“One And One Is Two / Time and the River” single — The Strangers with Mike Shannon, May 8, 1964
One and One is Two — (McCartney-Lennon)
(recorded on March 20, 1964)
Paul wrote the beginnings of this song in the George V Hotel in Paris, then he and John worked on it together after a show at the Olympia Theater. [36] Thus it was written from late January to early February, 1964. Paul and John recorded four demos in Paris (with Paul on guitar and John adding a minor piano part), sending the final one to Billy J. Kramer. [37] When the demos were done, John remarked, “Billy J is finished when he gets this song.” [38] The tune was in fact rejected by both Kramer and the Fourmost, [39] before it found a home with The Strangers, an obscure group from South Africa whom the Beatles had known in Liverpool. The song never charted.
Both Paul and John agreed that this was mainly a McCartney song. John, asked about it in 1971, said, “Paul. That was a terrible one,” and nine years later, “That’s another of Paul’s bad attempts at writing a song.” [40] However, journalist Michael Braun described Paul working on the lyrics with John and George — one more reminder that there may have been minor collaboration in all the songs John or Paul claimed for themselves, in the early Beatles era. [41] Bill Harry, editor of Mersey Beat , also records collaboration — he wrote that the song “was mainly written by Paul,” but “Paul and John worked together on the number in their suite at the George V Hotel.” [42]
Time and the River (Aaron Schroeder, Wally Gold)
c
“Nobody I Know / You Don’t Have To Tell Me” single —
Peter and Gordon, May 29, 1964
Nobody I Know — (McCartney)
(recorded in April 1964)
Paul wrote this specifically for Peter Asher. [43] According to Asher, when Peter and Gordon returned from their American tour, Paul met them and said, “I’ve written your second single, here it is, hope you like it.” [44]
John, asked about the song in 1980, ascribed it to Paul. [45] It reached number ten in the U.K. and twelve in the U.S.
You Don’t Have To Tell Me (Peter Asher, Gordon Waller)
“Like Dreamers Do / (Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom) Everybody Fall Down” single — The Applejacks, June 5, 1964
Like Dreamers Do — (McCartney)
In 1961, Paul felt that all the groups in Liverpool were doing the same songs, so he decided to steal a march on them by writing a song himself. He came up with “Like Dreamers Do” during a bus ride, then played it to the Beatles the next day. They weren’t too enthusiastic, but learned the song, and possibly Paul and John did some work on it together to finish it off. It became quite popular at the Cavern, probably because “it had a novelty value. . . . It was our big number for week and weeks,” Paul said in 1963. [46] Thus it was actually one of the earliest self-written songs that the Beatles performed.
The Beatles included it in the Decca audition on January 1, 1962, [47] but never were interested in putting it on a Beatle album. They met the Applejacks, a group from Birmingham who had signed with Decca, at a television appearance, and Paul and John gave them this song to record. It became the Applejacks’ second single, reaching number twenty in the U.K. charts. [48]
Paul and John usually ascribed “Like Dreamers Do” totally to Paul, who evaluated it with refreshing candor in the 1990s: “I did a very bad song called ‘Like Dreamers Do.’” [49] John, in 1971, described it as “A very early one of Paul’s,” [50] and in 1980 he said that Paul had written it as a teen-ager and then later revived and polished it. [51]
However, in 1964, John seemed to remember it as a collaboration: “It [the Lennon-McCartney songwriting] started in school holidays. I was about 15. . . At that time we did ‘Like Dreamers Do’.” [52] John was fifteen from October 1955 to 1956. However, he did not meet Paul until July 1957, when he was sixteen, and the songwriting sessions with Paul did not begin immediately. But even a 1958 or 1959 date for the song conflicts with Paul’s 1963 statement.
I accept this as a Paul song, possibly finished with collaboration, though the evidence is sketchy.
(Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom) Everybody Fall Down (Dello [Peter Blumson], Ray Cane [Raymond Byart])
Long Tall Sally EP, June 19, 1964 — “Long Tall Sally / I Call Your Name / Slow Down / Matchbox”
An EP of three rousing covers and one solid Lennon-McCartney; unlike their first two albums, here the screamer came first. All four songs were recorded on June 1, 1964.
Long Tall Sally (COVER) (Enotris Johnson, Richard Penniman (“Little Richard”) and Robert “Bumps” Blackwell)
(lead vocals: Paul)
Little Richard released the “Long Tall Sally” single in 1956. Paul sang this song at his first stage performance, when he was about fourteen, and it became a McCartney vocal specialty. [53] “Ever since I heard Little Richard’s version, I started imitating him,” he said in 1973. “It was just straight imitation, really, which has gradually become my version of it as much as Richard’s.” [54]
John would egg him on as he performed this and other Little Richard rave-ups. [55] In 1963, when the Beatles were preparing for their performances in France, John said, “If they want things like “Sally” and “[Roll Over] Beethoven”, we can do that standing on our ears.” [56] They often performed this as the last song of a show. “I could never think of a better number to finish on,” Paul said. [57]
Other performances of “Long Tall Sally” are on the Live at the BBC albums, The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl (where it closes the show) and Anthology 1 (a TV performance from 1963).
I Call Your Name (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on March 1, 1964)
John wrote the beginnings of this song before the Beatles, when he was about fifteen, he said. Later, he worked on it with Paul at John’s house at Menlove Avenue. [58] Finally, in early 1964, he added a middle eight to it. [59]
In a familiar pattern, John claimed this as his song entirely, while Paul remembered some collaboration. John said,
That was my song. The bulk of the “I Call Your Name” part written around the period Paul was writing “Love Me Do” when there was no Beatles and no group. And I just had it around, it was my effort at the kind of blues originally. And then I wrote the middle eight just to stick it in the album when it came out years later. [60]
Paul agreed that it was primarily John’s, but in 1995 did remember some collaboration. “We worked on it together, but it was John’s idea. When I look back at some of these lyrics, I think, Wait a minute. What did he mean? ‘I call your name but you’re not there.’ Is it his mother? His father?” [61]
This was first released on the “Bad to Me” / “I Call Your Name” single by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, see above.
Slow Down (COVER) (Larry Williams)
(lead vocals: John)
This was the B side of the 1958 “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” single by Larry Williams, another rhythm and blues singer important to the Beatles. In an interview from 1964, John said “Slow Down” was “just an old rock and roll number from eight years ago. . . . And it’s one we’ve done for a long time, and we thought we’d just stick it on the EP.” [62] Another version of this is on Live at the BBC .
Matchbox (COVER) (Carl Perkins/Blind Lemon Jefferson)
(lead vocals: Ringo)
The rockabilly Carl Perkins, another Beatles favorite, released this single in 1957, and it became one of his most widely-known songs. Perkins came to the Beatles recording session on June 1, which unnerved Ringo as he laid down his vocals. [63] It was partially based on the blues song “Match Box Blues” (1927) by Blind Lemon Jefferson. “Matchbox” is also on Live at the BBC .
A Hard Day’s Night album, July 10, 1964
A Hard Day’s Night — (Lennon-McCartney-Starkey)
(lead vocals: John and Paul) (recorded on April 16, 1964)
When the Beatles were in Paris, in January 1964, Paul had been introduced to some Dylan records at a radio station. �
��Paul got them off whoever they belonged to,” said Lennon, “and for the rest of the three weeks in Paris we didn’t stop playing them. We all went potty on Dylan.” [64] This song is the first fruit of that influence. [65]
As the Beatles prepared for their first movie, producer Walter Shenson [66] needed a title for the movie and a title song, and suggested to the Beatles [67] that Ringo’s phrase “Hard Day’s Night” would work. [68] John thought about this, went home and came up with the song. In a 1965 interview, he said that the song was in the “Dylan vein” when he first wrote the opening bars. “But later we Beatle-ified it before we recorded it.” [69]
The next morning he came into Abbey Road early and one observer described him humming the melody to the other Beatles. [70] He and Paul then developed the music and lyrics. At 8:30 a.m. Lennon called Shenson into their studio and he and Paul played it for him. Shenson said “that [John] and Paul had roughed [a song] out on scraps of paper.” [71] According to Miles, the film was titled on April 13, the Beatles played the song to Shenson the next day, and recorded it on the 16th. [72]
John repeatedly and strongly claimed this song as his own, written with no collaboration. In 1971, he listed it as an example of how he would sometimes write alone: “And we’d written separately for years. . . . I wrote ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’” he said. [73] He remembered writing it by himself quickly, after Walter Shenson, the film’s producer, asked for a title song for the movie as soon as possible. Dick Lester suggested Ringo’s phrase, hard day’s night, “and the next morning I brought in the song. ‘Cause there was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the ‘A’ sides.” [74] George Martin, in 1964, remembered “everyone” liking Ringo’s phrase, Hard Day’s Night. Then “John went off and came back the next day with a song he’d written to go with the title.” [75]
However, there is substantial evidence for collaboration (aside from the title coming from Ringo). In an early interview, Paul said, “John and I wrote this especially for the film.” In Anthology , he remembered Shenson asking both him and John to write a title song. “We thought about it and it seemed a bit ridiculous writing a song called ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ — it sounded funny at the time, but after a bit we got the idea of saying it had been a hard day’s night and we’d been working all the days, and get back to a girl and everything’s fine. . . . And we sort of turned it into one of those songs.” [76] In 1995, he suggested that he probably contributed to the words and the middle eight, a twenty-minute touchup to the song John had brought in. [77]
Early insiders Walter Shenson and Dick James also remembered collaboration. Shenson, in 1964, wrote that Ringo came up with the movie title, then “Late one evening, Shenson asked Lennon to write a title song. At 8:30 the following morning, John called and said that he and Paul had roughed one out on scraps of paper. They recorded it that night.” [78] Dick James, the Beatles’ music publisher, in 1965 spoke of John saying to him, about the song, “we’ve already written half of it.” [79]
The early evidence is thus complex. It seems likely that this started out as a John song, but was finished with collaboration.
I Should Have Known Better — (Lennon)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on February 25–26, 1964)
Both John and Paul agreed that John wrote this. In 1971, John included it in a list of songs he had written, and in 1980, he said, “That’s me.” [80]
If I Fell — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: John and Paul) (recorded on February 27, 1964)
John used the song to show how he could excel at what many people regard as the McCartney side of the Beatles: “That’s my first attempt at a ballad proper,” he said in 1980. “. . . That shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads, silly love songs, as you call them, way back when.” But he said that Paul had contributed the middle eight to this. [81] Earlier, he put it on a list of John songs. [82] There is a composing tape or demo of the song, in which John sings, accompanied by guitar. [83]
Paul remembered a songwriting session for this song, though it was a session dominated by John, and he also cited the song as an example of John’s tender side. He said, in 1995, “People tend to forget that John wrote some pretty nice ballads. People tend to think of him as an acerbic wit and aggressive and abrasive, but he did have a very warm side to him really which he didn't like to show too much in case he got rejected.” “We wrote ‘If I Fell’ together,” he said; however, he agreed that “the emphasis [is] on John.” But then he added, “because he sang it.” [84] This increases the confusion still further, because Paul sang melodic lead on the song. (Possibly because the melody was too high for John.) Miles writes, “‘If I Fell,’ ‘I’m Happy Just to Dance with You’ and ‘I’ll Be Back’ were all co-written with John.” [85]
In a very late interview, Paul claimed the intro: “One song I wrote a little after “Please Please Me” was my best attempt at a preamble: “If I Fell.” [Sings] ‘If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be truuue...’ Then after the line, ‘just holding hands,’ the song properly gets going. [Raises voice] That’s it, everyone!” [86] This would make a neat parallel to Paul’s “Here, There and Everywhere” intro.
I’m Happy Just to Dance with You — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: George) (recorded on March 1, 1964)
John and Paul knew that George needed a song to sing in the movie and came up with this for him. It represents another example of flat contradiction in attribution. John claimed it as his song. “I wrote this for George to sing,” he said sometime before 1979. [87] But Paul, in 1995, remembered this as “a straight co-written song for George.” “We wrote ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ for George in the film.” Paul, typically, commented on the chords. He and John knew that using an E to A-flat-minor chord progression “pretty much always excited you.” [88]
And I Love Her — (McCartney-Lennon)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded on February 25–27, 1964)
Paul wrote this, and he said it became “the first ballad I impressed myself with.” [89] According to Miles in 1995, the song was inspired by Jane Asher (which Paul had denied in 1984). [90] It was certainly written in the Asher home, during the Jane Asher period. Paul remembered playing the song in the upstairs drawing room of the Asher residence, soon after writing it. [91]
John helped with the middle eight. Dick James left an account of Paul and John writing it together at the studio. “John and Paul went to the piano and, while Mal Evans was getting tea and some sandwiches, the boys worked at the piano. Within half an hour they wrote, there before our very eyes, a very constructive middle to a very commercial song.” [92]
Both Paul and John agreed that the main song was written by Paul. In fact, in 1995, Paul felt that the song might have been entirely his own: “I’m not sure if John worked on that at all.” [93] John said, in 1980, “‘And I Love Her’ is Paul again. I consider it his first ‘Yesterday.’” [94] However, there was disagreement on the middle eight. In 1971, John claimed this entire section of the song: “Both of us. The first half was Paul’s and the middle eight is mine.” [95] Paul flatly disagreed, in 1995: “The middle eight is mine. I would say that John probably helped with the middle eight, but he can’t say ‘It’s mine.’ I wrote this on my own.” [96] And in 1980, John softened his 1971 statement, saying that he only “helped” with the middle eight.
I conclude that the main song is Paul’s, but that the middle eight was collaborative, written by Paul and John in the studio.
Tell Me Why — (Lennon)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on February 27, 1964)
The movie men needed another upbeat song, “and I just knocked it [“Tell Me Why”] off,” John said in 1980. It was in the genre of black girl group music. [97] Paul agreed that it was John’s and felt that it may have been based on his relationship with Cynthia or with relationships he was having with other women at the time. [98]
Can’t Buy Me Love — (McCartney-Lennon)
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(lead vocals: Paul)
See the “Can’t Buy Me Love / You Can’t Do That” single, above.
SIDE TWO
Anytime at All — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on June 2, 1964)
In 1971, John claimed this, and Miles/Paul also ascribe it to him. [99] Simple enough, it would seem. However, in an undated comment by Lennon that was printed in 1972, he stated that the song was co-written. It was “Another of those songs we wrote about the time of Hard Day’s Night .” [100] This is an example of one of the individual Beatles disagreeing with himself. It’s unfortunate that the second comment is undated, but it’s at least as early as the first listing by John.
If Paul did collaborate, the songwriting session was probably dominated by John.
I’ll Cry Instead — (Lennon)
(lead vocals: John) (recorded on June 1, 1964)
In 1971, John claimed this. [101] “I wrote that for Hard Day’s Night ,” he said in 1980. [102] Miles/Paul agreed in 1995. [103] The only complexity in the historical record comes from a very early interview with George Martin, who in 1964 spoke of it as co-written — “the boys came up with this” — but he may have been just assuming collaboration. [104]
Things We Said Today — (McCartney-Lennon)
(lead vocals: Paul) (recorded on June 2, 1964)
This song was written while Paul and Jane Asher, and Ringo and Maureen Cox, were on a yacht vacation in the Virgin Islands in May 1964. McCartney separated from his friends, went below deck with a guitar, and started writing the song. However, the smell of oil was oppressive, the boat was rocking, and he started to feel queasy, so he went up to the back deck and finished the song there. [105] According to Miles, it reflected Paul’s and Jane Asher’s relationship — times together, then a great deal of time apart. [106] Paul described it as “a slightly nostalgic thing already, a future nostalgia.” [107] He said the Beatles had a fondness for it because it was “like folk music.” [108] So like the first song on the album, it was influenced by the folk renaissance.
Who Wrote the Beatle Songs Page 9
