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)

10:4 Julia (pt. 3) Melody

Last time we saw that Julia is a seething mass of non-diatonic chords. So it's surprising to see that, apart from the key change in the bridge, there is only one out of key note in the melody - the Bb that occurs on the Calls ME section of the verse. This song is a good example of ticket 14 - 'write an key melody over out of key chords' – which gives you the interest of unusual chord progressions while avoiding the complexity of an atonal melody.

So although we have an F# in the melody it never occurs at the same time as the F natural within the chord progression (as part of the Gm7 and G9 chords). It's the same for the C# and C, D# and D and B and Bb. The only point where the harmony alters the melody is the aforementioned Bb which is supported by the Bb within the Gm7 chord.

That same point in the song also contains a nice instance of contrary motion (ticket 12). The chords drop from G9 to Gm7 (B falling to Bb, and A falling to the already present F) but the melody rises from A to Bb.This combination of an out of key note, contrary motion, and interruption the 3 note rhythm makes this reoccurring phrase (calls me/touch me) really stand out.

The melody through out really has a sense of ebbing and flowing, perfect for a song with so much water imagery (we'll look at that in a future post).


Take Me To The Bridge


When we get to the bridge we have a true key change (like the bridge of I Want To Hold Your Hand or the chorus of Penny Lane) rather than remaining in the same key but using one or two out of key chords (like With A Little Help From My Friends). Here we head from D major to C#m minor and then C# phrygian.

The three scales involved in the song are as follows

D major – D E F# G A B C# D C#
minor – C# D# E F# G# A B C# C#
phrygian - C# D E F# G# A B C#

Bizarrely, the chord that establishes the C# phrygian tonality is D major. Why aren't we back in D major at this point? Because the melody is repeatedly using a G# note.

In fact the melody in the shimmering, glimmering part of the bridge has a distinctly japanese flavour, a subtle touch, appropriate for a love song to Yoko Ono. If we take D as the root note and select only the notes that actually appear in those 4 bars we get

D F# G# A B
R 3    #4  5  6

which is a lydian pentatonic scale but not the lydian pentatonic

Write Like Lennon

Creating a melody from chord tones is one of the simplest way to write. Just choose each melody note from the chord that supports it. So over a D major you could sing a D (the root), an F# (the third), or an A (the fifth). Extend the chord to a D9 and you could also pick the C (b7th) or E (9th). Many of Paul McCartney's melodies seem to function somewhat independently from the chord progression but John Lennon seemed to write from the chords, creating tension either by using chord movement to against monotonal melodies (the verses of I Am The Walrus and Help!) or by deliberate clashes between melody and harmony such as the repeated E sung over a Bm in Help's chorus or the I just had to laugh line in A Day In The Life where, instead of singing over a G chord as in the previous lines, Lennon introduces and F major chord which scrapes against the B natural in the melody to wonderful effect.

What has this got to do with Julia?

Lennon's melody as we've already seen is almost entirely chord tones. And yet it has none of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star banality because his focus once again is on the chord progression rather than the melody. Once you have a chord progression this oddly compelling, almost any melody you can construct will be interesting.

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Can't get enough Beatles-style songs about mysterious women? Check out Sadie's Sister, my collaboration with Stuart Kidd – free to download here.

11:17 I've Got A Feeling

Everybody had a good time????*

I've Got A Feeling is a pleasant enough song that punches a little above it's weight and appears slightly better than it really is.

Part of that is down to the feeling that this is a return to the Lennon/McCartney duets of old. Many Beatles tracks prior to Help have a shared lead vocal making it almost impossible for transcribers to discern who is singing melody and who is harmonising.

The reality is that this is another patchwork song like A Day In The Life, only in reverse - Lennon supplies missing 'bridge' for Paul. So despite appearances there is little emotional connection between the two and this is as much a true duet as Free As A Bird.

That said the song works because luckily the two parts fit together perfectly. They have the same chord sequence (though my guess is that Lennon's melody sat nicely on Paul's chords rather than both having come up with the same (admittedly simple) chord progression. The overlapping of parts isn't on a level with Paul's brilliant descant on Help (they both start on the 'and' after the one here) but John's low 'regular' line sits nicely under Paul's high meandering one. Paul's parts are all about 'I' but John's are about 'Everybody'. And John's wit shines against Paul's slightly lazy and vague lyrical offering. (He spends far more time telling us he has a feeling than what the feeling 'is').

There are a few nice lyrical moments in Paul's verse (please believe me/if you leave me) and bridge (wandering around/wondering how) but the latter get lost in the screaming, where as John's hair down/socks up/foot down gives a strong sense of shape to his part.

Predictably enough for blues screamer the melody uses lots of b3rd and b7ths, with Lennon's part employing the major pentatonic. There's some cool nods to the blues in the distorted chromatically descending 7th chords (0:29) that reminds me of Led Zeppelin channelling Robert Johnson on Celebration Day.

Perhaps the most interesting song tip to take away is how the band places the title in the verses.

This is the title,
The title one more time,
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
This is the title,
The title with a rhyme,
Oh no, oh no, oh no, yeah, yeah.
This is the title, yeah.

In the second verse McCartney develops the idea with less repetition


The second verse,
Is nothing like the first,
oh yeah, oh yeah.
A straight repeat,
Might even make it worse,
oh no, oh no, yeah, yeah.
This is the title, yeah.

But then the third verse (after the bridge) returns to the original scheme.

Maybe that's something you can take away.

*Andy Warhol - incase you were wondering. You're welcome.

   

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.