This song is one of the reasons I see “Revolver” (1966) as the best Beatles album ever. “For No One” is number 40 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs. It’s clearly pure McCartney, although of course the writing credits are “Lennon-McCartney.” It’s short—only a tad over two minutes long—but complete, and the famous French horn solo (suggested, of course, by George Martin) is a fantastic touch. In fact, it makes the song.
I may be wrong, but the Beatles may have been the first rock group to use classical instruments and arrangements as a major part of their music. (There were of course earlier attempts: I’m thinking of “True Love Ways” with Buddy Holly, one of my favorite songs, and one that uses not only a full orchestra but some jazz saxophone licks.)
Rolling Stone gives some musical details:
The intimacy of the production and performance — a kind of exhausted acceptance — stand out amid the accelerated experimentation everywhere else on Revolver. McCartney and Starr were the only Beatles present at the session; they cut the backing track — McCartney’s piano and Starr’s minimalist percussion, plus overdubbed clavichord — in a single night. George Martin later suggested a dash of brass, so they called in Alan Civil of the London Philharmonia, who played the song’s brief, moving French-horn interjections. Civil was paid about 50 pounds for his efforts, but got something more valuable: a rare Beatles-album credit on Revolver‘s original back cover.
Wikipedia describes the song’s genesis:
McCartney recalls writing “For No One” in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps while on holiday with his then girlfriend Jane Asher. He said, “I suspect it was about another argument.” The lyrics end enigmatically with “. . . a love that should have lasted years…” The song’s working title was “Why Did It Die?” It is built upon a descending scale progression with a refrain that modulates to the supertonic minor.
The song was recorded on 9, 16 and 19 May 1966. McCartney sang and played clavichord (rented from George Martin’s AIR company), piano and bass guitar, while Ringo Starr played drums and tambourine. John Lennon and George Harrison did not contribute to the recording.
The French horn solo was by Alan Civil, a British horn player described by recording engineer Geoff Emerick as the “best horn player in London”. During the session, McCartney pushed Civil to play a note that was beyond the usual range of the instrument. According to Emerick, the result was the “performance of his life.” Civil said that the song was “recorded in rather bad musical style, in that it was ‘in the cracks’ neither B-flat nor B-major. This posed a certain difficulty in tuning my instrument.”
Jane Asher has had a distinguished career as author and actress, but—along with 50 gazillion teenagers—I’ll always remember her as The Girl Who Got Paul. And, according to Wikipedia, she dumped him:
In 1963, Asher interviewed the Beatles and began a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney, to whom she became engaged in 1967. She accompanied McCartney to India in February 1968 to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. After discovering McCartney in bed with Francie Schwartz she ended the relationship on 20 July 1968.
The reference for the last sentence is McCartney’s biography, Many Years From Now. Since the book was approved by the Paul (and includes a lot of his own words), the description above is surely accurate.
And the hits just keep a-coming.
Your earlier comment, and song choice so far, that nearly all their best stuff was from Rubber Soul and after, is one I entirely agree with.
They started out as kiddie-pop but after a few years they pretty much invented art-rock.
In modern terms, they started out as One Direction but then turned into Radiohead.
Actually, they started out as a skiffle. Then they became a rather raucous club band. Only after that were the “cleaned up” for mass consumption, what you call “kiddie-pop”. Their roots were most definitely not “kiddie-pop”.
(I think “kiddie-pop” vastly under-values the early Beatles music. However, I’d go with “sanitized”.)
I don’t think the early Beatles were either sanitized OR kiddie-pop. Sure, the boy-girl love songs had predictable lyrics and the music was not nearly as sophisticated – but the Beatles showed inventiveness with instrumentation, harmonies (She Loves You) and chord changes early on. They re-worked their many influences from Holly, Little Richard, Chuck Berry AND some of the great Motown sounds. Bob Dylan was blown away, for example, by the chord changes and number of chords in a “simple” song like I Want To Hold Your Hand. When this song hit the airwaves in the U.S., even as kids we could recognize that this was something NEW.
They were very much sanitized. It was the purposeful design (intelligent design, one might say) of their new manager Brian Epstein. That’s where the whole suit and tie, clean-scrubbed mop-top image came from. They went from leather jackets and a somewhat-threatening “biker” (so to speak) image to one that Epstein knew would be acceptable to the general public.
I agree totally with respect to Epstein’s effect, but I was talking about their recordings, not stage image or dress. It is easy to dismiss the early Beatles RECORDINGS as simplistic unless you take into account what ELSE was being recorded at the time. Ticket to Ride, for example, was quite innovative in the days BEFORE Rubber Soul.
And when they were still doing cover versions on their recordings (’63-’65), they included some of the the same raucous stuff (Long Tall Sally, Rock ‘N Roll Music, Twist and Shout, etc.) that were staples of their act in what you call their “biker” and “leather” days. The MUSIC was not ‘sanitized’ is all I was trying to say – and it was evolving even before Rubber Soul.
I can agree with that.
Speaking of two minute beatles songs, here is my favourite atm:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz7IjXu0DfQ)
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. From ‘Help’. I thought that movie was hilarious. And extremely inventive. The Beatles were also quite good actors, in a deadpan style.
Great song. Without George Martin’s influence and classical music training it’s hard to see how they could have changed the course of modern popular music. Giving George Martin the moniker of the 5th Beatle is the least they could have done as a reward!
Great series and yes I think Revolver along with Rubber Soul (planned as a double album?)are the best.
Cheers
I can’t believe For No-One is only listed at #40! Top ten, surely! Given that it also includes Eleanor Rigby (perhaps THE best Beatles song) and Here, There and Everywhere, it is hard not to pick Revolver as their best album. Then again…
Incidentally, why is Fool On The Hill not in the top 100? I’d also include When I’m 64 – McCartney melodies can’t be beaten.
In addition to being a great album, “Revolver” always makes me think about Klaus Voorman, a friend of the Beatles from their Hamburg days who designed the album cover. (He also did the covers of the “Anthology” CDs that came out in the 90’s.) Voorman was also a bass player and appeared on albums by ex-Beatles and many other people. And he had at least one movie appearance, in “Popeye” by Robert Altman. Not a household name, but he seems to have been everywhere!
I love love love this song. The past half hour I have been on a youtube walk down memory lane – interviews on the death of Lennon. My Heart’s broken.
Why is this commentary, and the many like it, being posted on a “Why Evolution is True” site? Can’t we stick to the subject? You’re wasting my time!
Then go elsewhere.
My sentiments exactly. If your time is being wasted here, and surely it has been because we post about a lot of stuff besides evolution, you should go elsewhere.
You are a rude man anyway.
Bye.
Natural selection in action! Evolution IS true!
Ceiling Cat works in mysterious ways.
Indeed. The tone of this place continually improves as the rude and obstreperous folks are selected against.
“Why is this commentary, and the many like it, being posted on a “Why Evolution is True” site? Can’t we stick to the subject? You’re wasting my time!”
Why is this comment being posted on a topic about the Beatles? Can’t we stick to the subject? You’re wasting my time!
🙂
It occurs to me that, if Mr Smith’s time is being wasted, it would have been quicker for him to just go somewhere else than spend even more of his time posting that comment.
Oh damn, now I’ve wasted two minutes of my time commenting on another commenter wasting his time commenting on his time being wasted.
Well now. I thought of Paul as the Guy Who Got Jane. That picture does not do her justice.
I don’t imagine any of the people in this photo would feel flattered by it. Having said that I don’t know anything about Ms Asher but if this photo doesn’t do her justice wow because she looks darn cute to me!
Paul’s next girl, Francie Schwartz, claims Jane Asher didn’t break up with Paul after catching him in bed with her:
“Q: There is the persistent story that Jane Asher caught you and Paul together, leading to their breakup. True or false?
“A: False. They were on the verge of breaking up when I arrived in London. Right after I met Paul he went to his farm in Scotland, and I believe Jane was with him, and that they were trying to work it out, but failed, because he came on with me as soon as he got back to London. I detail the actual events in the E! TV interview. Bottom line: She did come to the house one morning and knock on the bedroom door… but that was well after she had announced that the engagement was off, on TV. I believe that the “sound bite” psychology is what contributed to the myth that persists even today. It’s a simple explanation for a very complicated and hard to condense process that was ongoing.”
From
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/francie.htm
Rickie Lee Jones did a lovely cover of “For No One” on her all-covers album “It’s Like This” (she recently put out another, “Speak of the Devil”). By the way, many of her covers are “better” than the original versions to my ear, mostly because of the calibre of the musicians backing her up.
Her cover of this song works so nicely for me because it actually invokes the intimate, almost austere sound the Beatles achieved in so many of their masterpieces.
It certainly helps that the melody is perfectly matched to the lyrics and the story.
And just to add, lyrically, this song has all the things that I love about a great pop song: simple elegant phrases that paint a big and familiarbpicture; realness, in that no one is all good or all bad, no one is being hurtful, and the narrator is not preaching or consoling himself with finding another girls or whatever – this song to me feels exactly what it feels like when one or both partners have moved on; simple unadorned melancholy and acceptance – this is how mature people feel and behave; and a personal conceit – it’s written in the 2nd person which I cannot get enough of and it is hard to pull off.
I’m glad this series will be going on for some time. Fun!
EmmyLou Harris’ cover of this is also damn good. She did it at the White House tribute to Paul McCartney. She brings a lot of pathos to it.
There is a really nice benefit to this “one a day” song meme. I listen to music all day, everyday; I’ll put on a series of albums or have Pandora streaming while on the computer (and pause it if I am doing a task that requires 100% of my feeble gray matter); pop in CD after CD while driving. I even have music on instead of the sound if I am watching a football, soccer, or boxing match on TV on the weekend. As a result it all becomes background unless I go seek out a specific song to listen to.
So when I consider listening to Revolver it is usually because I am thinking of “Good Day Sunshine” or “Got to Get You Into My Life” (told you I was rock ‘n’ roller). If I wake up with the tune “Alone Again Or” in my head, I’ll dig through my collection and find the Love “Forever Changes” to listen to while I have breakfast.
Clicking on someone else’s links to their favorites (Jerry’s in this case) makes me consider the song outside the context of the album, and it leads (often) to a quite different experience. Especially since I seldom pay attention to song names, and couldn’t have told you “For No One” was a great song on Revolver. On the other hand, I virtually never click someone’s song link where they don’t tell you the artist or the title.
This was the album where McCartney really matured as a songwriter, and IMHO this is one of his most subtle and sophisticated songs ever. Amazing for a self-taught 24 year old pop musician.
Not only is it a great melody, it has some very ingenious harmonic modulations, and a great vocal performance. He delivers the song in an almost brusque, matter-of-fact style and manages to avoid mawkishness. The “blues” note at 1.25 min is a brilliantly sour touch. The hanging, “wrong chord” ending is a very artistic move.
This was the album where Lennon, who had been more prolific and had written more of the hits, stepped back and began to write more personal songs. For better or for worse, McCartney started to assume musical dominance in the band – leading to some later whimsical atrocities like “Honey Pie”, “Ob La Di Ob La Da” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.
Sounds like there’s a new discovery you might approve of Jerry
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/beatles-fan-discovers-release-plans/
This song, along with most of their catalog, was burned into my brain as a stack of their LPs played throughout most of the night as I slept. As a teen who hadn’t even had one girlfriend yet, it didn’t mean a lot to me until years later when –as was the case with many of their songs — it perfectly expressed what I was feeling. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Beatles were more of an influence on me than my family or former religion have ever been.
Somewhere along the line I think we share some genes. Revolver and Rubber Soul, along with Sgt Pepper are my favorite Beatles albums, but I love almost all of their music.
I’m just rereading Bill Wyman’s Stone Alone — of interest to fans and sociologists alike — and I can’t think of anything the Stones did that equals what the Beatles did, although I love much of the Stones’ music as well.