THE BEATLES ― ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
Genre ― R&B
Video
"All You Need Is Love" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The Beatles performed the song over a pre-recorded backing track as Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by over 400 million in 25 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967. The song captured the utopian sentiments of the Summer of Love era and topped singles charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries.
"All You Need Is Love" was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album. It also appears in a sequence in the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine and on the accompanying soundtrack album.
Background and inspiration ―
For Our World, the Beatles were asked to provide a song with a message that could be easily understood by everyone. The band undertook the assignment at a time when they were committed to two film projects: a planned television special, Magical Mystery Tour, and the animated feature Yellow Submarine, for which they were contractually obliged to United Artists to supply four new recordings. "All You Need Is Love" was selected for Our World for its contemporary social significance over the Paul McCartney-written "Your Mother Should Know". In a statement to Melody Maker magazine, Brian Epstein, the band's manager, said of "All You Need Is Love": "It was an inspired song and they really wanted to give the world a message. The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything." Lennon later attributed the song's simple lyrical statements to his liking of slogans and television advertising. He also likened the song to a propaganda piece, adding: "I'm a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change." Author Mark Hertsgaard views it as the Beatles' "most political song yet" up to 1967 and the origins of Lennon's posthumous standing as a "humanitarian hero".
In the book The Beatles Anthology, McCartney and George Harrison say they were unsure whether "All You Need Is Love" was written for Our World, while Ringo Starr and George Martin, the Beatles' producer, assert that it was. McCartney said: "It was certainly tailored to [the broadcast] once we had it. But I've got a feeling it was just one of John's songs that was coming anyway.
In the book The Beatles Anthology, McCartney and George Harrison say they were unsure whether "All You Need Is Love" was written for Our World, while Ringo Starr and George Martin, the Beatles' producer, assert that it was. McCartney said: "It was certainly tailored to [the broadcast] once we had it. But I've got a feeling it was just one of John's songs that was coming anyway.
Composition and musical structure ―
The song starts with the intro to the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", and contains elements from Glenn Miller's 1939 hit "In the Mood", as well as elements from Wayne Shanklin's 1958 hit "Chanson D'Amour". "All You Need Is Love" is notable for its asymmetric time signature and complex changes. The main verse pattern contains a total of 29 beats, split into two 7
4 measures, a single bar of 84, followed by a one bar return of 7
4 before repeating the pattern. The chorus, however, maintains a steady 4
4 beat with the exception of the last bar of 6
4 (on the lyric "love is all you need"). The prominent cello line draws attention to this departure from pop-single normality, although it was not the first time that the Beatles had experimented with varied metre within a single song: "Love You To" and "She Said She Said" were earlier examples. The song is in the key of G and the verse opens (on "There's nothing you can do") with a G chord and D melody note, the chords shifting in a I–V–vi chord progression while the bass simultaneously moves from the tonic (G) note to the root note of the relative minor (E minor), via an F♯, supporting a first inversion D chord.
After the verse "learn how to play the game, it's easy", the bass alters the prolonged V (D) chord with F♯, E, C and B notes. The song is notable for a dramatic use of a dominant or V chord (here D) on "It's easy." The "Love, love, love" chant involves chords in a I–V7–vi shift (G–D–Em) and simultaneous descending B, A, G notes with the concluding G note corresponding not to the tonic G chord, but acting as the third of the E minor chord; this also introducing the E note of the Em chord as a 6th of the tonic G scale. Supporting the same melody note with different and unexpected chords has been termed a characteristic Beatles technique.
The song's use of quotations from other musical works follows an approach adopted by the Beatles in Harrison's composition "It's All Too Much", which similarly reflects the ideology behind the hippie movement during the 1967 Summer of Love. George Martin recalled that in "All You Need Is Love" "the boys ... wanted to freak out at the end, and just go mad". During the long fade-out, elements of various other songs can be heard, including "Greensleeves", Invention No. 8 in F major (BWV 779) by J. S. Bach, "In the Mood", and the Beatles' own songs "She Loves You" and "Yesterday". The first of these three pieces had been included in the arrangement by Martin. "She Loves You" and "Yesterday" were the result of improvisation by Lennon in rehearsals – he had also experimented with interpolating "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" – although it was McCartney who led "She Loves You" on the subsequent studio recording.
Recording ―
Backing track
The Beatles began recording the backing track for the song at Olympic Sound Studios in south-west London on 14 June 1967. The producers of Our World were initially unhappy about the use of a backing track, but it was insisted upon by Martin, who said that "we can't just go in front of 350 million people without some work".
The lineup was Lennon on harpsichord, McCartney on double bass, Harrison on violin – three instruments that were unfamiliar to the musician – while Starr played drums. The band recorded 33 takes, before choosing the tenth take as the best. Over the following days, they recorded overdubs including vocals, piano (played by Martin), banjo, guitar and orchestral parts.
The Beatles began recording the backing track for the song at Olympic Sound Studios in south-west London on 14 June 1967. The producers of Our World were initially unhappy about the use of a backing track, but it was insisted upon by Martin, who said that "we can't just go in front of 350 million people without some work".
The lineup was Lennon on harpsichord, McCartney on double bass, Harrison on violin – three instruments that were unfamiliar to the musician – while Starr played drums. The band recorded 33 takes, before choosing the tenth take as the best. Over the following days, they recorded overdubs including vocals, piano (played by Martin), banjo, guitar and orchestral parts.
Live broadcast ―
There was a tremendous feeling that [the Beatles] really did believe all this, and they'd very consciously written an anthemic piece that could be understood worldwide. This was the first time TV had been beamed to so many countries, and obviously most of the listeners wouldn't be English speakers. They wrote something really, really basic, and yet still got the countercultural message across. – Barry Miles, 2007
The Our World broadcast on 25 June cut to Abbey Road studios at 8:54 pm London time, about 40 seconds earlier than expected. Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick were drinking scotch whisky to calm their nerves for the task of mixing the audio for a live worldwide broadcast, and had to scramble the bottle and glasses beneath the mixing desk when they were told they were about to go on air.
The Our World broadcast on 25 June cut to Abbey Road studios at 8:54 pm London time, about 40 seconds earlier than expected. Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick were drinking scotch whisky to calm their nerves for the task of mixing the audio for a live worldwide broadcast, and had to scramble the bottle and glasses beneath the mixing desk when they were told they were about to go on air.
McCartney and Lennon performing "All You Need Is Love" on Our World. Music journalist Peter Doggett has described the Beatles' performance as "one of the strongest visual impressions" from the Summer of Love.
For the broadcast, the Beatles (except for Starr) were seated on stools, accompanied by a thirteen-piece orchestra. The band were surrounded by friends and acquaintances seated on the floor, who sang along with the refrain during the fade-out. These guests included Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Keith Moon, Graham Nash, Mike McGear, Patti Boyd and Jane Asher. The studio setting was designed to reflect the communal aspect of the occasion while also demonstrating the position of influence that the Beatles held among their peers, particularly following the recent release of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Many of the invitations were extended through Beatles aides Mal Evans and Tony Bramwell, who visited various London nightclubs the night before the broadcast. Also among the studio audience were members of the Small Faces and the design collective the Fool. Balloons, flowers, streamers and "Love" graffiti added to the celebratory atmosphere. The Beatles and their entourage were dressed in psychedelic clothes and scarves; in his report on the performance, Barry Miles likened the setting to a medieval gathering, broken only by the presence of modern studio equipment such as large headphones and microphones. According to Michael Frontani, an associate professor of communications, whereas Sgt. Pepper had showed the Beatles as artists and "serious musicians", the broadcast emphasised their identity as members of the hippie counterculture.
The segment opened with the band simulating a rehearsal for about a minute, before Martin suggested that the orchestral musicians should take their places for the recording as the tape was rewound. The Beatles, the orchestra and the guests then overdubbed onto the pre-recorded rhythm track. In addition to the lead and backing vocals and the orchestra, the live recorded elements were McCartney's bass guitar part, Harrison's guitar solo and Starr's drums.
Lennon, affecting indifference, was said to be nervous about the broadcast, given the potential size of the international TV audience. Dissatisfied with his singing, he rerecorded the solo verses for use on the single. Starr also overdubbed a drum roll at the start of the track, replacing a tambourine part.
The programme was shown in black-and-white since colour television had yet to commence broadcasting in Britain and most of the world. The Beatles' footage was colourised, based on photographs of the event, for the 1995 documentary The Beatles Anthology. Over the documentary's end credits, a snippet of studio conversation from the 25 June overdubbing session includes Lennon telling Martin: "I'm ready to sing for the world, George, if you can just give me the backing …" The colour version of the band's Our World appearance also appears on the Beatles' 2015 video compilation 1.
Release and reception ―
The day before the Our World broadcast, the Beatles decided that the song should be their next single. Issued in the UK on 7 July 1967, with "Baby, You're a Rich Man" on the B-side, it entered the national singles chartat number 2 before topping the listings for three weeks. It was similarly successful in the United States after its release on 17 July, reaching number one for a week. In his feature on the song in Rolling Stone, Gavin Edwards writes that "All You Need Is Love" "hit Number One all over the world, providing the sing-song anthem for the Summer of Love, with a sentiment that was simple but profound".
According to author Jonathan Gould, the Beatles "bask[ed] in the glow of their artistic achievements" while enjoying their first summer free of tour commitments, having quit performing concerts the previous year. In late July, the band investigated the possibility of buying a Greek island with a view to setting up a hippie-style commune for themselves, their partners and children, and members of their inner circle such as Neil Aspinall, Evans, Epstein and Derek Taylor. After sailing around the Aegean Sea and approving a location on the island of Leslo, the Beatles decided against the idea and returned to London. In early August, Harrison, accompanied by a small entourage including Taylor and Aspinall, made a highly publicised visit to the international hippie capital of Haight-Ashbury, in San Francisco.
Writing in 2001, Peter Doggett said that the Beatles' performance on Our World "remains one of the strongest visual impressions of the summer of love". Rolling Stone ranks "All You Need Is Love" 370th on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and 21st on its "100 Greatest Beatles Songs" list. Mojo placed it at number 28 on a similar list of the best Beatles songs. In his commentary for the magazine, producer and musician Dave Stewart admired the track's "jumbled-up mix of music – marching band and rock'n'roll" and recalled the Beatles' appearance on Our World as "a signal for those [of us] who felt we were trapped in a mental hospital in some suburban town to break out".
"All You Need Is Love" was also included on the American LP version of Magical Mystery Tour in November 1967, and on the Yellow Submarine album, animated film and 1999 "songtrack". As a statement on the power of universal love, the song served as the moral in the film. It plays over a scene where Lennon's character defeats the Blue Meaniesby throwing the word "Love" at their evil Flying Glove.
The track is also featured in Cirque du Soleil's show Love, based on the songs of the Beatles, and its album. In 1978, the Rutles parodied "All You Need Is Love" in their song "Love Life".
The day before the Our World broadcast, the Beatles decided that the song should be their next single. Issued in the UK on 7 July 1967, with "Baby, You're a Rich Man" on the B-side, it entered the national singles chartat number 2 before topping the listings for three weeks. It was similarly successful in the United States after its release on 17 July, reaching number one for a week. In his feature on the song in Rolling Stone, Gavin Edwards writes that "All You Need Is Love" "hit Number One all over the world, providing the sing-song anthem for the Summer of Love, with a sentiment that was simple but profound".
According to author Jonathan Gould, the Beatles "bask[ed] in the glow of their artistic achievements" while enjoying their first summer free of tour commitments, having quit performing concerts the previous year. In late July, the band investigated the possibility of buying a Greek island with a view to setting up a hippie-style commune for themselves, their partners and children, and members of their inner circle such as Neil Aspinall, Evans, Epstein and Derek Taylor. After sailing around the Aegean Sea and approving a location on the island of Leslo, the Beatles decided against the idea and returned to London. In early August, Harrison, accompanied by a small entourage including Taylor and Aspinall, made a highly publicised visit to the international hippie capital of Haight-Ashbury, in San Francisco.
Writing in 2001, Peter Doggett said that the Beatles' performance on Our World "remains one of the strongest visual impressions of the summer of love". Rolling Stone ranks "All You Need Is Love" 370th on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and 21st on its "100 Greatest Beatles Songs" list. Mojo placed it at number 28 on a similar list of the best Beatles songs. In his commentary for the magazine, producer and musician Dave Stewart admired the track's "jumbled-up mix of music – marching band and rock'n'roll" and recalled the Beatles' appearance on Our World as "a signal for those [of us] who felt we were trapped in a mental hospital in some suburban town to break out".
"All You Need Is Love" was also included on the American LP version of Magical Mystery Tour in November 1967, and on the Yellow Submarine album, animated film and 1999 "songtrack". As a statement on the power of universal love, the song served as the moral in the film. It plays over a scene where Lennon's character defeats the Blue Meaniesby throwing the word "Love" at their evil Flying Glove.
The track is also featured in Cirque du Soleil's show Love, based on the songs of the Beatles, and its album. In 1978, the Rutles parodied "All You Need Is Love" in their song "Love Life".
Cultural responses and legacy ―
According to author Jon Wiener, "All You Need Is Love" served as "the anthem of flower power" during the summer of 1967 but also, like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, highlighted the ideological gulf between the predominately white hippie movement and the increasingly political ghetto culture in the United States. Wiener says that the song's pacifist agenda infuriated many student radicals from the New Left and that these detractors "continued to denounce [Lennon] for it for the rest of his life". In the decades following its release, Beatles biographers and music journalists have criticised the lyrics as naive and simplistic and detected a smugness in the message; the song's musical content has also been dismissed as unimaginative. Writing in 1988, author and critic Tim Riley identified the track's "internal contradictions (positivisms expressed with negatives)" and "bloated self-confidence ('it's easy')" as qualities that rendered it as "the naive answer to 'A Day in the Life'".
Maybe in the Sixties we were naive and like children and later everyone went back to their rooms and said, "We didn't get a wonderful world of flowers and peace." … Crying for it wasn't enough. The thing the Sixties did was show us the possibility and the responsibility we all had. – John Lennon, 1980
Mark Hertsgaard considers "All You Need Is Love" to be among the Beatles' finest songs and one of the few highlights of their recordings from the Magical Mystery Tour–Yellow Submarine era. In his opinion, Lennon's detractors fail to discern between "shallow and utopian" when ridiculing the song as socially irrelevant, and he adds: "one may as well complain that Martin Luther King was a poor singer as criticize Lennon on fine points of political strategy; his role was the Poet, not the Political Organizer." Ian MacDonald views the song as "one of The Beatles' less deserving hits" and, in its apparently chaotic production, typical of the band's self-indulgent work immediately after Sgt. Pepper. Regarding the song's message, McDonald writes:
Mark Hertsgaard considers "All You Need Is Love" to be among the Beatles' finest songs and one of the few highlights of their recordings from the Magical Mystery Tour–Yellow Submarine era. In his opinion, Lennon's detractors fail to discern between "shallow and utopian" when ridiculing the song as socially irrelevant, and he adds: "one may as well complain that Martin Luther King was a poor singer as criticize Lennon on fine points of political strategy; his role was the Poet, not the Political Organizer." Ian MacDonald views the song as "one of The Beatles' less deserving hits" and, in its apparently chaotic production, typical of the band's self-indulgent work immediately after Sgt. Pepper. Regarding the song's message, McDonald writes:
During the materialistic Eighties, this song's title was the butt of cynics, there being, obviously, any number of additional things needed to sustain life on earth. It should, perhaps, be pointed out that this record was not conceived as a blueprint for a successful career. "All you need is love" is a transcendental statement, as true on its level as the principle of investment on the level of the stock exchange. In the idealistic perspective of 1967 – the polar opposite of 1987 – its title makes perfect sense.
In 2009, George Vaillant, the chief investigator of the Grant Study, which tracked 268 Harvard undergraduates for a period of 80 years with the goal of finding what factors led to happiness, stated that its findings could be summarized as "Happiness is love. Full stop." When pressed for being sentimental or too general, he revisited his findings and again stated, "the short answer is L-O-V-E." The CBC claimed that the "[grant] study proves Beatles right: All You Need is Love."
In 2009, George Vaillant, the chief investigator of the Grant Study, which tracked 268 Harvard undergraduates for a period of 80 years with the goal of finding what factors led to happiness, stated that its findings could be summarized as "Happiness is love. Full stop." When pressed for being sentimental or too general, he revisited his findings and again stated, "the short answer is L-O-V-E." The CBC claimed that the "[grant] study proves Beatles right: All You Need is Love."
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