"You Never Give Me Your Money" is a song by the English
rock band
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...
. It was written by
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. On ...
(and credited to
Lennon–McCartney
Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is the best-known and most successful musical collaboration ever by records sold, with the ...
) and documented the financial and personal difficulties facing the band. The song is the first part of the medley on side two of their 1969 album ''
Abbey Road
''Abbey Road'' is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although '' Let It Be'' was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly ...
'' and was recorded in stages between May and August that year.
The song was the first one to be recorded for the medley, which was conceived by McCartney and producer
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the " Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the B ...
as a finale for the Beatles' career. The backing track was recorded at
Olympic Sound Studios in
Barnes, London
Barnes () is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It takes up the extreme north-east of the borough, and as such is the closest part of the borough to central London. It is centred west south ...
, but the remainder of
overdub
Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...
s occurred at
EMI Studios
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music co ...
. Musically, the song is made up of a suite of various segments, ranging from a piano ballad at the beginning through to guitar
arpeggios at the end.
Background
The song was written by McCartney when he was staying with his wife
Linda in New York in March 1969 shortly after their wedding. This was a break following the ''Get Back''/''
Let It Be'' sessions.
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and McCartney were at risk of losing overall control of
Northern Songs
Northern Songs Ltd was a limited company founded in 1963, by music publisher Dick James, artist manager Brian Epstein, and songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles, to publish songs written by Lennon and McCartney. In 1965, ...
, the company that published their songs, after
ATV Music bought a majority share. McCartney had been largely responsible for the group's direction and projects since the death of manager
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967.
Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him i ...
in 1967, but he began to realise that the group dynamic of the Beatles was unraveling. He was particularly unhappy at the others, who wanted manager
Allen Klein
Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 July 4, 2009) was an American businessman whose aggressive negotiation tactics affected industry standards for compensating recording artists. He founded ABKCO Music & Records Incorporated. Klein increased profits ...
to help resolve financial matters. McCartney later said that the song was written with Klein in mind, saying "it's basically a song about no faith in the person". He added that the line "One sweet dream, pack up the bags, get in the limousine" was based on his trips in the country with Linda to get away from the tense atmosphere with the Beatles, though author Walter Everett thought the line was also a nostalgic look at the Beatles' touring years, which had ended in 1966.
Realising that ''Abbey Road'' could be the group's last album, McCartney and Martin decided to combine various portions of tracks into a medley, which would act as a climactic finale of the group's career. McCartney later said that the idea of a song suite was inspired by
Keith West
Keith Hopkins (born 6 December 1944, Dagenham, Essex, England), known by his stage name Keith West, is a British rock singer, songwriter and music producer. He is best known for his single " Excerpt from A Teenage Opera" ("Grocer Jack"), whic ...
's "
Excerpt from A Teenage Opera". Some musical segments of "You Never Give Me Your Money" were reused for the "Golden Slumbers" / "Carry That Weight" portion of the medley, including the opening verses and later guitar arpeggios.
Structurally, the music begins with a piano ballad and moves to several other styles, including
boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually extended from pia ...
piano, arpeggiated guitars and
nursery rhyme
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
From ...
. Beatles author
Ian MacDonald
Ian MacCormick (known by the pseudonym Ian MacDonald; 3 October 1948 – 20 August 2003) was a British music critic and author, best known for both '' Revolution in the Head'', his critical history of the Beatles which borrowed techniques from ...
speculates that the guitar arpeggios at the end of the track were influenced by "
I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and the middle section of "
Here Comes the Sun
"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album ''Abbey Road''. It was written by George Harrison and is one of his best-known compositions. Harrison wrote the song in early 1969 at the country house o ...
", and that the overall structure was inspired by Lennon's "
Happiness Is a Warm Gun" from the previous year's album ''
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...
'', which also joined unrelated song fragments together.
Recording
The basic backing track was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes on 6 May 1969. Recording started at 3pm and went on until 4am the next morning. McCartney sang lead and played piano, Lennon played an
Epiphone Casino
The Epiphone Casino is a thinline hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone, a branch of Gibson. The guitar debuted in 1961 and has been associated with such guitarists as Howlin' Wolf, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartne ...
guitar,
George Harrison played a
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes Paul had built a prototype solid body ...
guitar fed through a
Leslie speaker
The Leslie speaker is a combined amplifier and loudspeaker that projects the signal from an electric or electronic instrument and modifies the sound by rotating a baffle chamber ("drum") in front of the loudspeakers. A similar effect is provided ...
, and
Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...
played drums. The group recorded 36 takes, selecting take 30 as the best, which was made into a rough stereo mix. The basic structure of the song as it appeared on ''Abbey Road'' had not been worked out at this stage, and the original recording ran onto a loose
jam session
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ext ...
, ending up as a fast rock-and-roll instrumental towards the end.
The track was completed in EMI Studios. McCartney overdubbed a lead vocal onto the basic track on 1 July, and further vocals and sound effects were added on 15 July. On 30 July, a reduction mix was made of the original
eight track tape
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, whi ...
, so further overdubs could be made, and a rough mix of the ''Abbey Road'' medley was put together. The
cross-fade from "You Never Give Me Your Money" into the next track, "
Sun King", proved to be problematic, and the group made several attempts before deciding to merge the songs via an organ note. McCartney completed the instrumental overdubs the next day, on 31 July, by adding a
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...
part and additional piano overdubs, including some punched-in
honky-tonk
A honky-tonk (also called honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano ( tack piano) ...
piano in place of the original.
The final recording session occurred on 5 August, when McCartney made a number of
tape loops at EMI Studios, including bells, birds, bubbles and chirping crickets. Martin mixed the track into stereo on 13 August, and made 11 attempts at a final mix, combining the tape loops with the cross-fade into "Sun King", replacing the earlier organ note. He made another attempt at a final mix on 21 August, and this was used for the finished master.
Personnel
According to Ian MacDonald:
*
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. On ...
–
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...
and
backing vocal
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
s,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...
,
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range:
** Bass (instrument), including:
** Acoustic bass gui ...
,
wind chime
Wind chimes are a type of percussion instrument constructed from suspended tubes, rods, bells or other objects that are often made of metal or wood. The tubes or rods are suspended along with some type of weight or surface which the tubes or r ...
s,
tape loops
*
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
–
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
, backing vocal
*
George Harrison – guitar, backing vocal
*
Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...
–
drums,
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called " zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thou ...
Other versions
American guitarist
George Benson
George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...
covered the song in a medley with "
Golden Slumbers" in his 1970 album ''
The Other Side of Abbey Road.''
Comedy rock
Comedy rock is rock music that is comedic in nature. Oftentimes it is mixed with satire or irony.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, ''All music guide to rock: the definitive guide to rock, pop, and soul'' (Backbeat Books, 3rd Edition ...
duo
Tenacious D
Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. It was founded by actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, who were members of The Actors' Gang theater company at the time. The duo's name is derived from "tenac ...
covered "You Never Give Me Your Money" in medley with "
The End" as a single released on 2 July 2021. The proceeds benefit
Doctors Without Borders
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other role ...
.
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Alan W. Pollack
Alan W. Pollack is a musicologist. He is best known for having musically analysed every song released by the English rock band the Beatles. He started the task in 1989 and finished in 2000, with 187 original songs and 25 cover songs. The analyses h ...
's "Notes On" series:
{{Authority control
The Beatles songs
Song recordings produced by George Martin
1969 songs
Songs written by Lennon–McCartney
Songs published by Northern Songs