‘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 |
“Come Together” is a song by the Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on the album Abbey Road, and was released as a double A-sided single with “Something”, their 21st single in the United Kingdom and 26th in the United States. The song reached the top of the charts in the US, and peaked at number four in the UK.
Rolling Stone ranked “Come Together” at #202 on their list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and #9 on their list of the Beatles’ 100 Greatest Songs.
‘Come Together’ is me — writing obscurely around an old Chuck Berry thing. I left the line ‘Here comes old flat-top.’ It is nothing like the Chuck Berry song, but they took me to court because I admitted the influence once years ago. I could have changed it to ‘Here comes old iron face,’ but the song remains independent of Chuck Berry or anybody else on earth. The thing was created in the studio. It’s gobbledygook — ‘Come Together’ was an expression that Tim Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t come up with one. But I came up with this, ‘Come Together,’ which would’ve been no good to him — you couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right? Leary attacked me years later, saying I ripped him off. I didn’t rip him off. It’s just that it turned into ‘Come Together.’ What am I going to do, give it to him? It was a funky record — it’s one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favorite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’ll buy it!
—John Lennon, 1980
- John Lennon – lead and backing vocals, handclaps, rhythm guitar, electric piano
- Paul McCartney – harmony vocal, bass guitar
- George Harrison – lead guitar
- Ringo Starr – drums, maracas
Lennon played rhythm guitar and sang the vocal, McCartney played bass, Starr played drums, and Harrison played lead guitar. It was produced by George Martin and recorded at the end of July 1969 at Abbey Road Studios. In the intro, Lennon says “shoot me” which is accompanied by his handclaps and McCartney’s heavy bass riff. The famous Beatles’ “walrus” from “I Am the Walrus” and “Glass Onion” returns in the line “he got walrus gumboot”, followed by “he got Ono sideboard”. Bluesman Muddy Waters is also mentioned in the song.
Music critic Ian MacDonald reports that McCartney sang a backing vocal, but recording engineer Geoff Emerick said that Lennon did all the vocals himself, and when a frustrated McCartney asked Lennon, “What do you want me to do on this track, John?”, Lennon replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll do the [vocal] overdubs on this.”
The availability of separate tracks from the original Beatles multitrack (due to release of Rock Band) have made fresh investigation of the Beatles personnel data possible. One of the discoveries is that the backing vocals of “Come Together” are on the verses are sung by McCartney.
Enthusiastically received in campus and underground circles, COME TOGETHER is the key song of the turn of the decade, isolating a pivotal moment when the free world’s coming generation rejected established
wisdom, knowledge, ethics, and behaviour for a drug-inspired relativism which has since undermined the intellectual foundations of Western culture.
~Ian MacDonald (Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties)
Come Together (Lyrics):
Here come old flat top
He come groovin’ up slowly
He got joo joo eyeballs
He one holy rollers
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please
He wear no shoeshine
He got toe jam football
He got monkey finger
He shoot Coca Cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is
You got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me
He bad production
He got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard
He one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knees
Hold you in his armchair
You can feel his disease
Come together, right now
Over me
He roller coaster
He got early warning
He got muddy water
He one Mojo filter
He say one and one and one is three
Got to be good looking
Cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now
Over me
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
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– Egil & Hallgeir