Lennon, McCartney and Taylor? - The Beatles Uncredited Co-Writers

We were the biggest nickers in town. Plagiarists extraordinaire.
Paul McCartney
(Musician Magazine, Feb 1985, p.62)

Though they were not as bad as Led Zeppelin the fab four's back catalogue has more than it's share of music and lyrics that were begged, stolen or borrowed. For the most part the boys have been ready to admit it in print. But just not the kind of print found on royalty cheques. Here's a long overdue tribute to the unsung backroom boys (and girls). Maybe you'll be amazed...

A Day In The Life

(Lennon/McCartney/Doran)

Lennon said “I knew the line had to go 'now they know many holes it takes to ____ the Albert Hall'. It was a nonsense verse really, but for some reason I couldn't think of the verb. What did the holes do to the Albert Hall?” Terry Doran, the Beatles favourite 'man from the motor trade' (and the maraca player on Strawberry Fields Forever) said “fill the Albert Hall”
(The Beatles: Davis p.299)

All You Need Is Love

(Lennon/McCartney/Bach/Rouget de Lisle/Manone/Unknown)

Both the intro and the outro quoted from previous written music - The French National Anthem (La Marseillaise), composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, Greensleeves, J.S. Bach's Invention No. 8 in F major and Glenn Miller's arrangement of In The Mood, which in itself was a wholesale theft of Wingy Manone's Tar Paper Stomp.

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite

(Lennon/McCartney/Sousa/Unknown)

The lyrics, taken almost wholesale from an advertisement Pablo Fanque's Circus, were probably written by someone in the circus and chopped up 'samples' of John Phillip Sousa marches featured in the middle section.

Can't Buy Me Love, Help, She Loves You

(Lennon/McCartney/Martin)

George Martin displayed his unerring genius for musical development and pop catchiness by composing the intro sections for each of these songs.

Come Together

(Lennon/McCartney/Berry)

The line “Here comes old flat top” and the general melody were consciously stolen from Chuck's song Catch Me If You Can. Though Paul McCartney attempted to disguise this by changing the feel, Berry's publisher, Morris Levy, sued Lennon anyway and won.

Eleanor Rigby

(Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Martin/Shotton/Starr)

The only song (apart from Dig A Pony and Flying) that features all four Beatles as co-writers, George and Ringo contributed “all the lonely people” and “darning his socks” respectively. School friend and Quarrymen washboard player, Pete Shotton suggested bringing Eleanor & Father McKenzie back in the last verse and George Martin came up with singing the bridge over the final chorus.
(Revolution In The Head p.204)

Golden Slumbers

(Lennon/McCartney/Dekker)

Paul used 17th century dramatist Thomas Dekker's words almost unchanged for the Abbey Road track.

If I Needed Someone

(Harrison/McGuinn)

When George Harrison heard The Byrds cover version of The Bells of Rhymney he loved Roger McGuinn's 12 string riff so much he lifted it entirely for his Rubber Soul track.

George was very open about it, he sent [the record] to us in advance and said, 'This is for Jim' - because of that lick.
Rolling Stone magazine 


I Saw Her Standing There
(Lennon/McCartney/Berry)

McCartney admits the bassline was 'borrowed' from Chuck Berry's song I’m Talking About You
Many Years From Now (p.94)

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

(Lennon/McCartney/Taylor)

Beatles publicist Derek Taylor brainstormed lyrics with Lennon for the first section contributing the “lizard on the window pane” and “velvet hand” lines.

The Inner Light

(Harrison/Li)

The lyrics are taken wholesale from chapter 47 of the Tao Te Ching, written c400 BC by Lao Tzu (The philosopher formerly known as Li Er)

Michelle

(Lennon/McCartney/Martin/Vaughan)

Ivan Vaughan, the man who introduced Paul McCartney to John Lennon, also introduced Paul to french via his language teacher wife Jan who co-wrote the lyrics with Paul at Jane Asher's family home in 1965. Paul said “Years later I sent her a cheque around. I thought I better had because she's virtually a co-writer on that. From there I just pieced together the verses”.

During the recording session George Martin composed the melody that George Harrison played in the solo.
Paul McCartney: (Many Years From Now)

Ob La Di Ob La Da

(Lennon/McCartney/Scott-Emuakpor)

Journeyman Jimmy on the floor with his pet dog

“Ob la di ob la da - life goes on bra” was conga player Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor's catch phrase. So he understandably miffed when it surfaced in a hit song (especially as Jimmy had played on an early version). He sued McCartney, but after being taken to prison for unpaid alimony, Scott agreed to drop his case in return for McCartney footing his huge legal bills.
MTV, Power Pop, Marco On the Bass

Piggies

(Harrison/Harrison/Lennon)

George's mum Louise came up with the lyric, "What they need's a damn good whacking" and John added "Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon".
Beatles Bible 

Run For Your Life

(Lennon/McCartney/Gunter)

Arthur Gunter wrote Elvis' hit Baby Let's Play House which contained the lyrics “I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man”. 11 years later so did John Lennon's Run For Your Life. Coincidence? Nope.

Savoy Truffle

(Harrison/Taylor)

When he wasn't holding John's hand, Derek Taylor also helped out George with the bridges adding "You know that what you eat you are".

She Said She Said

(Lennon/Harrison)

Curing writer's block with acupuncture?

Harrison said “I was at [John's] house one day and he was struggling with some tunes. He had loads of bits, maybe three songs, that were unfinished, and I made suggestions and helped him to work them together so that they became one finished song - She Said She Said. The middle part of that record is a different song”.

Following an argument with Lennon, Paul stormed out of the studio, leaving the band to record the final Revolver song without him. Meaning Paul is credited as a co-writer on a song that he neither wrote nor played on while Harrison isn't!

Something

(Harrison/Taylor)

...but a different Taylor! American singer/songwriter James Taylor released Something In The Way She Moves in 1968 on his self titled debut album, which appeared on a small indie label called Apple. In 1969 George Harrison appropriated it as a title and opening line. Ironically Taylor had intended to call his song I Feel Fine, after the final line in the chorus, but didn't want to nick someone else's title!

Taxman

(Harrison/Lennon)

John helped George finish off the lyrics to this song “[throwing] in a few one-liners to help the song along” and name-checking prime minister Harold Wilson and opposition leader Edward Heath.
David Sheff: All We Are Saying 


We Can Work It Out
(Lennon/McCartney/Harrison)

Harrison provided one of the highlights of the track - the idea of doing parts of the bridge in waltz time.

 Yellow Submarine

(Lennon/McCartney/Donovan/Krier/Helmer)

Donovan wrote the line, “sky of blue, sea of green” at Paul's request and Geoff Emerick and George Martin chopped up a recording Georges Krier and Charles Helmer's brass band tune Le Rêve Passe beyond recognition.

(Revolution In The Head p.206)

11:13 Part Two Of Us

Last time we had a quick overview of the lyrics arrangement but the main interest in Two Of Us is the odd things happening to the rhythm and meter.

Firstly the verse melody has an interesting shape. Melodies often have structure that repeats at the beginning - AAB (Can't Buy Me Love – verse) or ever other part ABAB (the verses of Help, We Can Work It Out) or ABAC (verse Here Comes The Sun). But Two Of Us melody repeats in the middle, and then adds an extra part on the end the second time around.

ABBC
ABBCD

A Two of us
B riding nowhere
B spending someone's
C hard earned pay

A You and me
B sunday driving
B not arriving
C on our way
D back home

This gives the song a catchy stuck record/hiccup feel.

We get more repetition in the chorus melody with an AAB structure

A We're on our way home
A We're on our way home
B We're going home

Chords

Interesting as that is, the chords are where it's all happening for me.

We have a verse in G and (mostly) 4/4 but the chorus is (mostly) 3 / 4 and the bridge returns to 4/4 but is (mostly) in Bb major. So that's a time change (Ticket 15) AND a key change (Ticket 45) between section.

More than just simple time changes though, the verse and chorus time signatures keep switching in a way I've come to call the 'Lennon edit' (Ticket 37) where you basically cut any extra beat or bar that has no vocals (the end of every line of verse on All You Need Is Love is the prime example). I'm not saying there was originally something there that was cut, simply that Lennon often was impatient to get to the next line and had no desire to wait for the next 'correct' moment.

So in the verse we have

(4/4) G, G, (2/4) G, (4/4) C C/B, Am7
(4/4) G, G, (2/4) G, (4/4) C C/B, Am7, G

and the chorus is

(3/4) G, D, G, D, G, (2/4) C (4/4) G 

After quite a boring transition where everything stops, leaving the drums to build up on their own, we slam into the new key. The bridge then goes from Bb major (Bb Dm Gm) to C major (Am) back to G major (via the D major chord that acts as a V chord). You could argue that the key of C major is really A minor, but as both the chord and melody at “farther than the” repeat almost exactly a tone higher for “road that stretches” it sounds like the key is rising.

Two minor but cool points of interest are the chords following the words

(C) on (C/B) our (Am7) way back (G) home

which is ticket 36 and the stop to emphasis the key word 'home' at the end of the chorus (Ticket 30).

Next time we'll untangle the mystery of the Get Back track.

    

Blessed Are The Prolific (pt. 1)

In a way this goes right to the heart of why Lennon & McCartney were such great songwriters. All other Be-atletudes lead to this. Being a singletasker, having a co-writer and limiting your options all allow you to be prolific and that is the one thing that will turn a good songwriter into a great one.

Here’s a favourite illustration

A ceramics teacher divided his class into two groups. One group would be graded solely on quantity of work – fifty pounds of pottery would be an “A”, forty would be a “B”, and so on. The other group would be graded on quality. Students in that group had to produce only one pot – but it had better be good.

Amazingly, all the highest quality pots were turned out by the quantity group. It seems that while the quantity group kept churning out pots, they were continually learning from their disasters and growing as artists. The quality group sat around theorising about perfection and worrying about it – but they never actually got any better.

Apparently – at least when it comes to pottery- trying and failing, learning from failure, and trying again works a lot better than waiting for perfection. No pot, no matter how misshapen, is really a failure. Each is just another step on the road to an “A”. It is a road littered with imperfect pots. But there is no other road.

John Ortberg: If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat (p.148) The story he quotes is from 
David Bayles & Ted Orland: Art & Fear (p.29)
 

 

 200 Songs

Why were Lennon & McCartney so good?

Between 1962 and 1970 Lennon & McCartney wrote close to 200 songs. Almost all were recorded and released. The majority were top 10 hits as singles or album tracks. Whereas most writers today would throw away a song that wasn’t good enough for their next album or didn’t fit stylistically, the boys always had a reason to finish that song. And because of their insane recording schedule they always had to come up with more songs.

Here, There & Everywhere

The norm for today’s artists seems to be that they are either writing OR recording OR touring. Letting the studio or the road disrupt the habit of writing is a problem somewhat unique to SONGwriters.

For example, on the rare occasions that a novelist does go on a promo tour he doesn’t spend 200 nights a year for 2 years reading people his most recent book.

What could be more damaging to fresh creativity than regurgitating your previous efforts night after night without attempting anything new? Yet this is everyday life for many successful recording artists.

Road Songs

 

For a band with a schedule as insane as the Beatles had from 62-66 writing on tour was a necessary evil. From Me To You was written on a tour bus, All My Loving backstage, She Loves You in a hotel room. Can’t Buy Me Love was not only written on tour but recorded in a studio in Paris while they played a residency there!

It's All Too Much

Of course the band stopped touring in ’66 but The Beatles didn’t regard recording as a legitimate reason to take a break from songwriting either (which makes sense as they were always recording). And I’m not referring to the way many successful bands enter the studio with unfinished songs (though they were guilty of that too). I mean continuing to write new songs even as they were laying down songs they’d just finished.

Assistant producer Chris Thomas remembers Harrison playing Something to him on the harpsichord while they were recording Piggies for the White Album. McCartney gave Lennon a preview of MMT’s The Fool On The Hill while writing With A Little Help From My Friends for Sgt Pepper.

When the time came for shooting a video for the Lady Madonna single, instead of miming to the song the band decided to record a completely new song, Hey Bulldog, and let the crew film them doing that instead.

You would think that recording 32 songs for the White Album would have exhausted the supply but by the time it was mixed they already had Polythene Pam, The Long And Winding Road, Let It Be, Something & Maxwell’s Silver Hammer lined up ready to go.

Slow Down

 

With such a workload did they ever just relax and take a holiday?

McCartney wrote most of the lyrics to Yesterday while on holiday in Portugal with Jane Asher (having written the bridge while filming Help!). When the Beatles went off to find the meaning of life in India, Lennon, Harrison & McCartney wrote 23 songs in couple of month.

So I guess the answer is no.

Read Blessed Are The Prolific part two

Money Can't Buy Me Theory Lessons

If you've been reading some of my posts and are confused by all the roman numeral chord theory stuff this video from UltimateSongwritingLessons.Com is a pretty good primer AND uses Can't Buy Me Love as the example.

Two for the price of one!





SongWriteNews saw it first

Breaking The 12 Bar Blues Rules

For a band that played such a large amount of 12 bar blues songs in their early days, The Beatles wrote and recorded relatively few of their own. Often when they did they they departed in some small, but significant way from the standard pattern.

Here's a stock 12 Bar Progression

I  I  I  I

IV IV I  I

V IV  I  V

Which, in the key of C, would look like this -

C C C C

F F C C

G F C G

Compare that to the verse of Can't Buy Me Love

C C C C

F F C C

G F F C

Instead of V IV I V in the last four bars we have V IV IV I.

Subtle.

Delaying the root chord (C) keeps you hanging on and creates a bit of extra interest (because you weren't expecting it) and means the chords resolve on the word love rather than money.

Chuck Berry was a massive influence on the group, and Roll Over Beethoven (covered on With The Beatles) also adapts the 12 bar formula.

I     IV  I  I

IV  IV  I  I

IV  V   I  I

As well the IV substitution in bar 2 which is pretty common, he switches IV and V chords around in the 9th and 10th bar.

There's more where that came from, but for now try a 12 bar pattern with one bar altered in some way.

Thanks to 'Old Man' Taylor for corrections