| "Hello, Goodbye" | ||||||||||||||||||
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Cover artwork for the single, as used in the US |
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| Single by The Beatles | ||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Magical Mystery Tour | ||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "I Am the Walrus" | |||||||||||||||||
| Released | 24 November 1967 | |||||||||||||||||
| Format | 7" | |||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | 2 October – 2 November 1967 EMI studios |
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| Genre | Pop rock | |||||||||||||||||
| Length | 3:27 | |||||||||||||||||
| Label | Parlophone | |||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Lennon–McCartney | |||||||||||||||||
| Producer | George Martin | |||||||||||||||||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA)[1] | |||||||||||||||||
| The Beatles singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||||
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"Hello, Goodbye" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles. The song was released as a single in November 1967, and topped the charts in the United States, the United Kingdom,[2] France and Norway. The song also was a number two hit in both Austria and Switzerland.[3]
Contents |
Though the songwriting credit is Lennon–McCartney, it was written solely by Paul McCartney.[4]
Alistair Taylor, who worked for the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, had asked McCartney how he wrote his songs, and McCartney took him into his dining room to give him a demonstration on his harmonium. He asked Taylor to shout the opposite of whatever he sang as he played the instrument—black and white, yes and no, stop and go, hello and goodbye. Taylor later said, "I wonder whether Paul really made up that song as he went along or whether it was running through his head already."[4]
Under the working title "Hello Hello", the Beatles recorded the backing track on 2 October 1967, and added vocals and a guitar overdub on the 19th. After further overdubs of bass guitar and viola, recording was completed on 2 November, and mixing on the 6th.[5] "Hello Goodbye" is in the key of C Major and in 4/4 time.[6]
The song features a coda which came spontaneously in the studio. Of this, McCartney said "I remember the end bit where there's the pause and it goes 'Heba, heba hello'. We had those words and we had this whole thing recorded but it didn't sound quite right, and I remember asking Geoff Emerick if we could really whack up the echo on the tom-toms. And we put this echo full up on the tom-toms and it just came alive."[5]
One of the notable features in the song is Ringo Starr's busy drumming.
Three promotional films were made for the song; directed by McCartney, they were filmed on 10 November at the Saville Theatre in London. The films were not aired by the BBC due to the Musicians Union's strict rules on miming; with no such restriction in the US, one of the films was screened on The Ed Sullivan Show on 26 November.[7]
The videos feature The Beatles wearing their Sgt. Pepper uniforms with hula girls dancing about; it was also the last time they wore their 1963 grey Merseybeat suits. The video also shows a clean shaven Lennon without his granny glasses; McCartney is clean shaven as well.
"Hello, Goodbye" was released as a single on 24 November 1967. In the US, the song was also included on the Magical Mystery Tour album released three days later, but the song was not made available in the UK on an album (or in stereo) until the release of the 1973 compilation album 1967–1970.
With the release of the song, McCartney gave an explanation of its meaning in an interview with Disc: "The answer to everything is simple. It's a song about everything and nothing. If you have black you have to have white. That's the amazing thing about life."[4]
In the US, Capitol Records omitted the comma in the song’s title in the packaging of the single (as did some of EMI’s partners in other countries), and also the Magical Mystery Tour LP (which was subsequently adopted for the CD release of this album).
"Hello, Goodbye" topped the charts in both the United States and Britain where it spent seven weeks at number one, and was the Christmas number one for 1967.[2]
The song’s coda plays over the end titles of the Beatles’ 1967 Magical Mystery Tour film. The coda was used again on McCartney's 1990 world tour at the end of the song Put It There.
This was also covered by the cast of Glee, Jump 5, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and Jonas Brothers.
The original song was also used in 2005-06 in a number of campaigns for Australia's largest phone company Telstra promoting 3G coverage.
| Preceded by "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single 30 December 1967 (three weeks) |
Succeeded by "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" by John Fred and His Playboy Band |
| Preceded by "Let the Heartaches Begin" by Long John Baldry |
UK number one single 6 December 1967 (seven weeks) |
Succeeded by "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" by Georgie Fame |
| Preceded by "Green, Green Grass of Home" by Tom Jones |
UK Christmas Number One single 1967 |
Succeeded by "Lily the Pink" by The Scaffold |
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