Category Archives: Help!

Paul’s Big Day in the Studio

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Sixty years ago today, on June 14, 1965, the Beatles were gathered at EMI Studios, in London. Twenty-two-year-old Paul McCartney had three songs to get off his chest—one penned many years earlier, and two inspired by recent events. First up was the country-pop ditty “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” Next, the group laid down the screaming rocker “I’m Down.” Finally, Paul nailed the acoustic ballad “Yesterday” on the second take (with chamber music added later).

The three compositions recorded by the Beatles that late spring day exemplify Paul McCartney’s versatility as a songwriter. As I pondered this six-hour cross-genre musical display, I hit upon an idea—part-challenge, part-experiment, and all-madness. For the sixtieth anniversary of “Paul’s big day in the studio,” I would attempt to replicate the three songs myself—delivering all the vocals and playing all the instruments, using the (comparatively meager) tools and abilities at my disposal.

I could spend the rest of this post cataloguing the failings of my efforts. But surely, they will speak for themselves.

I’ve Just Seen a Face

Recorded first during the Beatles’ afternoon session on June 14, 1965

“I’ve Just Seen a Face” had been in Paul McCartney’s repertoire since the late 1950s. I am 96 percent certain that Paul wrote “I’ve Just Seen a Face” about falling in love, at first sight, with a beautiful young man named Stuart Sutcliffe. (Paul hints at the song’s male subject in the playful line, “Other girls were never quite like this.”) Here is a possible timeline for how Paul became acquainted with Stu:

July 6, 1957: Paul McCartney (famously) meets John Lennon at the annual garden fete (party) of St. Peter’s Church, in Liverpool

Fall 1957: John meets Stuart Sutcliffe, at Liverpool College of Art

Slightly later in fall 1957: John introduces Paul to his new friend Stu

At the time they met, Stu was two years older than Paul, having turned seventeen over the summer. Can you guess where I’m going with this? I am 92 percent sure that Paul wrote at least one other (better known) song about first glimpsing Stu: “I Saw Her Standing There.” Indeed, Stu was “just seventeen,” and the way he looked was “way beyond compare.” Stu would eventually become the Beatles’ first bassist.

When John found out about Paul’s relationship with Stu, he told Paul to knock it off. But he caught Paul “talking to that boy again” and reminded him, “You can’t do that.” Paul turned John’s admonition into a song that played well live, earning a spot in the typical setlist for the Beatles’ 1964 world tour.

When “I’ve Just Seen A Face” was released in August 1965, on the album Help!, Stuart Sutcliffe had been dead for over three years.

I’ve Just Seen a Face

I’m Down

Recorded second during the Beatles’ afternoon session on June 14, 1965

Paul McCartney brought “I’m Down” into the studio three days after returning from a two-week trip with his girlfriend, Jane Asher. I believe the couple had intended to wed while in Portugal—a plan foiled by an ultimatum from John Lennon.

John had threatened Paul that if he married Jane, the Beatles would be over. And Paul’s relationship with John would be over. Paul and Jane chose to keep the Beatles together rather than wed, as “I’m Down” corroborates: “Man buys ring, woman throws it away.” Jane didn’t really throw the ring away. But Paul was truly “down,” despite the song’s upbeat energy. John apparently delighted in his control over Paul, laughing as Paul suffered; the song’s chorus asks, “How can you laugh when you know I’m down?”

“I’m Down” was released in July 1965, as the B-side of the non-album single “Help!” My recording starts with words spoken by Paul, in an exaggerated American accent, prior to the first take.

I’m Down

Yesterday

Recorded during the Beatles’ evening session on June 14, 1965

“Yesterday” is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, and I consider Paul’s replacement’s performances of it to be covers. Years ago, I was equal parts amused and outraged by a video in which Paul’s replacement cited “Yesterday” as the best song he had [n]ever written.

Paul’s lyrics for “Yesterday” had the same origin as those for “I’m Down”: John Lennon’s ultimatum. Again, Paul could marry Jane Asher, or the Beatles could continue to exist—but not both. In an earlier post, I theorized, at length, about this “shadow hanging over” Paul. Undoubtedly, John felt relieved—perhaps even triumphant—when Paul and Jane returned from their elopement unhitched. Three days later, Paul showed up at the studio with the lyrics to “Yesterday.” The melody had come to him some time earlier; in fact, he had played it so incessantly while the Beatles were filming Help! that the director threatened to remove the piano from the set.

The photo accompanying this post represents my conception of how the studio looked when Paul debuted his full version of “Yesterday.” I think my AI prompt says it all:

I would like to create a color image that brings to life my vision of what it was like in studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios when the Beatles were recording “Yesterday,” on June 14, 1965. The focus is on 22-year-old Paul McCartney; a soft glow highlights his concentration. He is sitting on a stool, with one leg crossed over the other, as he plays a relatively large, light golden brown acoustic guitar and sings into a microphone on a stand. It’s important that Paul, a famous left-handed guitarist, is playing left-handed; that is to say, he is strumming with his left hand and fingering the frets with his right hand. Paul is wearing a pale blue long-sleeved button-down shirt.

In the background, 23-year-old Ringo Starr is sitting behind a drum kit; he is wearing a white pullover sweater and has a youthful, fresh-faced appearance, just as he looked in 1965. Elsewhere in the room, 21-year-old George Harrison is sitting on the floor cross-legged, with a thoughtful look on his face; an electric guitar is lying on the floor nearby. Also in the room, 23-year-old John Lennon is sitting on a chair, his face buried in his hands; he is trying to control his strong emotions, as he recognizes that Paul’s song is about him. Because “Yesterday” is a solo effort by Paul, there is the sense that Ringo, George, and John are essentially audience members, as they listen to Paul and contemplate the meaning of his melancholy song.

(Note that Ringo, George, and John were actually a year older at the time; I cheated their ages down to try to avoid facial hair in the generated image. Also, I provided the name “Abbey Road Studios” because it is more familiar than the venue’s earlier name, “EMI Studios.” I tried to get AI to position the pick guard on Paul’s guitar above the sound hole, as Paul had flipped around and restrung a right-handed guitar; but that was too much to ask.)

If you think it’s wild speculation that Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” about John Lennon, I direct you to a video of the Beatles’ performance of the song in Munich, Germany, on June 24, 1966. I am not especially fond of this electric, all-band rendition, which is in the key of G instead of the original F (requiring Paul to strain a bit for some of the notes). John appears quite emotional as Paul croons the second instance of the bridge, starting at 1:33: “Why she had to go / I don’t know, she wouldn’t say…” As the camera zooms in, John looks at Paul and bites his lip, seeming to hold back tears; then he glances away, possibly to defuse his feelings. To me, this is the visage of a man who knows he has screwed up royally. Roughly six months earlier, John had beaten Paul up and broken his tooth; and roughly six months before that, he had issued the ultimatum that prompted Paul to write the lyrics to “Yesterday.”

Yesterday

CREDITS: Each patterned background in the video for “I’m Down” is credited as follows: “Image by freepik.” Mike McCartney took the photo of Paul McCartney that opens the video for “I’m Down.”

Comfort Cold

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William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was barely literate, but he could not have died more poetically: on the same day and month he was born, April 23. Today would have been his 461st birthday (if people lived for centuries), as we commemorate the 409th anniversary of his death.

I’m not ready to lay out a case for who wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare, because I don’t think the world is ready to entertain the idea that the individual widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language (according to Wikipedia, anyway) was a woman—let alone one who grew up on a farm, in a rigidly patriarchal society that didn’t educate girls.

This is a woman whom scholars claim to know very little about, outside public records. They dismiss her as a footnote in the life of a literary genius—not realizing it was she who wrote the plays and poems they study, teach, and publish criticism on.

No, the time just doesn’t feel right—though perhaps it is ripe. We probably need this information now, if only to expand our thinking a bit—to encompass the fact that the configuration of sex organs within the human body has no bearing on the soul’s depth to feel or on the mind’s capacity to learn, imagine, or create. Ultimately, the sex of the person who wrote Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream shouldn’t matter—which, perhaps, is all the meaning in answering the authorship question once and for all.

Today, I am sharing a sonnet that might have been penned by Anne Hathaway, William Shakespeare’s wife of thirty-three years, upon the death of her husband. It follows the sonnet form that was popularized, though not invented, by the writer of Shakespeare’s works—but I have leveled up the difficulty a bit. (I’m a bookish kind of daredevil.) Here’s the rhyme scheme of the traditional Shakespearean sonnet:

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

The different letters represent pairs of lines that rhyme with each other: so, the first and third (A an A), the second and fourth (B and B), the fifth and seventh (C and C)—all the way to the closing couplet (G and G). Today’s sonnet, however, uses the following, somewhat more ambitious rhyming pattern:

ABAB ACAC ADAD AA

What this means is that over half the lines in the poem (eight out of fourteen) rhyme with each other: specifically, lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14. This more demanding rhyme scheme, which requires additional craft from the poet, pays homage to the profound specialness of the subject.

From Anne Hathaway…

Each sonnet in my series concludes with lyrics written by the original Paul McCartney (who died in 1966). I took the last line of today’s sonnet from the title track of George Harrison’s triple album All Things Must Pass (1970). I suspect Paul was inspired to write “All Things Must Pass” (the song) by his mother’s passing, when he was fourteen; or by the death of the Beatles’ first bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, when Paul was nineteen. The song offers words of comfort from the deceased, using natural phenomena (sunrise, sunset, a cloudburst) as metaphors.

In previous posts, I have noted Paul McCartney’s systematic use of meter in his lyrics. In fact, Paul employs enough of the metrical “feet” (rhythmic units) required for Shakespearean sonnets that I have gleaned about two hundred possible last lines for sonnets so far. (Fans might also notice that today’s sonnet opens with a nod to the Beatles’ 1965 classic “Help!”)

It should probably come as no surprise that English student Paul McCartney wrote at least one Shakespearean-style sonnet. This poem has survived, mostly intact. Paul’s replacement published it in his memoir, as his own—but modified two lines to refer to his wife Linda, who died in 1998. While I do not wish to diminish the sentiment of those lines by omitting them below, they are not Paul’s. And Paul would have been mortified to take credit for words he did not write (especially when they contained a punctuation error and a questionable rhyming choice). So, here is the greater part of a Shakespearean sonnet written by young Paul McCartney following the death of his mother:

She was the source of all that life could bring.
Each day her glory woke the morning rays.
Her voice was first of all the birds to sing.
It was her calling to ignite the days.
…
…
An advocate for every beating heart,
She would defend each child and each mouse.
But now her face and song are not as clear.
Her image and her voice are in a haze.
Though still she whispers guidance in my ear,
Don’t see her ’round the house as much these days.
The more delight we find in love and song,
The more we’re left to miss them when they’re gone.

Regarding the subject matter of the two missing lines, I can only speculate. Perhaps they refer to Mary McCartney’s work as a midwife and as the head nurse of a hospital maternity ward—hence the words “advocate,” “beating heart,” “defend,” and “child” in the two remaining lines of the quatrain.

In closing, I can attest that a sonnet, like a song, makes a pretty little container to put one’s grief in.