About “Chains” “Chains” is the song that Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote together in 1961 as part of a husband-and-wife songwriting duo. An American girl group called the Cookies recorded this song in 1962 and it went on to become a hit. In 1980, Carole King recorded a solo […]
1963
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JOHN 1980: “That’s Paul doing his usual job of producing what George Martin used to call a ‘potboiler.’ I helped with a couple of the lyrics.” PAUL 1988: “I wrote it with John. We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars. I remember I had the lyrics, ‘Just seventeen/Never […]
About “Devil In Her Heart” “Devil in Her Heart” is a song originally recorded by The Donays in 1962, but The Beatles later covered it for their album With the Beatles in 1963. The track showcases the band’s ability to infuse their own style into covers, transforming the original into […]
JOHN 1972: “Both of us wrote it, but mainly Paul. I helped him finish it.” JOHN 1980: “‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ was a kind of lick Paul had– ‘I wanna be your lover, baby. I wanna be your man.’ I think we finished it off for the Stones. We […]
JOHN 1963: “I always hate singing the song, ‘Twist And Shout’ when there’s a colored artist on the bill with us. It doesn’t seem right, you know. I feel sort of embarrassed… It makes me curl up. I always feel they could do the song much better than me.” JOHN […]
JOHN 1980: “That’s Paul’s song. He was trying to write a ‘Soldier Boy’ like the Shirelles. He wrote that in Germany, or when we were going to and from Hamburg. I might have contributed something. I can’t remember anything in particular. It was mainly his song.” PAUL circa-1994: “A theme […]
JOHN 1980: “‘There’s a Place’ was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing. It says the usual Lennon things: ‘In my mind there’s no sorrow…’ It’s all in your mind.” About “There’s A Place” “There’s A Place” is the second track on the album Please Please Me, released in […]
About “A Taste of Honey” “A Taste of Honey” is a pop standard written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow. It was first performed by Scott, and its title may have been inspired by the 1958 English play A Taste of Honey which reached Broadway in 1960. The most famous […]
About “Ask Me Why” “Ask Me Why” was originally released in the United Kingdom as the B-side of their hit single “Please Please Me“. It was also included on their first UK album, Please Please Me. The song was mainly a John Lennon composition, written in early 1962, but it was […]
JOHN 1980: “‘It Wont Be Long’ is mine. It was my attempt at writing another single. It never quite made it. That was the one where the guy in the ‘London Times’ wrote about the ‘Aeolian cadences of the chords’ which started the whole intellectual bit about the Beatles.” PAUL […]
The Beatles’ quotes about “Do You Want to Know a Secret” JOHN 1980: “Well, I can’t say I wrote it ‘for’ George. My mother was always… she was a good comedienne and a singer. Not professional, but she used to get up in pubs and things like that. She had […]
JOHN 1972: “Both of us wrote it. This was a knock-off between Paul and me.” JOHN 1980: “‘Little Child’ was another effort of Paul and I to write a song for somebody else. It was probably Ringo.” PAUL circa-1994: “Certain songs were inspirational and you just followed that. ‘Little Child’ […]