Curated playlist
Songs written by Lennon–McCartney
- Here, There and Everywhere"Here, There and Everywhere" is a song Paul McCartney wrote before its subject even woke up. One morning in early June 1966, McCartney sat beside a pool at John Lennon's house in Weybridge, alone with his guitar, strumming in E. By the…
- Please Please Me (song)"Please Please Me" began life as a slow, bluesy number that John Lennon wrote alone in a bedroom on Menlove Avenue in Liverpool, in June 1962. The song he had in mind owed something to Roy Orbison and something to a Bing Crosby line he…
- What Goes On (Beatles song)"What Goes On" carries one of the most unusual writing credits in the Beatles catalogue: Lennon-McCartney-Starkey. It is the only song the band ever attributed to all three of those names, and it is the only track on Rubber Soul where…
- Dig a Pony"Dig a Pony" begins with a shout. On the 30th of January 1969, at the top of the Apple Corps building on Savile Row in central London, Ringo Starr yelled "Hold it!" before the Beatles could even start the song. He had both drum sticks in…
- I Am the Walrus"I Am the Walrus" arrived in 1967 with a specific and mischievous mission: to break the minds of people who were trying too hard to understand the Beatles. John Lennon had received a letter from a student at his former school, Quarry Bank…
- She Loves You"She Loves You" arrived in British record shops on the 23rd of August 1963, and by the time the year ended it had sold more copies in the United Kingdom than any other single released that year. It would go on to hold the title of…
- In My Life"In My Life" arrived on Rubber Soul in 1965, and it arrived unlike anything the Beatles had released before. John Lennon called it his "first real major piece of work" in a 1980 interview, and that phrase carries weight when you consider…
- Help! (song)"Help!" is a song that John Lennon would later call one of the most honest things he ever wrote. It arrived in the summer of 1965 dressed as a pop single, racing along at a tempo that Lennon himself came to regret. Beneath the exclamation…
- Let It Be (song)"Let It Be" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 6 in the spring of 1970. At the time, no song had ever debuted that high on the chart. Within weeks, it climbed to number one and held that spot for two weeks in April. Yet the timing…
- Ticket to Ride (song)"Ticket to Ride" arrived in April 1965 and sounded like nothing the Beatles had released before. Recorded at EMI Studios in London on the 15th of February that year, the track carried a weight and a drone that sat uneasily alongside the…
- I'm Only Sleeping"I'm Only Sleeping" began as words scrawled on the back of a letter in 1966, John Lennon drafting the first lyrics on a scrap of paper that suggests a simple subject: the pleasures of staying in bed. The Beatles had stopped touring by…
- P.S. I Love You (Beatles song)"P.S. I Love You" arrived on the 5th of October 1962 tucked onto the B-side of a debut single, and almost no one thought it would last. The Beatles had recorded it in ten takes at Abbey Road just weeks earlier, with a freelance drummer…
- She's Leaving Home"She's Leaving Home" begins with a door closing quietly in the early morning. A teenager slips out of the house, leaving a note behind. Her parents wake, read her words, and break down. That is the entire story, told in under four minutes…
- A Day in the Life"A Day in the Life" opens with a line John Lennon pulled from a newspaper: "I read the news today, oh boy." That blunt, ordinary beginning leads to one of the most celebrated songs in popular music history. Lennon wrote the melody and most…
- All You Need Is Love"All You Need Is Love" reached over 400 million people in 25 countries on the 25th of June 1967, making it one of the most witnessed moments in television history up to that point. A live satellite broadcast called Our World, the first of…
- Eleanor RigbyEleanor Rigby is a 1966 song by the Beatles, and it arrived on the charts with none of the guitars, drums, or amplified roar the band had built its name on. In its place: eight strings, a minor key, and two characters nobody in a pop song…
- Paperback Writer"Paperback Writer" arrived in May 1966 as the A-side of the Beatles' eleventh single, and it came loaded with an unusual distinction: it was the first Beatles single since "Love Me Do" in 1962 to generate something less than universal…
- The Long and Winding Road"The Long and Winding Road" arrived as the Beatles were already falling apart. Paul McCartney wrote it at High Park Farm, his property near Campbeltown, Scotland, sometime in 1968, sitting alone at a piano while the band he had helped…
- Two of Us (Beatles song)"Two of Us" begins with a joke. On the Let It Be album, before a single note plays, John Lennon's voice cuts in: "'I Dig A Pygmy' by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf-Aids! Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats!" It is the kind of absurdist…
- Get Back"Get Back" began not as a song but as an offhand riff played on a Höfner bass at Twickenham Studios on the 7th of January 1969. Paul McCartney was noodling, the cameras were rolling, and what came out of that unstructured jam would become…
- Helter Skelter (song)'I got blisters on my fingers!' That shout, at the close of 'Helter Skelter,' is one of the most famous unscripted moments in rock history. It arrived during a September 1968 recording session, after Ringo Starr threw his drumsticks across…
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is a song the Beatles nearly tore themselves apart making. Paul McCartney wrote it in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968, while he and his bandmates were studying Transcendental Meditation. Prudence Farrow, a fellow…
- Revolution (Beatles song)"Revolution" arrived in the summer of 1968 as one of the most argued-over pop songs ever released. John Lennon wrote it while the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, inspired by a wave of student uprisings,…
- Strawberry Fields Forever"Strawberry Fields Forever" arrived on the 13th of February 1967, and almost nobody knew what to make of it. Derek Johnson of the NME confessed in print that he was both fascinated and confused, writing: "Quite honestly, I don't really…
- I Want to Hold Your Hand"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was recorded by the Beatles on the 17th of October 1963, and within weeks it had upended the American music industry in ways no British act had managed before. Advance orders in the United Kingdom alone exceeded…
- I've Got a Feeling"I've Got a Feeling" is a Beatles song that exists because two unfinished songs collided. Paul McCartney had one fragment; John Lennon had another. Neither was quite complete on its own. Together, they became a track on the 1970 album Let…
- Hey Jude"Hey Jude" began as a car journey and a father's absence. In June 1968, Paul McCartney drove out to Weybridge to visit a five-year-old boy named Julian Lennon, whose parents had just separated. By the time McCartney arrived at Kenwood, the…
- Back in the U.S.S.R."Back in the U.S.S.R." opens The Beatles' 1968 double album with the sound of a turboprop aircraft landing on a runway. Before a single lyric is sung, the listener is placed inside a scene. Then Paul McCartney's voice arrives, and it is…
- From Me to YouJohn Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing From Me to You while on a coach heading to Shrewsbury as part of the Beatles' tour with Helen Shapiro. The title was inspired by the name of the letters section of the New Musical Express, which…
- I Want You (She's So Heavy)"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" by the Beatles ends with an act of pure will. On the 20th of August 1969, John Lennon stood in a studio with recording engineer Geoff Emerick and, with the guitars, drums, and white noise reaching a peak, gave…
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (song)"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" begins with the sound of an audience chattering and an orchestra tuning up, and within seconds the listener is somewhere else entirely. Written by Paul McCartney and officially credited to…
- Tomorrow Never Knows"Tomorrow Never Knows" arrived on the 5th of August 1966 as the final track on Revolver, closing a Beatles album like nothing the band had ever recorded before. It had been the very first song attempted during the Revolver sessions, yet…
- Baby, You're a Rich Man"Baby, You're a Rich Man" was born at midnight in May 1967, when the Beatles spent six hours at an independent studio in Barnes, south-west London, stitching two unfinished songs into one. John Lennon had been wandering through London's…
- Dear Prudence"Dear Prudence" was written in early 1968 in the foothills of the Himalayas, far from any recording studio. John Lennon was sitting beneath a jacaranda tree in Rishikesh, India, learning a new guitar technique from the folk singer Donovan,…
- Love Me Do"Love Me Do" by the Beatles arrived in British record shops on the 5th of October 1962, a date that marks one of the more consequential releases in the history of popular music. Built on just three chords and a wailing harmonica, it…
- Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) opens with one of rock music's most carefully evasive lines: "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me." John Lennon wrote that couplet as a veiled account of an extramarital affair he was…
- Penny LanePenny Lane is a road in a south Liverpool suburb, and it is also one of the most celebrated songs the Beatles ever made. Released in February 1967 as a double A-side single alongside "Strawberry Fields Forever", it arrived at a moment when…
- Rain (Beatles song)"Rain" by the Beatles arrived on the 30th of May 1966 as the B-side to "Paperback Writer", and it carried something listeners had never quite encountered before. Hidden inside a three-minute rock song was a backwards vocal coda, a droning…
- Sexy Sadie"Sexy Sadie" began as something far more blunt: a song called "Maharishi." John Lennon wrote it in India in 1968, bags already packed, ready to leave the ashram at Rishikesh after hearing an accusation that shook his faith in a spiritual…
- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" began not with a guitar or a studio, but with a drawing made by a three-year-old boy. Julian Lennon came home from nursery school one day and showed his father a picture he called "Lucy - in the sky with…
- Revolution 9"Revolution 9" begins with a voice repeating the words "number nine" as it pans slowly across the stereo field. That voice belonged to an EMI engineer who had been recording a routine test series. John Lennon found the tape, cut it up, and…