9
“One day I led the dance . . . and another day John would lead the dance” —
REVOLVER
R emarkable as the sea change from the early Beatle albums to Rubber Soul was, the further step forward to Revolver was just as extraordinary. Here the style of the early Beatles was almost forgotten. Rubber Soul , filled with magnificent songs, nevertheless had three or four filler or even subpar songs; and it ended with the song that John hated so much, “Run for Your Life,” which caused the whole album to collapse in a disappointing fizzle. But all of the Lennon-McCartney songs on Revolver range from superior to great — both Paul and John contributed about four songs each that would become pop standards. Two of George’s three songs are solid, but his “Taxman” is a step forward, for him, and is highlighted by its position starting off the album. Added to the high quality of the songwriting on this album was continued aural experimentation that was prefigured by “Rain” and certain songs on Rubber Soul , such as “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life.” But “Tomorrow Never Knows” took this to an entirely new level, and provided the album with a stunning, aesthetically powerful ending.
In 1966, John highlighted the experimental aspects of Revolver :
Q: What’s going to come out of the next recording sessions? Literally anything. Electronic music, jokes. . . One thing’s for sure — the next LP is going to be very different. . . . Paul and I are very keen on this electronic music. You make it clinking a couple of glasses together or with bleeps from the radio, then you loop the tape to repeat the noises at intervals. Some people build up whole symphonies from it. [1]
Paul said, at the time of Revolver ’s recording, “It’s sort of verging on the electronic.” The songs were “purposely composed to sound unusual. They are sounds that nobody else has done yet — I mean nobody . . . ever.” [2]
While the electronic experimentation added a third dimension to this album, it would not have been successful without the consistently inspired and well-crafted songwriting that the Beatles had come to master.
According to Paul, “John met quite a few girls who thought they were it and he was a bit up in arms about that kind of thing.” As he and Paul worked on “Day Tripper,” it became a tongue-in-cheek description of a girl who was only a “weekend hippie,” a Sunday painter, Sunday driver, not fully committed. [3]
In both early and late interviews Paul remembered this as a fully collaborative song with a slight edge toward John. In August 1966, he used “Day Tripper” as an example of a collaborative song, one that would have been very different if it had been pure John or pure Paul. “We can write a song, say like ‘Day Tripper’ . . . we can write it thinking the same thing about it, but if we each wrote it individually, it’d be a completely different song.” [4] Thirty years later, he remembered a very “co-written” song, from an idea by John. “We were both making it all up but I would give John the main credit. Probably the idea came from John because he sang the lead, but it was a close thing. We both put a lot of work in on it.” [5]
In one interview, John agreed that there was collaboration (“Me. But I think Paul helped with the verse” [6] ), but generally he claimed this as his own song. In 1968, he put it on a list of personal songs that “really meant something” to him. [7] The following year, he made the curious statement that it was “based on an old folk song I wrote about a month previous.” [8] However, nine years later, John simply said: “That’s mine. Including the lick, the guitar break and the whole bit.” [9]
Based on Paul’s impressively early testimony, I accept that the song was John’s idea, but developed with significant collaboration.
Paul wrote this at Rembrandt, a house he bought for his father in the town of Heswall, Merseyside County (then Cheshire County), near Liverpool. There was a piano in the dining room that Paul would use, but if he wanted to do guitar work, he’d go to the back bedroom. [10] He had most of the song written, then took it to John for finishing off, “and we wrote the middle together,” Paul said. [11] George Harrison thought of putting the middle in 3/4, like a waltz. [12] There is a demo of Paul playing the song. [13]
Paul, in 1995, said that he wrote most of this himself, then finished it with John. [14] John, however, consistently said that Paul wrote the main song, and he wrote the middle: “Paul wrote that chorus, you know, I wrote the middle bit about ‘Life is very short, there is no time for fussing and fighting’ all that bit,” he said in 1970. [15] And the following year, he asserted, “Paul, but the middle was mine.” [16] In 1980, John characterized the two sections as McCartney-esque optimism vs. Lennon’s impatience. [17]
The main conflict in testimony, then, is whether the middle part was co-written with Paul or entirely written by John. But both writers agreed that it was mainly a Paul song, finished with collaboration. The 3/4 sections that George suggested are significant enough to mention him as a co-writer.
Paul wrote this for Peter and Gordon, but had it released under a pseudonym, Bernard Webb, to see if the song would do well without the Lennon-McCartney label. It was only moderately successful, reaching 14 in the U.S. and 28 in the U.K. Paul said, in 1989, “It wasn’t a very big hit, I probably should have stuck my name on it, it might have been bigger.” [18]
One day Paul’s aunt Lil nudged him to start writing about non-love themes — a horse perhaps — or a summit conference! [19] Then one day, according to DJ Jimmy Davile, the Beatles were backstage after a show and since it had been decided that Paul would write the next single, John asked him what it would be about. Remembering Aunt Lil’s challenge, Paul looked around the room and saw Ringo reading a book, so he announced that the next single would be about a book. [20]
He had always liked the word “paperback,” [21] so began thinking about using that in the title. On the way out to John’s house one day, he had the idea of writing a song in the form of a letter — a paperback writer writing a letter to a publisher. He came up with the beginnings of the tune in the car, [22] and when he got to Kenwood, he and John sat down and, Paul said in 1966, “we wrote the words down like we were writing a letter.” [23] In later interviews Paul described himself as the active writer, so he probably dominated. [24]
Then they went upstairs and apparently developed the tune fragment Paul had into a complete song. [25] “John and I sat down and finished it all up,” said Paul, “but it was tilted towards me, the original idea was mine.” [26]
In 2004, Paul gave it as an example of an important song in the ongoing Paul-John creative tug of war: “For those early years, the competition was great . . . I’d come up with ‘Paperback Writer’ and John would come back with ‘I’m Only Sleeping.’” [27]
In 1968, Lennon put it on the list of personal songs that really meant something to him. [28] However, in 1971, he remembered the song as mainly Paul’s, though he contributed to the lyrics. “Paul. I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics. Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul’s tune.” [29] John’s 1980 attribution mentions no contribution from himself. “‘Paperback Writer’ is son of ‘Day Tripper,’ . . . Paul’s song.” [30]
I conclude that in this song, Paul had the beginnings of the music, then wrote most of the lyrics. Following this, he and John collaborated to finish it up. [31]
One musical factor that is emphasized on this song is Paul’s bass. He developed a melodic bass style that added a level of musical complexity to all the Beatle songs, not just his own. According to Lewisohn, before 1966, Paul’s bass was hardly heard because of English recording techniques, but on “Paperback Writer,” specifically, that changed, as the bass was recorded clearly and mixed up. [32]
John claimed this song [33] but Paul remember collaboration: “a co-effort with the leaning slightly towards John,” he said in 1995. He remembered that John had no pre-written elements for “Rain,” but he started off the songwriting session — “when we sat down to write, he kicked it off.” What gave the song “its character was collaboration.” [34] He described it as written 70-30 toward John, which obviously conflicts with the “leaning slightly towards John.” I accept that there was collaboration, but with a pronounced leaning toward John.
John specifically claimed the backwards tape section. He brought the recording home, and high on marijuana, inadvertently put the tape in backwards. “I sat there, transfixed, with the earphones on, with a big hash joint. . . . And I ran in the next day and said, ‘I know what to do with it, I know, listen to this!’” [35]
Just to confuse the issue, in 1966, George Martin claimed that he had created the backward tape section at the end of the song, which led to all subsequent backward tape playing in later Beatle albums. “The Beatles weren’t quite sure what to do at that point, so I took out a bit of John’s voice from earlier on and played it backwards. They all thought it was marvellous . . . it had a sort of unexpectedly Eastern sound. So we kept it in.” [36] Despite Martin’s quite believable and very early testimony, Lennon’s memories of the backwards tape incident (also attested very early) are anecdotally convincing. Lennon, as the main songwriter, should be accepted here.
This is George’s best song yet; the lyrics came from his realization that he was giving away most of his Beatle earnings to the government. [37] In 1980, George published his book I Me Mine , and when John read it, he was angry that George had not given him credit for his help over the years, and affirmed that he contributed to the lyrics of this song. He said that one day George showed up to ask for help with “Taxman.” John felt that he was already stretched thin with Lennon-McCartney work, but bit his tongue and “threw in a few one-liners to help the song along.” [38]
In fact, George said, in 1988, “Once in a while I got a line from John when I was stuck.” [39] So I accept John’s memories here.
Paul began writing this at the piano in the Asher music room one day. [40] It developed from an E minor chord. “I can hear a whole song in one chord,” he said in 1966 while discussing this song. “In fact, I think you can hear a whole song in one note, if you listen hard enough. But nobody ever listens hard enough.” [41] As he vamped on the E minor, he got the main melody. Soon some words started to come: “‘picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.’ Those are the words that arrived. Then the rest of it was work to try and explain what those words were.” [42]
He began to develop the characters in the lyrics, and came up with Father McCartney, the lonely old man, and Daisy Hawkins. He became dissatisfied with these names — his own father would be viewed as the song’s “Father McCartney,” and Jim McCartney as not like that at all. Then one day in Bristol, while he was waiting for one of Jane’s performances to end, he saw the name Rigby in a shop window, and it seemed right for the song. [43] “Eleanor” came from Eleanor Bron, an actress in Help! . [44] This name, Eleanor Rigby, sounded right to him. When he got that name, he remembered, he “ felt great. “I’d got it! I pieced all the ideas together, got the melody and the chords.” [45] But the lyrics were still not finished. [46]
A collaborative songwriting session at John’s house followed. “Then I took it down to John’s house in Weybridge,” Paul said in 1966. “We sat around, laughing, got stoned and finished it off.” [47] Now they consulted a phone book and replaced Father McCartney with Father McKenzie. [48]
But apparently Paul and John had not completely finished it, and Paul took it to the recording studio still missing a verse. As Paul and John were sitting with road manager Mal Evans and Beatles assistant Neil Aspinall, Paul suddenly said to the three, “Hey, you guys, finish up the lyrics.” John was offended that Paul would turn to non-musicians like Mal and Neil for help. As John tells the story, he and Paul went into a room and finished the song. According to Lennon, not a line from Mal or Neil ended up in “Rigby.” [49]
However, John also attested that Paul was working on “Ah, look at all the lonely people” section with George. He and George were “settling on that as I left the room,” said John, “. . . and I turned around and said, ‘That’s it!’ ” [50]
George Martin also remembered that Paul was asking for help with the lyrics of the last verse in the studio. “At the recording Paul was missing a few lyrics, and wanting them, and going round asking people ‘What can we put in here?’ and Neil and Mal and I were coming up with suggestions.” [51] Journalist Hunter Davies, who was present at the studio, reported that these suggestions were used: “The last verse was thought of by all of them, making suggestions at the last minutes in the studio.” [52]
If we turn to Beatle insiders (and I consider their statements as secondary to first-hand statements by Paul and John), it is possible that Ringo, George Martin, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, and Pete Shotton contributed to the song. Shotton, a close personal friend of John, wrote, “My own recollection is that ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was one ‘Lennon-McCartney’ classic in which John’s contribution was virtually nil.” Ringo was the source of “darning his socks in the night.” Shotton said that he advised against, “Father McCartney” and consulted the phone book, suggesting “McKenzie.” “Fully caught up in the creative process, I was seized by a brainwave. ‘Why don’t you have Eleanor Rigby dying,’ I said, ‘and have Father McKenzie doing the burial service for her? That way you’d have two lonely people coming together in the end — but too late.’” John responded, “I don’t think you understand what we’re trying to get at, Pete.’” To which Pete responded with an expletive. He was pleased when McCartney used the idea. [53] As always, it is difficult to judge how much of the testimony of non-Beatles to accept, especially when it conflicts with the memories of John and Paul. However, Shotton was an insider, and sympathetic to John.
While I ascribe the song to “McCartney-Lennon-Harrison,” it could also be ascribed it to “McCartney-Lennon-Harrison-Starkey-Martin-Evans-Aspinall-Shotton.”
Paul had the idea of using strings to accompany this unique song, and Martin thought of the percussive strings in film composer Bernard Herrman’s work. [54] “I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off,” Paul said in 1966. [55] Paul at first was wary of the double string quartet concept, but agreed to give it a try. “Okay, but I want the strings to sound really biting,” Paul warned Martin as he agreed to the plan. [56]
“Eleanor Rigby” represents an important divergence in Lennon and McCartney’s testimony. It seems clear that Paul wrote the melody, the title, and the first verse of the lyrics. [57] It also seems clear that Lennon helped finish up the lyrics. Beyond that, the extent of Lennon’s contribution to the rest of the song is uncertain. In 1970, Lennon said that he’d written half or more of the lyrics. [58] A year later, he said that he much more than half of the lyrics. “Both of us. I wrote a good lot of the lyrics, about 70 per cent.” [59] In 1980, he stated that Paul had contributed only the first verse of the lyrics, and he wrote the rest: “Yeah, ‘Rigby.’ His first verse and the rest of the verses are basically mine.” [60]
However, in the 1980 interview, John went on to describe finishing the song as a collaboration on the lyrics, not as him writing them alone. “Oh he had the whole thing about [sings first lines of song] . . . and he had the story and knew where it was going. So then we had to work out, ‘Well is there anybody else in this?’” [61] John even remembers Paul working out the chorus with both him and George Harrison. George also remembers contributing to the lyrics. “I gave them lyrics. I helped out on ‘Eleanor Rigby,’” he said. [62]
Paul, on the other hand, in his “angry” interview with Davies in 1985, curtly described Lennon as contributing “about half a line” to the song. [63] In a 1966 interview, he also described finishing the lyrics at Lennon’s house, not at the studio, as Lennon remembered in 1980. [64] In 1988, he said he brought the song to John for help with the third verse only. [65] His memories are no different in 1995: John only helped with “a few words.” [66] In 1973, however, Paul seemed to view the song as more collaborative, when he included it in a short list of favorite songs he wrote with John. “Do you have any favourites that you wrote with John? [He mentioned ‘In My Life,’ and ‘Norwegian Wood.’] . . . I like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ too, I thought that was a fair one.” [67]
It seems probable that both Beatles were swayed by emotion in their conflicting accounts; John tells the story of the song’s completion with some bitterness (for Paul had not come to him to finish the last verse of the song), and Paul reacts in a similar fashion. The truth of John’s contribution probably lies somewhere between “half a line” and “70 per cent.” A likely scenario would be, Paul comes in with the music and first verse and ideas for the rest; he then collaborates with John on all the lyrics except the last verse. Then he took it into the studio and opened it up to everyone there (though John reports that he then took Paul aside to do the serious finishing of the song).
We should emphasize: all of this collaboration took place on lyrics, not on music. This is generally true of Beatle collaboration with “outsiders.” Paul would never come to Ringo, Neal or Mal and say, could you help me write the melody for a chorus? But he often did that with lyrics.
I see this as a Paul song finished in collaboration with John, and to a lesser extent, with George and Ringo. Minor contributions from other Beatle insiders apparently occurred.
Paul used to come over to John’s house at noon or the early afternoon and wake him up. One day this gave John the idea for a song on sleeping, and the idea was taken up in a songwriting session with Paul. According to McCartney, the song was begun and finished in one multi-hour session. [68]
John claimed the song in 1971 and 1980: “That’s me — dreaming my life away.” [69] Unfortunately, he didn’t comment much on it. In 1995, Paul described it as a song that started out as a John idea, but then there was collaboration — it was “co-written.” And in the same interview, according to Paul, “One day I led the dance, like ‘Paperback Writer,’ and another day John would lead the dance, like ‘I’m Only Sleeping.’ It was nice, it wasn’t really competitive as to who started the song.” [70] In 2004, Paul emphasized John’s “ownership” of the song, saying, “For those early years, the competition was great . . . I’d come up with ‘Paperback Writer’ and John would come back with ‘I’m Only Sleeping.’” [71]
Paul definitely regarded it as a John song, despite his input in finishing it. I accept it as a Lennon song, finished with Paul, in Lennon-dominated collaboration.
While the Beatles were filming Help! , one of the Hindu cast members gave each of the Beatles a book on reincarnation. During a break in the Beatles’ 1965 American tour, from August 23 to 27, they rented a luxurious house in Benedict Canyon, near Los Angeles, owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor, and invited friends to visit, among whom were the Byrds, Joan Baez, and Peter Fonda, not yet a star. There Byrd member Roger McGuinn introduced George to the sitar style of Ravi Shankar. As we have seen, in October 1965, the Beatles recorded “Norwegian Wood” with sitar. In just a few months, in June 1966, George would meet Shankar in London and start taking lessons from him.
George said that this, the first major Indian song in the Beatles’ canon, was one of the first songs he wrote for sitar. [72] In 1966, he explained, “On the new album I developed it [sitar music] a little bit. But I’m far from the goal I want to achieve. It will take me 40 years to get there. I’d like to be able to play Indian music as Indian music instead of using Indian music in pop.” Asked how an Englishman got so involved in Indian music, he replied: “A whole lot of things got me interested. The more I heard it, the more I liked it. It’s very involved music. . . . Indian music is hip, yet 8,000 years old.” [73]
Paul came to John’s house one early afternoon and found him asleep. So he took a guitar and went to sit outside, by the pool. He started strumming in E and soon had a few chords, then a tune, and most of the lyrics. John eventually showed up, and they “took it indoors and finished it up. . . . John might have helped with a few last words.” [74]
A number of influences came together as they were writing this. First, John’s mother Julia had taught them old standards, such as “Ramona” and “Wedding Bells are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine.” Paul said that he and John “often tried to write songs with that same feeling to them. ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ was one we wrote along those lines.” [75]
This song also reflects a new major influence on Paul: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. “‘Here, There and Everywhere’ was supposed to be a Beach Boys song, but you wouldn’t have known,” Paul said in 1973. [76] Pet Sounds , Paul’s favorite rock album, which included “God Only Knows,” Paul’s favorite song, had been released just two months earlier, on May 16, 1966.
John ascribed this song to Paul in 1971: “Paul. This was a great one of his.” [77] In 1980 he said, “Paul’s song completely, I believe. And one of my favorite songs of Beatles.” [78] John could be generous in his appraisal of selected Paul songs.
Paul claimed the song in 1984: “I wrote that by John’s pool one day.” [79] In 1995, he gave it as an example of a song he’d written in the tradition of old melodic standards: “And I continued to write those tunes with things like ‘Let It Be,’ ‘Here There and Everywhere,’ ‘The Long and Winding Road.’’ [80] However, as we have seen, in two interviews, in 1988 and 1995, Paul spoke of collaborating with John to finish the song.
If we turn to non-Beatles, roadie Mal Evans claimed that he contributed a phrase to “Here, There.” One day Paul showed up at Neil and Mal’s house in the morning, said he was stuck for a line in one of his songs, and played this, with the blank. Mal said he suggested, “‘Watching her eyes, hoping I’m always there.’ I’m very eye conscious.” [81] As always, such statements by Beatles insiders are hard to assess without further support.
So this is a Paul song, with minor collaboration from John.
Paul wrote the beginning of this as he faded away into sleep one night in the Asher house. He was trying to write a children’s song, so made the lyrics extremely simple. He thought of colored submarines, blue, green and yellow ones, but finally narrowed it down to a yellow submarine.
Some collaboration followed. Either John helped with the lyrics, or he contributed a song fragment, words and music, to help create the verse.
At some point, when the song was still missing some lines, Paul visited the apartment of folk-pop songwriter, Donovan, and asked for help. Donovan went into a different room and came up with “Sky of blue and sea of green.” “They had always asked people for help with a line or two, so I helped with that line,” said Donovan. “He knew that I was into kids songs and he knew that I could help.” [82] Donovan’s claim to those lines is supported by John. [83]
According to Neil Aspinall, Paul and John added the last lyrics just before the song was recorded. [84]
John also contributed in a major way to the song’s recording (including the voice in the funnel), which is unique enough to be regarded as experimental music. “We virtually made the track come alive in the studio,” he said. [85] George Harrison said, “every time we’d all get around the piano with guitars and start listening to it and arranging it into a record, we’d all fool about.” [86] Which is one way of composing experimental music. George Martin remembered that they used chains and bowls of water. They would blow through straws into bottles of water to replicate the sound of submarines surfacing. “It was nice to do because it, we were all being very inventive. And it was fun, it was like a party almost.” [87] He also said, “It must have been one of the most unusual Beatles sessions ever. It was more like the things I’ve done with The Goons and Peter Sellers.” [88] Sometimes we think of the fantasy-Lewis Carroll side of the Beatles as coming from Lennon, but this song shows that Paul had leanings toward surrealism also.
A major problem in assessing the songwriting for this song is that the earliest interview contradicts all other interviews. In a March 1967 interview with Paul and John, Brian Mathew said, “John, earlier before we started recording, you said it was in effect written as two separate songs.” John responded:
Yeah. I seem to remember, like, the submarine . . . the chorus bit, you coming in with it. Paul: Yeah. John: And wasn’t the other bit something that I had already going, and we put them together? Paul: Well, yeah. Right. Yeah. John: And it made sense to make it into . . . Paul: Yeah, the bit . . . [sings melody to verse ] ‘Dut-ta-da, da-dut-ta-da.’ [89]
So, by this account, it was a song like “A Day in the Life,” “Baby I’m a Rich Man,” or “I’ve Got a Feeling,” in which two entirely separate songs were combined. Paul wrote the chorus, while John wrote the verse.
However, unlike the situation with “A Day in the Life,” “Baby I’m a Rich Man,” or “I’ve Got a Feeling,” in subsequent interviews, neither Beatle remembered it that way. Did they forget? Or was that 1967 interview somehow mistaken? For example, in 1995, Paul remembered writing the story of the verse in that initial half-waking composing session: “I just made up a little tune in my head, then started making a story, sort of an ancient mariner, telling the young kids where he’d lived and how there’d been a place where he had a yellow submarine. It’s pretty much my song as I recall.” [90]
There was definitely collaboration on it. In 1966, Paul said: “We were trying to write a children’s song.” [91] In the same year, he remembered, “Originally we intended it to be ‘Sparky’ a children’s record. But now it’s the idea of a yellow submarine where all the kids went to have fun.” This represents the song as a joint effort. However, Paul continued, “I was just going to sleep one night and thinking if we had a children’s song, it would be nice to be on a yellow submarine where all your friends are with a band.” [92]
Thirty years later, he stated, “I think John helped out; the lyrics got more and more obscure as it goes on.” Nevertheless, Paul explicitly claimed the verse and chorus, and the story of the lyrics: “the chorus, melody and verses are mine.” [93]
This is written from Paul’s perspective, and it reflects memories some thirty years after the time of composition. However, John, though he always claimed that he helped with the song, sometimes described the song as mainly Paul’s. For example, in 1980, he remembered, “‘Yellow Submarine’ is Paul’s baby. Donovan helped with the lyrics. I helped with the lyrics, too. . . . but based on Paul’s inspiration. Paul’s idea, Paul’s title. So I count it as a ‘Paul’ song.” [94] Here John seems to be limiting his contribution to the lyrics. Paul also sometimes seems to limit John’s contribution to the lyrics. [95] This would fit with the standard pattern of one of the Beatles having the music, verse and middle (AB), of a song, and the beginning of lyrics, then finishing it off with the other Beatle (or with the Beatles and insiders).
In 1984, Paul seems to describe writing the song outright (“I wrote that in bed one night” [96] ), and he often described it as his song. “I told them we’d just got a song, Yellow Submarine, which I’d written for Ringo, very childrensy, but it could be great,” he said in 1989. [97] But in the same year he again describes collaboration, developing his original idea: “You see with John and I, certain songs would nearly always be the idea of one of us. One of us had actually said, ‘Ooh, Yellow Submarine would be good.’ The other one would say, ‘Ok, that’s what we’ll write today.’” [98]
John usually ascribed the song mainly to Paul, but with some collaboration added. “Both of us. Paul wrote the catchy chorus. I helped with the blunderbuss bit,” he stated in 1971. [99] (No one has yet explained what he meant by “blunderbuss,” an archaic gun, in this context. Perhaps he meant the funnel, or perhaps the transcriber got the word wrong.)
It is possible that John applied lyrics that he had written before to Paul’s melody in the verse.
To sum up: the evidence for the writing of this song is quite ambiguous. If we look at the 1967 dual interview as the earliest substantial record of the song’s composition, one might ascribe the chorus to Paul, and the music and lyrics of the first verse to John. However, if that were the case, it is odd that this view was never repeated, either by John or Paul. The other possibility is that this song was substantially begun by Paul, with the music of both chorus and verse, and perhaps the words of the first verse, then John and others helped fill in the words of the subsequent verses. All the evidence outside of the 1967 interview supports this perspective, and it is a very common pattern in Paul and John’s collaboration during this period. This is supported by a George Harrison statement: “‘Yellow Submarine’ was written by Paul and John, but even in the early days they were writing large portions on their own. Then one would help the other one finish it off; but that became more apparent later on.” [100]
It was certainly finished with collaboration on the lyrics from John and Harrison and Donovan. The rest of the Beatles, with George Martin, were major contributors to the experimental sections of the song. [101]
At the house in Benedict Canyon, on August 24, 1965, [102] the sun was shining, girls were dancing, and John was high on acid. As John tells the story, Peter Fonda, wearing sunglasses, sat next to him and said “I know what it’s like to be dead.” This was not what John wanted to hear, but Peter kept repeating this unnerving message to him. [103] As Fonda recalls the incident, he simply told the Beatles about surviving an operation in which he had been declared legally dead. “‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ I said, and just then John walked past and said, ‘Who put all that shit in your head?’” [104]
Later, in London, John took this experience, changed Fonda into a fictional female, and wrote “She Said She Said.” There are some striking contrasts in tempo in this song; as John remembered it, the “middle eight” came when he just “wrote the first thing that came into my head and it was ‘When I was a boy,’ in a different beat.” [105] However, according to George Harrison, he helped John “weld” three different unfinished songs together to create this song: “‘I was at John’s house one day, and he was struggling with some tunes,’ recalled Harrison, ‘loads of bits. . . . The middle part was a different song — ‘I said no, no, no, you’re wrong’ — then it goes into the other one, ‘When I was a boy.’ That was a real weld!’” [106]
John and Paul agree that Paul did not collaborate on this. In 1968, John put it on a list of his personal songs. [107] Paul said the song was “Very much John. It’s a nice one. . . . John brought it in pretty much finished, I think.” [108]
SIDE TWO
Paul wrote this at Kenwood on a bright sunny day, [109] modeling it on “Daydream” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, which had the line, “I’m blowin’ the day to take a walk in the sun.” [110] John did help to finish this up: “John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine and he helped me with it,” said Paul. [111] John also ascribed this song to Paul, but remembered some possible collaboration. “Paul. But I think maybe I helped him with some of the lyric,” he said in 1971. [112]
While the Beatles were enormously influenced by Motown, soul, girl groups, early rock such as Elvis, Little Richard and Buddy Holly, early duos like the Everly Brothers, and Brill Building songwriters like Goffin and King, they were also significantly influenced by American rock that was contemporary to them — the Byrds, the Mamas and Papas, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Beach Boys, and Dylan.
John claimed this exuberant rock song, though for some unaccountable reason he didn’t like it much. “Me. Another horror,” he said in 1971. [113] And nine years later, he described it as one of his “throwaways.” [114] Paul agreed that it was written by John, but remembered some collaboration: “‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ was John’s song. I suspect that I helped with the verses because the songs were nearly always written without second and third verses. I seem to remember working on that middle-eight with him but it’s John’s song, 80-20 to John.” [115]
Paul and George wrote the melodic guitar duet that begins the song, a significant contribution. “We wrote it [the duet] at the session and learned it on the spot — . . . then we sat and played it,” Paul said. [116]
Paul wrote this in March 1966 while he was on a skiing vacation with Jane Asher in the Swiss Alps, near Kloster, in a little bathroom in a chalet. [117] It took him about a week to finish the song. [118] In 1989, he explained how he liked songs about the daily life of working girls, such as his early solo single, “Another Day.” [119] In 1995, he commented on another theme in the song: “I suspect it was about another argument. I don’t have easy relationships with women, I never have.” [120] So this may reflect problems in his relationship with Jane. He later rerecorded the song for his ill-fated movie, Give My Regards To Broad Street , and explained, “I’d written the song, took it to the studio, one day recorded it, end of story. It’s just a record, a museum piece. And I hated the idea of them staying as museum pieces.” [121]
Alan Civil, distinguished classical hornist, played the remarkable French horn solo. But who wrote it? Even the solos of Beatle songs are disputed territory. Civil says that he made up his solo entirely, with no help at all from George Martin or Paul McCartney. “McCartney sang nothing,” he said. “Nobody seemed to know what they wanted at all, even George Martin. . . . I was entirely responsible for inventing the motive.” [122] Paul’s memories flatly contradict this: “George asked me, ‘Now, what do you want him to play?’ I said, ‘Something like this,’ and sang the solo to him, and he wrote it down. Towards the end of the session, when we were getting the piece down for Alan to play, George explained to me the range of the instrument: ‘Well, it goes from here to this top E,’ and I said, ‘What if we ask him to play an F?’” [123] Both Civil and McCartney are quite anecdotally convincing, but I lean toward the songwriter.
Paul and John agree that this is a Paul song. John not only attributed this to Paul, but was generous in his praise for it. “Paul. Another of his I really liked,” he said in 1971. [124] And in 1980 he enthused: “Paul’s. One of my favorites of his, too. . . . A nice piece of work, I think.” [125]
Much of the commentary on “Dr. Robert” revolves around the identity of the pill-dispensing doctor in the song’s title. John said that he himself was the doctor. “Another of mine,” he said in 1980. “It’s mainly about drugs and pills. It was about myself, I was the one that carried all the pills on tour.” [126]
Pete Shotton, on the other hand, said that the doctor of the song’s title was “Charles Roberts,” who was part of the Andy Warhol entourage. [127] However, according to Miles/McCartney, the song was based on Dr. Robert Freymann, a New York physician. [128] Paul gave one more option for interpreting the doctor in 1995, as he described the song as a fantasy and parody, rather than a realistic portrait. [129]
John claimed the song as his own in 1980 (“Another of mine”), but in 1971 he thought some collaboration was possible: “Me — I think Paul helped with the middle.” [130] In 1995, Paul seemed to regard it as a collaboration: “John and I thought it was a funny idea: the fantasy doctor who would fix you up by giving you drugs, it was a parody on that idea. It’s just a piss-take. As far as I know, neither of us ever went to a doctor for those kind of things.” [131]
It is probably the familiar pattern of a song started by John, and finished with collaboration.
George said that this song “is about the avalanche of thoughts that are so hard to write down or say or transmit.” [132]
This Motown-influenced rhythm and blues song with brass appears to be a straight love song, but it had a drug-related secondary meaning — it was “an ode to pot,” Paul said, written not long after he had first been introduced to marijuana. “I didn’t have a hard time with it [marijuana] and to me it seemed it was mind-expanding, literally mind-expanding.” [133] However, the song also works as a love song; it is one of many cases of lyrical double meanings in the Beatles’ oeuvre.
In his interviews Paul has acknowledged no contribution from Lennon to this song. “That’s mine; I wrote it,” he said in 1984. [134] In 1980, John agreed that this was Paul’s, saying that he didn’t even help with the lyrics: “Paul’s again. I think that was one of his best songs, too, because the lyrics are good and I didn’t write ’em.” John thought the song was about LSD, not marijuana. [135] However, nine years earlier, Lennon thought that he (and George) might have helped with the lyrics: “Paul. I think George and I helped with some of the lyric. I’m not sure.” [136]
Granted John’s strong statement in 1980 that the lyrics were written by Paul, it seems likely that the song is wholly by McCartney.
Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert wrote The Psychedelic Experience : A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead in 1964. John Lennon bought a copy in March 1966, and followed Leary’s invitation to take a trip with LSD: “I did it just like he said in the book.” [137] In the introduction to the book is the sentence, “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream.” [138] That turned into the first line of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” John apparently wrote music to the song that was like a chant, and used only one chord, C, as in much Indian music. (However, in the second half of the verse, the Beatles added a B flat overlay over the C that in effect gives the song two chords. [139] )
John premiered it to the other Beatles and George Martin at Brian Epstein’s house in Chapel Street in Belgravia. Paul said:
We were there for a meeting. George Martin was there so it may have been to show George some new songs or talk about the new album. John got his guitar out and started doing “Tomorrow Never Knows” and it was all on one chord. This was because of our interest in Indian music. [140]
Paul was worried about how George Martin would react to a heavy philosophical song all on one chord, but, wise producer that he was, Martin said, “Rather interesting, John. Jolly interesting!” [141] The song was scheduled for recording.
It was originally called “The Void,” but John decided to use one of Ringo Starr’s homely sayings, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” for the song’s title “sort of to take the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics.” [142] Ringo did indeed use the phrase. In a 1964 Beatles press conference, he told how someone had cut some of his hair unexpectedly at a public occasion. “I was talking away and I looked ‘round, and there was about 400 people just smiling. So, you know — what can you say! John: What can you say! Ringo: Tomorrow never knows.” John laughed. [143]
Apparently John just had the first “verse” so he and Paul had a songwriting session with the song. They managed to fill out two “verses,” but couldn’t stretch it to three. [144] “We racked our brains but couldn’t come up with any more words, because we felt it already said everything we wanted to say in the two verses,” said Paul. [145]
But something needed to be done for that third verse. Then Paul had the idea to use experimental music he’d been toying with at home to fill the gap. He’d been playing with a tape recorder, taking the erase head off and recording a sound over and over again on a tape until it was “saturated.” He called these tape loops. [146] They had “funny, distorted, dense little noises on them,” said George Martin. [147] Paul’s immediate inspiration for this experimental music was the experimental “classical” composer Karlheinz Stockhausen — “these saturated loops were inspired by his work,” he said. [148] This idea for the song was accepted. George Martin remembered that Paul “told the others, and they, too, took the wipe heads off their recorders and started constructing loops of taped gibberish.” [149] The Beatles brought in some thirty tapes and George Martin selected sixteen of them for “Tomorrow Never Knows.” [150]
So just as John added significantly to performance-composition in Paul’s “Yellow Submarine,” Paul added significant performance-composition to John’s song here.
John had originally envisioned the song as sung by thousands of monks chanting. “That was impractical, of course,” he said in about 1970, “and we did something different.” [151] As George Martin remembered, John wanted his voice “to sound like the Dalai Lama, singing from a Tibetan hill top.” So Martin put his voice through a Leslie speaker. A tambour was added, and tape loop noises that sounded like seagulls. This didn’t approximate John’s original mystical vision. “It was a bit of a drag,” he said, “and I didn’t really like it. I should have tried to get near my original idea, the monks singing.” [152] Nevertheless, this is how the finished product was created.
John claimed this song in a number of interviews. In 1971, he said, “Me — this was my first psychedelic song.” [153] Paul, in 1966, agreed: “Every track on the LP has something special. . . . George wanted to get his Indian stuff on the record, I wanted to do some new electronic things, and John even had a song in which his inspiration was The Tibetan Book of the Dead .” [154] But a year later, still very early, Paul said, “The song was John’s idea but we all had a bash at it.” [155] In this song, the experimentalism of the recording is part of the composition, and Paul claimed much of this. In 1966, he said, “we’ve got this track (Tomorrow Never Knows) with electronic effects I worked out myself.” [156]
Beatle insider Neil Aspinall said in 1966 that Lennon brought only the words to the studio, and the Beatles came up with the “tune” there:
The words were written before the tune and there was no getting away from the fact that the words were very powerful. So all four boys were anxious to build a tune and a backing which would be as strong as the actual lyrics. The basic tune was written during the first hours of the recording session. [157]
This statement is impressively early, and Aspinall was apparently a first-hand witness; if this is true, then the melody of the song was truly collaborative, with all the Beatles contributing. However, this conflicts with Paul’s statements that when he first heard the song John was playing it on one chord. In other words, it sounds like there was a song with words (at least the first section) and tune when Paul first heard it.
Unless John was singing it on one note before they showed up at Abbey Road to record it. It’s an interesting theory, but I tend to think that John came up with the first section of the lyrics and the tune long before the recording studio. Perhaps John and Paul and George worked on the melody when they got to the studio.
In any event, the end result was a song that had come a long way from “Love Me Do.” It became an overwhelming climactic ending to an album that was amazingly different from Please Please Me , which had been released just a few years before.
While Sgt. Pepper has generally been ranked highest of the Beatle albums in music polls and in collective critical taste, Revolver has sometimes been regarded as the Beatles’ finest achievement. [158]
[1] In Hutchins, “John Lennon Interview”.
[2] “Beatlemania strikes again.”
[3] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 187-88. Miles, Many Years from Now , 209.
[4] Paul and John, radio interview with Keith Fordyce, August 29, 1966, summarized in Winn, That Magic Feeling , 39.
[5] Miles, Many Years from Now , 209.
[6] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror (1971).
[7] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
[8] Anthology , 199.
[9] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 187-88.
[10] Miles, Many Years from Now , 210.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Winn, Way Beyond Compare , 361.
[14] Miles, Many Years from Now , 210.
[15] Lennon, Rolling Stone Interview, Dec. 1970, BBC, part 3; Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 58.
[16] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[17] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 188.
[18] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. John put this on a list of songs written by Paul alone. Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[19] “Beatlemania Strikes Again” (1966).
[20] Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 101.
[21] Alan Smith, “My Broken Tooth.”
[22] “In The Beatles’ Song Writing Factory.” Paul began this song with “a musical phrase or part of a tune,” John said. “He thought that out in the car on his way to my house.”
[23] Alan Smith, “My Broken Tooth.”
[24] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 3. Miles, Many Years from Now , 279. Anthology , 212. In these interviews, he seems to present himself as the only writer, but his early interview is preferable evidence.
[25] In 1995, Paul said they had no music until they went upstairs (Miles, Many Years from Now , 279), but John’s testimony thirty years earlier is preferable. “In The Beatles’ Song Writing Factory.”
[26] Many Years from Now , 279.
[27] Uncut interview, in Sawyer, Read the Beatles , 246.
[28] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
[29] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[30] Lost Lennon Tapes, July 18, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189.
[31] George Harrison also described the song as a McCartney-dominated collaboration. Harry, The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia , at “Paperback Writer.”
[32] Beatles Recording Sessions , 74. George Martin, With a Little Help , 85.
[33] In 1971, he put “Rain” on a list of songs he wrote alone (Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror ), and in 1980, he said, “That’s me again.” Lost Lennon Tapes, July 18, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 207.
[34] Miles, Many Years from Now , 280.
[35] Lost Lennon Tapes, July 18, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 207; Lennon in Alterman, “The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys” (1966); Lennon, in Beatles, “Press Conference in New York City (August 22, 1966)”; Lennon in Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1968).
[36] Smith, “The Beatles: Ringo Played Cards.” Similar: Martin, With a Little Help , 78-79.
[37] Harrison, I Me Mine , 94; Anthology , 206.
[38] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 161.
[39] Smith, Off the Record , 261. Paul on the song: Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney,” 107. Anthology , 207.
[40] Miles, Many Years from Now , 281-84.
[41] Davies, “All Paul.” For another early account of writing the song, Alterman, “The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys” (1966). “When I started doing the melody I developed the lyric. It all came from the first line. I wonder if there are girls called Eleanor Rigby? Originally I called her Miss Daisy Hawkins. Father MacKenzie was Father McCartney originally.”
[42] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 3. Davies, “All Paul” (1966). Donovan remembered hearing the song when it had lyrics “Ola Na Tungee. Blowing his mind in the dark with a pipeful of clay. No one can say.” Leitch, The Autobiography of Donovan , 152. Miles, Many Years from Now , 282. Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: an Oral History , 208. This seems to conflict with Paul’s memories of getting the beginnings of the final lyrics when he got the melody. Maybe “Ola Na Tungee” was a second verse lyric that was later rejected.
[43] Davies, “All Paul” (1966); Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview” (1984), 107. Snow, “Paul McCartney.”
[44] Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 139. Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview” (1984), 107. Garbarini and Baird, “Has Success Spoiled Paul McCartney?” (1985), 62.
[45] Miles, Many Years from Now , 281-84. There is a demo by Paul recorded about late March 1966. Winn, That Magic Feeling , 7.
[46] It is unclear how much of the lyrics were done at this time. Possibly two verses, Interview in Smith, Off the Record , 201, but this seems to conflict with the report that the last verse was written in the studio.
[47] Davies, “All Paul” (1966). Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 139. Miles, Many Years from Now , 281-84.
[48] Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 139. Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” (1989), episode 3. However, in the earliest interviews, Paul said that he looked it up himself. Davies, “All Paul” (1966).
[49] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 7, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 151-52.
[50] Sheff, “All We Are Saying: Three Weeks With John Lennon,” interview with David Sheff, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 151-52.
[51] Williams, “Produced by George Martin” (1971).
[52] Davies, The Beatles , 274.
[53] Shotton and Schaffner, The Beatles, Lennon and Me, 214-17.
[54] Everett II, 51. Martin said Fahrenheit 451 was the immediate influence, but he was apparently mistaken, as Fahrenheit 451 was not released in the U.K. till September 16, 1966, long after “Eleanor Rigby” was recorded.
[55] Davies, “All Paul.” Tobler and Grundy, “George Martin.”
[56] Emerick, Here, There and Everywhere , 127.
[57] In a 1966 interview, George Harrison simply called it “Paul’s.” Alan Walsh, “George—More to Life.”
[58] Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 82. Similar: Letter to George Martin/Richard Williams, Sept. 1971, in Davies, The John Lennon Letters, 213. “At least 50% of the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby was written by me in the studio and at Paul’s place.”
[59] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[60] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 7, 1991; cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 151-52.
[61] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 7, 1991.
[62] Smith, Off the Record (1988), 261.
[63] Davies, The Beatles , 371.
[64] Davies, “All Paul.” In the 1971 letter, Lennon remembered two finishing sessions, one at Paul’s house, one at the studio.
[65] Interview in Smith, Off the Record , 201.
[66] Miles, Many Years from Now , 281-84.
[67] Gambaccini, Paul McCartney In His Own Words , 19. In Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 7, 1991, Paul seems to claim the song as entirely his own, then firmly remembered collaboration.
[68] Miles, Many Years from Now , 285.
[69] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What”; Lost Lennon Tapes, July 18, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 208.
[70] Miles, Many Years from Now , 285, 284.
[71] Uncut interview, in Sawyer, Read the Beatles , 246. The “backwards” guitar was George Harrison’s idea. Lewisohn, Beatles Recording Sessions , 78.
[72] I Me Mine , 102.
[73] Alterman, “The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys.”
[74] Miles, Many Years from Now , 285-86.
[75] Baird, John Lennon, My Brother , 38. Paul said it was written “in the tradition of old melodic standards.” Coleman, Yesterday . . . and Today , 38-39.
[76] Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview,” also Gambaccini, Paul McCartney In His Own Words , 66.
[77] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[78] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189.
[79] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” Playboy , 107.
[80] Coleman, Yesterday . . . and Today , 38-39.
[81] Lost Lennon Tapes, Jan. 21, 1991; Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 223.
[82] Donovan 1985-89, in Somach et al., Ticket to Ride , 156. See also Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 108-9; Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: an Oral History , 208; Leitch, The Autobiography of Donovan , 153. Miles, Many Years from Now , 287.
[83] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189-90.
[84] Aspinall, “Neil’s Column,” The Beatles Monthly Book no. 38 (Sept. 1966), 25.
[85] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189-90. See also George Harrison in White, “Billboard Interview” (1999).
[86] White, “Billboard Interview” (1999).
[87] Hieronimus, Interview with George Martin, 1995.
[88] Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 207.
[89] Matthew, “Interview with Paul McCartney & John Lennon,” March 20, 1967. In the same interview, Paul said, “I suppose I thought of the idea and then John and I wrote it . . . We just sort of thought, we have to have a song. That it was. Sort of bit of fantasy in it, you know. And the only way to do that would be to have it so kids could understand it, and anyone could take it on any level. Multi-level song.”
[90] Miles, Many Years from Now , 286-87.
[91] Beatles, “Press Conference in New York City (August 22, 1966).”
[92] Alterman, “The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys.”
[93] Miles, Many Years from Now , 286-87.
[94] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 189-90.
[95] Miles, Many Years from Now , 286-87, quoted above.
[96] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” 107.
[97] The Paul McCartney World Tour , 55. See also an undated interview with Paul in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 228. “Just before I went to sleep I had this idea about a yellow submarine. It just came into my mind, so, the next day I started writing it, and finished it up.”
[98] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2.
[99] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[100] Anthology , 208.
[101] Harrison in White, “Billboard Interview.” Hieronimus, Interview with George Martin, 1995. Aspinall, “Neil’s Column,” The Beatles Monthly Book no. 38 (Sept. 1966), 25. Guests in the studio, people like Brian Jones, Marianne Faithfull and Pattie Harrison, also contributed special effects, Winn, That Magic Feeling , 22.
[102] See on “Love You To,” above. George, in Anthology , 190. Miles, Many Years from Now , 288. Peter Fonda and Roger McGuinn also tell the story, Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 111. For the date, Everett II, 62.
[103] Lost Lennon Tapes, Dec. 5, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 190.
[104] Peter Fonda, before 1982 (in Cott and Doudna, The Ballad of John and Yoko , 217-18).
[105] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1968).
[106] Anthology , 97.
[107] Cott, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1968). See also Lennon in 1970 (Anthology 190); Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror ; Lennon before 1972 (Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 210); Lennon before 1979 (Cowan, Behind the Beatles Songs , 42); Wenner, Lennon Remembers , 55; Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 190. Composing tapes, Lost Lennon Tapes, June 25,1990.
[108] Miles, Many Years from Now , 288.
[109] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” 107 (1984). Similar: Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 3.
[110] Du Noyer, Conversations , 55; Miles, Many Years from Now , 288.
[111] Ibid.
[112] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Nine years later, his memories of collaboration are even more vague: “‘Good Day Sunshine’ is Paul’s. Maybe I threw a line in or something. I don’t know.” Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 190.
[113] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[114] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 190.
[115] Miles, Many Years from Now , 288.
[116] Flanagan, “Boy, You’re Gonna Carry That Weight,” 44 (1990).
[117] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” 107 (1984).
[118] Elson, McCartney — Songwriter , 163.
[119] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 3.
[120] Miles, Many Years from Now , 288-89. Similar: Anthology , 207; Snow, “Paul McCartney”: “I was going out with Jane Asher at the time, and I was . . . commenting on the relationship, perhaps.”
[121] Garbarini and Baird, “Has Success Spoiled Paul McCartney?” 62.
[122] As quoted in Everett II, 54.
[123] Anthology , 207.
[124] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[125] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 190.
[126] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, Playboy Interviews ., 190-91.
[127] Shotton and Schaffner, The Beatles, Lennon and Me, 213-14.
[128] Miles, Many Years from Now , 289; Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 114.
[129] Miles, Many Years from Now , 290.
[130] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[131] Miles, Many Years from Now , 289-90. See also Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 139-40.
[132] Harrison, I Me Mine , 96.
[133] Miles, Many Years from Now , 190.
[134] Goodman, “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” 107.
[135] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 191.
[136] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[137] John in Anthology , 209.
[138] Miles, Many Years from Now , 229-30.
[139] George Harrison, in Anthology , 210. Pollack, “Notes on … Series.”
[140] Miles, Many Years from Now , 290-91. Also, Anthology , 210.
[141] Anthology , 210. Also, Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” (1989), episode 3.
[142] Lost Lennon Tapes, July 18, 1988, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 191. Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 3. Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions , 70, cites Neil Aspinall on the title “The Void,” but evidently thinks Aspinall was wrong.
[143] Beatles Interview, February 22, 1964; also in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 88.
[144] Paul is probably talking about the two sections of the song; the first part seems to have three verses, the second part four verses.
[145] In Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: an Oral History , 209.
[146] Paul and tape loops: McCartney in Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: an Oral History , 209. Miles, Many Years from Now , 291. Beatle interview, with Ken Douglas, August 12, 1966, as summarized in Winn, That Magic Feeling , 43. Beatles interview, August 11-29, 1964 (both Paul and John), as cited in Winn, That Magic Feeling , 63. Williams, “Produced by George Martin.” George Martin before 1995, in With a Little Help , 79-80. See also Martin quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 116.
[147] George Martin before 1995, in With a Little Help , 79-80. See also Martin quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 116.
[148] McCartney in Pritchard and Lysaght, The Beatles: an Oral History , 209.
[149] George Martin before 1995, in With a Little Help , 79-80. See also Martin quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 116.
[150] Martin, With a Little Help , 79-80.
[151] Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 12.
[152] Ibid.
[153] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What.” See also McCabe and Schonfeld, “John & Yoko. ” Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 191.
[154] June 1966 interview, in Badman, Beatles Off the Record , 207.
[155] James, “Beatles Talk,” Jan. 1967.
[156] Smith, “My Broken Tooth.”
[157] Aspinall, “Neil’s Column,” The Beatles Monthly Book no. 38 (Sept. 1966), 25.
[158] For example, in a Rolling Stone readers poll in 2002, Revolver is 1 (Sgt. Pepper is 3, the White Album is 5, and Abbey Road is 6). Tim Riley, an important Beatles critic, agrees. Tell Me Why , 181, 203.