Michelle
From Beatles Wiki - Interviews, Music, Beatles Quotes
| "Michelle" | ||||
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| Song by The Beatles | ||||
| Album | Rubber Soul | |||
| Released | 3 December 1965 | |||
| Recorded | 3 November 1965 EMI Studios, London |
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| Genre | Pop | |||
| Length | 2:33 | |||
| Label | Parlophone | |||
| Writer | Lennon/McCartney | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| Rubber Soul track listing | ||||
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| “ | Paul has had this idea about writing a bit with some other language, with French in it. And he just sort of had a bit of a verse, and a couple of words, and the idea. I think he had some other name or something. He used to talk Double-Dutch French, you see, just to sing the bit. (imitates singing mock-French) ... He just brought it along and just sort of started fiddling around trying to get a middle-eight. We pinched a little bit from somewhere and stuck it in the middle-eight, and off we went. | „ |
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—John Lennon, interview with Fred Robbins, 1966 |
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JOHN 1972: "Both of us. I wrote the middle with him."
PAUL 1977: "'Michelle' was like a joke French tune for when you go to a party or something. That's all it was. And then after a while you say, 'Well, that's quite a good tune. Let's put some real words to it.'"
JOHN 1980: "He 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 (blues singer) Nina Simone. I think it was 'I Put A Spell On You.' There was a line in it that went, 'I love you, I love you.' That's what made me think of the middle-eight for 'Michelle.' So, my contributions to Paul's songs was always to add a little bluesy edge to them. Otherwise, 'Michelle' is a straight ballad, right? He provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes."
PAUL 1988: "I'll never forget putting the bass line in 'Michelle' because it was a kind of Bizet thing. It really turned the song around. You could do that with bass. It was very exciting."
| “ | If Paul had written a song, he'd learn all the parts and then come in the studio and say 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on 'Drive My Car' I just played the line, which is really like a lick off 'Respect,' you know, the Otis Redding version — and I played that line on guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that. We played the lead part later on top of it. There were a lot of things — like on a couple of dates Paul wasn't on it at all, or John wasn't on it at all, or I wasn't on it at all. Probably only about five tunes altogether where one of us might not have been on. | „ |
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—George Harrison, Crawdaddy Magazine interview, 1977 |
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| “ | [Paul's] song, with contributions from me. | „ |
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—John Lennon, The Playboy Interviews, p.173, 1980 |
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| “ | The lyrics were disastrous and I knew it. Often you just block songs out and words just come into your mind and when they do it's hard to get rid of them. You often quote other songs too and you know you've got to get rid of them, but sometimes it's very difficult to find a more suitable phrase than the one that has insinuated itself into your consciousness.
This is one of the songs where John and I came nearest to having a dry session. The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which are always fatal. 'Rings' is fatal anyway, 'rings' always rhymes with things and I knew it was a bad idea. I came in and I said, 'These aren't good lyrics but it's a good tune.' Well, we tried, and John couldn't think of anything, and we tried, and eventually it was, 'Oh let's leave it, let's get off this one.' 'No, no. We can do it, we can do it.' So we had a break ... then we came back to it, and somehow it became 'drive-my-car' instead of 'gol-den-rings,' and then it was wonderful because this nice tongue-in-cheek idea came and suddenly there was a girl there, the heroine of the story, and the story developed and had a little sting in the tail like 'Norwegian Wood' had, which was 'I actually haven't got a car, but when I get one you'll be a terrific chauffeur.' So to me it was LA chicks, 'You can be my chauffeur', and it also meant 'you can be my lover.' 'Drive my car' was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed. ... So that was my idea and John and I wrote the words, so I'd go 70-30 on that to me. |
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—Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, p.269-70, 1994 |
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| “ | The 'best' take of 'Drive My Car', chosen to open the LP, was take four, the only complete run through. But there were numerous overdubs, and by the end of the day the song featured lead vocal by Paul and John plus backing vocal by George, tambourine, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums, piano and cowbell. | „ |
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—Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, p.63, 1988 |
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