Although McCartney had a sheepdog named Martha, Paul wrote this song about his muse, "the voice in his head that tells him what words and music to write," he said in the book A Hard Day's Write.
Fourteen session musicians payed strings and horns, Lennon played guitar while Harrison played bass. Paul talked about the piano part in "Martha My Dear":
When I taught myself piano I liked to see
how far I could go, and this started life
almost as a piece you'd learn as a piano
lesson. It's quite hard for me to play, it's
a two-handed thing, like a little set piece.
In fact, I remember one or two people
being surprised that I'd played it because
it's slightly above my level or
competence really, but I wrote it as that,
something a bit more complex for me to
play. Then while I was blocking out
words--you just mouth out sounds and
some things come--I found the words
"Martha my dear."
Listeners to The White Album in 1968 and for several years assumed "Sexy Sadie" was about a sex symbol or another beautiful girl the Beatles knew. So it came as a surprise when Lennon revealed the true subject behind the song:
That was inspired by Maharishi. I wrote
it when we had our bags packed and we
were leaving. It was the last piece I
wrote before I left India. I just called
him, "Sexy Sadie" instead of
"Maharishi, what have you done, you
made a fool..." I was just using the
situation to write a song, rather
calculatingly but also to express what I
felt. I was leaving the Maharishi with a
bad taste.
That was Lennon's quote from 1980. "I think Maharishi was a mistake, but the teachings have got some truth in them," John said at a press conference on May 14, 1968 in New York, but he was more blunt about the experience two years later:
I wouldn't write "Maharishi, what have
you done, you made a fool of
everyone," but now it can be told, fab
listeners...That was about the
Maharishi. There was a big hullabaloo
about him trying to rape Mia Farrow,
and things like that. So we went to see
him. I was the spokesman, as usual
whenever the dirty work came. I said,
"We're leaving." He asked, "Why?",
and all that sh*t, and I said, "Well if
you're so cosmic, you'll know why."
"Cry Baby Cry" is another song Lennon didn't like, yet the largely undiscovered song at the time received high praise.
Ian MacDonald, in the book Revolution In The Head, said the song is "one of the most evocative products of that creative channel." "An underrated Lennon royalty satire; it's his most accomplished Lewis Carroll pastiche," wrote Tim Riley. David Quantick said it is "A song with an air of a particularly dreamlike ghost story...one of the strangest and most beautiful lyrics on the White Album." "Alice trips gently through Lennonland for just about the last time...(it ranks) among his most magical," said Nicholas Schaffner.
This next fan favorite came about as the result of a jam session in Abbey Road's studio two. The Beatles scheduled their September 18, 1968 session earlier than usual so they could watch the film The Girl Can't Help It, which aired for the first time on British television that night.
Assistant producer Chris Thomas was filling in for George Martin that day, and recalled to Mark Lewisohn for his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions how "Birthday" came about:
I had mentioned to Paul a couple of days
earlier about "The Girl Can't Help it" being on
television during this evening. The idea was
to start the session earlier than usual, about
five o'clock in the afternoon, and then all nip
around the corner to Paul's house in
Cavendish Avenue, watch the film and go
back to work.
So on the day Paul was the first one in, and
he was playing the "Birthday" riff.
Eventually the others arrived, by which time
Paul had literally written the song, right there
in the studio. We had the backing track
down by about 8:30, popped around to
watch the film as arranged and then came
back and actually finished the whole song.
It was all done in a day!
Lennon wrote this while at the Transcendental Meditation camp in India when was unable to sleep. Notice how John used music and tempo to accentuate the sleepy feeling of the lyrics in "I'm So Tired".
McCartney and the rest of the group undoubtedly heard of Eurasian Blackbirds, which were common in the gardens and throughout the countryside in Great Britain. But Paul was singing about racial strife in the American South in the 1960's here, not about the bird.
Paul recalled to Barry Miles that he viewed his song as empowerment:
I had in mind a black woman, rather than
a bird. Those were the days of the civil
rights movement, which all of us cared
passionately about, so this was really a
song from me to a black woman,
experiencing these problems in the
States: "Let me encourage you to keep
trying, to keep your faith; there is hope."
As is often the case with my things, a
veiling took place, so rather than
saying, "Black woman living in Little
Rock" and be very specific, she
became a bird, became symbolic, so
you could apply it to your particular
problem.
McCartney wrote this song on the roof of the ashram in India, with Lennon and Donovan helping out. "Rocky Sassoon" was the original title, but was changed to make the protagonist sound "more like a cowboy".
AmericanSongwriter.com calls this next song:
a kind of impressionistic meditation by an
earthbound man on the ethereal presence
of a woman calling to him yet hovering
out of his reach. Or at least that's how it
sounds removed from any context. In
actuality, Lennon was writing the song as
an indirect tribute to his deceased mother
Julia.
John is the only Beatle performing on the song, which became more common as the group became more fractured. Even with the double-tracked vocals, listeners can detect the loneliness in Lennon's voice as he sings of his mother. There are undoubtedly elements of the song that were influenced by Yoko.
John borrowed some of his lines from the poem "Sand And Foam" by Kahlil Gibran; "Half of what I say is meaningless/But I say it just to reach you." Lennon used imagery to convey both beauty and distance: "Silent cloud", "Morning moon", and "Her hair of floating sky."
The album that became Let It Be was inspired by McCartney, who suggested the Beatles record and rehearse an album of new material, then perform it in a filmed and recorded show before a live audience. The group, which hadn't performed live since 1968, was initially interested in the idea because of their positive experience filming the promotional video for "Hey Jude" before a live audience.
The project was originally to be called Beatles at Work, a one-hour television program filmed by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, with the album to be titled Get Back, representative of the Beatles "getting back to their roots". Many hours of footage were captured on film, but Martin said the project was "not at all a happy recording experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb."
Harrison walked out of the sessions, upset at both McCartney and Lennon. When he returned five days later, he threatened to leave the group unless they abandoned the idea of performing live and instead concentrated on finishing the new album using songs recorded for the TV special. George also demanded that they quit working at Twickenham Film Studios and relocate to the newly finished Apple Studio. The rest of the members agreed, but saved the footage shot for the television idea for use in a feature movie instead.
With group chemistry at an all-time low, Harrison invited keyboardist Billy Preston to join the last nine days of the sessions. There was much deliberation about the location to film a live performance before the group decided to film it on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row in London on January 30, 1969.
The Beatles performed a 42-minute surprise concert, which was not announced to anyone, joined by Preston before the Metropolitan Police asked them to stop. The band performed nine takes of five songs as crowds below, many on their lunch break, looked up. The show ended with "Get Back", with Lennon joking, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition." It was the final public performance of the group's career.
Five weeks later, engineer Glyn Johns began assembling an album of new material (originally to be called Get Back), as the band, according to Mark Lewisohn's 1992 book The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To the Beatles' Entire Career, had "all but washed their hands of the entire project."
More problems arose when the band realized they needed to hire a new financial adviser now they had lost the genius of Epstein. Lennon, Harrison and Starr wanted Allen Klein, former manager of the Rolling Stones, while McCartney preferred Lee and John Eastman, the father and brother, respectively, of Linda Eastman, whom Paul married on March 12. Unable to reach an agreement, the group hired Klein as their business manager and the Eastmans as their attorneys.
However, the group subsequently fired the Eastmans and named Klein as manager of the Beatles on May 8. Outvoted by the other members, McCartney refused to sign the management contract with Klein.
The melody for this song was born during an unstructured jam session on January 7, 1969 during rehearsals at Twickenham Studios. Over the next several minutes, McCartney began singing "Get back to where you once belonged", a reworking of "Get back to the place you should be" from Harrison's song "Sour Milk Sea". On January 9, Paul brought a more developed version of "Get Back" into the studio with the "Sweet Loretta" verse close to its final version.
With the recording sessions not going well, the group decided that "Get Back", originally the title of the album, would be released instead as a single prior to the album, and was a #1 smash in nearly every country in the world (including #1 for 5 weeks in the United States), a Quadruple Platinum seller that ranks as The #35 Song of the Rock Era*.
Here's another song written and recorded while the group was working on the "Get Back" sessions. "Don't Let Me Down", like many of Lennon's songs written in this period, were about Yoko Ono, whom he married a few months after the Beatles recorded this song. Paul said it was "a very intense period", and explained that statement to author Barry Miles:
John was with Yoko and had escalated to
heroin and all the accompanying paranoias
and he was putting himself out on a limb. I
think that as much as it excited and amused
him, and [at] the same time it secretly
terrified him. So "Don't Let Me Down" was a
genuine plea...It was saying to Yoko, "I'm
really stepping out of line on this one. I'm
really letting my vulnerability be seen, so
you must not let me down." I think it was a
genuine cry for help. It was a good song.
The wounds resulting from the recording sessions for the "Get Back" project were deep, but began to heal on April 14 as Lennon and McCartney worked to finish this song. Martin was back at producer and engineer Geoff Emerick, who had walked out of the White Album sessions, also returned.
However, neither Harrison nor Starr was a part of the recording. George was on vacation, while Ringo was filming the movie Magic Christian. McCartney played piano, bass, drums and maracas while Lennon played guitars and added additional percussion. "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" also rose to #1 in every major country except New Zealand, where it stopped at #2, and the U.S., where it peaked at #8.
To Martin's surprise, McCartney asked him to produce another album for the group. George had the same feelings as the group members--the "Get Back" sessions were miserable and Martin "thought it was the end of the road for all of us," according to Jonathan Gould's 2007 book Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America.
Nevertheless, the Beatles began recording the bulk of the new album on July 2, 1969 (the group had done some work on two tracks in February and April before taking a break).
On July 4, Lennon released the solo single "Give Peace A Chance", credited to the Plastic Ono Band. August 20 marked the last time that all four members were together in the studio.
On September 8 while Starr was in the hospital, the other Beatles discussed recording a new album, but just 12 days later, Lennon announced to the rest of the group that he was leaving. John agreed to not share this decision publicly so as to keep from harming sales of the upcoming album.
The group released the single "Something", the only Harrison song to ever appear as an A-side, which is unfortunate given the high quality of George's songs that you have heard throughout these segments. It was a huge #1 hit in most countries and has sold over four million copies. Today, "Something" ranks as The #29 Song of the Rock Era*.
The acoustical guitar work in "Something" is some of Harrison's finest, but it is his vocals, in which he pours so much emotion into, that carry the song. Billy Preston played organ on the song, one of the most covered Beatles songs with at least 150 known remakes.
With McCartney's legendary bass riff and John's bluesy vocals and cryptic though decipherable lyrics, this next song is Lennon's song about each Beatle. Verse one about "Old flat top" refers to Ringo, with his flat top haircut. The second verse refers to George, who liked going barefoot and the "monkey fingers" are homage to Harrison's quick guitar playing.
The third verse is about John himself. "Feet below the knees" is about John's stubbornness in letting anyone tell him what to do while Lennon uses "disease" to refer to his depression and emotional state. The final verse is about Paul, with "roller coaster" referring to McCartney's moodiness, being controlling and demanding at times and calm and laid back at others.
"Come Together" then is John's summary about how he felt about each Beatle. The single reached the Top 5 nearly everywhere in the world, including #1 in the United States and is The #74 Song of the Rock Era*.
Taken together, "Something" and "Come Together" rank as The #2 Double-Sided Hits of the Rock Era*.
Much more to come--don't miss Part Eleven!
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