[39] Smith, “You’ve Pleased — Pleased Us! say the Beatles.”
[40] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.”
[41] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What.”
[42] In 1971, John wrote, in a postcard to George Martin/Richard Williams, “I wrote Please Please Me alone. It was recorded in the exact sequence in which I wrote it.” Davies, The John Lennon Letters , 197. See also in 1980, Sauter, “One John Lennon,”cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 179.
[43] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Miles, Many Years from Now , 91-92. See also The Beatle’s Book 136 (Aug. 1987), 39; Anthology video, “This is one John had just written.”
[44] Anthology , 94.
[45] Winn, Way Beyond Compare , 3.
[46] Unpublished section of interview with Mike Hennessey for Record Mirror , Oct. 2, 1971, as cited in Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1573n15.
[47] As cited in Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 1573n15.
[48] Miles, Many Years from Now , 92.
[49] Goodman, “Norman Smith Continues Talking About Balancing the Beatles,” 15.
[50] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Tobler and Grundy, “George Martin.”
[51] McCartney, date unknown, in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 50. Paul says the concert was in Southport, but Lewisohn gives Widnes, southeast of Liverpool, and the date of first composition as October 22, 1962. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1432.
[52] David Hull and Derek Taylor, “The Beatles: Let’s Talk With Paul.”
[53] Miles, Many Years from Now , 93-94.
[54] Anthology , 20.
[55] As quoted in Lewisohn, Tune In , 748.
[56] McCartney, date unknown, in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 50.
[57] Hull and Taylor, “The Beatles: Let’s Talk With Paul” (1965).
[58] Ibid.
[59] Mike McCartney, Remember , 107.
[60] McCartney, in Beat Instrumental , (1964?) (repr. in The Beatles Book 2001), see Flippo, Yesterday , p. 197, quoted in Miles, Many Years from Now , 94 and in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write, 18. Miles, Many Years from Now , 93-94.
[61] Flanagan, “Boy, You’re Gonna Carry That Weight,” 44.
[62] Ray Coleman, interview with the Beatles, in Melody Maker , Oct. 17, 1964 (Sandercombe, The Beatles: Press Reports , 94).
[63] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview” (1988), 9.
[64] Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 93-94.
[65] Doherty, “Pete Doherty meets Paul McCartney” (2007).
[66] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 203. See also Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror ( 1971).
[67] Peebles, The Lennon Tapes , 19.
[68] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 203.
[69] Smith, “You’ve Pleased-Pleased Us.” The tour went from February 2 to March 3, 1963.
[70] Miles, Many Years from Now , 94.
[71] Quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 20. Tony Bramwell agrees, ibid.
[72] Smith, “You’ve Pleased-Pleased Us.”
[73] Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 94-95.
[74] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 8-9.
[75] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[76] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 9, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 180.
[77] For Alexander, see Haglund, “The Forgotten Songwriter.” Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1131-32, 1498-99.
[78] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. For Goffin and King’s impact on the Beatles, see my comments on the Decca Audition, above.
[79] Harry, “Cilla Black.”
[80] Miles, Many Years From Now , 82.
[81] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews (1980), 175; Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 220. George, on the other hand, felt that the song was a “nick” from “I Really Love You” a 1961 hit by the Stereos. White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 55.
[82] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 220. Similar: Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 175, in 1980.
[83] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[84] “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” Playboy , 104. Anthology , 96.
[85] See on “Till There Was You,” below.
[86] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[87] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[88] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 203.
[89] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[90] Goodman, “Norman Smith Continues Talking About Balancing the Beatles” (1965), 15. Cf. Norman Smith, in Lewisohn, Beatles Recording Sessions , 27.
4
“One-On-One, Eyeball To Eyeball” —
WITH THE BEATLES
F ollowing Please Please Me , the Beatles wrote the two great singles, “From Me to You” and “She Loves You,” followed by a remarkable series of songs for other groups. “From Me to You” and “She Loves You” are examples of collaboration, almost from the ground up.
“From Me To You / Thank You Girl” single, April 12, 1963
From Me To You — (collaboration, John emphasis)
(lead vocals: John, Paul) ) (recorded on March 5, 1963)
Both Paul and John remembered writing this in a bus as they were touring with Helen Shapiro. This would have occurred between York and Shrewsbury, in western England, on February 28, 1963. [1] According to John, in 1963, “We were having a lot of laughs the night Paul and I wrote ‘From Me To You’. . . . there we were, not taking ourselves seriously. Just fooling about on the guitar. This went on for a while. Then we began to get a good melody line and we really started to work at it. Before that journey was over, we’d completed the lyric, everything.” [2] They may have derived the title from a column in New Musical Express , “From You To Us.” [3] John remembered that he came up with the first line, which got the song going. [4] For him, it was a perfect example of collaboration. [5]
Paul, typically, remembered a musical aspect of the songwriting, an unexpected G minor chord at the beginning of the middle eight. This “takes you to a whole new world. It was exciting.” [6] Paul regarded that well-crafted middle eight with that surprising G minor chord as a significant step forward in the Beatles’ creativity, making this a “pivotal song.” [7]
There are no real contradictions in the evidence of this song’s authorship. In 1964, John stated, “Paul and I kicked some ideas around and came up with what we thought was a suitable melody line.” [8] He put it in lists of fully collaborative songs in 1970 and 1971. [9] In the mid-eighties, Paul gave it as an example of a song written “from the ground up.” “We would sit down with nothing and two guitars, which was like working with a mirror. I could see what he was doing, and he could see me. We got ideas off each other.” [10]
This was nearly a complete 50-50 collaboration, but there is a Lennon emphasis because he apparently came up with the first line of the song.
Thank You Girl — (collaboration, Paul emphasis)
(lead vocals: John, Paul) (recorded on March 5, 1963)
This was close to another “pure” collaboration. In 1963, John said, “We’d already written ‘Thank You Girl’ as the follow-up to ‘Please Please Me.’” [11] Then he asserted, in 1971, “Paul and me. This was just a silly song we knocked off.” [12] Paul commented once on “Thank You Girl,” in 1995, and agreed that it was a collaborative song, but added that it might have had a McCartney accent. “This was pretty much co-written but there might have been a slight leaning towards me with the ‘thank you, girl’ thing, it sounds a bit like me, trying to appease the mob.” [13]
So this is another one that was near pure collaboration, though it may have had a “slight leaning” toward Paul.
“Do You Want to Know a Secret / I’ll Be On My Way” single — Billy J. Kramer with The
Dakotas, April 26, 1963
Do You Want to Know a Secret
See the Please Please Me album, above.
I’ll Be On My Way — (McCartney-Lennon)
(recorded on April 4, 1963)
This is an early song, very Buddy Holly in tone, written in Liverpool by Paul, then finished with collaboration. John attributed it entirely to Paul, and argued that the happy-go-lucky lyrics are typical of Paul’s sole authorship. [14] But Paul remembered that John contributed to the song. Miles wrote that it was “co-written in early Liverpool days.” [15] Lennon’s arguments are not too persuasive, as many of the very early Lennon-McCartney songs were unsophisticated, hackneyed love songs. Unterberger also suggests that John co-singing the lead with Paul (in a BBC Beatles recording) is a mark of a collaborative song. [16]
This is the first of the songs that “the Beatles gave away” and never formally recorded themselves. [17] Billy J. Kramer, born William Howard Ashton, was another artist whom Brian Epstein managed, and his fairly successful career began with this and other Lennon-McCartney songs. [18] The fact that Paul and John started sharing songs with other artists shows their seriousness as songwriters, even at this early stage of their recording career.
Some have suggested that “the songs the Beatles gave away” were lesser offerings that the Beatles happened to have on hand, early apprenticeship songs that they would never have considered recording themselves. There is some truth to this; the Beatles would always try to keep their best songs for themselves. But this is not the full story. Sometimes one of the Beatles might censor a song that was quite good. Most notoriously, John criticized George’s superb “All Things Must Pass,” and it first came to light on a Billy Preston album, and never appeared on a Beatles album. So some of these songs might have been good, but casualties of intra-Beatle politics.
Nevertheless, many of them are undoubtedly lesser songs. Paul said, “There were always a couple of songs that we didn’t want to do because we didn’t think they were very good, but other people would say, ‘Well, I’ll do it, I think it’s quite good.’” [19] Speaking of giving “I Wanna Be You Man,” to the Rolling Stones, John said, “We weren’t going to give them anything great, right?” [20] But some of these “given” songs are good songs, or even, in a few cases, really good songs. Some of them are as good or better than the lesser or second-rate songs that somehow made it onto the Beatle albums. Paul and John would often be involved in producing and recording the “given away” songs, too, which shows their interest in these songs and in their careers as songwriters, not just as pop stars. There was an album of The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away released in 1971; it deserves to be resurrected, or done again but in a fuller, better way, on CD.
The Beatles performed this song on the BBC show Side by Side on June 24, 1963, and this recording appears on the Beatles’ Live at the BBC .
“Bad to Me / I Call Your Name” single — Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, July 26, 1963
Bad to Me — (Lennon-McCartney)
(recorded on June 27, 1963)
Brian Epstein asked Paul and John to provide another song for Billy J., and they wrote “Bad to Me” for him in the back of a van. John later called it a “commissioned song.” [21] After this start, John may have worked on it while on his Spain vacation with Epstein, from late April to early May, 1963.
The evidence for this song’s authorship is slightly muddled. In his earliest statement, in 1964, John remembered writing this with Paul. “We used to write a lot in the back of a coach. . . . We did ‘Bad to Me’ in the back of a van.” [22] Paul consistently described the song as collaborative, including a statement even earlier than John’s, from 1963: “John and I have written about 100 songs together, including ‘Bad To Me’ for Billy J. Kramer.” [23] He made similar statements in 1988 and 1989. [24]
However, in his later interviews, John claimed full authorship. In the early seventies, he said, “Me. I wrote it for Billy J. Kramer.” [25] Ten years later, he remembered writing it for Billy J. while on his vacation in Spain with Brian Epstein in late April and early May, 1963. [26]
In view of the early evidence for collaboration, a song started as an eyeball-to-eyeball composition in a van, I conclude that Paul and John started this, then John worked on it in Spain. [27] There is a demo of Paul and John singing it, which was released on The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 , in 2013.
Both John and Paul remembered that the song was written to order — so it wasn’t simply a lesser song that Paul and John had on hand. And in fact it became a number one record. In addition, “I Call Your Name,” a first-rate song which the Beatles later recorded and released, is the B-side of this single.
I Call Your Name — (Lennon-McCartney)
See the Long Tall Sally EP, below.
“Tip of My Tongue / Heaven Only Knows” single —
Tommy Quickly, July 30, 1963
Tip of My Tongue — (McCartney)
(recorded by the Beatles November 26, 1962; date of recording by Quickly unknown)
Both Paul and John remembered this as a McCartney song — Paul to his horror. “Oh my God!” he said in 1995: “. . . This is pretty much mine, I’m ashamed to say.” [28] “That’s another piece of Paul’s garbage, not my garbage,” John said fifteen years earlier. [29] The Beatles performed this in the studio on November 26, 1962, but it was never released as a Beatle song. [30]
Tommy Quickly was a Liverpool friend of the Beatles who had been lead singer in the group The Challengers, and whom Brian Epstein was managing. Unlike Billy Kramer, his career did not take off with a Lennon-McCartney song, and he retired from the music business in 1965. [31]
Heaven Only Knows (Barry Rapaport, Mitch Murray)
“She Loves You / I’ll Get You” single, August 28, 1963
She Loves You — (collaboration, Paul emphasis)
(lead vocals: John, Paul) (recorded on July 1, 1963)
The Beatles performed in Newcastle, in northeast England, on June 26, 1963, and on that night, or the following day, Paul and John started writing a song while they sat on beds at the hotel. [32] Paul had the idea to write an answering song, one group saying “she loves you,” and the other group saying “yes, yes.” This answering idea was dropped, but those fragments of lyrics remained. [33] It was polished the next day at the McCartney home on Forthlin Road, as Jim McCartney watched TV in the next room. When they’d finished the song, John and Paul played it for the elder McCartney. He approved of it, but suggested changing Yeah Yeah Yeah to Yes Yes Yes. “At which point,” Paul said, “we collapsed in a heap and said ‘No, Dad, you don’t quite get it!’” [34]
George Harrison contributed the 6th chord at the end that George Martin objected so strongly to, at first. [35]
We can date the song composition very precisely. John, in 1963, said that it was written two days before it was recorded, and it was recorded on July 1, 1963. [36] As the Beatles performed in Newcastle on June 26, 1963, it was presumably written on June 26 and 27, 1963. [37] While Paul and John usually give two sites for the song’s composition, a hotel room in Newcastle and the McCartney home, in 1964, John also stated that it was “half-written in a coach.” [38]
Paul and John both remembered this as a very collaborative song. In a 1963 interview, they said, “ [John] : We wrote that two days before we recorded it, actually. [Paul] : We wrote it in a hotel room in Newcastle.” [39] “John and I wrote it together. . . . we just sat up in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it, y’know,” Paul stated, also in 1963. [40] In one interview, Paul gave “She Loves You” as his first example of a song written collaboratively “from the ground up.” [41] In 1971, John put it at the head of a list of co-written songs, [42] and offered it as the first example of songs written “eyeball to eyeball.” [43] Even the “yeahs” were collaborative. “Q: Who put the yeahs on ‘She Loves You’? John and I wrote it into the song,” Paul said in the early 1970s. [44]
Nevertheless, both Paul (in 1963) and John remembere
d that the original idea for the song was Paul’s. John said, in 1980, “I remember it was Paul’s idea, where instead of singing I love you, we’d have a third party passing the message on to somebody else.” [45]
Of course, not to leave things too straightforward, Paul also contradicted himself, saying in the 1990s: “It was very co-written as I recall, I don’t think it was either of our idea, I think we just sat down and said, ‘Right!’” [46] His 1963 interview is preferable to this late memory.
I conclude that this was substantially co-written, a collaborative song. However, we can accept a Paul emphasis because the original idea came from him.
I’ll Get You — (collaboration)
(lead vocals: John, Paul) (recorded on July 1, 1963)
Both John and Paul remembered equal collaboration on this song. In 1963, Paul said, “We wrote ‘I’ll Get You’, which is the B-side, first.” [47] Thirty years later, Paul described this as “very co-written.” He felt that the imagery of the song, especially the word “imagine,” was related to Lewis Carroll. Both Paul and John “were fascinated by his surreal world so this was a nice song to write.” [48] “That was Paul and me trying to write a song and it didn’t work out,” John said in 1980. [49]
Paul, typically, remembered a musical idiosyncrasy in the song. He “nicked” an A minor chord from “All My Trials” on a Joan Baez album and put it into the middle eight. It was a harmonic change that had always fascinated him. [50]
“Hello Little Girl / Just In Case” single — The Fourmost, August 30, 1963
Hello, Little Girl — (Lennon-McCartney)
(recorded on July 3, 1963)
John wrote this when he a teen-ager, basing it on a thirties standard that his mother used to sing, Cole Porter’s “It’s De-Lovely.” [51] When the Beatles got going, he worked on it with Paul, and it was one of the first songs he’d written that he got the Beatles to perform. It can be found on a summer 1960 Beatle rehearsal tape, [52] and the group often played it at the Cavern Club, where it was a big request number. [53] It was one of the three Lennon-McCartney songs performed at the Decca audition, on January 1, 1962. [54]
Who Wrote the Beatle Songs Page 6
