PAUL 1968: “My dad’s always played fruity old songs like that, you know. And I liked ’em. I like the melody of old songs, and the lyrics actually as well. There’s some old lyrics, like, you know– the woman singing about the man, and she’s saying something about ‘I wanna […]
The Beatles’ Songs
216 posts
GEORGE 1977: “If Paul had written a song, he’d learn all the parts and then come in the studio and say ‘Do this.’ He’d never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on ‘Drive My Car’ I just played the line, which is really like a lick […]
About “Honey Don’t” “Honey Don’t” is a song written by Carl Perkins, originally released on January 1, 1956 as the B-side of the “Blue Suede Shoes” single. Both songs became rockabilly classics. Bill Dahl of Allmusic praised the song saying, “‘Honey Don’t’ actually outclasses its more celebrated platter-mate in some […]
PAUL circa-1994: “‘Flying’ was an instrumental that we needed for (the film) ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ so in the studio one night I suggested to the guys that we made something up. I said, ‘We can keep it very, very simple, we can make it a 12-bar blues. We need a […]
GEORGE 1969: “‘Octopus’s Garden’ is Ringo’s song. It’s only the second song Ringo has ever written, mind you, and it’s lovely. Ringo gets bored with just playing drums all the time, so at home he sometimes plays a bit of piano, but unfortunately he only knows about three chords. He […]
About “Money (That’s What I Want)” “Money (That’s What I Want)” is a 1959 hit single by Barrett Strong for the Tamla label, distributed by Anna Records. The song was written by Tamla founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, and would become the first hit record for Gordy’s Motown flagship […]
JOHN 1972: “Paul. But I think maybe I helped him with some of the lyric.” JOHN 1980: “‘Good Day Sunshine’ is Paul’s. Maybe I threw in a line or something.” PAUL 1984: “Wrote that out at John’s one day… the sun was shining. Influenced by the Lovin’ Spoonful.” PAUL circa-1994: […]
PAUL 1967: “It’s really about the fans who hang around outside your door day and night. ‘See the people standing there/ They worry me, and never win/ And wonder why they don’t get in my door.’ If they only knew the best way to get in is not to do […]
GEORGE 1980: “‘Piggies’ is a social comment. I was stuck for one line in the middle until my mother came up with the lyric, ‘What they need is a damn good whacking’ which is a nice simple way of saying they need a good hiding. It needed to rhyme with […]
JOHN 1972: “Me. Yoko helped me with this one.” JOHN 1980: “Julia was my mother. But it was sort of a combination of Yoko and my mother blended into one. That was written in India… We wrote tons of songs in India.” PAUL circa-1994: “The interesting thing for me on […]
JOHN 1980: “I wrote that for ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ but Dick Lester didn’t even want it. He resurrected ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ for that sequence instead. I like the middle-eight to that song, though that’s about all I can say about it.” About “I’ll Cry Instead” “I’ll Cry Instead” […]
JOHN 1980: “It was kind of a John song, more than a Paul song… but it was written together.” PAUL 1988: “John and I were a songwriting team, and what songwriting teams did in those days was wrote for everyone. ‘Misery’ was for Helen Shapiro, and she turned it down. […]