Beatles’ songs answer spiritual and social questions

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I am writing with reference to the letter published on December 2, ‘In my life ... an ode to Christmas’. Regarding John Lennon’s song In My Life – from The Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul – Bernie Smith said, “Lennon was a supreme wordsmith writing about his friends and lovers whom he would never forget...”

Steve Turner, in his book A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles’ Song (Revised Edition, 1999), discovered that Lennon’s lyrics share the style and sentiment of Charles Lamb’s 18th-century poem, The Old Familiar Faces. The first and last stanzas go like this:

“I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces ...

“How some they have died, and some they have left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”

Paul McCartney said Lennon wrote the lyrics for In My Life, based his melody on the previously covered Smokey Robinson song, You Really Got a Hold on Me.

George Martin, commonly referred to as the ‘Fifth Beatle’, provided a classical piano solo in the bridge that is performed in the spirit of Bach. The brevity of life is mentioned in We Can Work It Out, also recorded in 1965. McCartney wrote the words and music to the verses and chorus, then took the song to Lennon. The middle eight bars, with its intimations of mortality, were added by Lennon.

In a 1980 interview, Lennon said, “In We Can Work It Out Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight.” As we approach the Christmas season, another song from the Rubber Soul album comes to mind: The Word.

In his book, Steve Turner observes: “Understood at the time as just another Beatles’ love song, it was actually sprinkled with clues pointing to a song of a different kind. The love that John (Lennon) was now singing about offered ‘freedom’ and ‘light’. It even offered ‘the way.’ He may even have been thinking of ‘the word’ in the evangelistic sense of ‘preaching the word.’....He later recalled the song as one of the Beatles’ first ‘message songs’ and the beginnings of the group’s role as cultural leaders expected to supply answers to social and spiritual questions.”

The first verse says:

“Say the word and you’ll be free

Say the word and be like me

Say the word I’m thinking of

Have you heard the word is love?

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine

It’s the word, love.”

DAVID BUCKNA

Kelowna, BC

Canada