Good Morning Good Morning

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (1.00)
LENNON: "I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background. If I'm a bit low and not getting much done then the words on the telly come through. That's when I heard 'Good Morning, Good Morning' . . . it was a cornflakes advertisement." Beatles in Their Own Words

McCARTNEY: "This is largely John's song. John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia. It was about his boring life at the time, there's a reference in the lyrics to 'nothing to do' and 'meet the wife'; there was an afternoon TV soap called Meet The Wife that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so 'Good morning, good morning'." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
February 8, 1967, at Abbey Road, with overdubbing February 16 and March 13, 28, and 29

MARTIN: "We weren't averse to putting recorded effects in, too. There were all sorts of sound effects that you could get on record, so in the case of 'Good Morning, Good Morning,' for instance, there was a whole farmyard of animals dubbed in from a [sound-effects] disc." Musician (July 1987)

GEOFF EMERICK: "John said to me during one of the breaks that he wanted to have the sound of animals escaping and that each successive animal should be capable of frightening or devouring its predecessor. So those are not just random effects, there was actually a lot of thought put into all that." The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

The sound effects were taken from the EMI sound-effects tapes 'Volume 35: Animals and Bees' and 'Volume 57: Fox-hunt'. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

MARTIN: "Imagine my delight when I discovered that the sound of a chicken clucking at the end of 'Good Morning' was remarkably like the guitar sound at the beginning of 'Sgt. Pepper' [reprise]. I was able to cut and mix the two tracks in such a way that the one actually turned into the other. That was one of the luckiest edits one could ever get." All You Need Is Ears : The inside personal story of the genius who created The Beatles

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead guitar and solo (right-handed Fender Esquire), backing vocal
LENNON: lead and backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums
SOUNDS INCORPORATED: three saxophones, two trombones, French horn
Sounds Incorporated was a British band that appeared on the same bill as the Beatles on the '64 British tour, '64 Christmas shows, and '65 North American summer tour.

McCARTNEY: "When we came to record it we used Sounds Incorporated to do a big sax thing; they were friends of ours who had been on tour with us. But we still felt it needed something more manic so we decided to use a lot of sound effects on the fade. The great thing about working at EMI Abbey Road was that anything you needed was within reasonably easy rech. EMI was so multi-dimensional they had everything covered and we took advantage of all this. We used Daniel Barenboim's piano that he'd just recorded on; they would sometimes lock it but we would just ask, 'Can you unlock it?' and they'd say, 'Sure.' That was used on the big chord at the end of 'A Day In The Life'. There were so many grand pianos laying around, there were Hammond organs, there were harmoniums, there were celestes, and there was a sound-effects cupboard which they used for doing plays and spoken-word albums. George Martin said, 'There is a library, what do you want?' and we said, 'What have you got?' so we got the catalogue. 'Right, elephants, cock-crowing, the hunt going tally-ho, we'll have that . . .'" Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: "A bit of a gobble-de-gook one, but nice words." Hit Parader (April 1972)

LENNON: "It's a throwaway, a piece of garbage." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: " 'Good Morning, Good Morning' was fairly straight rock and roll except for some strange beats on it. Sounds Incorporated playing their saxes and all that." Beatles in Their Own Words

McCARTNEY: "That was our first major use of sound effects, I think. We had horses and chickens and dogs and all sorts running through it." Playboy (December 1984)

Good Day Sunshine

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (.8) and Lennon (.2)
McCARTNEY: "It was really very much a nod to the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream', the same traditional, almost trad-jazz feel. That was our favourite record of theirs. 'Good Day Sunshine' was me trying to write something similar to 'Daydream'. John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine, and he helped me with it." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "Paul [wrote this]. But I think maybe I helped him with some of the lyric." Hit Parader (April 1972)

RECORDED
June 8, 1966, at Abbey Road, with overdubs added June 9

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: harmony vocal
HARRISON: harmony vocal
STARR: drums
GEORGE MARTIN: piano

COMMENTS BY OTHERS
This song was praised, particularly for its construction, by Leonard Bernstein in a 1967 CBS news documentary. It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

Getting Better

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (.65) and Lennon (.35)

McCartney was walking his dog, Martha, during the early spring of 1967 when the sun came out and he thought, "It's getting better," which reminded him that Jimmy Nicol used to say that same phrase frequently. (Nicol was the drummer who had taken Ringo's place for five days in Denmark and Australia in 1964 when Ringo was ill.) When Lennon came over that day to continue writing material for Sgt. Pepper, McCartney suggested they write a song called "Getting Better." They worked on it for twelve hours, stopping once for a quick meal. They introduced the song to George and Ringo and recorded some of the instrumentation the next night. The Beatles: Illustrated and Updated Edition

Written at Cavendish Avenue, on the top floor, in Paul's music room. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "Wrote that at my house in St. John's Wood. All I remember is that I said, 'It's getting better all the time,' and John contributed the legendary line, 'It couldn't get much worse,' which I thought was very good. Against the spirit of that song, which was all super-optimistic - then there's that lovely little sardonic. Typical John." Playboy (December 1984)

McCARTNEY: "I just remember writing it. Ideas are ideas, you don't always remember where you had them, but what you do remember is writing them. Where I start remembering it is where I actually hit chords and discover the music, that's where my memory starts to kick in because that's the important bit; the casual thought that set it off isn't too important to me.
" 'Getting Better' I wrote on my magic Binder, Edwards and Vaughan piano in my music room. It had a lovely tone, that piano, you'd just open the lid and there was such a magic tone, almost out of tune, and of course the way it was painted added to the fun of it all. It's an optimistic song. I often try and get on to optimistic subjects in an effort to cheer myself up and also, realising that other people are going to hear this, to cheer them up too. And this was one of those. The 'angry young man' and all that was John and I filling in the verses about schoolteachers. We shared a lot of feelings against teachers who had punished you too much or who hadn't understood you or who had just been bastards generally. So there are references to them.
"It's funny, I used to think of the bad grammar coming from Chuck Berry but it's actually more Jamaican, like writing in slang. It just appeared in one of the verses, it felt nice, it scanned nicely, rather than 'I used to be an angry young man', 'me used . . .' We'd always grab at those things, lots of precedents with Elvis, 'ain't never done no wrong'. At school the teachers would have said, 'Isn't it terrible grammar?' and you'd say, 'Yeah, isn't it great?'" Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

John and Paul finished off the words to 'Getting Better' at Cavendish Avenue.

McCARTNEY: "I was sitting there doing 'Getting better all the time' and John just said in his laconic way, 'It couldn't get no worse,' and I thought, 'Oh, brilliant! This is exactly why I love writing with John'. He'd done it on a number of other occasions, he does a Greek chorus thing on 'She's Leaving Home', he just answers. It was one of the ways we'd write. I'd have the song quite mapped out and he'd come in with a counter-melody, so it was a simple ordinary story." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Lennon said he wrote the lines about being cruel and beating the woman.

LENNON: "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically - any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself, and I hit." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

RECORDED
March 9, 1967, at Abbey Road, with overdubbing March 10, 21, and 23

TRIPPING IN THE STUDIO

While overdubbing vocals for this song on March 21, Lennon felt ill. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

LENNON: "I never took it in the studio. Once I did, actually. I thought I was taking some uppers, and I was not in the state of handling it ... I suddenly got so scared on the mike. I said, 'What is it? I feel ill ...'" Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970

MARTIN: "He suddenly looked up at me. 'George,' he said slowly, 'I'm not feeling too good. I'm not focusing on me.' 'Come on, John,' I said. 'What you need is a breath of fresh air. I know the way up to the roof.'" Summer of Love
Just as John was explaining how amazing the stars were looking, Paul and George came rushing out on the flat roof. They knew that John was tripping and when they found out where George had taken him they ran anxiously to restrain him in case he thought he could fly off the unguarded parapet. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

MARTIN: "The problem was where to go; there were the usual five hundred or so kids waiting for us at the front, keeping vigil like guard-dogs, and if we had dared to appear at the entrance there would have been uproar and they would probably have broken the gates down. So I took him up to the roof, above No. 2 studio. I remember it was a lovely night, with very bright stars. Then I suddenly realized that the only protection around the edge of the roof was a parapet about six inches high, with a sheer drop of some ninety feet to the ground below, and I had to tell him, 'Don't go too near the edge, there's no rail there, John.' " All You Need Is Ears : The inside personal story of the genius who created The Beatles

The session was cancelled. For some reason John did not have his car there, and in any case did not want to travel while having a bad trip, so Paul took him back to Cavendish Avenue.
McCARTNEY: "I thought, Maybe this is the moment where I should take a trip with him. It's been coming for a long time. It's often the best way, without thinking about it too much, just slip into it. John's on it already, so I'll sort of catch up. It was my first trip with John, or with any of the guys. We stayed up all night, sat around and hallucinated a lot." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "They all took me upstairs on the roof, and George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me I must have taken acid. I said, 'Well, I can't go on, you'll have to do it, and I'll just stay and watch.' You know I got very nervous just watching them all. I was saying, 'Is it all right?' And they were saying, 'Yeah.' They had all been very kind, and they carried on making the record." Beatles in Their Own Words
McCartney offered to take John home, and when they got there Paul took LSD, too, to keep him company. McCartney said that was his first LSD experience. RS (September 11, 1986)

Paul took his second trip with John. On March 21, 1967, during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, John, Paul and George were overdubbing vocals on to a track of "Getting Better" in Studio Two at Abbey Road. John took out the little silver art nouveau pill box that he had bought from Liberty's and rummaged among his pep pills.
McCARTNEY: "He would open it up and choose very precisely: 'Hmm, hmmm, hmmm. What shall I have now?' Well, by mistake this night he had acid, and he was on a trip." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead and backing vocal
LENNON: lead guitar, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, tamboura, backing vocal
STARR: drums, bongos
GEORGE MARTIN: piano (striking the strings instead of the keys)

The tamboura is an unfretted lute, a huge Indian instrument with four strings that produce a droning resonant note. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

Girl

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.7) and McCartney (.3)
This song was composed during one of John and Paul's writing sessions out at Kenwood. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "This was about a dream girl. When Paul and I wrote lyrics in the old days we used to laugh about it, like the Tin Pan Alley people would. And it was only later on that we tried to match the lyrics to the tune. I like this one. It was one of my best." Beatles in Their Own Words

LENNON: " 'Girl' I liked because I was, in a way, trying to say something or other about Christianity which I was opposed to at the time." December 1970, Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970

McCARTNEY: "It was John's original idea but it was very much co-written. I remember writing 'the pain and pleasure' and 'a man must break his back', it was all very working-on-the-chain-gang. My main memory is that John wanted to hear the breathing, wanted it to be very intimate, so George Martin put a special compressor on the voice, then John dubbed it.
"It was always amusing to see if we could get a naughty word on the record, 'fish and finger pie', 'prick teaser, 'tit tit tit tit'. The Beach Boys had a song out where they'd done 'la la la la' and we loved the innocence of that and wanted to copy it, but not use the same phrase. So we were looking around for another phrase, so it was 'dit dit dit dit', which we decided to change in our waggishness to 'tit tit tit tit', which is virtually indistinguishiable from 'dit dit dit dit'. And it gave us a laugh. It was to get some light relief in the middle of this real big career that we were forging. If we could put in something that was a little bit subversive then we would. George Martin might say, 'Was that "dit dit" or "tit tit" you were singing?' 'Oh, "dit dit", George, but it does sound a bit like that, doesn't it?' Then we'd get in the car and break down laughing. So I credit that as being towards John but I put quite a bit in. It wasn't one that he came in with fully finished at all." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
November 11, 1965, at Abbey Road, during the last session for the album

McCARTNEY: "Listen to John's breath on 'Girl.' We asked the engineer to put it on treble, so you get this huge intake of breath and it sounds just like a percussion instrument." Compleat(b)

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

McCARTNEY: "I remember going with Jane, Ringo and Maureen on a holiday to Greece, and nobody knew who we were. And we were trying to sell ourselves the whole holiday, 'We are in popular singing group back in England,' and they were going, 'Uh, push off, gringo.' 'No, no, really, we are . . .' The band at the hotel were actually quite good, they really had a bit of acoustic stuff down and had obviously been playing there for years. In fact, in the song 'Girl' that John wrote, there's a Zorba-like thing at the end that I wrote which came from that holiday. I was very impressed with another culture's approach because it was slightly different from what we did. We just did it on acoustic guitars instead of bouzoukis." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Goodbye

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
Naturally Mary Hopkin needed a follow-up to "Those Were The Days". Over in Cavendish Avenue Paul quickly wrote one called "Goodbye".
McCARTNEY: "I didn't have in mind any more Russian folk songs so I just wrote one for her. I thought it fit the bill. It wasn't as successful as the first one but it did all right. My main memory of it is from years later, going on a boat trip from the north of Scotland to the Orkney Islands. The skipper of the boat was called George, and he told me it was his favourite song. And if you think of it from a sailor's point of view, it's very much a leaving-the-port song. He had the strangest Scottish accent, almost sort of Norwegian, as the Orkneyans do. He was quite proud of the fact that that was his favourite song." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

"Goodbye" entered the British charts at number five, but didn't make it to the top. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "After 'Goodbye', Mary and I didn't work together again. She wanted to do a more folky album, and I felt that if she wanted to do that I wasn't really interested in producing it. I don't think it was a very good idea in the end."
The album, Earth Song/Ocean Song, was produced by Tony Visconti, whom she married in 1971. After that, she more or less left the business to have children, though she made appearances on records as diverse as David Bowie's Low in 1977 and an entire album sung in Welsh, The Welsh World of Mary Hopkin, in 1979. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

For No One

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
This song was written in March 1966 when Paul and Jane were on their skiing holiday in Klosters, Switzerland. They had rented a chalet high above Klosters, about half a mile from the town.

McCARTNEY: "It was very nice and I remember writing 'For No One' there. I suspect it was about another argument. I don't have easy relationships with women, I never have. I talk too much truth." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
May 9, 1966, at Abbey Road, with the vocal overdubbed May 16, and French horn solo overdubbed May 19

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, piano, harpischord, lead vocal
STARR: drums, tambourine
ALAN CIVIL: horn

Denni Brain, the premier horn player in Britain, was originally booked to play the French horn solo. As usual, George Martin did not stint in hiring the best session players for the Beatles and in this case there was an element of excitement looking forward to that session. Unfortunately, Dennis Brain died in a car crash before the session and Alan Civil took his place, both on the session and as Britain's top player. Paul hummed the melody that he wanted the French horn to play and George Martin wrote out the score. When it was finished, George pointed out to Paul that the high note went just beyond the top of the horn's range and showed him the reference book used for orchestral writing which showed the top notes of orchestral instruments. George Martin said, "But you know, these good players, they can play above the range." Paul said, "Let's try him then."

McCARTNEY: "George was in for the crack, he liked that. He said, 'It'll work, it'll work.' On the session Alan Civil said, 'George?' and looked at us both. He said, 'George, you've written a D,' and George and I just looked at him and held our nerve and said, 'Yes?' And he gave us a crafty look and went, 'Okay.' We did the same trick on 'Penny Lane' with David Mason on the piccolo trumpet, and he almost never forgave me for it because the only thing people ever asked him to do after that was high trumpet stuff." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY, on why he redid Beatles songs for the film Five My Regards To Broad Street: " 'For No One' I'd never done anywhere, ever. I'd written the song, took it to the studio, one day recorded it, end of story. It's just a record, a museum piece. And I hated the idea of them staying as museum pieces." Washington Post via Musician (February 1985)

LENNON: "Another of his I really liked." Hit Parader (April 1972)

Get Back

CHART ACTION
Two disc jockeys played a version of the song before it was released. Hearing it convinced the Beatles that more remixing was needed. The song was remixed April 7, 1969, for the final version. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

UNITED KINGDOM: Released as a single April 11, 1969. It entered the chart at No. 3 April 23. A week later it was No. 1, where it stayed for five weeks. Sales topped 530,000 copies. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Released as a single May 5, 1969. It entered the Top 40 May 10 and climbed to No. 1 for five weeks, totaling twelve weeks in the Top 40. The single sold more than 2 million copies.
The single was also a No. 1 hit around the world, including in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, West Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium.
Worldwide sales were estimated to have exceeded 4.5 million. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
It was basically Paul's song, composed in the studios at Twickenham for the now abandoned television show. Paul had a rough idea for the words and music and began jamming it out. John joined him and together they worked on some lyrics. Typically these were partly lifted from newspaper stories: in this case about the plight of Kenyan Asians, who were rushing to get to Britain before the passing of the Commonwealth Immigration Bill which would have denied them entry. Intended as a parody on racist attitudes, the line, 'Don't dig no Pakistani taking all the people jobs!' was dropped early on as being too easily misconstrued. The rest of the third verse went through various changes, ending up in the final demo as:
Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis
Living in a council flat
Candidate Macmillan tell me what your plan is
Won't you tell me where it's at.

Meanwhile the fascist National Front was beating up Pakistanis on the streets and the right-wing politician Enoch Powell was predicting race war and "rivers of blood" so, to avoid any possibility of inflaming the situation, the entire verse was ultimately dropped. As Paul later insisted, "The words were not racist at all. They were antiracist. If there was any group that was not racist it was the Beatles". But they did not want to be a hostage to misinterpretation. On a more frivolous level, the Jo Jo in the song was a fictional character.
McCARTNEY: "Many people have since claimed to be the Jo Jo and they're not, let me put that straight! I had no particular person in mind, again it was a fictional character, half man, half woman, all very ambiguous. I often left things ambiguous, I like doing that in my songs." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: ". . . When we were doing Let It Be, there were a couple of verses to 'Get Back' which were actually not racist at all - they were anti-racist. There were a lot of stories in the newspapers then about Pakistanis crowding out flats - you know, living sixteen to a room or whatever. So in one of the verses of 'Get Back,' which we were making up on the set of Let It Be [the film], one of the outtakes has something about 'too many Pakistanis living in a council flat' - that's the line. Which to me was actually talking out against overcrowding for Pakistanis. . . . If there was any group that was not racist, it was the Beatles. I mean, all our favourite people were always black. We were kind of the first people to open international eyes, in a way, to Motown." RS (September 11, 1986)
The Beatles made at least two public gestures against racism: They consented to perform on September 11, 1964, in Jacksonville, Alabama, only after the promoters agreed to admit nonwhites to the show, and on July 29, 1966, they refused to sign a contract for a series of concerts in South Africa. The Beatles Diary, Volume 1 : From Liverpool to London

RECORDED
January 27 and 28, 1969, at Apple Studios

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: lead guitar, harmony vocal
HARRISON: rhythm guitar
STARR: drums
BILLY PRESTON: electric piano

MISCELLANEOUS
Preston was the first guest artist to be credited on a Beatles single. The disc's credit reads: "The Beatles with Billy Preston." The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

Apple took out a full-page ad in the May 17, 1969, issue of Rolling Stone for the "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single. It was headed: THE BEATLES AS NATURE INTENDED. RS (May 17, 1969)

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY: "We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air . . . we started to write words there and then. . . . When we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to rollercoast by." Own Words and used in RS (May 17, 1969) ad.

LENNON: "That's a better version of 'Lady Madonna.' You know, a potboiler rewrite. . . . I think there's some underlying thing about Yoko in there. . . . You know, 'Get back to where you once belonged': Every time he sang the line in the studio, he'd look at Yoko." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: "'Get Back' is Paul. That's a better version of 'Lady Madonna.' You know, a potboiler rewrite." All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono