The Beatles Lyrics Page 8
John always maintained that he had encouraged George to write his own songs, and denied that he and Paul kept him in the shadows. But John’s explanations as to why George was given a certain song often sound condescending. It would ‘suit his voice’, for example, suggesting the vocal was designed for a voice with a limited range. John himself was often disappointed by his own voice. He didn’t really like how he sounded and would ask George Martin to perform wonders by adding whatever he could to boost it–‘even tomato ketchup’.
George clearly didn’t enjoy these put-downs and when he came to write his own book I Me Mine in 1980, he didn’t mention John at all. Which pissed off John. John was genuinely upset–as his letters show–that George did not refer to him after all the encouragement he thought he had given George. ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ was the last song John and Paul wrote for George–from 1965 on he wrote his own.
The manuscript, in John’s hand, features part of an early draft of ‘If I Fell’ on the same page. Some lines, such as the second line, ‘would you know just what to do’, were not used. He has numbered the ‘If I Fell’ lines ‘4’, as if to suggest it was originally going to be verse four of ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ rather than a separate song.
There are quite a few interesting differences between the manuscript of ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ and the finished lyrics. Two lines–4 and 5 in the manuscript–were not used, and were a bit limp anyway. ‘I don’t want to hear you say goodbye / I just want to dance until I fly.’ And line 15: ‘ ’Cause I’d die to think this dance was ever thru.’ One line he scored out, line 11, was eventually used. In line 13, ‘If anybody tries to take my place’ became ‘If somebody tried to take my place.’
Before this dance is through
I think I’ll love you too
I’m so happy when you dance with me
I don’t want to kiss or hold your hand
If it’s funny try and understand
There is really nothing else I’d rather do
’cause I’m happy just to dance with you
I don’t need to hug or hold you tight
I just want to dance with you all night
In this world there’s nothing I would rather do
’cause I’m happy just to dance with you
Just to dance with you
Is everything I need
Before this dance is through
I think I’ll love you too
I’m so happy when you dance with me
If somebody tries to take my place
Let’s pretend we just can’t see his face
In this world there’s nothing I would rather do
’cause I’m happy just to dance with you
‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’, from A Hard Day’s Night, July 1964, early version in John’s hand, with some lines not used.
And I Love Her
John raved about this ballad, written by Paul, saying later that it was Paul’s first ‘Yesterday’. He maintained that he’d helped with some of the lines in the middle–which Paul denied; a rare example of them disagreeing on their respective contributions. Usually they agreed on what proportion, and what bits, they had done. The song is essentially a Paul solo, a departure from their usual joint collaboration.
Paul was pretty pleased with the result. ‘The first song I ever impressed myself with.’ He particularly liked the title when it first popped into his head–a half-sentence, which was a clever and unusual way to begin a pop song.
It’s a very sincere but simple love song. So was it written for Jane? He came up with the words while living at her house. Paul later said he had no one in mind when he wrote it, which I find hard to believe. I think by the time he was asked the question, the romance was over and he didn’t want to talk about it.
The words are not particularly poetic, nor are they trying to be–just one notch above the level of ‘Love Me Do’–with the exception of the line ‘Bright are the stars that shine, dark is the sky’. And even that sounds a bit forced, as if he needed a rhyme for ‘never die’ at the end of the song.
For such a simple song, in words and music and arrangement, it required endless takes to get it right, trimming it back to essentials, avoiding the temptation to tart it up and add too many harmonies. The only gimmick is Ringo on bongo and claves, clicking away in the background, giving a slightly Latin American air.
Its simplicity and beauty is probably one of the reasons that it became and still is one of the most recorded Beatles songs by other artists.
Tell Me Why
A quickie, knocked off by John as a filler, but with a lot of emotion and some interesting rhymes–‘apologize’ and ‘eyes’, ‘knees’ and ‘pleas’. Superficially it’s a moan about a lovers’ row, which has led to her lying to him, then crying, with him holding back the tears. But perhaps it’s not a complaint about being left alone by his girlfriend, perhaps it’s about his parents and their treatment of him? That’s the sort of explanation a psychoanalyst might well come up with–as indeed they have, especially later on when John told us that he was still screaming inside for the mother who had left him. (In his Plastic Ono days, he began to share with us the traumas of his mother’s death.)
Can’t Buy Me Love
Written by Paul, pretty much on his own, while they were staying at the George V in Paris, using a piano especially installed in his suite. They were in a hurry to record a new single for release in March 1964. It’s similar to ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’–rocking, fast moving–and duly got to number 1 in hit parades around the world, establishing the Beatles in many eyes as the successor to Elvis. On 4 April 1964 the top five records in the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 chart were all by the Beatles: ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘Please Please Me’–with a further seven Beatles numbers scattered about the remainder of the top 100 list.
The lyrics of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ are a bit confusing, apparently offering to buy love with diamonds and things, then saying money can’t buy his love. In 1966 Paul was asked by a US journalist if it referred to a prostitute. Paul said all their songs could be interpreted in several ways–but thinking it referred to a prostitute, that was way too much, man.
The song was supposedly addressed to ‘my love’ in the original, which was then changed to ‘my friend’ to make it asexual–which is smart, but it does reinforce the theory that it was a prostitute, or someone whose name he didn’t know.
‘Say you don’t want no diamond ring’ is of course a double negative. I bet his old English teacher at the Liverpool Institute shook his head when he heard it…
Any Time At All
Another pot-boiler, written by John. The chorus is repeated five times, with just two verses; there are no undercurrents in the lyrics, it’s all very straightforward: ‘if you want me, just call me’. Almost the same lyrics as ‘All I’ve Got to Do’–‘all I gotta do is call’. John later admitted the tune was a recycling of an earlier song, ‘It Won’t Be Long’. Well, if you can’t pinch from yourself, who can you pinch from?
When you consider how they wrote so many songs in such a short space of time, for themselves and for others, it is surprising that they did not repeat themselves more often. They did of course, and there are several songs where you can hear chords and sequences, ideas and phrases already used in earlier songs. And yet you rarely hear people, fans or otherwise, say ‘Oh no, that’s just the same tune again!’–a criticism frequently hurled at other successful pop groups.
The manuscript of the song, in John’s hand, shows some drastic pruning. In the original version there were four verses, not two, but the final two verses were dumped, probably in the studio, as this looks like a version written for the recording session. The chorus is written out only once, in brackets, as they must all have known the words by then.
Did Paul criticize those final two verses, or did John have second thoughts? Or did
George lob in a suggestion? They don’t add to the story, such as it is, just repeating the same idea in slightly different words. The last line of the original verse 3 went: ‘This boy’s waiting here in the hope that you’ll stay’. The use of the word ‘boy’ in this verse sounds a bit mawkish, though John had used it before in ‘This Boy’ (the B side of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’). Perhaps they just wanted to keep the song short.
If you need somebody to love
Just look into my eyes
I’ll be there to make you feel right
If you’re feeling sorry and sad, I’d really sympathize.
Don’t you be sad, just call me tonight.
Any time at all, any time at all, any time at all, all
you’ve gotta do is call and I’ll be there.
If the sun has faded away
I’ll try to make it shine,
There is nothing I won’t do
If you need a shoulder to cry on
I hope it will be mine.
Call me tonight, and I’ll come to you–
Any time at all, any time at all, any time at all, all
You’ve gotta do is call and I’ll be there.
‘Any Time At All’, from A Hard Day’s Night, in John’s hand, with two verses not used.
I’ll Cry Instead
This is probably the clearest indication so far of John’s state of mind. We have had him crying, but now he is suggesting he can be mad, cruel–by breaking hearts. Also a suggestion that he could get himself locked up. It is a bit convoluted, as he holds back from making things too clear. We now know, from what his wife Cynthia later revealed, that he was physically cruel to her. The lyrics suggest a disturbed, tortured soul. But to conceal the angst, so we all sing along, tapping our feet, dancing away, not worrying too much about what the words might mean, he has given the song a jaunty rockabilly air.
Things We Said Today
A perfect little song written by Paul, again with an outgoing, cheerful, positive air, thanks to an aggressive acoustic guitar played by John–but on closer study there is something sad and mournful going on beneath the surface of the lyric. Wilfrid Mellers considered it ‘the Beatles’ most beautiful and most deep song up to this point’.
Once again it’s a song for Jane, or at least about Jane, written when they had taken a break together in the Caribbean in May 1964, along with Ringo and his wife, hiring a yacht called Happy Days. Jane was an actress, just as busy as Paul, and their professional lives often took them apart, which clearly put a strain on the relationship: ‘You say you will love me, if I have to go.’ So even while he is with her, on the boat, he knows a parting will soon follow.
At the same time there is a more mature, wiser reflection in the lines: ‘Some day when we’re dreaming, deep in love, not a lot to say, then we will remember, things we said today.’ Paul at the time was still only twenty-one, so it’s quite a sophisticated thought for one so young, projecting himself into the future…
When I Get Home
On the surface, John is declaring that he is a homebody, loving coming home to ‘a girl who is waiting home for me tonight’, but it could also be read that he’s visiting someone else in their home–why else would he be saying, ‘I’ve got no business being here with you, this way’ or ‘till I walk out the door–again’. Both meanings applied: John loved being at home, doing nothing–and also playing away.
Saying he will love her ‘till the cows come home’ is a bit corny, but rhyming ‘trivialities’ with ‘please’ still makes me smile.
The manuscript version numbers three verses, with only a couple of minor changes from the recorded version: ‘when I get home tonight’ becomes ‘when I get you home tonight’. He hasn’t bothered to write out the three repeats of the chorus, simply putting ‘oh. I. oh I. etc’–or at least, that’s how it reads. On the record, it sounds more like ‘Whoa-oh-aah, whoa-oh-aah’, but then how do you write down such sounds, when they are more like grunts than real words?
‘When I Get Home’, from A Hard Day’s Night, in John’s hand.
Whoa-ho, whoa-ho,
I got a whole lot of things to tell her,
When I get home.
Come on, out of my way,
’cause I’m gonna see my baby today,
I’ve got a whole lot of things I’ve gotta say
To her.
Whoa-ho, whoa-ho,
I got a whole lot of things to tell her,
When I get home.
Come on if you please,
I’ve got no time for trivialities,
I’ve got a girl who’s waiting home for me tonight.
Whoa-ho, whoa-ho,
I got a whole lot of things to tell her,
When I get home.
When I’m getting home tonight, I’m gonna
Hold her tight.
I’m gonna love her till the cows come home,
I bet I’ll love her more,
Till I walk out that door
Again.
Come on, let me through,
I’ve got so many things, I’ve got to do,
I’ve got no business being here with you
This way.
Whoa-ho, whoa-ho,
I’ve got a whole lot of things to tell her
When I get home–yeah.
You Can’t Do That
Originally the B side of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, this features John as lead singer and lead guitar, demonstrating once again that he is in charge.
The lyrics also show him trying to dominate, threatening what he will do if the girl leaves him for another boy. ‘Gonna let you down and leave you flat’, sounds a bit like letting down a bicycle tyre, which is amusing on one level, but it could also be a physical threat, to flatten her. On the other hand, he too has suffered: ‘I’ll go out of my mind’. Though it could just be paranoia. In some senses, it can be seen as the Beatles’ first anti-love lyrics.
Sheet music for ‘You Can’t Do That’, from A Hard Day’s Night.
I’ll Be Back
John on the same theme–someone is breaking his heart and he might have to leave–but he is not threatening this time. Again, the message is a bit confused, possibly because he is trying to disguise from Cynthia, and the world, his extra-marital love life. There is no real chorus, only two lines that get repeated.
The mixed-up emotion is caught by the changing chords and descending rhythms, making it one of the more complex Beatles songs so far, although there is a flamenco-style beat that draws it all together. John said he was inspired, musically, by Del Shannon’s 1961 hit record ‘Runaway’.
I Call Your Name
Just before the album came out, in June 1964, they issued an EP* in the UK on which there were four songs, but this was the only one not to appear on either an LP in the UK or conventional single. John said it was about the first song he ever remembers writing, pre-Hamburg, possibly during his Quarrymen days, when he was just learning the guitar, though Paul recalls him working on it later at Menlove Avenue. The interesting thing, so far as the lyrics are concerned–assuming it was written in those early days–is that it is not a happy love song, the sort of thing they felt they had to write back then to feed the market. John is calling her name because he can’t sleep, he can’t take it, he’s not going to make it. The soul-searching, which came out so strongly later on, was always there.
A Hard Day’s Night, released in July 1964, showed a definite progression. Despite the fact that it was conceived as part of a package with a film that was merely superficial, fast-paced entertainment for the fans, not meant to have any hidden depths, the album with its original compositions showed a greater level of depth and feeling than previous releases. John remains the leader, writing and singing most of the songs, and the subject matter is still primarily love, but the album is also notable for the emergence of the poet in Paul and the first cracks in John’s cocky, cheeky façade, revealing the tortured soul beneath.
Could they keep it up, though–es
pecially having foolishly agreed to bring out another single before the year was out, followed immediately by yet another album, all while they were rushing round the world touring. From June to November 1964, they played in fifty cities, on four continents (Europe, USA, Asia, Australia), covered 22,000 miles, giving around 100 performances on stage and TV.
4
BEATLES FOR SALE
December 1964
The Beatles met Bob Dylan for the first time on 28 August 1964 at a hotel in New York, during their second tour of the USA. He offered them some marijuana and was surprised to find they had never tried it before. He thought he’d heard them sing ‘I get high’, but John had to correct him and explain that, in the lyric of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, it was actually ‘I can’t hide’.
Beatles lyrics, like many song lyrics, have often been misheard. Once you know them, you hear the real words immediately, but until then you can often be puzzled. On first hearing ‘She’s Leaving Home’, I did wonder if it was about mice: ‘Cheese Leaving Home’. Ok, that’s a joke, but people have seriously believed that in ‘Lucy In The Sky’ ‘the girl with colitis walks by’, and in ‘Strawberry Fields’ ‘living is easy with eyes closed’ can easily sound like ‘living is easy with nice clothes’. Both of those songs do have stream-of-conscious phrases and ideas, so some confusion was probably meant. Dylan thinking he had heard them singing ‘I get high’ is understandable as it did make sense, and was what he presumed.