Yer Blues
| "Yer Blues" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by the Beatles from the album The Beatles | ||||
| Released | 22 November 1968 | |||
| Recorded |
13 August 1968, EMI Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Blues rock,[1] hard rock[2] | |||
| Length |
4:01 (stereo) 4:16 (mono) | |||
| Label | Apple Records | |||
| Writer | Lennon–McCartney | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| The Beatles track listing | ||||
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"Yer Blues" is a song by the Beatles, the second song on the third side (or second disc) of The Beatles, also known as The White Album. It is credited to Lennon–McCartney, but was written by John Lennon[3][4] while in Rishikesh, India.
Composition
Lennon said that, while "trying to reach God and feeling suicidal" in India, he wanted to write a blues song, but was unsure if he could imitate the likes of Sleepy John Estes and other original blues artists he had listened to in school. In "Yer Blues", he alludes to this insecurity with a reference to the character Mr. Jones from Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man", and with the third verse, which draws on Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail". Instead, Lennon wrote "Yer Blues" as a parody of British imitators of the blues, featuring tongue-in-cheek guitar solos and rock and roll-inspired swing blues passages.[5]
The half-satirical, half-earnest song mockingly acknowledges the British blues boom of 1968 and the debate among the music press at the time of whether white men could sing the blues.[6] According to Walter Everett, the song's "ponderous earnestness ... belies the composer's satirical tone."[5] In the chorus, Lennon sings "If I ain't dead already, girl you know the reason why", which writer Jonathan Gould interprets to be a "joke [in] that nobody knows the reason why — or, for that matter, what any of these bluesy poetics are really supposed to mean." Gould called "Yer Blues" an example of the "cultural realism" that distinguished the Beatles from their musical contemporaries in Britain: "[T]heir acceptance of the idea that, except as a subject of self-parody, certain expressive modes of African-American music lay outside the realm of their experience and hence beyond their emotional range as singers."[7]
Recording
"Yer Blues" was recorded in EMI Studio Two's "annexe", which was actually a large closet in the control room.[8] The song is in the key of E major, with a 6/8 meter.[9] In interviews for the Beatles Anthology series, Ringo Starr affectionately recalls recording this song in the stripped-down conditions, saying it was like the old days of live performances by The Beatles. The stripped-down, bluesy nature of the song bears similarity to much of Lennon's early solo output, including "Cold Turkey" and his 1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album and marks a retreat from Lennon's concern with studio experimentation that marked such songs as "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Strawberry Fields Forever".
Contributing to the live sound of the song, loud yelling between band members can be heard in the instrumental tracks.
Performance
Just after the album The Beatles came out in late 1968, Lennon performed "Yer Blues" at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus with a supergroup dubbed the "The Dirty Mac", consisting of himself, Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Mitch Mitchell on drums. The performance was followed with a boogie instrumental jam called "Whole Lotta Yoko", featuring dissonant avant-garde violinist Ivry Gitlis and vocals by Yoko Ono. The recording was never broadcast, and for decades the performance was only available on bootleg, but it finally came out officially on both CD and video in 1996. Lennon's performance with the Dirty Mac was his first live performance since the Beatles' last concert in 1966 and may have contributed to his renewed enthusiasm for live performance in 1969 (see "Give Peace a Chance" and Live Peace in Toronto).
Personnel
- John Lennon – vocals, lead guitar
- Paul McCartney – bass
- George Harrison – lead guitar
- Ringo Starr – drums
- Personnel per Ian MacDonald[6]
Cover versions
Notes
- ↑ Stanley, Bob (2013). Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop. Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-28198-2.
- ↑ Hohman, Charles (21 December 1968). "An in-depth Look at the Songs on Side-Three". Rolling Stone. The White Album Project. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
- ↑ Sheff 2000, pp. 199–200.
- ↑ Miles 1997, pp. 421,497.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Everett 1999, p. 170.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 MacDonald 2005, p. 307.
- ↑ Gould 2008, p. 520.
- ↑ Lewisohn 1988, p. 148.
- ↑ Notes on "Yer Blues", Alan W. Pollack
References
- Everett, Walter (1999). The Beatles As Musicians: Revolver Through the Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512941-5.
- Gould, Jonathan (4 November 2008). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. Random House Digital. ISBN 0-307-35338-9.
- Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3.
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
- Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4.
External links
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