Off The Beatle Track

One of the many questions about The Beatles that intrigues me is when did they become THE BEATLES?

In other words, when did they transition from an excellent and important pop music act to cultural icons? For the record, I believe the shift started in the second half of 1963 (when they released the She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand singles) and was completed with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in May/June 1967. I may write a post explaining my reasoning someday.

But not today. Today we’ll look at the day that Paul became Paul McCartney: not quite the all-caps PAUL MCCARTNEY, but a singer and songwriter to be reckoned with, separate from his wisecracking, book-writing, older-and-more-accomplished (at this point)-songwriting partner.

I’ve Just Seen a Face

According to the excellent Beatles Bible¹, The Beatles started recording the Help! soundtrack album in mid-February 1965. By mid-June, they were nearing the deadline for the August 6 UK release.

In Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records in the Sixties, Ian MacDonald writes that “Thus far, the the only substantial work on the album had been Lennon’s. Unless McCartney woke up, he risked losing his equal status in the partnership.”² The band had recorded McCartney’s Another Girl and The Night Before, but I get MacDonald’s point: John had already contributed the title track, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, You’re Going to Lose That Girl, Ticket to Ride, and Tell Me What You See.

June 14, 1965, was a Monday. Recording for Help! would wrap up on Thursday, June 17. Paul hadn’t left himself much time.

The first of the three songs that Paul brought to the studio that day was I’ve Just Seen a Face, a sort-of country, sort-of folk up-tempo pop ballad, most similar (in my opinion) to his Things We Said Today from A Hard Day’s Night. It describes finding new love with a breathless melody that perfectly matches the song’s lyrics. The band completed the day’s first track in six takes and started working on the second track before they broke for dinner.³

I’m Down

I’m Down, the day’s rocker, eventually replaced Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally in The Beatles’ live set. It features similar vocal gymnastics from Paul, though it lacks Long Tall Sally‘s colorful story.

Paul has said that “Those kind of songs with hardly any melody, rock ‘n’ roll songs, are much harder to write than ballads, because there’s nothing to them.” It may be slight, but I’m Down worked well live; in fact, The Beatles performed it just two months later, at Shea Stadium. It ended up not on the Help! album but as the b-side to the Help! single.

Had the band quit after completing the second track, they would have had two songs in the can–maybe the two sides of a single?–that any other band would have been proud to release and that critics would have praised for the difference in their styles.

But Paul still had one more track, his coup de grâce,⁴ if you will, up his sleeve.

Yesterday

A book could be written about Yesterday, the melody for which Paul likely had for more than a year before he wrote a set of lyrics that suited it. Paul is the only Beatle to sing and play on the track (a first for the band), and after he recorded his vocals and guitar on June 14, George Martin scored strings that were added (another first) on June 17.

Who knows how many times Yesterday has been covered; suffice it to say that cover versions number not in the hundreds, but in the thousands. It’s not the best Beatles’ song,⁵ but it may be the most well known. Any songwriter who wrote Yesterday would be remembered just for that song for as long as pop music is played.

The Beatles thus recorded three Paul songs on June 14, 1965. They’re all good-to-great songs, and they’re all markedly different. Think of it this way: it’s as if, in addition to their other famous tracks, Little Richard had written Here, There and Everywhere and I’m Looking Through You, or Carole King had written For No One and I Saw Her Standing There, or Barry Gibb had written Helter Skelter and All My Loving.

One might make the case that June 14, 1965, was the day that Paul McCartney first proved himself to be the musical genius whom we now recognize. And then there’s this: The Beatles wrapped the recording of Help! on June 17. The next day, Paul turned . . . 23.

1. Which you really ought to be reading instead of this mess. Go there right now. This nonsense will be right here when you get back. ↩︎
2. After you check out Beatles Bible, get yourself a copy of the MacDonald book. You will refer to it often. ↩︎
3. Or maybe tea? Supper? ↩︎
4. French, meaning “cup of grace.” ↩︎
5. Isn’t that crazy? ↩︎