It was fifty-four years ago today...
It's one of those occasions that made it into pop legend, and, as quoted at length in this post, inspires a lot of rock biographers to vent their inner purple prose stylist to this day: July 6th, 1957, aka The Day John Met Paul. Now I've quoted the most florid best descriptions of the meetings itself already, plus in Bad Brückenau I'm far from most of my trusty books, but in between gymnastics and medical baths, I had to do a celebratory post nonetheless.
First and foremost, of course, it's great that they met because of the songwriting and the terrific vocal harmonies. Says the immensely readable Alan Pollack, apropos She Loves You: Have you ever noticed the peculiar property of the voices of John and Paul heard in close harmony? Sometimes they sound like a third voice which resembles neither of their own, and sometimes they quite simply make vocal "sparks". (Source here.)
Speaking of She Loves You, there's a reason why this song among all the very early Beatles songs - not I want to hold your hand, not Please Please Me - somehow seems to capture the group as it was when bursting on the musical scene. It has the exubarance, the giddy joy, and the twist from the then pop standard formula (boy sings about wanting girl, having girl, losing girl): the little narrative is a conversation between friends, the narrator encouraging his friend, not the narrator lamenting his woes. It also has a well documented origin story courtesy of interviews with its two composers and was written n when the Beatles were in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to play the Majestic Ballroom on 26 June 1963. John and Paul sat facing each other on twin beds in their shared room at the Turk's Hotel.
Paul: We must have had a few hours before the show so we said, 'Oh, great! Let's have a ciggy and write a song!' So that's how we began 'She Loves You'. I remember for some reason thinking of Bobby Rydell; he must have had a hit that we were interested in. [Bobby Rydell's 'Forget Him' was in the UK charts at the time]. I remember thinking of him and sitting on the bed in this hotel somewhere with John in the afternoon daylight. It was again a she, you, me, I, personal preposition song. I suppose the most interesting thing about it was that it was a message song, it was someone bringing a message. It wasn't us any more, it was moving off the 'I love you, girl' or 'Love me do', it was a third person, which was a shift away. 'I saw her, and she said to me, to tell you, that she loves you' so there's a little distance we managed to put in it which was quite interesting.
John (1980): It was written together. I remember it was Paul's idea: Instead of singing 'I love you' again, we'd have a third party. That kind of little detail is still in his work. He will write a story about someone. I'm more inclined to write about myself.
Paul (1994): 'It was very co-written as I recall, I don't think it was either of our idea, I think we just sat down and said, "Right!" So who had the inspiration, who came up with what line, in these kind of songs, is very difficult to remember because it was all over in a couple of hours.
The song was finished the next day, which they had off. John came round to Forthlin Road and they retired to the dining room. Paul's younger brother Mike made a photo of them working on that occasion:
Paul: We sat in there one evening, just beavering away while my dad was watching TV and smoking his Players cigarettes, and we wrote 'She Loves You'. We actually just finished it there because we'd started it in the hotel room. We went into the living room - 'Dad, listen to this. What do you think?' So we played it to my dad and he said, 'That's very nice, son, but there's enough of these Americanisms around. Couldn't you sing, "She loves you. Yes! Yes! Yes!"' At which point we collapsed in a heap and said, 'No, Dad, you don't quite get it!' That's my classic story about my dad.
She Loves You remained the biggest selling single in Britain until it was dethroned by Mull of Kintyre. No wonder a certain someone made it into the Guinness book of records.
And here it is again, because it' one of those songs guaranteed to brighten your day (well, mine anyway) so no matter how well you know it, it's worth listening again to:
That was 1963. (Though it remains a constant source of be- and amusement to mem that John, Paul and Yoko played out that song narrative in real life.) Only a little more than three years later, they composed the likes of Day in the Life, about which I wrote a whole separate lengthy post. It's also useful as an example of what they could contribute to each other's songs. A Day in the Life in how it occured to John (first two verses, melody on guitar) is a perfectly good Lennon song, but it's not yet great. The McCartney contributions ("I'd love to turn you on" line, orchestral transitions between sections showing the influence of Stockhausen and Cage whom he was very into at the time, last co-written verse, of course the separate "middle eight" which he sings plus the final endless piano note as a conclusion for the song) push it into greatness.
Conversely, we have some great examples of John's additions adding that extra push: in I saw her standing there, John replaced a bad original second line with "you know what I mean", which fits the gleeful horniness of the song much better; in We can work it out, the Lennonian "middle eight" ("Life is very short etc.") with their circus style music are the perfect counterpoint to the main verse, and, just to show that you shouldn't be too sure about who added what, in She's Leaving Home, John doesn't just sing the parents' lines as counterpoint to the main story of the titular girl which Paul sings (and wrote), he also wrote those lines. ("It's the kind of thing Mimi used to say," he once remarked. So much, btw, to rock critics who go on about how only soggy McCartney could include the parents' point of view in that song.)
Editing, adding and rewriting wasn't all they did for each other. There was also the simple affirmative "yes" which meant everything because they were each other's ultimate arbiters; a late example of this is Hey Jude, which Paul composed when things started to fall apart at an ever rapid pace. (Origin story and John competing with Julian as to whom the song was for posted elsewhere.) When he played it for John, Paul said, re: the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder" that this was a dummy lyric which would be replaced later. John instantly said no, it should stay, it was perfect for the song. The Anthology project also brought as that outtake of John recording Julia where you can just about hear Paul from the control room encouraging him, and John sounding so happy and delighted about this that you wouldn't believe this was mid-White Album when they were otherwise more famous for shouting at each other.
As late as the Let it Be sessions in January 1969, the transcriptions of those 80 hours of tapes (yes, Beatles fans are that obsessive to have transcribed those tapes) show that a John song like Don't Let Me Down went through a detailed musical and partly lyrical rearrangement by Paul (which John accepted, as opposed to poor George's suggestions, which were shot down). Don't Let Me Down is interesting for many reasons, not least because on the one hand it's a passioante love song to Yoko which denies the reality of any other affection ( "I'm in love for the first time" and "it's a love that'll last forever, it's a love that has no past"; compare this to the years earlier In My Life, where the new love goes side by side with earlier emotions - "though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before" - and it's hard to escape the conclusion John turned into an obsessive OTP fanwriter in 1969) , on the other there is this tremendous burden and insecurity, the plea of the title: "Don't let me down." Not "love me", not "stay with me", and certainly not "I won't let you down" but "Don't let me down". (Spare a moment to pity Yoko here who was supposed to be not just the replacement for everyone else but the saviour figure to end all saviour figures, for someone with a paranoia that let him suspect everyone would fail him sooner or later.) And yet, when you see the song performed... it ended up completly unangsty as an affectionate duet between John and Paul, with Paul's bass a key element to what makes it so great, and in the Let It Be film you get that moment where John forgets the lines and makes up nonsese words, Paul goes along perfectly in synch until John is back and there is that joyful look between them. Which is a great way to end my post. First the scene as it appears in the film, complete with John's flub, and then the song to unusued footage from the Apple Rooftop concert:
And lastly, one film version of that first meeting, at your service:
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/690360.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
First and foremost, of course, it's great that they met because of the songwriting and the terrific vocal harmonies. Says the immensely readable Alan Pollack, apropos She Loves You: Have you ever noticed the peculiar property of the voices of John and Paul heard in close harmony? Sometimes they sound like a third voice which resembles neither of their own, and sometimes they quite simply make vocal "sparks". (Source here.)
Speaking of She Loves You, there's a reason why this song among all the very early Beatles songs - not I want to hold your hand, not Please Please Me - somehow seems to capture the group as it was when bursting on the musical scene. It has the exubarance, the giddy joy, and the twist from the then pop standard formula (boy sings about wanting girl, having girl, losing girl): the little narrative is a conversation between friends, the narrator encouraging his friend, not the narrator lamenting his woes. It also has a well documented origin story courtesy of interviews with its two composers and was written n when the Beatles were in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to play the Majestic Ballroom on 26 June 1963. John and Paul sat facing each other on twin beds in their shared room at the Turk's Hotel.
Paul: We must have had a few hours before the show so we said, 'Oh, great! Let's have a ciggy and write a song!' So that's how we began 'She Loves You'. I remember for some reason thinking of Bobby Rydell; he must have had a hit that we were interested in. [Bobby Rydell's 'Forget Him' was in the UK charts at the time]. I remember thinking of him and sitting on the bed in this hotel somewhere with John in the afternoon daylight. It was again a she, you, me, I, personal preposition song. I suppose the most interesting thing about it was that it was a message song, it was someone bringing a message. It wasn't us any more, it was moving off the 'I love you, girl' or 'Love me do', it was a third person, which was a shift away. 'I saw her, and she said to me, to tell you, that she loves you' so there's a little distance we managed to put in it which was quite interesting.
John (1980): It was written together. I remember it was Paul's idea: Instead of singing 'I love you' again, we'd have a third party. That kind of little detail is still in his work. He will write a story about someone. I'm more inclined to write about myself.
Paul (1994): 'It was very co-written as I recall, I don't think it was either of our idea, I think we just sat down and said, "Right!" So who had the inspiration, who came up with what line, in these kind of songs, is very difficult to remember because it was all over in a couple of hours.
The song was finished the next day, which they had off. John came round to Forthlin Road and they retired to the dining room. Paul's younger brother Mike made a photo of them working on that occasion:
Paul: We sat in there one evening, just beavering away while my dad was watching TV and smoking his Players cigarettes, and we wrote 'She Loves You'. We actually just finished it there because we'd started it in the hotel room. We went into the living room - 'Dad, listen to this. What do you think?' So we played it to my dad and he said, 'That's very nice, son, but there's enough of these Americanisms around. Couldn't you sing, "She loves you. Yes! Yes! Yes!"' At which point we collapsed in a heap and said, 'No, Dad, you don't quite get it!' That's my classic story about my dad.
She Loves You remained the biggest selling single in Britain until it was dethroned by Mull of Kintyre. No wonder a certain someone made it into the Guinness book of records.
And here it is again, because it' one of those songs guaranteed to brighten your day (well, mine anyway) so no matter how well you know it, it's worth listening again to:
Click to viewThat was 1963. (Though it remains a constant source of be- and amusement to mem that John, Paul and Yoko played out that song narrative in real life.) Only a little more than three years later, they composed the likes of Day in the Life, about which I wrote a whole separate lengthy post. It's also useful as an example of what they could contribute to each other's songs. A Day in the Life in how it occured to John (first two verses, melody on guitar) is a perfectly good Lennon song, but it's not yet great. The McCartney contributions ("I'd love to turn you on" line, orchestral transitions between sections showing the influence of Stockhausen and Cage whom he was very into at the time, last co-written verse, of course the separate "middle eight" which he sings plus the final endless piano note as a conclusion for the song) push it into greatness.
Conversely, we have some great examples of John's additions adding that extra push: in I saw her standing there, John replaced a bad original second line with "you know what I mean", which fits the gleeful horniness of the song much better; in We can work it out, the Lennonian "middle eight" ("Life is very short etc.") with their circus style music are the perfect counterpoint to the main verse, and, just to show that you shouldn't be too sure about who added what, in She's Leaving Home, John doesn't just sing the parents' lines as counterpoint to the main story of the titular girl which Paul sings (and wrote), he also wrote those lines. ("It's the kind of thing Mimi used to say," he once remarked. So much, btw, to rock critics who go on about how only soggy McCartney could include the parents' point of view in that song.)
Editing, adding and rewriting wasn't all they did for each other. There was also the simple affirmative "yes" which meant everything because they were each other's ultimate arbiters; a late example of this is Hey Jude, which Paul composed when things started to fall apart at an ever rapid pace. (Origin story and John competing with Julian as to whom the song was for posted elsewhere.) When he played it for John, Paul said, re: the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder" that this was a dummy lyric which would be replaced later. John instantly said no, it should stay, it was perfect for the song. The Anthology project also brought as that outtake of John recording Julia where you can just about hear Paul from the control room encouraging him, and John sounding so happy and delighted about this that you wouldn't believe this was mid-White Album when they were otherwise more famous for shouting at each other.
As late as the Let it Be sessions in January 1969, the transcriptions of those 80 hours of tapes (yes, Beatles fans are that obsessive to have transcribed those tapes) show that a John song like Don't Let Me Down went through a detailed musical and partly lyrical rearrangement by Paul (which John accepted, as opposed to poor George's suggestions, which were shot down). Don't Let Me Down is interesting for many reasons, not least because on the one hand it's a passioante love song to Yoko which denies the reality of any other affection ( "I'm in love for the first time" and "it's a love that'll last forever, it's a love that has no past"; compare this to the years earlier In My Life, where the new love goes side by side with earlier emotions - "though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before" - and it's hard to escape the conclusion John turned into an obsessive OTP fanwriter in 1969) , on the other there is this tremendous burden and insecurity, the plea of the title: "Don't let me down." Not "love me", not "stay with me", and certainly not "I won't let you down" but "Don't let me down". (Spare a moment to pity Yoko here who was supposed to be not just the replacement for everyone else but the saviour figure to end all saviour figures, for someone with a paranoia that let him suspect everyone would fail him sooner or later.) And yet, when you see the song performed... it ended up completly unangsty as an affectionate duet between John and Paul, with Paul's bass a key element to what makes it so great, and in the Let It Be film you get that moment where John forgets the lines and makes up nonsese words, Paul goes along perfectly in synch until John is back and there is that joyful look between them. Which is a great way to end my post. First the scene as it appears in the film, complete with John's flub, and then the song to unusued footage from the Apple Rooftop concert:
And lastly, one film version of that first meeting, at your service:
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/690360.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.