Lest you think I’ve forgotten my Beatles songs, I haven’t: there are nine favorites to go. Revolver (1966), my favorite Beatles album, contains this gem: a lovely ballad that comes in at #25 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs. It’s pure McCartney (with his voice multi-tracked), though of course the writing credits go to Lennon/McCartney. The tune is surprisingly melancholy for a love song. Another surprise is its melodic complexity: tons of diverse parts that interlock seamlessly.
I share the composers’ sentiments, and by that I include Lennon, who isn’t known for his fondness of non-edgy ballads:
McCartney has repeatedly identified it as one of his best compositions, a sentiment echoed by his songwriting partner: Lennon told Playboy in 1980 that it was “one of my favorite songs of the Beatles.”
It still amazes me that someone can produce such a beautiful song in a matter of an hour or so: minutes, really, if you count the framework. No matter how hard I try, and if I had a lifetime to write one song, I couldn’t come close to this one.
Rolling Stone explains the genesis:
McCartney wrote it at Lennon’s house in Weybridge while waiting for Lennon to wake up. “I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E,” McCartney recalled. “And soon [I] had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up.” McCartney has cited the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds as his primary influence for “Here, There and Everywhere.” McCartney had heard the album before it was released, at a listening party in London in May 1966, and was blown away.
The tune’s chord sequence bears Brian Wilson’s influence, ambling through three related keys without ever fully settling into one, and the modulations — particularly the one on the line “changing my life with a wave of her hand” — deftly underscore the lyrics, inspired by McCartney’s girlfriend, actress Jane Asher. (The couple, whose careers often led to prolonged separations, would split in July 1968.) When George Martin heard the tune, he persuaded the musicians to hum together, barbershop-quartet style, behind the lead vocal. “The harmonies on that are very simple,” Martin recalled. “There’s nothing very clever, no counterpoint, just moving block harmonies. Very simple . . . but very effective.”
The recording below is apparently a bootleg cut (perhaps a practice run?) and I have no idea where it’s from. But it’s nice to listen to these un-tricked-out versions.
And a bit more history:
The group spent three days in the studio working on the song, an unusually long time for a single track during this period. After agreeing on a satisfactory rhythm track, the band did backing vocals, then McCartney recorded his lead vocal — which had a surprising inspiration. “When I sang it in the studio, I remember thinking, ‘I’ll sing it like Marianne Faithfull’ — something no one would ever know,” he said. “I used an almost falsetto voice and double-tracked it. My Marianne Faithfull impression.”
What the deuce! A beatles song I can’t remember having heard before….ten thumbs up, Jerry.
my first album at 14yrs still one of my favs every track a cracker
Marianne Faithful is best known for “As Tears Go By”, a song that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote and gave to her. One of the most moving songs ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBpUf-TcIcg
In the song she is watching children play, “doing things we used to do, they think are new….I sit and watch, as tears go by…”
Somewhere Mick or her said that it was a mistake to give her that song at such a young age, that it colored her life with sadness. And she did have a horrible life, fighting with drugs through all of it.
“No matter how hard I try, and if I had a lifetime to write one song, I couldn’t come close to this one.”
Likewise, McCartney/Lennon couldn’t come close to writing WEIT.
+1
People put off by some of McCartney’s later efforts should revisit his Beatles’ output.
I really like Here, There and Everywhere but really don’t like the Mull of Kintyre, though they seem similar sonically and tonally. I wish I could put my finger on the difference. To me, H, T & E floats like a prima ballerina on point, while the M of K plods along like a farmer in wellies herding cattle.
It must be the bagpipes. Have you ever seen a ballerina dance to the sound bagpipes?
As it happens, I’ve just come from a performance of Twyla Tharp’s Brief Fling featuring ballerinas in kilts and tartans. No bagpipes, though.
But there is this infamous Twilight Zone episode.
This is one of several Beatles songs that really sounds it could have been a highlight in a Broadway musical. I was disappointed it didn’t make it into Julie Taymor’s all-Beatles (and uneven) musical film “Across the Universe”
Growing up in southern California, this is really the first Beatles album that penetrated my consciousness. I was insulated by years of the Ventures and the Grateful Dead. The earlier records did not really have much impact.
JERRY
– just to say that your latest email on ‘Anytime/anyplace’ has a link which isn’t working.
Dawn
“It still amazes me that someone can produce such a beautiful song in a matter of an hour or so: minutes, really, if you count the framework.”
Framework? Please explain!
Note that the picture for the song above shows the Beatles at a time a few years after HT&E was recorded.
“The harmonies on that are very simple,” Martin recalled. “There’s nothing very clever, no counterpoint, just moving block harmonies. Very simple . . . but very effective.”
Though I’m sure it’s not an influence, the statement above could easily apply to the first movement of Bach’s 6th Brandenburg Concerto. This is Bach using, instead of his usual counterpoint, the equivalent of the rhythm guitar. (The trumpet in “Penny Lane” was inspired by the second Brandenburg Concerto, though.)