Come Together

CHART ACTION
UNITED KINGDOM: Also released as a single October 31, 1969, as the "second A side" to "Something." The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Also released as a single October 6, 1969. It entered the Top 40 October 18, rose to No. 1, and stayed on the chart for sixteen weeks. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles and Billboard

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (1.00)
Written after Lennon's car accident on July 1, 1969. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

LENNON: " 'Come Together' is me - writing obscurely around an old Chucky Berry thing. I left the line in 'Here comes old flat-top.' It is nothing like the Chuck Berry song, but they took me to court because I admitted the influence once years ago. I could have changed it to 'Here comes old iron face,' but the song remains independent of Chuck Berry or anybody else on earth." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Lennon was sued on grounds that he stole the opening melody and first two lines of the lyrics from Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me." Lennon settled - while denying copying the song in October 1973 by agreeing to record three songs published by Big Seven Music. Ballad and Love
They turned out be Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" and "Sweet Little Sixteen," both on Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album in 1975, and "Ya Ya," by Lee Dorsey and Morris Levy, on his Walls And Bridges album in 1974.

McCARTNEY: "He originally brought it over as a very perky little song, and I pointed out to him that it was very similar to Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me'. John acknowledged it was rather close it to so I said, 'Well, anything you can do to get away from that.' I suggested that we tried it swampy - 'swampy' was the word I used - so we did, we took it right down. It's actually that bass line down which very much makes the mood. It's actually a bass line that people now use very often in rap records. If it's not a sample, they use that riff. But that was my contribution to that." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "The thing was created in the studio. It's gobbledygook. 'Come Together' was an expression that Tim Leary had come up with for [possibly running for the governorship of California against Ronald Reagan], and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and I tried, but I couldn't come up with one. But I came up with this, 'Come Together,' which would've been no good to him - you couldn't have a campaign song like that, right?" September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

RECORDED
July 21, 1969, at Abbey Road, as Lennon resumed a regular recording schedule following recuperation from his auto accident. Overdubs were added July 22, 23, 25, 29, and 30.

Each exclamation of "shoot" one hears Lennon singing is actually "shoot me!" followed immediately by a handclap. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

GEOFF EMERICK, engineer: "On the finished record you can really only hear the word 'shoot!' The bass guitar note falls where the 'me' is." The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, electric piano, harmony vocal
LENNON: lead vocal, handclaps
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums, maracas

McCARTNEY: ". . . Whenever [John] did praise any of us, it was great praise, indeed, because he didn't dish it out much. If ever you got a speck of it, a crumb of it, you were quite grateful. With 'Come Together,' for instance, he wanted a piano lick to be very swampy and smoky, and I played it that way and he liked that a lot. I was quite pleased with that." Playboy (December 1984)

Paul recorded a lot of heavy breathing on the end but it is buried so deep in the mix as to be inaudible. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was banned by the BBC because of the reference to Coca-Cola, which it deemed to be advertising. Beatles Illustrated Record : 3rd Revised Edition

John's copyright infringement was not overlooked by Morris Levy, owner of the Chuck Berry song. Though it was obviously only intended as an affectionate tribute to Berry, it got John into some very deep water in the early seventies when, as compensation, Levy persuaded him to release an album of rock 'n' roll songs available by mail order only through Levy's company Adam VIII Ltd. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: "This is another of my favourites. It was intended as a campaign song at first, but it never turned out that way. People often ask how I write: I do it in all kinds of ways - with piano, guitar, any combination you can think of, in fact. It isn't easy." Beatles in Their Own Words

A year after recording 'Come Together', when Paul released the news that the Beatles were effectively disbanded, he told the Evening Standard:
"I would love the Beatles to be on top of their form and to be as productive as they were. But things have changed. They're all individuals. Even on Abbey Road we don't do harmonies like we used to. I think it's sad. On 'Come Together' I would have liked to sing harmony with John and I think he would have liked me to but I was too embarrassed to ask him and I don't work to the best of my abilities in that situation." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "It was a funky record - it's one of my favourite Beatle tracks." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono