This solo Paul McCartney solo demo was recorded during the Abbey Road sessions. While briefly considered for that album, ‘Come And Get It’ was given to the Apple group The Iveys, who were renamed Badfinger prior to the single’s release.
I was lying in bed one night, and instead of trying to sleep I was trying to think of an idea for a song. This song started going around in my head, and then I thought, ‘Oh, this is okay; this is pretty good.’ So I got up quietly – Linda and I had just recently got married, and I didn’t want to wake her or daughter Heather – and went downstairs where I had a little reel-to-reel tape recorder. I closed all the doors so I wouldn’t make too much noise, and I wrote this. It was basically a song for Badfinger. Fairly straight-up rock and roll, very straightforward.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
McCartney’s version was widely bootlegged before it was officially released on Anthology 3. The song was a thinly-veiled commentary on the state of Apple, which was losing large amounts of money by 1969.
The studio demo was recorded the day after McCartney wrote the song.
I’d written the song ‘Come And Get It’ and I’d made a fairly decent demo. Because I lived locally, I could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road – knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up – and I’d use Ringo’s equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down, quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it. I said to Badfinger, ‘OK, it’s got to be exactly like this demo,’ because it had a great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, ‘No, this really is the right way.’ They listened to me – I was producing, after all – and they were good. The song was a hit in 1970.
Anthology
Badfinger’s version, sung by fellow Liverpudlian Tom Evans, was mostly identical to McCartney’s demo. The final version was in E flat, a semitone lower than McCartney’s, possibly due to varispeeding during the mixing stage. Recorded nine days later, Badfinger’s recording became a top five single and was the main theme for the Peter Sellers/Ringo Starr film The Magic Christian.
McCartney first sang ‘Come And Get It’ live on 26 November 2011, during a concert at the Unipol Arena in Bologna, Italy. He also sang it on the eponymous debut album by Hollywood Vampires, a supergroup featuring Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry.
In the studio
Paul McCartney recorded ‘Come And Get It’ on 24 July 1969, working with engineer Phil McDonald. John Lennon was in the control room observing, though declined to contribute.
McCartney recorded a single take, singing live and playing piano. The piano was recorded to track one and his vocals on track two of the eight-track tape.
He then double tracked his vocals and played maracas on track three. Drums were added next, to track four, and finally came a bass guitar part on track five. It took less than an hour to complete.
So I wrote it in the night, and then the very next day we had a session for the Abbey Road album, and I made a point of getting there a half hour before the session was going to start, because I knew the guys would be in on time. I said to the engineer, Phil McDonald, ‘Look, I’ve got this thing. I’m just going to go to the drums, I’m going to go to the piano, I’m going to put a bit of bass on it and I’m going to sing it, and we can do this in a quarter of an hour.’ And he was game, so that’s exactly what I did. I just played the piano thing and put the drums on that, and it was all one take. And then the guys arrived and we started the Beatles session. But by then I had this demo. I think I might’ve said, ‘D’you mind if I just quickly mix this?’ But it sort of mixed itself, you know. That was a nice thing about it – that it was so complete I could just run in and, in fifteen or twenty minutes, make a record just like that.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
A single stereo mix was made of ‘Come And Get It’, a copy of which was taken away by McCartney. This mix was released in 2019 on the super deluxe 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road.
Another mix was made in 1984 for the unreleased Sessions album. This was included on Anthology 3 in 1996.
McCartney also produced Badfinger’s version of ‘Come And Get It’ at EMI Studios on 2 August 1969.
The song was huge – I think a number one hit for Badfinger in some countries – and the album it was on was also a hit. I also remember they did one or two other things with Apple.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
If The Beatles had recorded this instead of, say, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” side 1 of Abbey Road would have been impeccable, and they probably would have had another #1.
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was a gem!
Great song! My favorite song in the 3rd grade in ’69. Even when I was 8 years old I thought it sounded so Beatle-ish even though I didn’t know Paul wrote it. I waited for years to hear McCartney’s version. Both are great. Should have been on Abbey Road.
I have a badfinger Compilation and it credits the Songwriter as McCartney alone. Does Anthology 3 really change the songwriting credits
Don’t own anthology 3 so can’t verify
You were right. I had listed it as a Lennon-McCartney composition, but it should be credited to McCartney alone.
On the original Badfinger single McCartney was listed as the sole songwriter.
That event plus Cold Turkey with John’s name alone (as well as Instant Karma) convinced me the Beatles were finished some time before Paul’s announcement of April 10, 1970.
or, maybe it just meant that John Lennon was tired of the charade that was lennon-mccartney. They didn’t work together anymore, so there’s no reason to share writing credits.
In the audio recording of a meeting made while Ringo Starr was in the hospital, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison plan the next Beatles album after Abbey Road. Lennon specifically talks about the fact in this time that Lennon McCartney and Harrison each get an equal share of songs and they be listed as individual songwriters.
This would seem to indicate that the end of the Lennon McCartney songwriting partnership had nothing to do with the breakup of The Beatles at all. In fact, this recording would seem to indicate that if Paul McCartney hadn’t quit the group, Lennon was perfectly fine with recording a follow-up album to Abbey Road and continuing on with the group.
I never understood why they made that unwritten agreement in the first place and credit all the songs to Lennon & McCartney, regardless of whether it was a genuine collaboration or self-reliant compositions from one or the other.
Lennon quit the band within days of that meeting you are referring to. A new album wasn’t mentioned again, long before Paul confirmed the break up
That’s true – he did announce privately that he was leaving The Beatles. He was told not to publicly announce it in the press, so as not to undermine sales of “Abbey Road”, and it’s unclear whether he was planning to rejoin the group eventually or if his departure was permanent.
Had The Beatles gotten around to recording a follow-up to “Abbey Road”, we can only speculate what might’ve happened, even if it meant delaying its release until late 1970 in order to avoid clashing with “Let it Be”.
On Badfinger’s single McCartney is listed as sole writer on label)
Personally, I cannot understand how ‘mean mr mustard’ and ‘polythene pam’ make it on Abbey road, and this doesn’t. I know many don’t like Maxwell’s silver hammer, but actually this is a proper and well thought out song. The above two mentioned are merely fragments. It is hard to argue with the track listing of Abbey Road, so I would keep it as it is, but this song should have been after ‘Here Comes the sun’, to add some light hearted relief at that stage of the album. My guess is it didn’t make it onto the album, as McCartney was already dominating it enough.
To throw John a bone ?
The other Beatles hated the song and rightfully so. It is annoyingly repetitive and I don’t think it even has a word over like six letters long.
What song are you referring to that the other Beatles hated?
Being incredibly pedantic I feel duty bound to pint out the word ‘anytime’, used twice.
Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam a nice songs and they are on abbey road because they’re fragments. That’s what the medley was for. To use the songs that were nice but were only fragments which they couldn’t finish because they had no ideas anymore. Yeah Come And Get It is awesome and they could have released mccartney’s demo (maybe with new backing vocals by harrison and lennon) on abbey road, not instead of any song (they are all awesome) but as an additional song
I like this song too, and liked the Badfinger version when it came out, in 1970.
I think the Beatles should have axed “Octopus’s Garden” for this song on Abbey Road and it would have been an even better album. “Maxwell–” could have been swapped for “Gimme Some Truth” or maybe “Old Brown Shoe”.
They couldn’t cause it was Ringo’s one song per album and if they were to axe a song it should be Maxwell’s Sliver Hammer.
Once this version was officially released, I never played Badfinger’s version again…
Good point. I think that goes for a lot of people.
I like Macca’s version very much, but Badfingers is a classic!
I’ll take the Badfinger version. Tom Evans’ voice is marvelous on this track. Very glad that this song served to get Badfinger in front of the record-buying public, and all glad for all the great songs (beyond the singles) from Badfinger.
I agree, Direwolf. Macca’s recording sounds like a demo. Badfinger’s sounds like a record and the blend of voices (mainly Tom and Pete, but possibly Ron also) is terrific on a song with very mediocre lyrics. It is a better record than it is a song.
I like Badfinger too – in fact, the reason why I became a fan of them in the first place was because of the fact they were signed to Apple. I wish that their version hadn’t been released at the wrong pitch (it was recorded and performed in E major, as Paul’s demo reveals, but accidentally slowed down in E-flat major) and hopefully someday, their four Apple albums plus their only album as The Iveys will all get officially reissued on 180g audiophile vinyl, remastered and have the original artwork faithfully replicated not to mention Apple labels.
Here is McCartney bringing us his new sound. It’s totally Beatlesque-Wingish. This song just needed Ringo’s drumming…
Completely, Ringo’s drumming! As is, the drumming keeps the beat but doesn’t offer that elusive characteristic of Ringo’s skill, one of the underrated rock ‘n’ roll drummers because he wasn’t flashy.
RINGO’S drumming, YES! that’s exactly it, I agree completely. As far as Abbey Road is concerned it is perfect as is, in fact confirming their talent as far as musicians go of bringing out ALWAYS the best version development of a tune/song through their recordiings, climaxed by ABBEY ROAD probably the best album (in the ‘old’ sense of a record with a series of songs in it) ever, MASTERPIECE that is.
Hey folks, help me out here; HUGE Beatles and Mac fan since the beginning. The vocal on this just doesn’t SOUND like Paul. What’s the scoop? I have burned in my mind all of Paul’s vocalizings from the Beatles catalog, Wings, his later stuff… “You Know My Name” …to… “Monkberry Moon Delight” (isn’t he great at experimenting) – SO many, but this sounds SO unlike him. Anyone agree? Thanks.
It sounds exactly like him to me. Recognized it immediately the first time I heard his version. But everyone hears things differently so it’s OK for you if you don’t recognize this as being his voice. Similarly, I was a bit confused with his voice on “Get Back” and “When I’m Sixty-Four” because of the accents he puts on (former) and the varispeed (latter).
So when this song first hit the radio and before we knew what band it was – people were saying “This is an incredible Beatles sound alike band.” Once we heard it was a Paul tune and an Apple band it made sense.
Here’s my take on why it’s not on Abbey Road. My guess is that by this time John and George were willing to record but fed up with Paul’s “granny s**t” music. They had already suffered through Maxwell’s Silver Hammer since the Get Back sessions and my guess is that they were not willing to work on another.
If you notice – after Get Back session, Paul’s output actually gets somewhat limited. His songs are not on the next two singles – Ballad of John and Yoko/Old Brown Shoe and Something/Come Together.
His songs on Abbey Road (other than the leftover Maxwell) are either a rocker like Oh Darling! (a song Lennon admired) or his song fragments on Side Two. In some ways John’s output is more complete.
But there’s no Paul “pop songs” – other than the leftover Maxwell. So I think somehow John and George had boxed Paul in on these sugary pop songs Paul was starting to lean towards (which we saw come out on his solo albums).
By the way, I like those Paul tunes – so I’m just giving a theory as to why Come and Get It didn’t make it to Abbey Road.
Plus, Paul had taken up way more than his share of studio time nitpicking his way through endless takes and overdubs on Maxwell, just as he’d done on O-Bla-Di.
I agree. ‘Come and get it’ doesn’t fit on Abbey Road at all. More interestingly “Golden Slumbers” fits perfectly.
BTW – reading Paul’s instructions to Badfinger – “OK, it’s got to be exactly like this demo,’ . . .[t[hey actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, ‘No, this really is the right way.’ you can understand why John ad George got fed up being “sidemen” to Paul. He treated the Beatles the same way.
Yep. He didn’t seem to learn much from George Martin who, by all accounts, gave them, in their early days, a lot of leeway.
It’s no wonder Badfinger dropped the song from their live shows pretty quickly.
Paul actually became a very good record producer in his own right, just like John and George, and without George Martin, they wouldn’t have been able to learn all of these production techniques.
I think the real problem was that Paul simply didn’t have whatever the “It” factor was that enabled John to be the group’s natural leader. But with John checked out on heroin, Paul was doing his best to try to keep the band together—but the chemistry just wasn’t the same. There’s a difference between being a leader and being bossy. Pre-Yoko John was one; Paul was the other.
Dwight Eisenhower defined “leadership” as “the ability to get people to do what you want . . .and like it.” Some people have it . . .
Without Paul, would we even have “Magical Mystery Tour”, “Sgt. Pepper”, “The Long and Winding Road”, “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude”, or “Let it Be”? No, we wouldn’t and Ringo’s has said that Paul’s “bossiness” and insistence on getting things done right contributed to very, very good products.
For all of John and George’s gripes about being sidemen for Paul and the complaints about Paul making them do “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” 100 million times, it was actually 21 takes and it only took three days to record plus the Moog overdub, so the other three were clearly exaggerating.
Paul did praise Badfinger for following his instructions of his demo for “Come and Get It” and in my opinion, it just sounded so realistic as a result.
Another great Macca song and Badfinger did it justice!
I first heard this song on the car radio in 71. I was 6yrs old. I had heard songs like Lady Madonna, Hey Jude and Let It Be. I honestly,for years, thought that Badfingers version was a Beatles song.
I lost 10 bucks to a co worker as I insisted it was the Beatles
Same with me. I was eleven when it came out. I was arguing with my older sister about that song, insisting it was the Beatles. She knew better.
I heard this song for the first time on Anthology 3. It’s an ok song but I definitely wouldn’t place it in the calibre of any song on Abbey Road. I think they made the right decision to exclude it
Is this song about sex or drugs?
Niether…is about money.
Or, in other words…yes.
I have yet to hear it, but based on the above comments alone believe it should’ve replaced Maxwell’s. Maxwell’s…like SO many of Pauls post beatles songs…is pedestrian song writing at best.
To single out Paul’s solo career as pedestrian Is a bit unfair compared to The Beatles they all had pedestrian output. Could you imagine them at this time not having more mainstream pop songs that Paul was pushing an album dominated by John’s political/drug/diary songs or George’s mystical Wha Wha Isn’t it a Pity songs. Thank god Paul and George Martin were around to whip up a few songs and some fragments into a cohesive whole lp .
Badfinger is likely what the Beatles would have sounded like had they stayed together.
John said ELO was what they would’ve sounded like.
That is totally untrue. Paul’s 1975 Venus & Mars Wings album is a great rock album and out of the majority of great reviews on amazon.com it gets a well deserved 5 stars out of over 100 reviews for this album. This is one of the *GREATEST* solo/Wings Paul albums he ever did! It’s great and it’s Beatles quality because every song is very good & if anyone wants to know what a true music genius Paul really is, just listen to the *music* in the great Letting Go.
My mother only liked classical music,Beethoven,Bach & Mozart, no rock & she played their music on the piano.When I was playing this album and she came into the room when Letting Go was on, she asked me is that Paul McCartney and I said yes and she said Oh that music is brilliant, he’s a music genius like Beethoven! My mother was also a talented artist who sculpted, and drew with charcoal pencils and pastels, and she even sold some of her sculptures at a few local galleries.She said she now loved most of The Beatles music and said they were brilliant.
And my sister who is 4 years older than me and had a big diverse music collection since she was a mid teen, bought Venus and Mars when it came out, and I remember listening to it with her, and her friend and my best friend and we all loved it. My sister still says years later that Venus and Mars is one of the best rock albums she ever heard and that it’s unique and she knows no album like it.
She always said his 1971 Ram album was a very good album too, although I like this album much better and I really don’t understand all of the love everywhere for his Ram album I think it only has 3 great songs on it, the great rocker Too Many People,Uncle Albert and Back Seat of My Car. Paul’s best post Beatles sounding music was from 1970-1975, with this being his last true great album.After this he wrote some good music but he never wrote the same great quality music again for some reason.
His first solo album McCartney where he played every instrument by himself (and he played them all great) is very good,Red Rose Speedway and Band On The Run are very good albums too, and he produced all of these great albums by himself and co-arranged the music on Venus and Mars by himself.
And it was Paul who wrote a lot of rock including hard rock in the 1970’s not John and George (no knock on them though) and most of it was great,
Jeff Lynn has always been a huge Beatles fan, especially of their middle to late period when they sometimes used violins, cellos, horns etc and that’s why he created ELO and often used strings, but I never heard anything as rocking as even a lot of The early Beatles music was by ELO.
I have no idea what all that is about. I referred to a 1974 quote from John Lennon.
BTW- there’s an old saying : “Brevity is the soul of wit”.
@MikeP, Topaz has proven themselves witless by claiming Venus and Mars is a great album. It has a few very good songs and a few others that I quite like. But close to half of it is pap and I generally skip most of side two.
Well, I don’t even rate that album THAT highly. Not worth owning, IMO.
Just a correction: Jeff Lynne was not the one who conceived the ELO concept. It was actually Roy Wood who came up with the idea of a rock band combining traditional electric rock instruments with classical acoustic instrumentation, and he was still in The Move at the time.
ELO was originally an experimental offshoot of The Move and Jeff Lynne joined The Move primarily to facilitate the start of ELO, so both Roy and Jeff were founders of ELO along with Move drummer Bev Bevan.
The original idea was to pick up where The Beatles left off with “I am the Walrus” and to have both ELO and The Move coexist simultaneously, but ELO ultimately supplanted The Move.
No. Badfinger souned like the Beatles mainly cause Paul produced it.
Maxwell Silver Hummer was a dull song, without energy and was too long. Put “Come and get it” would be a miracle for Abbey Road. I think it’s one of of the Paul’s biggest sin we’ll never hear it on Abbey Road.
Is there any indication that Paul even wanted it on Abbey Road? Did he try to push for it as a Beatles song or was it always though of/intended as a song for another group, either Badfinger or someone else?
He wrote this for the soundtrack. He was asked to deliver a few songs for Magic Christian but since he was working on Abbey Road, he produced a few songs by Badfinger – this one, Rock of All Ages (a Ham, Evans, Gibbins song) and Carry On ’til Tomorrow (Ham, Evans).
Paul has never talked about this song in regards to it being a possible Beatles track (as far as I’ve ever heard or read).
Thanks for this article.
Paul was recording “Come and Get It” as a demo to give The Iveys aka Badfinger, so it’s a bit unrealistic to suggest that John declined to contribute; besides, George and Ringo hadn’t turned up to Abbey Road yet and it’s not like all four were going to properly record it for inclusion on “Abbey Road”.
Paul is so multitalented and he did a very, very good job calling the shots, singing and playing all of the instruments, bass included, himself on his own demo.
Just another correction: a tambourine is also audible on this demo, obviously played by Paul.
John just sat in the control room for a reason.
Again, like I suggested, his input clearly wasn’t needed, since Paul was only recording a demo to give to The Iveys, and he was capable of playing everything self-reliantly. I don’t believe that John sat out of the recording because he disliked “Come and Get It”.
Going from Paul’s comments about when he wrote “Come and Get It”, he perhaps made a homemade demo recording – more like a basic run-through – before doing the actual demo that we hear on “Anthology 3”.
What I find ironic is Come and Get It, although repetitive and not Macca’s best work, is a far better tune than Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. A tune he put the rest of his band members through torture and many hours labour trying to record and “get right”, as McCartney saw it as his single from the Abbey Road album. Meanwhile at the same time as this he came up with Come and Get It overnight and recorded it himself the next morning!
In my opinion as they progressed most of the Beatles albums has some key fault or other in either leaving a great song off the album, the song order, or songs that should have been cut. For example, early albums, in particular With the Beatles, Beatles for Sale & Help! and had too many covers -they could have swapped over for originals, especially the latter two. Further on this, rather than release Beatles for Sale as it was, the ’64 Christmas album could have been a covers album and Help! could have then been a truly amazing album, up there with AHDN and Rubber Soul. Revolver -some of the song order could have been better (and no Rain). SPLHCB -either Penny Land or Strawberry Fields should have been on it, with something like When I’m 64 the b side to the pre album single. The White Album -too long with too much filler, and Revolution should have been on it & a single as an alternate to Revolution # 9 -and it being the b-side to Hey Jude. Whereas back to Abbey Road if somebody had the mind to stand up to Macca at the time and convince him otherwise it would have been -ditch Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and replace it with Come and Get It. But what about BadFinger? -who cares!!!
I disagree.
Paul did not put John, George and Ringo through torture and labour with the recording of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” – the other three Beatles’ recollections were misleadingly exaggerated, as it only took three days prior to the Moog overdubs, and the basic track only took 16 takes, despite being misnumbered as 21.
Every time I hear the last two measures of Come and Get It I think of the last two measures of With A Little Help From My Friends. They are almost identical.
And Paul should have given Maxwell’s Silver Hammer to the Magic Christian soundtrack instead. Especially since John, George, and Ringo all hated it. Come and Get It would have been perfect for Abbey Road and would have greatly improved the song flow on Side 1. Three slow songs after Come Together is not the best sequencing. But maybe I should rethink my life if I’m trying to re-sequence a classic Beatles album 54 years later!