TOP 100 SONGS OF THE BEATLES: 68

"Baby, You're a Rich Man" (Lennon/McCartney – July 17, 1967) 

B Side of “All You Need is Love” and Magical Mystery Tour – Side 2, track 4 (3:07)

YouTube (From The Social Network)

From Wikipedia, Rolling Stone, About.com, and Google – 



"Baby, You're a Rich Man" is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded in 1967. It was released on the B-side of the Beatles' 1967 single "All You Need Is Love". New mixes of the song were made available on the compilation albums Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine Songtrack.

History –

Along with other classics like "A Day In The Life," "We Can Work It Out," and the later "I've Got A Feeling," this song is one of a handful in Beatles history formed by welding together one of John's unused songs with one of Paul's -- in this case, Paul's chorus of the same name with John's verses, a song called "One Of The Beautiful People."

This was the first track completely recorded and mixed away from the band's home base of Abbey Road Studios; recorded a month before the sessions that produced the a-side, "All You Need Is Love," it essentially functioned as a dry run for the single.

This was recorded during the first sessions for what would become the Magical Mystery Touralbum, though this song was intended from the beginning to be featured instead in the upcoming Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine. Oddly enough, it was barely audible in the final version of the film, and did not appear on the original soundtrack, but was remixed and revived for the expanded YS "songtrack" released in 1999.

The odd, spiraling sound heard throughout the song is made by a clavioline, a primitive synthesizer of sorts which allowed the waveforms of sounds to be manipulated through a series of knee pedals and knobs. John played the instrument here on an oboe setting, although his performance mainly serves to make the setting sound like a Middle Eastern instrument.

Bob Spitz's biography The Beatles cites several sources claiming that, at the end of this song, John Lennon sings "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew," a reference to band manager Brian Epstein, who was Jewish and a closeted homosexual. (That he was rich should be obvious.) Although the evidence for this slur is all anecdotal, John can be heard bearing down hard on the title phrase during the fade-out, exactly as he would do if engaging in such an insult. Some have also claimed that this song was written about Epstein as a typically Lennonesque brand of harsh advice; John himself claimed at the time that it was a gentle poke at rich people who have trouble enjoying their success. However, since the chorus was Paul's separate song, it seems unlikely that this was John's concept.

Composition –

Two song fragments were combined to create "Baby, You're a Rich Man". The verses from "One of the Beautiful People" by John Lennon were combined with Paul McCartney's previously unaccompanied "Baby, you're a rich man …" chorus. Two songs were combined in a similar fashion to make "A Day in the Life", and "I've Got a Feeling". Walter Everett writes that the song "asks an unnamed Brian Epstein what it's like to be one of the 'beautiful people.'"

Musical characteristics –

The song opens in what appears to be the key of G in Mixolydian mode, a G chord moving to ♭VII/I (Fadd9/G) on "now that you know who you are", all over an G pedal (sustained harmonic tone). Soon, however, the song moves to the key of C major and becomes reminiscent of "Norwegian Wood" with its use of non-Western sounding gamak melodies on the clavioline. Pollack considers a notable feature in the refrain ("Baby you're a rich man") to be the bass move from C to G via a♭III (B♭).

Recording –

The song was mixed (in mono) on 11 May 1967 at Olympic Sound Studios. The music featured an unusual oboe-like sound which was created with a clavioline (an early forerunner of the synthesizer being a 3 octave monophonic keyboard) and aspin-echo (feed back delay) effect which was used to fill from the end of one line of the verse to the start of the next.

Takes: 12

Personnel

John Lennon – Lead vocals (double-tracked), piano (Alfred E. Knight), clavioline
Paul McCartney – Harmony vocals, bass guitar (1964 Rickenbacker 4001S), piano (Alfred E. Knight)
George Harrison – Harmony vocals, rhythm guitar (1961 Sonic Blue Fender Stratocaster), handclaps
Ringo Starr – Drums (Ludwig), maracas, tambourine, handclaps
Eddie Kramer – Vibraphone

Trivia –

Because the tape boxes for this session claim that Mick Jagger was present at the recording session, it is often claimed that he sings on the song, coming in hard with John at the end, supposedly on the slur in question. No evidence has been found to support this theory, though it appears he did attend the session.

"Baby, You're A Rich Man" was remixed in stereo in 1971, along with several other tracks from this period, for a German version of Magical Mystery Tour. The odd silences as the end of each verse are the result of a missing echo effect that reverberated into the next line (for example, after "far as the eye can see"); the stereo version is now the accepted standard, meaning that the original effect is largely lost to history.

The clavioline does not, as some claim, make its first appearance in a pop song here: created in 1947, it had already been featured on half a dozen pop and jazz singles by this time, including the Tornadoes' 1962 smash "Telstar," and Del Shannon's "Runaway" (although keyboardist Max Crook modified the instrument severely, so much so that he renamed it the "musitron"). [Many of the crew that worked on the Beatles' recordings went on to have successful careers after the group disbanded; Olympic Sound Studio's Eddie Kramer for example, who plays vibes on this track, would go on to engineer Led Zeppelin's and Jimi Hendrix' classic albums, as well as producing Kiss' most popular work.]

Today in Beatles History (From The Beatles Internet Album) February 1 –

1963 – Concert at the Majestic Ballroom, Birkenhead.

1964 – Day booked for a 2nd session at EMI Pathe Marconi Studios, Paris, France; cancelled.

– In England, "She Loves You" has sold 1,3 million copies, and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" over 1.5 million.
– UK single release: "Sweet Georgia Brown"/"Nobody's Child".

1966 – Wyndham's Theatre, London. Premiere of the play "How's The World Treating You?". Paul, Jane, George and Pattie attend.

1967 – Shooting for "Strawberry Fields Forever" clip, in Sevenoaks, Kent. Here, in an antique shop, John buys a poster announcing a circus near Richdale, Lancashire, in February 1843.

1969 – Billy Preston signs a contract with Apple.
– Apple Studios. Time unknown. Recording: "The Long And Winding Road"; "Lady Madonna"; "Let It Be"; "On Our Way Home" (working title of "Two Of Us"). Producer: George Martin; Engineer: Glyn Johns; 2nd Engineer: Alan Parsons.
– Final recording of numbers not apt for performance on the roof. Versions of "The Long And Winding Road" and "Let It Be" for "Get Back" LP. Versions of "The Long And Winding Road", "Let It Be" and "Two Of Us" for "Let It Be" LP.

1970 – "Live Peace In Toronto", 4th week in the ranking (Billboard).

1975 – UK single release: "# 9 Dream"/"What You Got".