10:69 Good Night

King of Sleep

Good Night was written by John for Julian Lennon, probably during May/June 1968*. You could call it part of John's sleep trilogy with I'm Only Sleeping and I'm So Tired, or a bookend with Good Morning, Good Morning. Either way sleep was a reoccurring theme in Lennon's work – appropriate for some one once dubbed “the laziest man in England”.

The rehearsal tracks on 50th Anniversary reveal Lennon wrote the song using the fingerpicking pattern Donovan taught him in Rishikesh (ticket 59) – making this a brother-song to Julia and Prudence (and Warm Gun).This guitar version with John, Paul and George adding complex vocal harmonies somewhere between 'Because' and 'barbershop quartet' (Take 10 - 0:26) was abandoned* leaving Ringo to rehearse with piano accompaniment from George Martin* in preparation for the orchestral backing (Take 22).

For the second time on a Ringo track the band attempted (then rejected) a spoken intro. Yellow Submarine kicked off with “And we will march to free the day to see them gathered there, from Land O’Groats to John O’Green, from Stepney to Utrecht, to see a yellow submarine, we love it!”. Here Ringo improvises lines like “Put all those toys away. Yes, Daddy will sing a song for you!” or “Cover yourself up, Charlie*. Pull those covers up and off you go to dreamland!”

The finished record has George Martin's fingerprints all over it but it's possible that some of the most 'Martin' moments originated with John. The wonderful instrumental interlude (1:50) is rather baroque in style and the only non-diatonic moment in the song (ticket 28). But the chord movement is clearly there when John is accompanying Ringo on the guitar (Take 10 – 1:32) and less clear when George is on the piano (Take 22 – 2:26). And the backing vocals recorded by the Mike Sammes Singers are well on their way to being 'overlush' in the hands (mouths) of John, Paul and George. None of this disproves 'Big George' having his finger in the pie but we have to credit John with being fully involved, as were the others. It's heart-warming to hear the whole band coaching Ringo as he become the third Beatles to record a 'solo track'*.

Ditching the piano to play celesta (2:14) George arranged the song for a string section (12 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 1 double bass) 8 singers, 3 flutes, a clarinet, a french horn, a vibraphone and a harp. Sappy or not, it's a beautiful arrangement and totally right for the song*.

Hey Jools, Please Go To Bed

Everything great about this song hinges on it being an 'occasional' song (Ticket 66) - in this case a lullaby. Beyond entertainment or passive listening an occasional song serves a purpose – a national anthem, a birthday song, a football team chant, learning your times-tables. How 'good' it is depends to a large extent on how well it serves that purpose. This song is designed to lull a little loved one to sleep and John makes lyrical and melodic choices that might be bad for your average pop song but are perfect here*.

Lyrically it's incredibly simple. John uses only 30 different words (Ticket 23) and they are all one syllable*. Perfect for a song written for a five year old child.

Small children love repetition. We have the same phrase in lines 2 and 4 (good night, sleep tight) and a wholesale repeat of verse 2 after the instrumental section (Ticket 67). There's also repetition via parallel lyrics (Ticket 24) dream sweet dreams for me / for you and the lovely rhyming concept of sun/moon - Now the moon begins to shine (v1) and Now the sun turns out his light (v2). All this repetition is very comforting.

Simplicity defines the structure too. The only distinct section is a verse with a refrain (the term 'chorus' seems a bit grand for 'dream sweet dreams...' and the title is in the other section). For analysis sake we'll call the verse A and the refrain B. The brief instrumental interlude is a variation on the B section, and so is the intro/outro (ticket 4).

Tune out

The modest vocal range of less than an octave (ticket 40) is another thing that marks it out as a 'children's song'.

The A section finds Lennon at his most melodic, though he doesn't leap around as athletically as McCartney, using 3rds, 4ths and 5ths. The B section is typically horizontal using two notes in the first phrase (dream sweet dreams for me) and only one in the second (dream sweet dreams for you). But the lush chords make it sound clever because every note is supported (doubled) by rich chords – major sevens and slash chords (D7/G) implying 11th and 13ths.

Far more important though is the shape of the melody. The melody feels so wonderfully light and 'sing-song' because it constantly goes up and down and sticks to the same lazy 1 / +3 / +1 / +3 rhythm. Notice the rhythmic similarity between close / your eyes / and I'll /close mine and dream / sweet dreams / for me.

There are three subtle contrasts between the A and B sections that prevent things becoming monotonous. First, as already mentioned, the range in the A section is a 6th (C - A) but only a semitone in the B (F# - G). Second, the melodies move in the opposite direction. Up-down-up-down-up-down-up in the A section and down-up-down-up-down in the B. Finally, the vocal rhythm is broken up on lines 2 and 4 of the A section (good night, sleep tight) by having the chords change on every word (ticket 36) instead of two words per chord in the rest of the song.

That said, many things that make a great Beatles song are missing here – the only out of key chords (ticket 28) are the G7 and A7 implied in the instrumental section. In fact there's very little chord movement at all – a short jump from G to Bm7 followed by a walk back down to Am7 and G is about as daring as it gets. There's a descant (ticket 58) at 0:55 but the backing vocals are in the background, smothered in strings. The whole effect is a soothing comfort blanket of sound with the opening and closing string melody rocking you to sleep. The only 'drama' is the ascending scales in the 'solo' but even that section ends with the cellos drifting down into the land of nod. In short there is no drama because drama is not what you need in a lullaby.

John (and the team) show such restraint in this recording and to me that's what makes it such a successful song in it's own right.

The wonderful thing about writing an occasional song is that the competition is so limited (Christmas songs aside). So even your poor attempt at a bar mitzvah, pancake day, university graduation or coming out song is probably going to be in the All Time Top 20.

I mean how many great rock lullabies* can you name?

Footnotes

Probably during May/June 1968*
The song is unlikely to predate Rishikesh as Lennon is using the fingerpicking technique learned in India and it wasn't demoed at Esher in May, so it was probably written afterwards.

Abandoned
Also abandoned was a crazy-sounding octave-higher guitar effect achieved by double-tracking the guitar part at half-speed (Good Night Take 10).

Piano played by George Martin
Of the three suspects – the pianist is clearly not John. The rehearsal tapes (Take 22) reveal he's in the control room using the talkback mic. George and Paul are in the studio with Ringo but seem to be there for moral support and click track duties. George Martin is also on the 'production floor' and the piano playing is both accomplished and similar to the string parts in a way that suggests he's fleshing out the arrangement. In short Paul would play more like a piano player, this person is playing like an arranger/accompanist – so George gets my vote.

Cover yourself up, Charlie
I'm not the first person to wonder what Charles Manson would have made of getting a name check on the White Album.

The third Beatles to record a 'solo track'
Paul had recorded Yesterday, without the others and George, Within You Without You. John would complete the set with Julia, coached through his performance by Paul in the control room.

Totally right for the song
As is Giles Martin's remix which sparkles, gives the arrangement a kick at 1:05 and 1:34 and removes the nasty thump from Ringo's whispered outro (2:53).

John makes lyrical and melodic choices [that] are perfect
Certainly more effectively than Paul's screamer of a lullaby Golden Slumbers written six months later!

One syllable
Ringo says 'everybody' in the coda but that's a spoken ad-lib rather than a part of the song.

Rock lullabies
Though it's NOT a lullaby I'm convinced that Queen's We Will Rock You was inspired by the Czech lullaby Little Jesus, Sweetly Sleep aka The Rocking Carol translated by Percy Dearmer. 

Ticket 66: Write An Occasional Song

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10:68 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (pt.2) Four Beatles In Search Of A Groove

Written in Rishikesh and originally titled Obla Dee Obla Da, the received narrative about this song is that Lennon hated it and furiously forced it over the finish line, propelling the band at breakneck speed with his drug-crazed piano playing.

McCartney was always the musical visionary who could complete what Lennon started but on this song the tables were turned. For once McCartney was at sea musically and it was Lennon that came to the rescue.

A walk through the different versions reveal a clear plan and stunning failure to execute it.

• Esher demo
• Version 1
• Version 2 – this is the version on The White Album
• Version 3 – abandoned after a couple of takes and unreleased

All version were played in A but on the Esher demo the guitars are tuned down a semitone to Ab and on version 2 the tape is varisped up a semitone to Bb.

That the song was always intended to be a ska-influenced recording is clear. Calling the song "one of the first examples of white reggae" Stewart Copeland says, "Ob-la-di has an accent, ob-la-da has an accent, 'life goes on...' sort of leads you into that ska feel. There's a definite scansion to those lyrics, which is probably why they ended up playing a ska beat"*. Paul's lyrics and ska-approved vocal percussion "chicka-bum" and Lennon's studio comments "Oobladi-blada. Brutha!", "Yassuh! Take one, and de Mighty Jumbo Band!” show their heads were somewhere more tropical than St. John's Wood, NW8.

Version 1 has been released as an Anniversary Edition bonus track ('Take 3') and on Anthology 3 ('Take 5'). The latter features the (uncredited) creator of the chorus lyrics, Jimmy Scott Emuakpor on congas.

Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.*

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Esher demo and Take 3 feature very straight ahead drumming and strumming – the only hint of ska is the chord fill in the bridge (1:29).

Take 5 (the same take with overdubs) add a lovely tiny cowbell, some busy sax parts, Jimmy's very busy congas and Paul's extremely busy bass.

There is zero groove at this point - no skanking* from guitar or piano and ultra 'white bread' drumming. The bass runs all over the place and the only semblance of a groove comes from congas and cowbell patterns that are messy and confused. The whole thing is a hyperactive hot mess, the result of adding more and more to a track that isn't working. Ringo has no idea what to play and McCartney, uncharacteristically, isn't able to help. Geoff Emerick stated the obvious saying "Paul wasn't happy with the rhythm of the track … he was after a Jamaican reggae feel and he wasn't satisfied that the band had nailed it"* but then went on to tell the tale that has become legend.

When Paul announced he wanted to … start the song again from scratch, John went ballistic. Ranting and raving, he headed out the door, with Yoko trailing closely behind, and we thought that we'd seen the last of him that evening. But a few hours later he stormed back into the studio, clearly in a highly altered state of mind.

"I AM F**KING STONED!!" John Lennon bellowed from the top of the stairs … swaying slightly, he continued, waving his arms for emphasis. "I am more stoned than you have ever been. In fact, I am more stoned than you will ever be! … and this," Lennon added with a snarl, "is how the fucking song should go." Unsteadily, he lurched down the stairs and over to the piano and began smashing the keys with all his might, pounding out the famous opening chords that became the song's introduction, played at a breakneck tempo.*

Truth From Fiction

Lennon didn't play the song "at a breakneck tempo". Version 1 was recorded at 121bpm. Version 2 is only 112bpm even after varispeeding up. It was played at 107bpm – significantly slower. Lennon didn't speed the song up, he slowed it down to a tempo that allowed to song to breathe.

Side stepping the fruitless search for 'authenticity' he played what Ian MacDonald describes as a "mock music-hall piano"* intro giving it an instant instrumental hook (Ticket 3), before playing what the song had been crying out for all along the 2, 4 skank pattern. He was incapable of overplaying as McCartney and Emuakpor had been doing and Lennon's limitations as a piano player saved the track. Harrison fell in with a similar rhythm on acoustic guitar and Paul created a new, simple grooving bass line built on arpeggios on 1 2+ 3 4+. And Ringo ? Ringo played the same beat as before. But you can't have everything.

Once the track locked together, other ideas presented themselves. Compare the improvement in the rhythmic accompaniment on "Desmond and Molly Jones" from Version 1 (1:21 – Take 3, 1:23 - Take 5) to the Lennon-driven remake (1:30). There are some childlike plinky piano overdubs (2:32) and a sped-up gliss that sounds like a video game (2:08). McCartney's bassline deserves special mention, using a distorted acoustic guitar (0:02) to doubling the very simple bass line, Paul plays both instruments with a plectrum, adding funky ghost notes on the bass (0:06) that really make the song move.

Mind Blown

It's understandable that Paul would listen to Reggae/Ska and subconsciously absorb melodic ideas. So it forgivable that the start of the bridge has the same melody and almost exactly the rhythm as the opening line of River of Babylon by The Melodians.

In a couple of years
A A D D E F# (landing on a D major chord)

By the rivers of Babylon
D D G G A B B B (landing on a G major chord)

But here's the bombshell. Paul's song was released two years earlier! Did the Beatles have a influence on the seminal 1970 song?*

Footnotes

One of the first examples of white reggae
Stewart Copeland: Musician Magazine (1988)

perfection is attained
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Wind, Sand and Stars (p. 31)

Paul wasn't happy with the rhythm
Geoff Emerick: Here, There and Everywhere (p.246)

Skanking
Sharp off beat chord hits which are the foundation of reggae & ska (on beats 2 and 4 in reggae and the 'ands' between beats in ska).

Paul wanted to start the song again from scratch
Geoff Emerick: Here, There and Everywhere (p.247)

Mock music-hall piano
Ian MacDonald: Revolution In The Head (p.295)

Seminal 1970 song
It was a no 1 hit in Jamaica on release and reached an international audience via The Harder They Come Soundtrack which is credited with having "brought reggae to the world" (L.A. Times).

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10:67 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (pt.1) Melody and Lyrics

For the record I don't think Ob-La-Di is a terrible song – it's a great piece of family friendly lowbrow entertainment written and played with real craftsmanship and made to look deceptively easy. It's like the perfect McDonald's meal. It's probably not good for you as your only diet but I'd like to see you go behind the counter and put one together yourself.

McCartney (with a little help from his friends) displays his gift for doing the very simple and accessible brilliantly. The building blocks are mundane. The structure is V C V C B etc. The chords almost entirely diatonic ('in-key') with only the Bb7 in the bridge (2:16) implied by saxes, venturing 'outside' (Ticket 28). The bridge builds back into the verse with via the V chord (1:31) just like they did in Twist And Shout (Ticket 65). We have a bit of a descant (Ticket 58) coming in at 1:01, the helium effect the obvious result of varispeeding the tape.

Two Melody Tips

One very simple way McCartney generates memorable vocal melodies is through repetition.

In the chorus he repeats the same three notes for

Ob-la-di / ob-la-da / life goes on

Secondly, in the verse he develops a musical cell (Ticket 9), essentially taking a melodic fragment and moving it up one scale tone each time.

Desmond has a barrow in the mar...  D D D D D D C Bb A
Molly is the singer in a...  E E E E E E D C Bb
Desmond says to Molly, girl, I...   F F F F F F E D

All We Hear Is Radio Bla-Da

A third simple trick he employs is using the 'Aeolian Cadence' (Ticket 10) finishing on the relative minor chord instead of the tonic chord. Here he uses it to delay the ending rather than change it.

Most songs finish with the melody arriving on the root note on the final syllable as the chords land on the tonic chord (in this song a Bb note on a Bb major chord). In the chorus, the melody

D C Bb (Life goes on) happens over an F to Bb chord progression (1:06).

But the final time the same melody occurs over F to Gm (2:57).

This still works, because there's a Bb note in Gm. But that chord (the relative minor or vi chord in the key of Bb) makes us feel like we've been left hanging. Then Paul sings "and if you want some fun..." before the melody walks all the way back down "...sing ob-la-di, bla-da" and Bb note reunites with Bb chord. Hi honey we're home!

Winston And The Trolley Problem

It’s a very me song, in as much as it’s a fantasy about a couple of people who don’t really exist, Desmond and Molly. I’m keen on names too. Desmond is a very Caribbean name. It could have been Winston, that would have been all right.

Paul McCartney*

Paul likes to Write Like A Novelist (Ticket 70) but here the story is a pretty straight forward 'boy meets girl' verse married to a non sequitur chorus

Him: Will you marry me?
Her: Life goes on!
Him: Wait. What? Is that a yes?

Again Paul uses old, familiar tools to build a catchy song.

A ridiculously simple and repetitive rhyme scheme (ABAB) - place/face, band/hand in verse 1, 3 and 4 (reversing hand/band in 3 and 4) and store/door, ring/sing in verse 2. Straight repetition in the two bridges and verse 3 and 4. And parallel lyrics (Ticket 24) to increase the stickiness everywhere.

The bridge has

In a couple of years / with a couple of kids

but the structure of the entire song is built on the lyrical framework of 'Desmond does this, Molly does that' – though Desmond and Molly's positions shift around the verses as aren't always at the same melodic points.

Desmond has a / Molly is a / Desmond says / Molly says this
Desmond take a trolley / takes it back to Molly
Desmond let's the children / Molly stays at home

This is even more pronounced in the bookending between verses 1 and 3

Has a barrow in the market place / happy ever after in the market place
The singer in a band / sings it with the band
Molly … I like your face / Molly ... does her pretty face
Takes him by the hand / children lend a hand
Desmond says to Molly / Molly says this

Very workmanlike but very effective. The only part that stands out is the clever internal rhyme

Desmond takes a trolley / takes it back to Molly

which is surely a result John and Paul's fantastic ear for how words 'sing' than any grand plan. Why else would you take a trolley?

The Beatles had a long history of spoofing lyrics*, constantly messing about for 'laffs'. Paul's first impression of John was to marvel at the way he rewrote lyrics that he didn't know or couldn't remember. So perhaps Paul's "genuine mistake" with the line “Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face” (2:34) was simply playing for laughs as Lennon did with the song in the Abbey Road sessions: "Desmond has a sparrow in his pocket book, Molly had an eagle in the Strand" finishing off with "And if you want some jam!.."

This spoofing is not confined to the lead vocals either. Amid the laughter, genuine (3:06) and fake "ha ha ha" (1:34), there are barely audible asides from John and George all designed to let some air out of Paul's beautiful balloon.

1:42 After the line "lets the children lend a hand" (George: "arm", John: "leg")
2:33 After the line "lets the children lend a hand" (George: "foot")

Though premeditated to some degree, this is still an example of leaving your mistakes in (Ticket 72). Just like counting in, musicians mess around all the time, but most of the mess is cleaned up before the song is offered for public consumption.

Next time: John Lennon the unlikely musical saviour of Paul's granny music.

FOOTNOTES

It’s a very me song
Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (p.348)

The Beatles had a long history of spoofing lyrics
The frequently altered lyrics live, name-checking local vicars, Bob Wooler and other audience members and changing "shimmy, shimmy" to "shitty shitty" in I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate and "I'm so blue and lonely" to "I'm so bloody lonely" in I Forgot To Remember To Forget. Raining In My Heart became Raining In The Yard and Sharing You - Shaving You.
Mark Lewisohn: Tune In (p.128, 419, 429, 539, 606, 680, 821).

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The Revolution Is Over!

I've finally finished working my way through Revolution and/or Revolution 1!!!

Here's all the posts

10:61 Revolution (pt.1) Did George Play Bass on Revolution 1, or was Paul just having a bad day at the office?
10:62 Revolution (pt.2) - What's The Difference between the album, single and video versions?
10:63 Revolution (pt.3) Will the real Revolution please stand up? Album or single - Which is the definitive version?
10:64 Revolution (pt.4) All We Are Saying: Lyrics - rhyme schemes and structures
10:65 Revolution (pt.5) - Don't Bore Us, Get To The Pre-Chorus - structures, out of key chords and the V chord
10:66 Revolution (pt.6) Fake Mistakes - embellishments, edits and extensions

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10:66 Revolution (pt.6) Fake Mistakes

Embrace (or Fake) Your Mistakes

One little detail that gives Revolution 1 the edge over Revolution for me are the little editing mistakes in the album version (Ticket 72: Embrace your mistakes).

At the beginning of the track there is studio chatter, a false start on guitar, followed by engineer Geoff Emerick saying "take 2"* and Lennon saying "OK" and near the end (3:23) a tape edit spliced together incorrectly resulting in an unintended 2/4 bar*. Lennon can be heard talking on an unmuted track (3:28) and you could even make a case for Lennon's "count me out … in" as something of a 'deliberate' error.

These all contribute to a very specific loose vibe for the track and what's important to remember is that though all of these things were genuine 'accidents', their appearance on the finished recording were not. Even with the fairly primitive recording gear available, they had the opportunity to go back and mute channels, redo tape edits and even take five minutes to say "John, make up your mind – are you 'in' or 'out'?". But they didn't. They chose to 'put a frame' around the mistakes and make them part of the art. Sometimes mistakes will result in a musical choice that you would never have thought of (the 2/4 bar) and sometimes it just helps to communicate a mood. Here the band wants to say "we're just having a jam, everybody join in" but rather than play sloppy with no rehearsal, the band is tight but communicates the mood by these little extras*.

Every time you hear a count-in on a Beatles record it's a deliberate choice. After all, most takes started with a count-in and almost every one was later edited out. But I Saw Her Standing There, Yer Blues and Taxman retained theirs, to communicate the "we're gonna rock out!" vibe. And not just retain them. Each count-in was edited in from a different take, presumably one that had more energy*.

On my album Fifty Five Stories Down I wanted the listener to have the feeling of being 'in the room' rather than being a distant audience. So I recorded every sessions in entirety and cherry picked snippets of conversation between me and producer Daniel Wright to bookend the tracks (some so long they merited their own track). Nothing was staged or scripted* but comments were spliced together or moved to different songs to improve the flow. And there were happy accidents too like the mournful police siren during the song River of Suffering (3:08).

Edits And Extensions: The Strange Rhythm Scene Of John Lennon

I dig the people that notice that I have a sort of strange rhythm scene, because I've never been able to keep rhythm on the stage. I always used to get lost. It's me double off-beats.

John Lennon: The Rolling Stone Interview (Nov 23 1968)

The unintended tape edit in the chorus is not the only 2/4 bar. Every other section has one as part of the composition. The verse is a classic example of The Lennon Extension (Ticket 52) where his "well you know" needs a extra space to fit in. Try singing without the "well..."

You say you want a revolution, you know
We all want to change the world

The lyrics fit into 4/4 and is the way someone without 'double off-beats' might play it. The single-only solo retains the same half bar. The end of the pre-chorus has a 2/4 bar to allow a full two bars of building.

Cool And Unusual Embellishments

Though the 'shooby doo' is a pretty mundane example of a descant (Ticket 58) it's also a musical idea borrowed from another genre, in this case Doo-Wop. The guitar's shuffle pattern is borrowed from the blues and the switches from A to D and E hint at a 12 bar blues progression. The vocal melody utilises the major pentatonic scale almost entirely except for 'bluesifying the melody' (Ticket 22) with a b3 on "it's gonna be AL – right". All of which gives this folk song a playful, doo-wop/blues flavour (Ticket 25).

The song has some great instrumental hooks (Ticket 3) - the acoustic guitar riff at end of each chorus, the electric guitar fill at the end of verse 2 and the 'Indian' bass run down in the (album version) pre-chorus.

There's a couple of unusual choices too. It's normal practice to edit down a song for single release and the first thing to go is usually the solo but Revolution one of the few songs to add a solo rather than take it out. The single's solid blues ending is an improvement on the album's fade out. Fading is something the Beatles hardly ever did but on this song even the Esher demo fades.

Footnotes

Geoff Emerick saying "take 2"
As the take is actually Take 18, It's unclear why he is saying "take 2." It may be in response to Paul "humorously announcing the next take off mic as "take three?" or be a clipped part of a longer phrase "I'll take it to...".

Humorously announcing the next take off mic as "take three?"
Beatles Book.com

Unintended 2/4 bar
As 2/3rd of a triplet you could make a case for it being a 5/4 bar or even a 14/8. But that's above my mathematical pay grade.

The band is tight but communicates the mood
Ironically Give Peace A Chance uses the opposite method to achieve the same effect. It genuinely is sloppily performed and badly recorded and required later studio vocal overdubs to make it acceptable for release.

Each count-in was edited in from a different take
If you listen to Taxman you can hear two overlapping count-ins.

Nothing was staged or scripted
As a example of 'staged recording' listen to the start of Cigarettes And Alcohol by Oasis. The hissing guitar amp (and whistling) was overdubbed later for effect on top of the track, which becomes clear when it slowly fades out when the rest of the band enters.

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10:65 Revolution (pt.5) - Don't Bore Us, Get To The Pre-Chorus

*N.B. All timings are for Revolution 1 unless otherwise stated.

Revolution has some great songwriting tips to give us and a lot of them are contained in the pre-chorus. If great songwriting is a matter of tension and resolution, much of the tension is here.

Here's an experiment – grab your guitar and play the song, omitting the pre-choruses. Structurally it still works and even the narrative flow still hangs together. But it just ambles along, three chord wallpaper.

So how do the pre-chorus do that voodoo that it do so well?

Gimme Five

Firstly like all three sections it ends by building on the V chord (even the single-only piano solo does it – 2:03). Ticket 65 (in it's most extreme incarnation the "aaahhhh" section of Twist and Shout) appears in the verse as we hang there for two bars to gently build anticipation (0:43). On the chorus we enjoy a cool guitar break, again built on the V (1:16). But in the pre-chorus it's a proper build up (0:59), not only used to create a lift back to the chorus' tonic chord but also to reset our ears and restate the key after the F# chord (0:56).

Something Sounds Fishy

Let's talk about F#. First of all it's completely out of key chord (Ticket 28) providing the freshness and surprise that OOKC's do. But occurring near the end of the section it seems to be setting us up for a big key change. Where are we going next? The excitement is palpable! Though Bm and E are still in the home key of A the pre-chorus hints that Bm might be becoming the new key centre. The G and A chords that follow are firmly in the key of Bm and F# is the V of i (translation = an F# major chord leads REALLY strongly back to Bm, even though technically F#m is the chord that belongs in that key). And the Beatles have used that trick hundreds of times – While My Guitar Gently Weeps (0:29), Because (0:39), Girl (0:09), I Me Mine (0:29), I Want You (She's So Heavy) (1:44) I'm Only Sleeping (0:08) etc.

The vocal melody at this point is hanging on an A# (count me OUT) which if you're in the key of A major is about as nasty and weird as you can get but if you're transposing to Bm it's the 'leading tone' (7th) - the smoothest path you can take.

So we're heading to Bm, right? Nope. Lennon chooses the 'real' V chord (E major) and takes us back to A major. Why? Because he doesn't want to change! Revolution is an anti-revolution song, remember? Don't you know? It's gonna be alright!

Cos when you want a transposition
Don't you know that you can count me out!

I Asked My Cat Who His Favourite Socialist Was ...

He just looked at me and said Mao.

Lennon reserves his most forceful arguments for the pre-choruses. Not only through his use of humour (the Chairman Mao lines), but in the way the whole band punctuate the polemics and gags. Listen to the way the band let the vocals take centre stage. On the single (0:34), guitar and bass drop entirely (Ticket 30), on the album (0:48) sustained chords from the guitar and horns allow the lyrics room to breathe.

Lennon may have played to both political sides on the album version, but listen to how the chords change on every word (0:55) to ram home the message "COUNT (G) ME (A) OUT (F#)". This (Ticket 36) is a powerful way to make your point in a song, in comparison John's [count me] "in" sounds like a weak afterthought once the band are pounding away on the F# chord.

The way Lennon develops the different pre-chorus vocal lines deserves credit too. PC 1 employs the same "lah-di-dah-di" (long-short-long-short) shuffle rhythm that vocals, drums and guitar play in the verse

"don't-you / know-that / you-can"

but PC 2 and 3 up the tension by using a faster triple time rhythm (not technically a triplet as we're in 12/8 time but it's essentially the same thing)

if-you-want / mo-ney-for / peo-ple-with
All-I-can / tell-you-is / bro-ther-you'll

So as well as upping the urgency from the first set of lyrics by adding more rhymes (see previous post) he's building by having a more insistent, busier rhythm. This development from one pre-chorus to the next is a mark of a true craftsperson, sorely needed in today's copy-and-paste era, where each section is literally a clone of an earlier ones (albeit with ever-increasing overdubs).

These later pre-choruses provide a contrast to the laid back rhythm of the verse and chorus. The chorus vocals are an octave higher than the other sections. If you map the vocal line out like this

V – low and laid back
PC – low and busy
C – high and laid back

you can see how distinct each section is.

Finally, one detail that's easy to miss is the way Paul staggers the piano chords in the pre-chorus, playing on the 'and' after 3. It's inaudible on the finished mix (0:49) but clear on Take 18 - the 50th Anniversary 'outtake' (1:00).

Next time we'll finish our look at the 'Revolution twins' with mistakes, odd timing and unusual choices.

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10:64 Revolution (pt.4) All We Are Saying - Lyrics

Structure

Revolution is one of Lennon's most tightly structured lyrics. You can break the whole song down as follows

Verse: “You say you want to do this, but I'm not sure. I for one have reservations. You say you want to do that but I'm not sure. Again, I have reservations".

pre-chorus: “But when you propose this other thing, that's going too far”.

Chorus: “You should just chill out”.

Employing the Beatles favourite device of parallel lyrics (Ticket 24) makes the structure clearer and more memorable

Verse: “You say you … Well, you know we … You tell me/you ask me … Well, you know we …"

pre-chorus: “But when you/but if you …”

A Mild Case of Rhymes Disease

The facsimiles included in the 50th Anniversary Edition book reveal a Harrison-style list of rhymes

constitution
institution
desolation
revelation
pollution
dissolution
confusion
intrusion
distribution [?]
Constitution [?]

but where While My Guitar Gently Weeps (and Dig A Pony for that matter) succumb to Rhymes Disease, letting rhymes dictate what the song is saying and being so obvious that it distracts from the meaning, Revolution's wordplay manages to be cute and memorable.

In this it shares much with it's spiritual successor, Give Peace A Chance. Released a year later it's another campfire friendly peace anthem, marrying a rhyme-laden, preachy verse to a mantra like chorus. It even gives the previous song a self-referential nod "everybody's talking 'bout revolution, evolution..." If anything Give Peace A Chance distils the core concepts even further and is arguably more successful for it.

Don't Break It Till You Make It

The Beatles weren't afraid to break a rhyme scheme (Ticket 73) if they had a good reason, but here Lennon does something different. The first verse has one rhyme (A) and two repeated lines (b & c), and the first pre-chorus doesn't rhyme at all (X)

Abc Abc XX

A You say you want a revolution
b Well, you know
c We all want to change the world

A You tell me that it's evolution
b Well, you know
c We all want to change the world

X But when you talk about destruction
X Don't you know that you can count me out

But the second and third verses/pre-choruses introduce a more rigorous rhyme structure

AbC AbC DD

2.

A You say you got a real solution
b Well, you know
C We'd all love to see the plan

A You ask me for a contribution
b Well, you know
C We're doing what we can

D But if you want money for people with minds that hate
D All I can tell is brother you have to wait

3.

A You say you'll change the constitution
b Well, you know
C We all want to change your head

A You tell me it's the institution
b Well, you know
C You better free you mind instead

D But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
D You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

The rhyme structure works brilliantly as it is (admit it, you didn't even notice, right?) but if the order of the verses are reversed the lack of rhymes in the first part lands badly, especially on the pre-chorus (destruction/count me out). Once you've set up the expectation of rhyme you're committed. So Lennon wisely doesn't let his poetic soul write cheques his rhyming dictionary can't cash. Or something.

This shows how skilful you have to be to use ticket 73. To break a rhyme you really have to be obeying some higher logic or structure device that the listener can sense if only subconsciously.

Ticket 24: Repeat words and sentence structures
Ticket 73: Interrupt the rhyme scheme by rhyming with a previous section or anticipating one that follows

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10:63 Revolution (pt.3) Will the real Revolution please stand up?

Revolution vs Revolution 1

Welcome to the post (and song) that threw the spanner in the works of my blogging through the Beatles catalogue. But I'm here to just poke a big stream of consciousness stick down the plug hole of musical constipation ... wait … let me start again …

Revolution and Revolution 1 are unique in the Beatles catalogue. Not merely remixes (Across The Universe), or out of the vault alternative takes (One After 909 on Anthology), or a new piece built on the bones of an existing one (Revolution 9). These are two completely independent attempts on the same song. The Beatles covering the Beatles. Just imagine if Lennon had wanted to release both versions of Strawberry Fields Forever instead of stitching them together?

So before analysing the song it feels apposite to ask: Which is the real version? The right version? The original version? The best version? And is that four ways of asking the same question?

You can attempt to answer via

• chronology
• personal chronology (i.e. which one you heard first)
• personal preference
• authorial intent

First, the TL;DR version confirming the world and John Lennon agree with all my prejudices followed by the TL;BIRIAA (Too Long But I Read It All Anyway) version in which I hope to change your mind.

TL;DR - Revolution 1 (aka 'the album version') is the definitive version

Why?

Chronology: It was recorded in Jun 68, a month before the single version.

Personal chronology: I heard the White Album as a kid on my sister's TDK120 cassette – I didn't hear the single till I started Beatles Songwriting Academy in 2009. So there.

Personal preference: That fuzztone is like someone poured itching powder into my eyeballs and it's the most prominent element on the record. Bad tones do have their place on great records (in the background or just prior to something awesome, making it sound even awesomer).

Authorial Intent: Lennon was happy with the album cut and it was only after Paul and George vetoed it as a single that he decided to rerecord it. His comments in 1980 reveal he still considered the album cut to be better.

Convinced? No? Let's dig deeper.

CONFUSING CHRONOLOGY – PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

Just like Let It Be/Abbey Road, Revolution has a convoluted timeline. Revolution 1 (album version) was recorded first, but released second. The promo video for the single replaced the vocals with a 'live' take (to get around Musician Union rules against miming) and could be considered a third distinct version.



Revolution 1 - recorded 30, 31 May; 4, 21 June
Revolution - recorded 9-12 July
Revolution - released 30 Aug
Revolution Video - recorded 4 Sep
Revolution Video - released 8 Sep (Frost on Saturday)
Revolution 1 - released 22 Nov (UK), 25 Nov (US)

If you were sentient in 1968 you would have heard the 'do-over' almost a full two months before the original. That's a long time to get used to the over-distorted freakout before encountering the laid back jam session. Alan W. Pollack sounds like someone who encountered the single first, calling it “the 'true' version of the song, and the album cut … a remake ... a veritable parody of the single version”.*

First time listeners from 1969 onwards probably heard the album cut first unless they arrived via the 'Blue Album' (The Beatles: 1967–1970) or Past Masters.

FUZZTONE REVISTED

As a rock guitarist I've spent countless hours sampling the nuances of distorted guitar tones like a sommelier of sound. Distortion vs overdrive, pedals vs amp, transistors vs tubes, pre amp or power amp of course humbuckers vs single coils. This single is covered with the stankiest DI'd-to-the-desk “full spectrum of frequencies”* fuzztone, a sound so bad that record buyers were returning their 'defective' singles, only to be met with the explanation “it's called distortion, apparently. It's meant to sound like that”.*

And though George Harrison didn't love the album version, he wasn't impressed with the the single either, “I think Revolution is pretty good and it grooves along, but I don't particularly like the noise that it makes; and I say 'noise' because I didn't like the distorted sound of John's guitar.”*

WAS JOHN HAPPY WITH THE ALBUM VERSION?

Was the album version a demo to be reworked? Did they need two attempts to get it right? Or was the single (recorded second) merely a cover of the album version?

Lennon seems to have been perfectly happy with Revolution. Re-recording it only became an issue when, according to John, “George and Paul ... said it wasn't fast enough”* and vetoed it as a single. Perhaps the guys weren't comfortable with releasing such a overt political statement or “Paul felt that the song simply wasn't all that good”* but fudged the issue.

To be charitable to Paul and the others what they were hearing was not what we hear on The White Album. 'Revolution 1 (take 18)' was a sprawling 10 minutes 29 seconds of hippy flavoured jam. Eventually the second half was lopped off and allowed to carrying on mutating into Revolution 9 like some weird alien limb. It would be understandable if they had mentally consigned such freakishness to the 'album track' bin and were unable to hear it with fresh ears, especially knowing Lennon had no problem with flaunting his experimental underwear in public.

At the same time Paul was pushing for Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da to be the single. Neither writer would back down and both set about rerecording their songs to break the deadlock.

“John had defiantly taken [Paul] up on the challenge and so was insisting that they cut it again, faster...that was typical of him in those days; that was his vibe: pissed off”.*

Lennon had a history of needing to speed up his songs. Help and Please Please Me were dirge-like till George Martin got hold of them. Antagonised by Paul, John vented his frustration on the piano, propelling the remake of Ob-La-Di into more ragged, less commercial (and arguably better) territory. On the Revolution single Lennon was taking a similar wrecking ball to his own song but what you are hearing is not the 'soundtrack to a revolution' but two songwriters fighting for an A-side (before Hey Jude came along and rendered the point moot).

“I wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn't good enough...We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting real tense with each other. The first take, George and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't fast enough. Now, if you go into the details of what a hit record is and isn't, maybe. But The Beatles could have afforded to put out the slow, understandable version of 'Revolution' as a single, whether it was a gold record or a wooden record”.*

Interviewed 12 years later, John has no problem dismissing other songs he's written as “embarrassing”, “disgusting”, “a horror”, “garbage”, “crap”, “abysmal” and “lousy”* but here it's instructive he says “they said it wasn't good enough”. Undoubtedly the remake has more energy, due to key, tempo and timbre. The bassline moving off the root note more also helps. But the majority of musical changes are arguably cosmetic (see here for a full breakdown).

Unconvinced about the intersection of tempo and commercial appeal, when Lennon describes Revolution 1 as “the slow, understandable version” he wasn't just implying the album cut was better but also that the remake somehow obscured the core message.

It's this point that I want to dig into as it's the reason why the single is less successful and points to an instructive lesson about songwriting.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, WINSTON?

Authorial intent is key - to assess how well the song 'works' we need to know what the author was trying to achieve, and in Lennon's case, to say.

Written in an ashram in Rishikesh Revolution 1 was a hippie manifesto for peace. The title Revolution occurs ONCE in the entire song. After Lennon opens with “YOU say YOU want a revolution” he spends the rest of the song telling us what HE wants – which is for everyone to chill out and enjoy a little bit of moderate, well-managed change. The chorus (the emotional heart of any well constructed song) is

Don't you know it's gonna be... all right
Don't you know it's gonna be... all right
Don't you know it's gonna be... all right

It's just the kind of thing you'd expect a man who's been meditating on a mountain, half a world away from riots, invasions and assassinations, a man who “really thought that love would save us all".*

And he reaffirmed this stance at the end of his life, “the lyrics stand today. It's still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. That is what I used to say to Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Count me out if it is for violence. Don't expect me to be on the barricades unless it is with flowers. As far as overthrowing something in the name of Marxism or Christianity, I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people.”*

Lennon's attitude was unpopular in 1968 and open to the charge that the Beatles were out of touch millionaires. Cocooned in the studio when Bobby Kennedy was shot and Paris rioted, holidaying as Czechoslovakia was invaded, and literally retreating from worldly distractions as Reverend King was assassinated. Harrison expressed the tension in the cut verse to While My Guitar Gently Weeps “I look at the trouble and hate that is raging … as I’m sitting here, doing nothing but ageing”.

But out of touch or not, that is what was Lennon trying to express. So to say “the madman-on-a-street-corner raving of the single resonates more sympathetically with the sense of the lyrics”* or dismiss the album version as a “song about revolution with all the bite taken out”* is wrong.

Revolution is an anti-revolution song.

In the remake the message of the chorus (“Don't you know it's gonna be alright”) is obscured by the missing words and a lack of vocal reinforcement and the only ambiguity in the lyrics - “count me out...in” - is removed.

Pressured by the band to remake the music in “a much more commercial style”* Lennon paradoxically made choices that pleased no one. Masking his peacenik sentiments by punching up the music didn't impress the radical left who labelled the song "a lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear"* at the same time leaving out the one thing they would have approved of - the ‘count me in’ - “Because I’m a coward – I don’t want to be killed”* by the establishment who continued to view hippy counter culture as a threat anyway.

John didn't like the remake, George didn't like the guitars and Geoff Emerick is probably right saying “I think Paul felt that the song simply wasn't all that good”*. In the 40 years since Paul has never covered Revolution or performed it live.

It's worth noting that when the Beatles recorded the 'video version' (adding live vocals to the single backing track) they undid every change that they could – Lennon adding the “in” back 'in', Paul and George singing “Don't you know it's gonna be” three times and reinstating the almost universally derided “shoo-bee-do-wop" backing vocals.

There is a good song, perhaps a great (if misunderstood) song hidden within two unsuccessful recordings. Perhaps it needed a decent cover version like Marmalade's take on Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da*. Something that followed the author's blueprint but had some distance from the distracting circus that the band's life and creative process had become.

In future posts we'll look at the song itself.

FOOTNOTES

A veritable parody of the single version
Alan W. Pollack

Full spectrum of frequencies distorted
Geoff Emerick in Andy Babiuk: Beatles Gear (p.222)

It’s called distortion, apparently
Chris Ingham: The Rough Guide To The Beatles (p. 254)

I didn't like the distorted sound of John's guitar
George Harrison in Beatles Anthology (p.298)

George and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't fast enough.
John Lennon in Beatles Anthology (p.298)

Personally, I think Paul felt that the song simply wasn't all that good
Geoff Emerick: Here, There And Everywhere (p. 252)

That was typical of him in those days; that was his vibe: pissed off.
Geoff Emerick: Here, There And Everywhere (p. 252)

The slow, understandable version
John Lennon in David Sheff: All We Are Saying (p.187)

Embarrassing, disgusting, a horror...
John Lennon in David Sheff: All We Are Saying (various places)

I really thought that love would save us all
John Lennon in Jann Wenner: Lennon Remembers (p.132)

The lyrics stand today. It's still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan.
John Lennon in David Sheff: All We Are Saying (p.187)

The madman-on-a-street-corner
Alan W. Pollack

A song about revolution with all the bite taken out
Erik Didriksen in a message to author

A lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear
New Left Review quoted in Revolution: Wikipedia

A much more commercial style.
John Lennon 1971 Interview

I’m a coward – I don’t want to be killed.
John Lennon 1971 Interview

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was covered by Marmalade and went on to be a no. 1 hit just as McCartney anticipated.

THANKS

Thanks to Rod 'Downburst' Johnston, Ross Durand, Zecoop, Erik Didriksen

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10:62 Revolution (pt.2) - What's The Difference?

Here's a comparison between the album version (Revolution 1) and the single (Revolution).

Album first - Single second - Video version third (where appropriate).

All divided by a dash. e.g. Key: A (this is the album) - Bb (slightly sharp) (this is the single).

Overall 

Key: A - Bb (slightly sharp). The single was almost certainly recorded in A major like the album but vari-sped up. When the band mimed the single for the video they 'played' in A without capos, making it likely that that is how they had most recently played it (the Esher demo was played in A but capoed at the third fret).

Tempo: 95 bpm - 118 bpm. If the track was vari-sped then the band would have cut it at 111 bpm (the Esher demo was 120bpm).

Vocals

Appropriately the lead vocals for 'laid-back version' were recorded lying down on the floor.

“count me out … in” – (0:53) “count me out” (0:40) - restored for video

“shoo-bee-doo-wop" backing vocals (1:00) – none – restored for video

“Don't you know it's gonna be” - three times – once - three time restored for video

So when the Beatles added live vocals to the single backing track for the video they undid every change they were able to.

Personnel

Both versions

John Lennon – lead vocals, electric guitar (lead on single)
George Harrison – electric guitar
Paul McCartney – Hammond organ
Ringo Starr – drums

Revolution 1 only

John Lennon – acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney – piano
Paul, George – backing vocals
All sources say Paul McCartney – bass but I suspect it was actually George Harrison

Derek Watkins, Freddy Clayton – trumpets
Don Lang, Rex Morris, J. Power, Bill Povey – trombones

Revolution only

Paul McCartney – bass
John, Paul, George, Ringo - handclaps

Nicky Hopkins – electric piano

Arrangement

Intro
Rev 1: false start, studio chatter (Geoff Emerick “take two”), a sound like someone hitting a box of cabassas (or possibly Yoko playing a washboard!). Original drum track barely audible before drum overdub comes in.
Rev: solo lead guitar, drums, rhythm guitar barely audible

Verse 1
Rev 1: no electrics, organ fades in at end, heavily double tracked vox
Rev: little or no double tracking on vox – blooper “that it's evo-juice-shan” (0:23)

Pre Chorus 1
Rev 1: sustained chords, long descending bassline
Rev: staccato chords and bassline

Chorus 1
Rev 1: "don't you know it's gonna be alright. don't you know it's gonna be alright. don't you know it's gonna be alright".
Electric fills, acoustic fill at end really boosted, bass (and piano) walking bassline
Rev: “don't you know it's gonna be alright. Alright. Alright.”
End fill played on electric, bass root notes

Verse 2
Rev 1: harmony vocals with lead and 'shooby' BVs, electric fill at end, bass root note (doesn't go to D) and annoying slides
Rev: no harmony BVs or fill. Bass walking

Pre Chorus 2 as PC1

Chorus 2
Rev 1: as C1
Rev: vocal mistake left in (1:44)

Solo
This section only occurs on single version (1:52) over a I, IV, V chord progression
Electric piano solo (Nicky Hopkins) with lead fills at end (John Lennon). Heavy breathing by Lennon.

Verse 3
Rev 1: “We all want to change your head”
Rev: “We'd all love to change your head”


Pre Chorus 3 as PC1

Chorus 3
Rev 1: Accident bad tape edit during the mixing process resulted in two extra beats at the end (3:23). Lennon decided to leave it in. A similar mistake happened later on McCartney's song Let Me Roll It (4:22).
Rev: electric piano fills

Outro
Rev 1: (3:29 – 4:16) pick scrapes, heavy breathing, Fade
Rev: (3:03-3:25) electric piano fills, stock blues ending on bII – I.

The vast majority of changes are arguably cosmetic.

The single has more energy, due to key, tempo and timbre. The bassline moving off the root note more also contributes to that. The message of the chorus is obscured by missing words and less vocal reinforcement. The only ambiguity in the lyrics “in/out” is removed. The single is an unambiguous statement of 'angry pacificism'.

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10:61 Revolution (pt.1) Did George Play Bass on Revolution 1?

Received wisdom

Lewisohn says the bass was overdubbed the day after the basic track with two Lennon vocals and the BVs but the 50th ann version of Take 18 doesn't have these BVs – just the bass. But it does have some embryonic samples/farting around from the Lennons which were supposed to be recorded later, with (or after) the drum overdub which is also missing. So something's confused.

Why I think Harrison did it

Paul played piano live (with John on acoustic and Ringo drums) and the bass 'seems' to be cut live at the same time. It's hard to believe they would have a full on extended jam with no bass. Take 18 (on the the 50th ann) has a bass line for it's entirety. It's unlikely anyone would think it worth while to continue playing for the whole extended freakout unless they were there at the time (and not overdubbing).

The bass is very unlike Paul - jamming or overdubbing. Compare how 'Pianist Paul' gets loose and wild, whereas 'Bassist Paul' seems to be happy with hanging on the root notes but overly enamoured with doing crazy slides. I can't believe Paul, given all the aimless filler in the last half of the track, wouldn't try to put in a lot more clever stuff - certainly a lot cleverer that a bunch of quick slides. The only McCartney-esque flourish is the descending line in the pre-chorus. However it does sounds a little 'indian' which points to …

George Harrison did play bass on some tracks like Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Honey Pie and She Said She Said.

Therefore I suspect George in Studio Three with the Fender VI.

But on the other hand

Paul did overdubbed bass on Revolution the single at a later date so it's possible he did the same thing here. Though on the other other hand (third hand?) this may be the source of the confusion about the album version.

What would decide it

Is there bass on earlier takes (1-17) of Revolution 1? Then it's definitely Harrison. Paul couldn't play piano and bass at the same time and they would have never overdubbed bass on discarded rehearsal takes. If there isn't it probably is an overdub by Paul.

Is there bass spill on the stems of Lennon's acoustic guitar, Paul's piano or Ringo's initial drums part? Then it's definitely Harrison. Later overdubs would not leak onto earlier tracks.

Is George's voice audible as studio chatter on the original takes. Then it's probably Harrison on bass. He wasn't involved otherwise.

Why it matters

If George played the bass - the lead guitarist laid down a uninspired bass take during an extended jam session that somehow morphed into a album track. So what!

But if Paul played the bass – arguably Paul's unimaginative bass playing 'ruined' Revolution 1 just like John's error-strewn take 'ruined' The Long And Winding Road. Listen to verses 2 and 3 (1:21) – the bass inexplicably abandons the walking line of the first verse, ignores the chord changes and hangs on the root note, which in turned forced George Martin into arguably his most uninspired horn arrangement.

After two less than stellar versions – Lennon could have taken another crack but he lacked Paul's stamina. So where Paul would power through a Maxwell or an Ob-La-Di, Lennon gave up on tunes like Across The Universe.


Footnotes


Lewisohn says Mark Lewisohn: The Beatles Recording Sessions (p.137)

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