However, in 1969 in California, the Charles Manson gang took it literally, when they began slaughtering their victims, using knives to finish them off and writing the word ‘pigs’, using their blood. Manson himself was a fanatical Beatles fan. When he was arrested, it was found that he had been reading my biography. His followers, calling themselves the Family, believed that there was going to be an uprising and the white establishment would be overthrown in a racial war. In all, they were linked to eight murders, including the film actress Sharon Tate.
George’s manuscript shows that he had an extra verse, marked no. 3, not used, which is pretty good, keeping up the invective and the images.
‘It’s a pity that the piggies always deal in dirt–having played their games for years–they’ve become experts–pressures they exert from every angle.’
‘Piggies’, from The White Album, in George’s hand, including a final verse which was not used.
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt?
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts?
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies playing piggy pranks
You will see them on their trotters at the piggy banks
Paying piggy thanks to the pig brother
Rocky Raccoon
Began as a joke, with Paul in India improvising a pretend Wild West song, aided and abetted by Donovan. The hero was originally called Rocky Sassoon but got changed to Rocky Raccoon. It’s the sort of Cowboys and Indians saga we used to see at the Saturday-morning movies. It still is a joke piece, after all these years, with not even the most ardent analysts able to detect deeper meanings–apart from perhaps Charles Manson, who could twist anything, if he wanted to.
Don’t Pass Me By
At last Ringo had done it–composed his first Beatles song. He first wrote it back in 1964, four years earlier, but it never got finished. Paul and John never found time or space or interest in including it in any of the albums. I wonder why it finally made the cut? Could it be that this time they had agreed to a double album and needed a whopping twenty-eight songs to fill the space between the grooves? Or were they keeping him sweet?
It’s a country and western number with a mean fiddle, a perfect sing-along tune, but oh, the words. ‘You were in a car crash / and you lost your hair.’ Couldn’t Paul or John have saved him from such bathos?
‘Don’t Pass Me By’, from The White Album–at last a song from Ringo, but the top lines appear to be in Paul’s hand, with other hands below.
The manuscript has the first four lines in Paul’s hand–which are not bad, though they got changed slightly on the record. The other lines, below, might or might not have been meant to be included. The first two, funny in their awfulness, appear to read:
I feel a little foolish, sitting here alone
Instead of eating crackers, I think I’ll just get stoned
The final ones are a bit wittier
You came all wrapped in cellophane
with purple bursting free
The card said open carefully
And pay for C O D
Had he persevered, Ringo could well have become a modern-day William McGonagall.
I listen for your footsteps coming up the drive
I’m waiting for your footsteps I know they’ll soon arrive
Waiting for your knock, dear, on my old front door
I don’t hear it, does it mean you don’t love me anymore?
I hear the clock a ticking on the mantel shelf
See the hands a moving but I’m by myself
I wonder where you are tonight and why I’m by myself
I don’t see you, does it mean you don’t love me anymore?
I’m sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair
You were in a car crash and you lost your hair
You said that you would be late about an hour or two
I said that’s all right, I’m waiting here, just waiting to hear from you
Don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry, don’t make me blue
Cause you know darling I love only you
You’ll never know it hurt me so, how I hate to see you go
Don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry
Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?
A similar criticism could be made of this offering by Paul–how on earth did it get on the album? The only explanation is that it was a useful link track, a bit of fun. And it did come out later as a single in Nicaragua.
I think of all the Beatles songs this is the only one I disliked on first hearing–and still do. It’s not because of the saucy title–for the background to that is quite interesting. He was in Rishikesh and saw two monkeys in the road, one of which jumped on the back of the other and gave her one, then hopped off again and walked away as if nothing had happened. Paul wondered why humans don’t do that–well not very often. But he didn’t work on any words. It consists of just two lines, the title and one other line–‘no one will be watching us’–plus a lot of raucous shouting in a phoney American accent. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long.
John was upset that Paul recorded it without involving him, or asking him to work on it–but then John did the same with his ‘Revolution 9’ (the sound collage number, which appears on side 4 of the album).
The manuscript is in Paul’s hand, written on a napkin and dated 2010, which suggests it was written out relatively recently and given to someone or some charitable cause.
Why don’t we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don’t we do it in the road?
‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’, originally written for The White Album in 1968 but the so-called lyrics copied out by Paul in 2010.
I Will
Paul at his very best: great song, great harmonies, good words. He came up with the tune in India, and played it to various people, including Donovan, but it was only on his return that he managed to fit some suitable words to it.
The lyrics are very simple, no clever tricks, no puns or allusions, just an old-fashioned I-love-you-with-all-my-heart, the sort of thing they had not done for some time, having apparently given up all that soppy love-song stuff. It would appear to be the first song he wrote about his new love, Linda, while they were recording The Double White Album. She was due to visit him soon, along with her daughter Heather.
Julia
This time John at his sweetest and best–no tricks, no complications, no deliberate incomprehensibility. It is named after his mother, who died when John was only seventeen, and is the first time he had sung about her by name. It is also a love song to Yoko. ‘Ocean child’ refers to the fact that Yoko in Japanese means child of the ocean. She wrote to him in India, where he came up with the song, and in one letter she tells him ‘I am a cloud, watch for me in the sky’ which comes out in the reference to ‘silent cloud’. John believed that Yoko took the place of his mother, as an influence and inspiration and love object, and later on he often addressed her as Mother.
The finger-picking guitar style was taught to him by Donovan, while they were in India.
I always thought the first line–‘half of what I say is meaningless’–was original to John, as it sounds so like him. You can take it two
ways (meaningless or meaning less), but it turns out he lifted the phrase from a book of Lebanese proverbs by a mystic called Khalil Gibran: ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so the other half reaches you.’
The manuscript, in John’s hand, is an early draft, and the words are a bit hard to read. The last few lines, not all of which were used, appear to read:
Beautiful Julia, silently calls me
As I sing a song of love for you, Julia
Her hair like saffron shimmering glimmering
‘Julia’, from The White Album, a song about John’s mother, an early draft in John’s hand.
Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you,
Julia
Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
Julia, seashell eyes, windy smile, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
Her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering,
In the sun
Julia, Julia, morning moon, touch me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
When I cannot sing my heart
I can only speak my mind, Julia
Julia, sleeping sand, silent cloud, touch me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
Hum hum hum hum… calls me
So I sing a song of love for Julia, Julia, Julia
Birthday
Lyrics-wise, not a great song; in fact the words are deliberately simple and obvious and hardly worth considering, but it was done quickly, almost instantaneously, with no thought or work on the words. The point was to have fun in the studio, starting from scratch, with nothing prepared, knocking out a foot-stomping rocker. It was Paul’s idea, but he can’t remember if anyone he knew had a birthday coming up. The thinking behind it was that a birthday song, like a Christmas song, would always get lots of plays if it was any good. In fact on the day they were recording Linda’s twenty-seventh birthday was only six days off (24 September 1968); he knew she was arriving, but may not yet have been aware of her birthday date. Or that she was one year older than him.
During the recording session, they all went round to Paul’s house to watch a rock ’n’ roll film, The Girl Can’t Help It, which featured Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. (No video recording equipment in these days.) Then they returned to the studio to finish off the song.
When asked, twelve years later, what he remembered of the song, John replied, ‘Garbage.’
The manuscript, mostly in Mal Evans’s hand, with instructions by Paul, runs to two pages, the second one has some instructions and order of play. Not sure what ‘Staggers’ means. Surely they were not reading the New Statesman while recording? On the back of the notes (which were sold at Sotheby’s in September 1996 and the proceeds donated to charity) are scribbles in Japanese script by Yoko in which she lists male names. (She was pregnant at the time–but two months later suffered a miscarriage.) She was not only present at the recording but provided backing vocals.
You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party
I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)
I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Dance
‘Birthday’, from The White Album, mostly in Mal’s hand, but Paul has written the instructions.
Yer Blues
This is such a despairing, depressing song you have to be sorry for John writing it, feeling forced to write it, unable to help himself writing it, telling the world he was feeling suicidal. ‘I’m so lonely I want to die–if I ain’t dead already.’
There were millions of dedicated fans, such as my younger self, who on first hearing this wailing immediately thought, Oh my god, John, give us a break, John, keep it to yourself, John, we want fun and cheerfulness, yes, a bit of sadness and misery is fine, but within reason. Couldn’t you have got Paul to cross out a bit of the agony and give us some hope?
But this was all John’s work, written in India. So much for prayer and meditation, peace and tranquillity, getting away from the nasty world–it obviously wasn’t much help to a troubled soul like John. He had already told us he was so tired, yet couldn’t sleep. Now he wanted to top himself.
The problem was Yoko–or at least, he had decided that his salvation and hope for the future was Yoko. But how and when was he going to tell Cynthia? And if he didn’t tell her, how could he go on? That was his dilemma. (He did, in fact, confess his infidelities to Cynthia on the plane home from India, to her surprise and distress; it marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.)
With its heavy, moany, shouty, deep blues parody style, it’s nothing like a Beatles tune, having more in common with the sort of songs he was to write later with Yoko in their Plastic Ono life.
The lyrics, it must be said, are powerful: black clouds across his mind, blue mist around his soul. I suppose the vaguely jocular reference to Dylan’s Mr Jones (from Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’) and his despair being so great he even hates his rock’n’roll, do slightly leaven the overall anguish, but even so, it is an uncomfortable listen. God knows what Manson made of it.
The manuscript is typed, which is unusual, with corrections in John’s hand. He has altered ‘If I’m dead already’ and made it ‘If I ain’t dead already’. And he has substituted the word ‘suicidal’ for what in the original appears to be ‘so’–then something illegible.
Yes I’m lonely wanna die
Yes I’m lonely wanna die
If I ain’t dead already
Ooh girl you know the reason why.
In the morning wanna die
In the evening wanna die
If I ain’t dead already
Ooh girl you know the reason why.
My mother was of the earth
My father was of the sky
But I am of the universe
And that’s the reason why
‘Yer Blues’, from The White Album, typed out, with hand corrections by John. What was the word which ‘suicidal’ replaced?
The eagle picks my eye
The worm he licks my bones
I feel so suicidal
Just like Dylan’s Mr. Jones
Lonely wanna die
If I ain’t dead already
Ooh girl you know the reason why.
Black cloud crossed my mind
Blue mist round my soul
Feel so suicidal
Even hate my rock and roll
Wanna die yeah wanna die
If I ain’t dead already
Ooh girl you know the reason why.
Mother Nature’s Son
So is this what we all wanted instead? Paul had supposedly been inspired by a lecture from the Maharishi on the unity between man and nature, but he actually composed this in Liverpool, after a visit to his dad. The first line begins ‘born a poor young country boy’. Don’t most people get born young? He presumably needed the right number of words to fill out the line and didn’t give much thought to their meaning. The boy is singing amongst the daisies and mountain streams, and it’s all very nice, pretty and sweet and melodic–but it does seem as if Paul himself had second thoughts, unable to manage more than six lines. Instead of thinking up any more verses he contented himself with doooo doooing and hummm humming. Very nicely, mind you.
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Another shouty one from John with the longest title in the Beatles canon, but with more melody and some nice lines. In his mind, he and Yoko–whom I take to be his monkey, though others have suggested it refers to he
roin–were on their own, the world against them, only they knew what was true and good and joyous. He had by now confessed about Yoko to Cynthia, and was leaving her; in the meantime he was having arguments with Paul and the others, who did not care for Yoko coming to the studio and taking part in musical discussions. Then there was trouble with their company, Apple, leading them to close their Baker Street boutique in August. So, the anguish went on, and John felt everyone had something to hide, except him.
Sexy Sadie
Appeared at the time to be a song about a girl who teased and turned everyone on, then made a fool of them all. Then we discovered that it was not about a girl but the Maharishi. In the original recordings, John sang his name; but when he realized he could end up in court, it was changed to a girl’s name. Bootlegs which were somehow spirited out of the recording sessions revealed John shouting obscenities about Maharishi. That evidence, plus gossip and rumour, eventually led to most fans learning about the true background to the song.
It was begun by John while still in India, but thinking of coming home, after he had become disillusioned. There were stories circulating in the camp about the Maharishi making approaches to a girl (never proved), and that he was really after their fame and money. This was supposedly what made John suddenly decide to leave.
No manuscript has so far turned up, but a piece of wood was auctioned in 2007, said to have been carved by John on his return to Kenwood, on which the lyrics are written–with the name Maharishi all the way through and no mention of Sexy Sadie. It is of course, as you already know, the only Beatles song in which the word sex or sexy appears.
The Beatles Lyrics Page 28
