I Should Have Known Better

"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER"

CHART ACTION
UNITED STATES: Released as a single July 13, 1964. It did not crack the Top 40, but its A side, "A Hard Day's Night," hit No. 1. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (1.00)

RECORDED
February 25 and remade February 26, 1964, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass
LENNON: acoustic guitar, harmonica, vocal (double-tracked)
HARRISON: lead guitar (Rickenbacker 360/12 [12-string])
STARR: drums
guitar from Guitar (November 1987)

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was performed in the film A Hard Day's Night in the train compartment scene. It was actually filmed in a van, with crew members rocking the vehicle to fake the action of a train in motion.
A George Martin orchestrated instrumental version of this song appeared on the U.S. soundtrack LP.

I'm Only Sleeping

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.7) and McCartney (.3)
Often Paul would be John's morning alarm call. Living at Wimpole Street with the Ashers, this inevitably meant he got up earlier than John and packed more into each day. John led a more relaxed suburban life but if he went to dinner in London or to a club, living so far from town meant that he returned home very late. Paul would arrive at midday or the early afternoon and wake him up, which was where John got the idea for "I'm Only Sleeping".

McCARTNEY: "It was a nice idea, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not being lazy, I'm only sleeping, I'm yawning, I'm meditating, I'm having a lay-in - the luxury of all of that was what it was about."

The song was written and arranged in one writing session, co-written but from John's original idea. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
April 27, 1966, at Abbey Road, with the lead vocal overdubbed April 29, backward guitar May 5, and backing vocals May 6

For Paul, the most exciting thing that happened with "I'm Only Sleeping" was during the recording rather than in the writing. They were taping George's guitar solo and the tape operator put the tape on tails out.

McCARTNEY: "It played backwards, and, 'What the hell is going on?' Those effects! Nobody knew how those sounded then. We said, 'My God, that is fantastic! Can we do that for real?' So George Martin, give him his due, being amenable to ideas like that, being quite experimental for who he was, a grown-up, said, 'Yes. Sure, I think we can do that.' So that was what we did and that was where we discovered backwards guitar. It was a beautiful solo actually. It sounds like something you couldn't play." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

MARTIN: "In order to record the backward guitar on a track like 'I'm Only Sleeping,' you work out what your chord sequence is and write down the reverse order of the chords - as they are going to come up - so you can recognize them. You then learn to boogie around on that chord sequence, but you don't really know what it's going to sound like until it comes out again. It's hit or miss, no doubt about it, but you do it a few times, and when you like what you hear you keep it." Musician (July 1987)

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: acoustic guitar, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, backing vocal
STARR: drums

COMMENTS BY OTHERS
PETE SHOTTON: " 'I'm Only Sleeping' brilliantly evokes the state of chemically induced lethargy into which John had . . . drifted." John Lennon: In My Life

It's Only Love

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.6) and McCartney (.4)
This song was the product of a writing session out at Weybridge. It was John's original idea and Paul helped him finish it. Paul puts it as 60-40 to John.

RECORDED
June 15, 1965, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass
LENNON: acoustic guitar, tambourine, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums

MISCELLANEOUS
The original title was "That's A Nice Hat (Cap)." The tune was later recorded as an instrumental by George Martin and his orchestra under that name.

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: "That's the one song I really hate of mine. Terrible lyric." Hit Parader (April 1972)

McCARTNEY: "Sometimes we didn't fight it if the lyric came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like 'It's Only Love'. If a lyric was really bad we'd edit it, but we weren't that fussy about it, because, it's only a rock 'n' roll song. I mean, this is not literature." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

I Need You

AUTHORSHIP Harrison (1.00)

"Sometimes if I'm just sitting around at home playing the guitar, if I just feel like writing a song, then I'll just bash away, and hope for the best. Sometimes something just comes out. Usually I can write a song, but then I've got no lyrics to it at all. The song from "Help!" that I wrote - well, I mean, I wrote the tune in about twenty minutes. But it took me about three or four days churning out the lyrics, you know. That's the trouble." 13-22 Aug 65 Jerry G. Interviews

RECORDED
February 15, 1965, at Abbey Road, with overdubs February 16

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: acoustic guitar, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, lead vocal (double-tracked)
STARR: drums

MISCELLANEOUS
Performed in the film Help!

I Me Mine

AUTHORSHIP Harrison (1.00)
Harrison based the music on a song he saw performed by an Austrian marching band on TV. RS (July 9, 1970)

HARRISON: " 'I Me Mine' is the ego problem. . . . [After experiencing LSD] I looked around and everything I could see was relative to my ego - you know, like 'that's my piece of paper' and 'that's my flannel,' or 'give it to me' or 'I am.' It drove me crackers; I hated everything about my ego - it was a flash of everything false and impermanent which I disliked.
"But later I learned from it: to realize that there is somebody else in here apart from old blabbermouth (that's what I felt like - I hadn't seen or heard or done anything in my life, and yet I hadn't stopped talking). Who and 'I' became the order of the day.
"Anyway, that's what came out of it: 'I Me Mine.' . . . Allen Klein thought it was an Italian song - you know, 'Cara Mia Mine' - but it's about the ego, the eternal problem. . . ." I Me Mine

RECORDED
January 3, 1970, at Abbey Road, without Lennon. An orchestra and choir were overdubbed by producer Phil Spector April 1.

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: piano, harmony vocal
HARRISON: acoustic guitar, lead electric guitar, lead vocal (double-tracked)
STARR: drums
BILLY PRESTON: organ
SESSION MUSICIANS: strings

MISCELLANEOUS
A year later, when rough cuts of the film showed that this song's rehearsal scenes would be included, the Beatles had to go into the studio and make a proper recording. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

In My Life

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.6) and McCartney (.4)
LENNON: "I think 'In My Life' was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life. . . .
" 'In My Life' started out as a bus journey from my house on 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place that I could remember. And it was ridiculous. This is before even 'Penny Lane' was written and I had Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Tram Sheds - Tram Sheds are the depot just outside of Penny Lane - and it was the most boring sort of 'What I Did On My Holiday's Bus Trip' song and it wasn't working at all. . . .
"But then I laid back and these lyrics started coming to me about the places I remember. . . . I'd struggled for days and hours trying to write clever lyrics. Then I gave up and 'In My Life' came to me." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: "Me [I wrote this]. I think I was trying to write about Penny Lane when I wrote it. It was about places I remembered. A nice song." Hit Parader (April 1972)

LENNON: "I wrote that in Kenwood. I used to write upstairs where I had about ten Brunell tape recorders all linked up, I still have them, I'd mastered them over the period of a year or two - I could never make a rock and roll record but I could make some far out stuff on it. I wrote it upstairs, that was one where I wrote the lyrics first and then sang it. That was usually the case with things like 'In My Life' and 'Universe' and some of the ones that stand out a bit." Beatles in Their Own Words

McCARTNEY: ". . . That's the one we slightly dispute. John either forgot or didn't think I wrote the tune." Playboy (December 1984)

McCARTNEY: "I find it very gratifying that out of everything we wrote, we only appear to disagree over two songs [In My Life and Eleanor Rigby]." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "Paul helped me write the middle-eight melody. The whole lyrics were already written before Paul had even heard it. In 'In My Life,' his contribution melodically was the harmony and the middle-eight itself." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

McCARTNEY: "I'll give you my memories of writing 'In My Life'. I arrived at John's house for a writing session and he had the very nice opening stanzas of the song. As many of our songs were, it was the first pangs of nostalgia for Liverpool; not that we longed to return there but, like everyone, you look at your youth, as Maharishi used to say, through a golden glass, and it looks much better than it was. 'Remember those times when we used to walk with guitars and strum at night?' and they were good but they sound much better in retrospect, it was just walking along the street with a guitar. Once the Beatles had happened, us two little waifs walking along strumming quite openly on the street suddenly becomes a romantic legend, something they would definitely not miss in a film. That was what John had. But as I recall, he didn't have a tune to it, and my recollection, I think, is at variance with John's. I said, 'Well, you haven't got a tune, let me just go and work on it.' And I went down to the half-landing, where John had a Mellotron, and I sat there and put together a tune based in my mind on Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Songs like 'You've Really Got A Hold On Me' and 'Tears Of A Clown' had really been a big influence. You refer back to something you've loved and try to take the spirit of that and write something new. So I recall writing the whole melody. And it actually does sound very like me, if you analyse it. I was obviously working to lyrics. The melody's structure is very me. So my recollection is saying to John, 'Just go and have a cup of tea or something. Let me be with this for ten minutes on my own and I'll do it.' And with the inspiration of Smokey and the Miracles, I tried to keep it melodic but a bit bluesy, with the minors and little harmonies, and then my recollection is going back up into the room and saying, 'Got it, great! Good tune, I think. What d'you think?' John said, 'Nice,' and we continued working with it from then, using that melody and filling out the rest of the verses. As usual, for these co-written things, he often just had the first verse, which was always enough: it was the direction, it was the signpost and it was the inspiration for the whole song. I hate the word but it was the template. We wrote it, and in my memory we tagged on the introduction, which I think I thought up. I was imagining the intro of a Miracles record, and to my mind the phrases on guitar are very much Smokey and the Miracles. So it was John's original inspiration, I think my melody, I think my guitar riff. I don't want to be categorical about this. But that's my recollection. We then finished it off and it was a fine song which John sang." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

The lines about living and dead friends were written primarily for Stu Sutcliffe, a dear friend of Lennon's and former Beatles bass player who died April 10, 1962, and Lennon's other longtime friend Pete Shotton. John Lennon: In My Life

RECORDED
October 18, 1965, at Abbey Road, with the instrumental break overdubbed October 22
A gap was left in the original recording for an unspecified solo. While the Beatles were out of the studio, George Martin decided to experiment with filling it with an Elizabethan-style keyboard sound. He wasn't able to play the solo fast enough, but played it at half-speed and then sped up the tape to achieve the same result. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, harmony vocal
LENNON: lead vocal (double-tracked)
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums
GEORGE MARTIN: piano

MISCELLANEOUS
This was one of Harrison's favourite Lennon-McCartney compositions, but he caused a furor by rearranging the music and some of the lyrics when he performed this in concert in late 1974. He changed the line "In my life I love you more" to "In my life I love him more."
Britain's only elevated railway still ran from Seaforth Sands to Dingle Station; a trip on the 'overhhead' was a favourite treat for young boys until it was demolished on the last day of 1956. It featured in John Lennon's original lyrics for 'In My Life' and was so well built that the company commissioned to knock it down went bankrupt trying. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: ". . . It was, I think, my first real major piece of work. Up till then it had all been sort of glib and throwaway. And that was the first time I consciously put [the] literary part of myself into the lyric." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

COMMENTS BY OTHERS
IAN MacDONALD, musicologist: "Its angular verticality, spanning an entire octave in typically wide - and difficult - leaps, certainly shows more of his touch than Lennon's, despite fitting the latter's voice snugly. (As for the middle eight, there isn't one, the song alternating between its verse and an extended chorus.)"

I'm Looking Through You

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
This song was provoked by the difficulties of Paul's stormy relationship with Jane Asher, who insisted on putting her acting career first and continued to spend most of her time in Bristol. Written in Paul's attic room at Wimpole Street, surrounded by the evidence of Jane and her family, the lyrics are unusually specific and personal for Paul, who normally preferred to universalise his songs.

McCARTNEY: "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. This one I remember particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment. She went down to the Bristol Old Vic quite a lot around this time. Suffice it to say that this one was probably related to that romantic episode and I was seeing through her facade. And realising that it wasn't quite all that it seemed. I would write it out in a song and then I've got rid of the emotion. I don't hold grudges so that gets rid of that little bit of emotional baggage. I remember specifically this one being about that, getting rid of some emotional baggage. 'I'm looking through you, and you're not there!' I think it's totally my song. I don't remember any of John's assistance." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
October 24, 1965, but remade November 6 and again November 10, with vocals overdubbed November 11 at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal (double-tracked)
LENNON: acoustic guitar, harmony vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, tambourine
STARR: drums, Hammond organ

I Lost My Little Girl

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)

McCARTNEY: "When I first started writing songs I started using a guitar. The first one I ever wrote was one called 'My Little Girl' which is a funny little song, a nice little song, a corny little song based on three chords - G, G7 and C. A little later we had a piano and I used to bang around on that." Beatles in Their Own Words

McCARTNEY: "I wrote that when I was fourteen just after I'd lost my mother. I don't think the song was about that but of course, any psychiatrist getting hold of those two bits of information would say it was. It's fairly obvious with a title like 'I Lost My Little Girl'." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "I got my first guitar when I was 15, and I just used to fool around with it, more or less. As time went by though, I got more interested. I used to be influenced by Elvis, Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, in the old days. I love them. I can't really sing like them, but I like them. Dad used to play the piano and he would teach us things like harmony, and that learning helped me write my first song, called 'I Lost My Little Girl', when I was 14. It had just three chords, G, G7 and C. I just used to make them up." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "I must have played it to John when we met and we decided to get together and see if we could write as a team." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

I'll Keep You Satisfied

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (.6) and Lennon (.4)
McCARTNEY: "That was a good one. Billy J. was having a bit of success and because he was out of the same stable as us, it made sense for us, if we weren't having to write a lot of stuff for ourselves, to knock off a couple for friends. It was pretty much co-written: John and I sat down and purposely wrote it for Billy J. in a couple of hours. This one is one I still like. I find myself whistling it in the garden." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Recorded by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas on July 22, 1963.
It was another top-ten hit but this time only reached number four. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Instant Karma!

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (1.00)

LENNON: "I enjoyed the 'Instant Karma' thing because there were the people right there. And we were talking about the fact that she [Yoko] was knitting, you see. Because we did everything together. Now she wasn't singing on 'Instant Karma'. So I'm doing 'Instant Karma', live - or it was a backing tape with live vocal, I think - and she's just sitting there knitting this scarf, and there was some review the next day - 'How dare she sit there knitting?' you know. But we wanted to be together, and her contribution to that event, instead of having a smoke bomb or a coloured light, a psychedelic light, Yoko only knitted. You see. And - 'What are they doing?' There's a film of that - I wish I could get hold of it." December 6, 1980, The Last Lennon Tapes

I've Just Seen A Face

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
Written in Jane Asher's basement music room at Wimpole Street. Many Years
McCARTNEY: "I think of this as totally by me. It was slightly country and western from my point of view. It was faster, though, it was a strange uptempo thing. I was quite pleased with it. The lyric works: it keeps dragging you forward, it keeps pulling you to the next line, there's an insistent quality to it that I liked." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
June 14, 1965, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: acoustic guitar, lead vocal (occasionally double-tracked)
LENNON: acoustic guitar
HARRISON: acoustic lead guitar
STARR: drums, maracas

MISCELLANEOUS
McCartney's Aunt Jin liked this tune, so its working title was "Aunty Jin's Theme."

McCARTNEY: "My old Aunty Jin was like an earth mother: 'Sit down and we'll talk about it.' There was a lot of security there. She was a central character, she was known as Control within the family."

Aunty Jin is one of the few people to have received a name check in one of Paul's songs; both she and his brother get a listing in 'Let 'Em In' on Paul's 1976 album Wings At The Speed Of Sound, showing how his childhood continued to be woven into his songs. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Later the George Martin Orchestra recorded the song as an instrumental with that title.

If I Needed Someone

AUTHORSHIP Harrison (1.00)
HARRISON: "It was written in D nut position (capoed at the 5th fret)." Guitar (November 1987)

RECORDED
October 16, 1965, at Abbey Road, with overdubs added October 18

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: tambourine, Fender Stratocaster guitar (Sonic Blue tremolo), backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar (Rickenbacker Fireglo 360/12 [capoed]), lead vocal (double-tracked)
STARR: drums
GEORGE MARTIN: harmonium
guitars from Guitar (November 1987)

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' live repertoire in 1965 and 1966. The Complete Beatles Chronicle

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
HARRISON: " 'If I Needed Someone' is like a million other songs written around the D chord. If you move your finger about you get various little melodies. That guitar line, or variations on it, is found in many a song, and it amazes me that people still find new permutations of the same notes." I Me Mine

I'm In Love

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (1.00)

Recorded by the Fourmost in October 1963.

If I Fell

CHART ACTION
UNITED STATES: Also released as a single, July 20, 1964. It did not crack the Billboard Top 40, although its A side ("And I Love Her") hit No. 12.

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.7) and McCartney (.3)
LENNON: "That's 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 kind of things. And it's semiautobiographical, but not consciously. It shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads, silly love songs, way back then." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

McCARTNEY: "People forget that John wrote some pretty nice ballads. People tend to think of him as an acerbic wit and aggressive and abrasive, but he did have a very warm side to him really which he didn't like to show too much in case he got rejected. We wrote 'If I Fell' together but with the emphasis on John because he sang it. It was a nice harmony number, very much a ballad." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
February 27, 1964, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: acoustic guitar, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' repertoire for concerts in 1964. The Complete Beatles Chronicle
Lennon's manuscript of the lyrics was auctioned for L7,800 at Sotheby's, London, in early April 1988. AP (April 8, 1988)

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY: "This was our close-harmony period. We did a few songs - 'This Boy,' 'If I Fell,' 'Yes It Is' - in the same vein." Playboy (December 1984)

I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

CHART ACTION: Also released as a single July 20, 1964. It didn't make the Billboard Top 40. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.5) and McCartney (.5)
McCARTNEY: "We wrote 'I'm Happy Just To Dance With You' for George in the film. It was a bit of a formula song. We knew that in E if you went to an A-flat minor, you could always make a song with those chords; that change pretty much always excited you. This is on of these. Certainly 'Do You Want To Know A Secret' was. This one anyway was a straight co-written song for George. We wouldn't have actually wanted to sing it because it was a bit. . . . The ones that pandered to the fans in truth were our least favourite songs but they were good. They were good for the time. The nice thing about it was to actually pull a song off on a slim little premise like that. A simple little idea. It was songwriting practice." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "That was written for George to give him a piece of the action. . . . I couldn't have sung it." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: "I wrote this for George to sing. I'm always reading how Paul and I used to make him invisible or keep him out, but it isn't true. I encouraged him like mad." Beatles in Their Own Words

RECORDED
March 1, 1964, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: rhythm guitar, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, lead vocal
STARR: drums, loose-skinned Arabian bongo

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' repertoire for concerts in 1964. The Complete Beatles Chronicle
Performed in the film A Hard Day's Night.