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In My Life
From Beatles Wiki - Interviews, Music, Beatles Quotes
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It was the first song I wrote that was consciously about my life. (Sings) 'There are places I'll remember/ All my life though some have changed...' Before, we were just writing songs a la Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly -- pop songs with no more thought to them than that. The words were almost irrelevant. 'In My Life' started out as a bus journey from my house at 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place I could remember. I wrote it all down and it was ridiculous... it was the most boring sort of 'What I Did On My Holiday's Bus Trip' song and it wasn't working at all. But then I laid back and these lyrics started coming to me about the places I remember. Paul helped with the middle-eight. It was, I think, my first real major piece of work. Up till then it had all been sort of glib and throw-away. And that was the first time I consciously put my literary part of myself into the lyric. |
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—John Lennon, The Playboy Interviews, 1980
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John was always on the run, running for his life. He was married; whereas none of my songs would have 'catch you with another man.' It was never a concern of mine, at all, because I had a girlfriend and I would go with other girls, it was a perfectly open relationship so I wasn't as worried about that as John was. A bit of a macho song. It was largely John's. |
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—Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, p.279, 1994
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The remainder of the afternoon was spent recording another marvellous new Lennon song, the autobiographical 'In My Life'. After a period of rehearsal, three takes were put down, two of which were complete. The 'best' was take three, with John's lead vocal underscored by Paul, and with lead guitar, tambourine and drums as the rhythm. At this point the middle eight of the song was left open since the Beatles had yet to decide how best to use it. The hole was plugged with an imaginative overdub recorded on 22 October. ...
First task of [22 October] was to superimpose an instrumental break onto the previously recorded 'In My Life.' But using which instrument? One of the keyboard types certainly, with George Martin playing. The tape box reveals that he originally tried a Hammond organ. Not right. Then he decided on a piano, though there was a problem in playing the type of solo he wanted, baroque style, at the right tempo. The solution was to play at half the speed and then play back the tape at double-speed. It worked, the song was complete, and it went on to become one of the Beatles' most respected pieces of work.
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—Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, p.64-65, 1988
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