PAUL circa-1994: “I dreamed up ‘Your Mother Should Know’ as a production number… I’ve always hated generation gaps. I always feel sorry for a parent or a child that doesn’t understand each other. A mother not being understood by her child is particularly sad because the mother went through pain […]
The Beatles’ Songs
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JOHN 1980: “Oh, that was written about a guy in Maharishi’s meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then come back to commune with God. There used to be a character called Jungle Jim, and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It’s […]
JOHN 1980: “An effort at writing ‘It Won’t Be Long’ –same ilk. C to A minor, C to A minor with me shouting.” Info about “Any Time At All” Credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, “Any Time At All” was mainly composed by John Lennon, with an instrumental middle eight by […]
JOHN 1972: “Paul wrote it. I helped with some of the lyric.” JOHN 1980: “Paul’s song. Maybe I did part of it, but it was his concept.” PAUL circa-1994: “‘Magical Mystery Tour’ was co-written by John and I, very much in our fairground period. One of our great inspirations was […]
JOHN 1980: “That was Paul’s. Maybe I stuck some bits in there… I really don’t remember. It was a pretty poor song and I was never really interested in it either way.” PAUL 1988: “I can’t remember much about that one. Certain songs were just ‘work’ songs… you haven’t got […]
JOHN 1980: “It was the first song I wrote that was consciously about my life. (Sings) ‘There are places I’ll remember/ All my life though some have changed…’ Before, we were just writing songs a la Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly — pop songs with no more thought to them than […]
JOHN 1980: “Paul. He must have had an argument with Jane Asher.” PAUL circa-1994: “As is one’s wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or not see eye to eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing… I […]
GEORGE 1980: “‘It’s All Too Much’ was written in a childlike manner from realizations that appeared during and after some LSD experiences and which were later confirmed in meditation.” GEORGE 1999: “I just wanted to write a rock ‘n roll song about the whole psychedelic thing of the time– ‘Sail […]
PAUL 1968: “I was sitting on the roof in India with a guitar– John and I were sitting ’round playing guitar, and we were with Donovan. And we were just sitting around enjoying ourselves, and I started playing the chords of ‘Rocky Raccoon,’ you know, just messing around. And, oh, […]
JOHN 1980: “That was my first attempt at a ballad proper. That was the precursor to ‘In My Life.’ It has the same chord sequences as ‘In My Life’ –D and B minor and E minor, those kinds of things. And it’s semi-autobiographical, but not consciously. It shows that I […]
JOHN 1963: “Our recording manager (George Martin) thought our arrangement was fussy, so we tried to make it simpler. We were getting tired though, and just couldn’t seem to get it right. In the following weeks we went over it again and again. We changed the tempo a little, we […]
Published in 1966Author: Lennon/McCartneyTrack 14 on “Revolver“ JOHN 1968: “‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ …I didn’t know what I was saying, and you just find out later. I know that when there are some lyrics I dig, I know that somewhere people will be looking at them.” JOHN 1968: “Often the backing […]