(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 13, 1965: Four takes were recorded of the song. Take 4 was the best, and onto that, they overdubbed John and Paul's lead vocal, George's backing vocal, tambourine, guitars, drums, piano, and cowbell.
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul - lead vocal, bass, piano
John - lead vocal, tambourine
George - backing vocal, lead guitar
Ringo - drums
Paulnt>: "We couldn't get past one phrase that we had. 'You can buy me golden rings.' We strugged for hours. I think we struggled too long. Then we had a break and suddenly it came: 'Wait a minute: "Drive My Car"!'... and then it became more ambiguous, which we liked, instead of golden rings, which was a bit poofy. 'Golden rings' became 'beep beep, yeah.' We both came up with that."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 12, 1965: One take was recorded. Take 1 was similar to the final version used on the album, except for that it had more of George's sitar.
October 21, 1965: The Beatles remade the song, and three new takes were recorded. Take 4 was considered the best.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Paul - harmony vocal, bass
George - sitar
Ringo - finger cymbals, tambourine, maracas
John: "I was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was having one. I was sort of writing from my experiences - girls' flats, things like that."
Paul: "A lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, just cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, is it? 'Cheap Pine.' It was a little parody on those kind of girls who, when you'd get back to their flat, there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view, but not from John's. It was based on an affair he had. She made him sleep in the bath, and then in the last verse, I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge. She led him on and said, 'You better sleep in the bath.' And in our world, that meant the guy having some sort of revenge, so it meant burning the place down..."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 11, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul - lead vocal, bass, piano
John - backing vocal
George - backing vocal, lead guitar
Ringo - drums, tambourine
Mal Evans - Hammond organ
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 21, 1965: Two takes were recorded.
October 22, 1965: Takes 3-5 were recorded. Vocals were overdubbed onto Take 5.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Paul - harmony vocal, bass
George - harmony vocal, lead guitar
Ringo - drums
John: "I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then 'Nowhere Man' came; words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down."
Paul: "He treated it as a third-person song, but he was clever enough to say, 'Isn't he a bit like you and me?' 'Me' being the word."
Other Information
- Tiny Tim sang "Nowhere Man" on The Beatles' 1968 Christmas record.
- I think "Nowhere Man" was the first Beatles song that wasn't about love.
(Harrison)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 8, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
George - lead vocal, lead guitar
Paul - backing vocal, bass
John - backing vocal
Ringo - drums, maracas, tambourine
Other Information
- This was originally called "Won't Be There With You," but they thought it was a bit long and changed it to "Think For Yourself."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 10, 1965: The song was finished in three takes.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Paul - lead vocal, bass, piano
George - lead vocal, lead guitar
Ringo - drums, maracas
George Martin - harmonium
Paul: "An attempt to write a song on one note."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 3, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul - lead vocal, bass
John - backing vocal, acoustic guitar
George - backing vocal, acoustic guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
John: "[Paul] and I were staying somewhere, and he walked in and hummed the first few bars, with the words, and he says, 'Where do I go from here?' I had been listening to Nina Simone - I think it was 'I Put a Spell On You.' There was a line that went, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' That's what made me think of the middle eight for 'Michelle': 'I love you, I love you, I l-o-ove you'."
Other Information
- The inspiration for "Michelle" goes back a ways, all the way back to John's art college days. He and Paul would sometimes attend parties thrown by John's art tutors, and at one of them, a French beatnik with a goatee wearing a striped shirt sat down with a guitar and sang a French ballad. Paul thought it was funny, so he did an impression of the guy as a joke and made up his own French song and everything. Years later, John told him he ought to put words to the song, and that's how Paul came up with "Michelle."
- Paul didn't know much French, so he got Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and wife of Ivan Vaughan, to translate the lyrics into French for him.
(Lennon/McCartney/Starkey)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 4, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
Ringo - lead vocal, drums
Paul - harmony vocal, bass
John - harmony vocal, rhythm guitar
George - lead guitar
Other Information
- The first time The Beatles did this was back in March of 1963 at the same session as "From Me To You," but they didn't like it and gave up on it a while. They had to have a certain amount of songs for the Rubber Soul album and the deadline was coming closer, so they dusted off "What Goes On," made a new middle eight with the help of Ringo, and gave it to Ringo to sing lead on.
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
November 11, 1965: Two takes were recorded, and the second was considered the better one.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Paul - backing vocal, bass
George - backing vocal, sitar
Ringo - drums
John: "'Girl' is real. There was no such thing as the girl; she was a dream, but the words are all right. It wasn't just a song, and it was about that girl - that turned out to be Yoko in the end - the one that a lot of us were looking for."
Paul: "It was always amusing to see if we could get a naughty word on 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 indistinguishable from 'dit dit dit dit.' And it gave us a laugh."
Paul: "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."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
Dates: October 24, November 10 and 11, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul - lead vocal, acoustic guitar, bass
John - harmony vocal, acoustic guitar
George - lead guitar?
Ringo - drums, tambourine, Hammond organ
Paul: "In relationships, you will from time to time argue and not see eye-to-eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing. This one I particularly remember as me being disillusioned over [Jane Asher's] commitment."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 18, 1965: Three takes were recorded. Take 3 was the best.
October 22, 1965: George Martin suggested playing a keyboard in the middle eight. He played a Hammond organ, but no one liked it. They wanted a baroque piano sound, but George Martin couldn't play it at the tempo he wanted.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal
Paul - harmony vocal, bass
George - lead guitar
Ringo - drums
George Martin - piano
Paul: "I remember that [John] had the words written out like a long poem, and I went off and worked something out on the Mellotron. The tune, if I remember rightly, was inspired by the Miracles."
Other Information
- Who made up the song's melody is disputed by John and Paul. John always said Paul's contributions melodically were the middle eight and harmony. Paul said that he came up with the melody for the entire song.
- A longtime friend of John's, Pete Shotton, said that John told him the "some are dead and some are living" line referred specifically to Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete.
- This was one of George's favorite Lennon/McCartney songs. He performed the song live in concert in 1974 and changed the line "In my life, I love you more" to "In my life, I love God more." It made some people mad.
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
Dates: June 17 and November 11, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Paul - lead vocal, bass
George - lead guitar
Ringo - drums, maracas, tambourine
(Harrison)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 16, 1965: The basic rhythm track was recorded.
October 18, 1965: The vocals and Ringo's tambourine were overdubbed.
Musicians and Instruments Played
George - lead vocal, lead guitar
Paul - backing vocal, bass
John - backing vocal, tambourine, rhythm guitar?
Ringo - drums, tambourine
George Martin - harmonium
George:"'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."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: December 3, 1965, on the UK LP Rubber Soul
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London
October 12, 1965
Musicians and Instruments Played
John - lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Paul - backing vocal, bass
George - backing vocal, lead guitar
Ringo - drums, tambourine
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