side one
TRACK ONE
- WRITTEN BY: Lennon
- LEAD VOCAL: Lennon
When psychologist and LSD advocate
Timothy Leary (above) asked pal John
Lennon to write a campaign song for
his 1970 California governor’s run, the
slogan he wanted set to music was “Come
Together, Join the Party.” The campaign
ended with Leary’s pot-possession arrest,
but Lennon kept part of the line, which
appealed both to his peace-and-love
sensibility and his appreciation of double
entendres. (The song was banned by
the BBC but not for the reason you’d
think: A mention of Coca-Cola in the
lyrics violated a no-advertising rule. )
The song’s eerie signature opening begins
with Lennon’s voice hissing “Shoot me,”
the second word muffled by his own
dramatic handclap. Paul McCartney
contributed the “swampy” piano and
prominent bass line. Decades later, when
the Beatles catalog was at last legally
streaming online , “Come Together” was
the most-listened-to song in the first
48 hours, with 1.8 million streams.
TRACK TWO
- WRITTEN BY: Harrison
- LEAD VOCAL: Harrison
The first Harrison song released
as the “A side” of a Beatles single,
“Something” heralded the full
flowering of the youngest band
member’s songwriting talent.
Harrison would coyly claim that he
wrote this much-covered classic
with Ray Charles in mind. The
Genius of Soul would sing his own
version and so would more than
150 other artists, from Elvis Presley
to Peggy Lee, making this second
only to McCartney’s Yesterday
as the most interpreted in the
Beatles canon. Frank Sinatra called
it the “greatest love song of the
past 50 years.” (Sinatra knew love
songs but lagged in his Beatles
knowledge; when he performed
“Something” in concert, he often
introduced it as one of Lennon
and McCartney’s best). But real
fans knew the truth, just as they
knew the identity of the muse who
inspired Harrison: his then-wife,
Pattie Boyd. More than a year later
Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton
came out with a song, “Layla,” also
evidently inspired by Boyd, for
whom he had fallen. With trouble
in the marriage, Pattie left George
for Eric and later wrote about
those heady days in a memoir,
Wonderful Tonight. So which song
was her favorite? “I dearly love all
of them.” Boyd diplomatically told
People in 2007. “I just feel that
they’re part of my growing up.”
58 THE BEATLES 1969 PEOPLE
