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I'm a Loser
From Beatles Wiki - Interviews, Music, Beatles Quotes
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'I'm A Loser' is me in my Dyland period, because the word 'clown' is in it. I objected to the word 'clown', because that was always artsy-fartsy, but Dylan had used it so I thought it was all right, and it rhymed with whatever I was doing. Part of me suspects I'm a loser, and part of me thinks I'm God Almighty. |
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—John Lennon, The Beatles Anthology, p.160, 2000
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Most of my good songs are in the first person. 'In My Life,' 'I'm A Loser, 'Help!,' 'Strawberry Fields' — they're all personal records. I always wrote about me when I could. |
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—John Lennon, The Beatles Anthology, p.197, 2000
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I'd started thinking about my own emotions. I don't know when exactly it started, like 'I'm A Loser' or 'Hide You Love Away,' those kind of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I'd done in my books. I think it was Dylan who helped me realise that — not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work. |
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—John Lennon, The Beatles Anthology, p.158, 2000
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Looking back on it, I think songs like 'I'm a Loser' and 'Nowhere Man' were John's cries for help. We used to listen to quite a lot of country and western songs and they are all about sadness and 'I lost my truck' so it was quite acceptable to sing 'I'm a loser.' You didn't really think about it at the time, it's only later you think, God! I think it was pretty brave of John. 'I'm A Loser' was very much John's song and there may have been a dabble or two from me. |
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—Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 1994
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The Beatles decided to adorn 'I'm Only Sleeping' with the sound of backwards guitars. There are two ways of recording backwards instruments, one asy, one difficult. The easy way is to play the instrument normally and then turn the tape around. The other involves working out the notation forwards, writing it out backwards, then playing it as the notation says, so that it comes out back to front. This way, although the sound still has the aural attraction of a backwards tape tape, the instrument is actually playing a melodic run of notes. The Beatles, of course, chose the latter alternative, hence this near six-hour session for just the guitar overdub. In fact, they made it doubly difficult by recording two guitar parts — one ordinary, one a fuzz guitar — which were superimposed on top of one another. Geoff Emerick recalls that this was all George Harrison's idea and that he did the playing. |
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—Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, p.78, 1988
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