Tag Archives: John lennon

Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 27 “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”

John Julian

“A song like ‘Got to Get You Into My Life’, that’s directly about pot, although everyone missed it at the time … Day Tripper”, he says, “that’s one about acid. ‘Lucy in the Sky,’ that’s pretty obvious. There’s others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it’s easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles’ music.”
– Paul McCartney (Weekly Standard, 2004)

The Beatles – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds:

John Lennon: , lead guitar and vocals
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, Lowrey organ and bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar, acoustic guitar and tambura
Ringo Starr: drums and maracas

The song has the distinction of being the first Beatles recording to be referenced by the group themselves: the second verse of Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus”, released on Magical Mystery Tour at the end of 1967, contains the lyric “see how they fly, like Lucy in the sky, see how they run…”

“Lucy…” was one of the fastest rehearsal/recordings for Sgt. Pepper.
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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 29 “Come Together”

the-beatles-something-apple-4

‘Come Together’ changed at the session. We said, ‘Let’s slow it down. Let’s do this to it, let’s do that to it,’ and it ends up however it comes out. I just said, ‘Look, I’ve got no arrangement for you, but you know how I want it.’ I think that’s partly because we’ve played together a long time. So I said, ‘Give me something funky and set up a beat, maybe.’ And they all just joined in. „
—John Lennon, 1969

“ On the new album I like ‘Come Together,’ which is a great one of John’s. „
—Paul McCartney, 1969

Wikipedia:

A-side “Something”
Released 6 October 1969 (US), 31 October 1969 (UK)
Format 7″
Recorded 21–30 July 1969, EMI Studios, London
Genre Blues rock, hard rock
Length 4:18
Label Apple
Writer(s) Lennon–McCartney
Producer George Martin

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 30 “Julia”

Julia-White-Album

Julia was written by John Lennon for his mother, she died in a traffic accident in 1958. It is also the only solo Lennon recording in The Beatles’ song catalogue.

“The only solo Lennon recording in the Beatles’ catalog, “Julia” was the final addition to the White Album, recorded just three days before the album was sequenced. His original demo, recorded in May, had included harmonies from McCartney, but this version was just Lennon’s voice and guitar. “Julia was my mother,” Lennon said. “But it was sort of a combination of Yoko and my mother blended into one” — the “ocean child” in the lyrics refers to Ono’s name, which is Japanese for “child of the ocean.” To the end of his life, he often called Yoko “Mother.””
– Rolling Stone Magazine

They did 3 takes to perfect the guitar track, which was recorded onto four-track tape. The third track was the chosen one for “The Beatles” (aka “The White Album”)

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Beatles, List, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 31 “Yesterday”

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BEATLES_YESTERDAY_USA_7_PIC

I just started playing it and this tune came, ‘cuz that’s what happens. They just, sort of– they COME, you know. It just came and I couldn’t think of any words to it, so originally it was just, ‘Scrambled Egg.’ It was called ‘Scrambled Egg’ for a couple of months, until I thought of ‘Yesterday.’ And that’s it. True story.
—Paul McCartney, 1968

‘Yesterday’ is Paul completely on his own, really. We just helped finishing off the ribbons ’round it, you know — tying it up.
—John Lennon, 1966

Wikipedia:

“Yesterday“was originally recorded by the Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. Although credited to “Lennon–McCartney”, the song was written solely by Paul McCartney. At the time of its first appearance, the song was released by the Beatles’ record company as a single in the United States but not in the United Kingdom (for further details see below). Consequently, whilst it topped the American chart in 1965 the song first hit the British top 10 three months after the release of Help! in a cover version by Matt Monro. “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 Pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone.

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Beatles, The Best Songs

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 33 “We Can Work It out”

we can work it out 45

 “In We Can Work It Out, Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you’ve got Paul writing, ‘We can work it out, we can work it out’ – real optimistic, y’know, and me impatient: ‘Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.'”
– John Lennon (All We Are Saying by David Sheff)

“I had the idea, the title, had a couple of verses and the basic idea for it, then I took it to John to finish it off and we wrote the middle together. Which is nice: ‘Life is very short. There’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.’ Then it was George Harrison’s idea to put the middle into waltz time, like a German waltz. That came on the session, it was one of the cases of the arrangement being done on the session.”
– Paul McCartney (Many Years From Now by Barry Miles)

 Wikipedia:
“We Can Work It Out” is  written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was released as a “double A-sided” single with “Day Tripper“, the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release. Both songs were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions.

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