![]() ![]() The first of the two discs on The White Album ends with John’s haunting meditation on his deceased mother. (Short of saying “fetch” or “sit,” the lyrics make this relatively clear.) No matter to whom the song refers, this is an endearingly sprightly song with classical touches to the melody verses giving way to a rhythmically vibrant middle section. You need to tap the brakes on that, because Macca was actually referring to a beloved sheepdog. Maybe, if your name is Martha, you get a kick out of hearing Paul sing your praises on this White Album track. Paul actually plays drums on the track, as Ringo Starr had gone on a brief holiday to escape tensions within the group. Lennon turns this specific tale into a monumental recording with the help of McCartney and Harrison. In this case, Prudence Farrow, sister of Mia, was the muse, as she had cocooned herself in her tent during The Beatles visit to India. The White Album was a particularly fertile time for Lennon and McCartney to write songs aimed at particular ladies. McCartney had already written an ode to moms everywhere on the 1967 sing-along “Your Mother Should Know.” This single digs a bit deeper because of the way it details the seemingly endless tasks this particular mother must perform over the course of a busy week, even as she finds time to admire her brood (“See how they run.”) McCartney’s Fats Domino-inspired piano attack produces a vibrant recording from start to finish. McCartney provides a typically buoyant melody, but it’s the wild musical breakdown at the end of the song that lends this chaste date a hint of the surreal. This tale of a shy suitor deigning to ask out a fetching meter maid certainly fits that template. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band such an amazing album is the way The Beatles frame mundane tales of everyday life with transcendent music, rendering these tales somehow magical in the process. Loneliness has rarely been depicted so beautifully by any artist in any medium. In any case, this is one of the band’s finest moments, as McCartney sings behind a string octet about a spinster, a priest, and how their weary paths eventually intertwine. ![]() This is one of two major Beatles works (the other being “In My Life”) where Lennon’s and McCartney’s after-the-fact interviews disagree about the song’s authorship. The result is a liltingly lovely slow one with some of Paul’s most vulnerable vocals. When it came time to put a track list together for Rubber Soul in 1965, Lennon remembered this tune and encouraged McCartney to flesh it out. Paul used to fool around with the song at parties to impress girls. ![]() To this day, the only sentence that many Beatles fans can translate into French is “These are words that go together well,” thanks to this McCartney ballad. It’s one of the most memorable tracks on that wonderful debut album.Ģ. Their taste was exquisite, as this track originally recorded by ace R&B songwriter Arthur Alexander proved to be an excellent showcase for John Lennon’s potent lead vocals and the expert harmonies of Paul McCartney and George Harrison. On their first British album, 1963’s Please Please Me, The Beatles relied on a heavy dose of cover songs to supplement the Lennon/McCartney originals. Here are ten of the most memorable of those occasions, in chronological order. Every once in awhile, however, the Fab Four got a little more specific and gave the girl in the song a name. Songs like “From Me To You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” reached out to the audience members and allowed them to imagine that they alone were the ones whom the group was addressing with these sweet declarations of love. The Beatles were clever in their early days in the way that they provided a kind of wish fulfillment to their female fans. Editor’s Note: This post, from way back in 2017, is enduringly popular so it seemed a good time to revisit it. ![]()
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