Michelle (song)

"Michelle" is a love ballad by The Beatles, mainly written by Paul McCartney, with the middle eight co-written with John Lennon.^[1][2] It is featured on their Rubber Soul album. The song departs from most of The Beatles' other recordings in that some of the lyrics are in French. "Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1966, and has become one of the most famous Beatles songs in France.^[3]

Composition

The instrumental music of "Michelle" originated separately from the lyrical concept:

The words and style of "Michelle" have their origins in the popularity of French Left Bank culture during McCartney's Liverpool days. McCartney had gone to a party of art students where a student with a goatee and a striped T-shirt was singing a French song. He soon wrote a farcical imitation to entertain his friends that involved French-sounding groaning instead of real words. The song remained a party piece until 1965, when John Lennon suggested he rework it into a proper song for inclusion on Rubber Soul.^[1]

McCartney decided to remain with the French feel of his song and asked Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. "It was because I'd always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I can't speak French properly so that's why I needed help in sorting out the actual words", McCartney said.^[1]

Vaughan came up with "Michelle, ma belle", and a few days later McCartney asked for a translation of "these are words that go together well" — sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble.^[1] When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the "I love you" bridge. Lennon was inspired by a song he heard the previous evening, Nina Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You", which used the same phrase but with the emphasis on the last word, "I love you".^[1][2]

This is the first song recorded with more than a 4-track.

Each version of this song has a different length. The UK mono is 2:33 but the stereo version is 2:40 due to an extra guitar solo. The US mono was the longest of all, at 2:43, until the Rock Band version was released; it runs 2:50.

Musical structure

The song initially was composed by McCartney in C, but was played in F on Rubber Soul (with a capo on the fifth fret). The verse opens with an F major chord ("Michelle"- melody note C) then the second chord (on "ma-belle"- melody note D♭) is a B♭7#9 (on the original demo in C, the second chord is a F7#9). McCartney called this second chord a "great ham-fisted jazz chord" that was taught to them by Jim Gretty who worked at Hessey's music ship in Whitechapel, central Liverpool and which George Harrison uses (as a G♭7#9) as the penultimate chord of his solo on "Till There Was You".^[6] After the E♭6 (of "these are words"-) there follows an ascent involving different inversions of the D dim chord. These progress from A♭dim on "go"- melody note F, bass note D; to B(C♭)dim on "to"- melody note A♭, bass note D; to Ddim on "ge..."- melody note B(C♭) bass note B; to Bdim on ...'ther..."- melody note A♭ bass note B, till the dominant (V) chord (C major) is reached on "well"- melody note G bass note C.^[7]

Personnel

• Paul McCartney – vocal, acoustic guitars, bass
• John Lennon – backing vocal, acoustic guitar
• George Harrison – backing vocal, lead guitar, twelve string guitar
• Ringo Starr – drums

Personnel per Ian MacDonald^[8]

MacDonald wrote that "Michelle" was made in nine hours and seems to have been played mostly, if not entirely, by McCartney using overdubs."^[8] He speculated that McCartney might even have sung the backing vocals and played the drums.^[8]

Awards and recognition

"Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1966.^[3] The song's win over standard fare "Born Free", "The Impossible Dream", "Somewhere My Love" and "Strangers in the Night" was seen as something of a triumph for The Beatles, who had in 1965 been nominated, but were unsuccessful, in nine categories. In 1999, BMI named "Michelle" as the 42nd most performed song of the 20th century.^[9]

Chart performance

Cover versions

• The song was a UK hit in 1966 by The Overlanders,^[10] hitting number one on the Record Retailer chart. The Overlanders released their version after The Beatles declined to release it as a single themselves in the United Kingdom and United States (although the original version was released in some other European countries, including Norway, where both versions went to number one).
• "Michelle" was also covered by David and Jonathan, whose version went to #1 in Canada and was otherwise a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1966.^[11]
• In 1971, The Singers Unlimited recorded an a cappella version.
• Perry Como's 1977 album The Best of British includes this as a track.
• Ben Harper covered it in a reggae style.
• In 1995 Thomas Anders recorded a soul / R&B version for his solo album Souled.
• The 1997 jazz album Another Standard by Bob Berg had "Michelle" as its third track.
• The Punkles did a punk cover of this song on their second album Punk!.
• Tommy Emmanuel recorded an instrumental acoustic guitar version of this song.
• Booker T. & the MGs recorded a jazz version.
• Richard Cocciante covered Michelle for the soundtrack of the film All This and World War II.
• Béla Fleck and the Flecktones covered the song on their Flight of the Cosmic Hippo album.
• Rita Lee covered the song on her Aqui, Ali, Em Qualquer Lugar album, known in some territories as Bossa N' Beatles.
• The Free Design performed the song on the album Kites are Fun.
• A transcription for solo classical guitar was made by the composer Toru Takemitsu, which has been recorded by many classical guitarists, notably Shin'ichi Fukuda.
• Rubblebucket covered the song on their Triangular Daisies EP. It is also available for free online.^[12]
• Floanne Ankah recorded a version for the Complete Beatles on Yukulele, with some additional text in French giving background on the point of view of Michelle on their encounter. Also the English lyrics are translated in French and the French lyrics translated into English.^[13]

Live performance history

"Michelle" was performed by McCartney throughout his 1993 world tour.^[14] He has rarely performed the song since, but did include it in a 2009 performance in Washington, DC, in honour of Michelle Obama, the American First Lady, and he would play it on most (if not all) of his performances in France or other French-speaking countries.^[15]

On 2 June 2010, after being awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House, McCartney performed the song for Michelle Obama, who sang along from her seat. McCartney quipped, "I could be the first guy ever to be punched out by a president."^[16][17] Obama reportedly later told others that she could never have imagined, after growing up an African-American girl on the South side of Chicago, that someday a Beatle would sing "Michelle" to her as First Lady of the United States.^[18]

Notes

References

External links

• Alan W. Pollack's Notes on "Michelle"
• CoverTogether: Michelle