A book on Christianity, which John was reading, was the unlikely source for the last verse of this song. It described the Catholic idea that pain would lead to pleasure, torture of the body would lead to salvation. As he and John talked about that idea, Paul put the phrases “pain would lead to pleasure” and “a man must break his back” into the song, as a kind of protest against this idea. [63] Thus the song ends on a remarkable philosophical note. [64]
The evidence for the authorship of “Girl” shows the familiar pattern of John claiming the song, and Paul (in both early and late statements) remembering substantial collaboration. In 1968, John put it on a list of personal songs he’d written. [65] Two years later, he said, “They’re sort of philosophy quotes. . . . I was thinking about it when I wrote it.” [66] In 1971, he put it on the list of songs he’d written by himself, and at about the same time, he described it as, “one of my best.” [67]
Paul, on the other hand, described collaboration on this song as early as 1965. After mentioning the pleasure/pain principle in the book on Christianity, he said, “So we’ve written a song about it.” [68] Thirty years later, he said, “It was John’s original idea, but it was very much co-written. . . . I credit that [song] as being towards John but I put quite a bit in. It wasn’t one that he came in with fully finished at all.” [69]
Paul also remembered writing the tuneful Greek theme at the end of the song when he was on a holiday in Greece in September 1963. [70]
Based on Paul’s very early testimony, I accept this as a song begun by John, but finished with collaboration.
In 1968, Hunter Davies, during an interview with Paul, reported that this song resulted from a bitter parting he’d had with Jane Asher. Paul said, to Davies:
“Another problem was that my whole existence for so long centered round a bachelor life. . . . My life generally has always been very lax, and not normal. I knew it was selfish. It caused a few rows. Jane left me once and went off to Bristol to act. I said okay, then leave; I’ll find someone else. It was shattering to be without her.” This was when he wrote “I’m Looking Through You.” [71]
Both Paul and John ascribe this completely to Paul. “I think it’s totally my song. I don’t remember any of John’s assistance,” Paul said in 1995. [72]
This song began in a chance remark that journalist Kenneth Allsop made to John, just before an interview about In His Own Write (published in March 1964). Allsop asked, “Why don’t you put some of your life, about your childhood into the songs?” [73] So one day John began writing a song lyric about Liverpool places, a “bus journey” in which he mentioned every place he could remember between his house at 251 Menlove Avenue and downtown Liverpool. This didn’t work at all; it was “ridiculous,” John felt, and instead he began writing the beginnings of “In My Life.” [74]
As Paul tells the story, he came over to John’s house one day and found the opening stanza or stanzas of the song written out, with no music. [75] So he said, “Well, you haven’t got a tune, let me just go and work on it.” [76] He sat down at John’s Mellotron [77] and worked out a tune in the style of Smokey Robinson. “So I recall writing the whole melody. And it actually does sound very like me, if you analyse it.” [78] So he took the tune up to John, and said, “Got it, great! Good tune, I think. What d’you think?” John said, “Nice.” They continued from there, working on the lyrics, filling out the verses. [79]
George Martin wrote and performed the “harpsichord” solo, which raises the issue of whether he should get songwriting credit for such substantial contributions. [80] Where does arranging end and composing begin?
Paul’s story, with its fullness of details, is quite anecdotally convincing. In many interviews, Paul tells the same story. In 1973, he said, “Those were words that John wrote and I wrote the tune to it. That was a great one.” [81] In the “angry interview” published in the second edition of Hunter Davies’s Beatles biography, Paul said, “He [John] also forgot completely that I wrote the tune for ‘In My Life.’ That was my tune. But perhaps he just made a mistake on that. Forgot.” [82] And in 1984, he said, “John either forgot or didn’t think I wrote the tune. I remember he had the words, like a poem — sort of about faces he remembered . . . I recall going off for half an hour and sitting with a Mellotron he had, writing the tune.” [83]
On the other hand, John often claimed this song as entirely his own composition. For example, in 1980, he gave the song as an example of how, in some of his songs, “I was writing melodic ‘muzak’ (in quotes) with the best of them.” [84] In 1971, he said, “Me. I think I was trying to write about Penny Lane when I wrote it. It was about places I remembered.” [85] In 1980, he said, “I think ‘In My Life’ was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life.” [86]
However, Lennon, in other interviews, is all over the map. In 1970 he described the song as his own, but remembered some collaboration from Paul. “I wrote that in Kenwood. . . . I wrote it upstairs, that was one where I wrote the lyrics first and then sang it. . . . I think on . . . ‘In My Life’ Paul helped with the middle eight, to give credit where it’s due.” [87]
In 1980, he again remembered collaboration on the middle eight, and, in addition, Paul contributing “melodically” to the harmony of the song: “The whole lyrics were already written before Paul even heard it. [88] . . . his contribution melodically was the harmony and the middle eight itself — not the whole middle eight . . . his input was with me there on the chord changes.” [89]
Given the convincing unity and anecdotal fullness of Paul’s memories, I accept that he wrote the music to “In My Life.”
If we accept Paul’s version of this song’s genesis, how do we view such an equally co-written song, then, with Lennon’s words (mostly or completely) and McCartney’s music (completely)? If we are interested in lyrics in a rock song, it is a Lennon-McCartney; but if we are focused on music, then it is a McCartney-Lennon.
So I call this song “collaboration,” and leave it to the reader to call it “collaboration John emphasis” (if you’re more interested in lyrics) or “collaboration Paul emphasis” (if you’re focused more on music).
Of course, it’s entirely possible to view the conflict in McCartney-Lennon testimonies here as a he-said / he-said situation, in which we might have to accept the testimony of either Paul or John. If we reject Paul entirely, however, then we are still left with the variations in John’s testimony. The ambiguities involved in assessing the authorship of the Beatle songs are seemingly infinite.
Paul wrote this on the set of Help! as American actor Brandon De Wilde watched. In 1995, McCartney remembered that Brandon “was a nice guy who was fascinated by what we did. A sort of Brat Pack actor. We chatted endlessly, and I seem to remember writing ‘Wait’ in front of him, and him being interested to see it being written.” [90]
As it turned out, the song was not used for Help! , but was resurrected to fill up side two of Rubber Soul. [91]
John never commented on this song, and Paul only talked about it once. “I think it was my song,” he said in 1995. “I don’t remember John collaborating too much on it, although he could have.” [92] If Paul was the writer, this is another example of John singing lead on a song Paul wrote. Or perhaps, more exactly, John and Paul singing the lead together, though John sings the actual main melody. Paul sings the middle eight alone.
George’s second outing for Rubber Soul was based partly on a Byrds song, “The Bells of Rhymney.” Roger McGuinn, when asked, “The prevailing riff from the song sounds a lot like a riff you had in “The Bells of Rhymney.” In fact, didn’t George write to Derek Taylor and tell him that?” said,
Derek delivered the message and said, “George wants you to know that the song ‘If I Needed Someone’ was inspired by the lick in ‘The Bells of Rhymney.’” In fact, George later told me himself. And even if he hadn’t told me, I would have known it anyway, because it was the same lick. But I was very honored to see that. . . . And “If I Needed Someone” is one of my favorite songs by them! [93]
Many Beatle songs were inspired by previous songs, Motown, country western, folk music, pop standards. Here we begin to see the impact the American groups such as the Byrds and the Beach Boys had on the Beatles.
John was often fascinated by isolated lines in songs. Under pressure to produce another song for Rubber Soul , he wrote “Run For Your Life” around a line from the 1955 Elvis single, “Baby Let’s Play House:” [94] “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man.” [95]
John claims this song, though he said he never liked it. In 1970, he said that “it was one of them I knocked off just to write a song. And it was phony.” [96] Paul stated that it was “largely John’s.” [97]
A disappointing conclusion for a great album.
[1] Lydon, “Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters,” also in Lydon, Flashbacks: Eyewitness Accounts , 12.
[2] Ibid. For the album’s title, Winn, Way Beyond Compare , 324.
[3] John in New Musical Express , 1965, as quoted in the Beatles Bible website, at “That Means a Lot”; also in Harry, The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia , at the entry, “That Means a Lot”; Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 56–57.
[4] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 205.
[5] John in New Musical Express , 1965, as quoted in the Beatles Bible website, at “That Means a Lot”; also in Harry, The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia , at the entry, “That Means a Lot”). Paul, 1988 interview, Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 12.
[6] As quoted in Engelhardt, Beatles Undercover , 388.
[7] Miles, Many Years From Now , 269-70.
[8] Lydon, “Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters,” also in Lydon, Flashbacks: Eyewitness Accounts of the Rock Revolution , 16.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror (in a list of co-written songs).
[11] Sauter, “One John Lennon”; cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 215.
[12] Everett I, 313.
[13] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 9, 1989, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 188.
[14] Miles, Many Years From Now , 270. George Martin before 1999, in Pritchard and Lysaght, Beatles: an Oral History , 200.
[15] Miles, Many Years From Now , 270-71. Paul “had the idea to set the place on fire, so I take some sort of credit. And the middle was mine, those middle eights, John never had his middle eights.”
[16] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 9, 1989, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 188.
[17] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
[18] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 85.
[19] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[20] Gambaccini, Paul McCartney, In His Own Words , 19.
[21] Gambaccini, “A Conversation with Paul McCartney.”
[22] McCartney, undated interview, in Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 189. Miles, Many Years From Now , 270-71.
[23] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 84. Brown, “A Conversation with George Harrison” (1979); Harrison, Anthology , 196. Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 9, 1989.
[24] Miles, Many Years From Now , 271.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Harry,” Jane & Paul: A Love Story.”
[27] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror . Sheff, The Playboy Interviews (1980), 205. Miles, Many Years From Now , 271.
[28] Davies, The Beatles , 274-75.
[29] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” 107.
[30] Miles, Many Years From Now , 272. Snow, “Paul McCartney.”
[31] Davies, The Beatles , 274-75. Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 82. Similar: Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 203.
[32] Anthology , 196.
[33] “Interview, Observer Music Monthly.”
[34] I Me Mine , 88.
[35] Miles, Many Years From Now , 272.
[36] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[37] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 215.
[38] Sholin and Kaye, “John Lennon’s last interview” (1980).
[39] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter”; Miles, Many Years From Now , 272.
[40] Miles, Many Years From Now , 272. See also Anthology , 20.
[41] McCartney from 1985-1989, in Somach et al., Ticket to Ride, 144.
[42] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Doherty, “Pete Doherty meets Paul McCartney.”
[43] Miles, Many Years From Now , 273. “Trambone,” one of Atkins’s signature songs, appeared on his 1962 LP Down Home .
[44] Winn, Way Beyond Compare , 56.
[45] Miles, Many Years From Now , 273. Austin Mitchell was one of Paul’s tutors.
[46] Robbins, “Interview with John Lennon.” In later interviews, Paul seems to reflect that the song was more developed than this when he brought it to John.
[47] This song, written by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in 1956, received a remarkably different interpretation on jazz singer Nina Simone’s 1965 album, of the same title.
[48] Matthew, “Interview with Paul McCartney & John Lennon.” See also Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 148.
[49] For Jan Vaughan, see also Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 192; Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 94.
[50] Miles, Many Years From Now , 274.
[51] Pritchard and Lysaght, Beatles: an Oral History , 200.
[52] Interview in Smith, Off the Record , 201. See also Miles, Many Years From Now , 273.
[53] The Paul McCartney World Tour , 82.
[54] Snow, “Paul McCartney.”
[55] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. A year later, he claimed the middle eight entirely: “I wrote the middle eight on that one.” Garcia, “The Ballad of Paul and Yoko.” The earlier statement is more convincing.
[56] Matthew, “Interview with Paul McCartney & John Lennon.”
[57] Ringo, 1966, in an Interview with the Beatles, Aug. 28, 1966, as found in Giuliano, The Lost Beatles Interviews , 87.
[58] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Similar: Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 188.
[59] “Neil’s Column.” The Beatles Monthly Book no. 33 (April 1966): 6.
[60] Article in Disc Weekly , Nov. 20, 1965 (Sandercombe, The Beatles , 146).
[61] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 206.
[62] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 99, see also 85-86.
[63] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.” Almost the same words in Lydon, “Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters” (1966). John also claimed those sentiments, Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 99, see also 85-86.
[64] Miles, Many Years From Now , 275-76.
[65] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
[66] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 1; Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 99, see also 85-86.
[67] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 175. See also Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 206.
[68] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.” Almost the same words in Lydon, “Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters” (1966).
[69] Miles, Many Years From Now , 275-76.
[70] Ibid., 120. Snow, “Paul McCartney.”
[71] Davies, The Beatles , 309. Snow, “Paul McCartney.” See also Miles, Many Years From Now , 276.
[72] Miles, Many Years From Now , 276. Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 206.
[73] Lost Lennon Tapes, March 14, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 162-63.
[74] Lost Lennon Tapes, March 14, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 164. See also pp. 188-89, and 203.
[75] Miles, Many Years From Now , 277-78. Paul went back and forth on whether John had one verse or multiple verses written out. For example, see later in this same passage (single verse), and deCurtis, In Other Words (1987), 61: “I know he brought in ‘In My Life’ and he had the first verse and the rest of it wasn’t written.” In a 1984 interview, however, Paul seems to suggest that John had all the lyrics. “I remember he had the words, like a poem—sort of about faces he remembered.” Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” Playboy , 107. Du Noyer, Conversations , 185: “The words to ‘In My Life’ were done without me.”
[76] Miles, Many Years From Now , 277-78.
[77] A forerunner of the Moog synthesizer, which had sampled sounds on tapes. This is a convincing detail, as John had acquired a Mellotron on August 16, 1965. Babuk et al., Beatles Gear , 165.
[78] Miles, Many Years From Now , 277-78.
[79] Ibid. However, in some interviews, Paul said John had all the lyrics, see above.
[80] Pritchard and Lysaght, Beatles: an Oral History , 199-200. For further on George Martin’s solo, see Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, 65; Everett I, 31.
[81] Gambaccini, Paul McCartney, In His Own Words , 19.
[82] Davies, The Beatles , 371.
[83] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” Playboy , 107. Similar: Paul McCartney World Tour , 82; Anthology , 194, 197.
[84] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 16, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 149.
[85] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. The first draft is extant, and has verses about places. Spitz, The Beatles , 587. Doggett, The Art and Music of John Lennon , at Oct. 12 to Nov. 11, 1965.
[86] Lost Lennon Tapes, March 14, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 149.
[87] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 85. In the same interview, he describes it as one of his “personal” songs, 9. As is consistent with Beatles usage, Lennon was using “middle eight” to mean a contrasting middle section, not a minor link between major musical sections, see Chapter Two, at “Love Me Do.”
[88] This is a point of conflict, as Paul sometimes said that John had only the first verse, and they collaborated on the other verses (though Paul varies on this point, see footnote above). However, if there was collaboration on the second and third verses, John still had had the “template” for the song’s lyrics, and probably dominated the collaborative session, from the standpoint of lyrics.
[89] Lost Lennon Tapes, March 14, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 164. See also pp. 188-89, and 203.
[90] Miles, Many Years From Now , 278.
[91] Lewisohn, Complete Beatles Chronicle , 196.
[92] Miles, Many Years From Now , 278.
[93] Somach et al, Ticket to Ride , 212. See also Harrison, I Me Mine , 90.
[94] Written and first released by Arthur Gunter the previous year.
[95] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 85. Similar: Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror; Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189.
[96] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 4; Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 99.
[97] Miles, Many Years From Now , 279.