@ audiodeft & some
Paul McCartney recalled in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs: "I said, 'Let's slow it down with a swampy bass-and-drums vibe.' I came up with a bass line, and it all flowed from there." (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England)
John Lennon was sued for stealing the guitar riff and the line "Here comes old flat-top" from Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me." The lawsuit did not come from Berry, but from Morris Levy, one of the music industry's most infamous characters. He owned the song along with thousands of other early rock songs that he basically stole from the poor, black, and unrepresented artists. Levy sued the Beatles, or more accurately, John Lennon, over the song around the time the Beatles broke up. For years, Lennon delayed the trial while he and the Beatles tried to sort out all the legal and business problems that plagued Apple Records. Finally, in an attempt to avoid the court room as much as he could (Lennon felt like he was appearing in court more often than not), he settled with Levy. In return for dropping the suit, Lennon agreed to record his Rock N Roll album, which was just a series of covers of songs Levy owned. Lennon always wanted to make a cover album and was thrilled to have the opportunity, and Levy wanted the value of his songs to increase, and when a Beatle re-records a song, that is just what happens. To make a long long long story short, Lennon recorded the album over the Lost Weekend, a year-or-two period when he was separated from Yoko Ono and lived in LA. During that time he was often drunk or high, and was rather sloppy and useless. Levy was getting frustrated with the lack of progress. Phil Spector was the producer, but in a fit of madness (which was not too unusual for Spector) he ran away and stole the recording session tapes. Levy invited Lennon to his upstate NY recording studio, and that is where he finally recorded the album. (thanks, Matthew - New York, NY)
The whispered lyric that sounds like "shoot" is actually Lennon saying "shoot me" followed by a handclap. The bass line drowns out the "me."
The Beatles recorded this on July 21, 1969 and it was the first session John Lennon actively participated in following his and Yoko's car accident 3 weeks earlier. John was so insistent on Yoko being in the studio with him that he had a hospital bed set up in the studio for her right after the accident, since she was more seriously injured than he was. (thanks, Adrian - Wilmington, DE)
The line "Ono sideboard" refers to Yoko.
The British Broadcasting Company (The BBC) banned this because of the reference to Coca Cola, which they considered advertising.
This has one of the most commonly misheard lyrics in the history of popular music: "Hold you in his -armchair- you can feel his disease." It's actually "Hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease." All published sheet music had the "armchair" lyric, including the inner sleeve of the 1967-1970 compilation, which contained lots of other errors too, notably on "Strawberry Fields Forever." After John heard that his lyric was incorrect in the sheet music and other folios, he decided he liked "armchair" better and kept it. (thanks, Mark - London, England)
The Beatles released this as a "double A side" single with "Something."
In 1969, this won a Grammy for best engineered recording.
When rumors were spreading that Paul McCartney was dead, some fans thought the line "One and one and one is three" meant that only George, John and Ringo were left. The line "Got to be good lookin' cuz he's so hard to see" was supposed to be Paul's spirit. (thanks, jill - placentia, CA)
Though Ringo is best known for playing on Oyster Black Pearl Ludwig drum kit, he used for this his Ludwig "Hollywood" maple-finish equipment, with a 22" kick. Starr produced his distinctive late '60s drum muffling sound on tracks like this by wrapping tea towels (dishtowels) around his snares and toms.
Paul is quoted as saying that John was not liberal in complimenting his bandmates "If you ever got a speck of it, you were grateful" Sp Paul was very pleased when John complimented him on the "swampy" arrangement idea that Paul came up with for the song. Both John and Paul knew at the time that the song was a rip off of "You Cant Catch Me" and wanted to make it sound as different as possible. What I like about this story is that despite so many rumors of how they didn't work together much at all in the later years, this story, if true, indicates that their collaboration was strong right up to the very end.
- Perry, Portsmouth, NH
