‘If I Fell’ was a ballad primarily written by John Lennon, which first appeared on the A Hard Day’s Night film and soundtrack.
The song was a collaboration between Lennon and Paul McCartney, with Lennon taking the lead.
That’s my first attempt to write a ballad proper. That was the precursor to ‘In My Life’. It has the same chord sequence as ‘In My Life’: D and B minor and E minor, those kinds of things. And it’s semi-autobiographical, but not consciously. It shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads, silly love songs, way back when.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The Beatles mimed to ‘If I Fell’ during the A Hard Day’s Night film. The scene takes place while the crew are setting up equipment prior to The Beatles’ ‘studio performance’. Amusingly, Lennon sings the love song to Ringo Starr.
The song became a part of The Beatles’ live repertoire in 1964. As the only ballad performed by the group at the time, it often suffered for their inability to hear themselves above the screams of Beatlemaniacs.
The live versions were typically faster than the studio recording. Bootleg recordings also often show Lennon and McCartney vainly attempting to suppress laughter while singing the song – occasionally it was jokingly introduced as ‘If I Fell Over’.
People tend to forget that John wrote some pretty nice ballads. People tend to think of him as an acerbic wit and aggressive and abrasive, but he did have a very warm side to him really which he didn’t like to show too much in case he got rejected. We wrote ‘If I Fell’ together but with the emphasis on John because he sang it. It was a nice harmony number, very much a ballad.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Among McCartney’s contributions was the introduction, featuring a musical motif that appears nowhere else in the song.
I was a big fan of the preamble in my early days, which you find in lots of ’50s songs. A first verse that goes: ‘I was living in Kentucky when I did, did, did and I dud-dud-dud, and then I said…’ [breathes in deeply]… then you break into the bit of the song you want everyone to know. One song I wrote a little after ‘Please Please Me’ was my best attempt at a preamble: ‘If I Fell’. [Sings] ‘If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be truuue…’ Then after the line, ‘just holding hands’, the song properly gets going. [Raises voice] That’s it, everyone!
Q, May 2013
On 8 April 1988 John Lennon’s lyrics for ‘If I Fell’, written on the back of a Valentine’s Day card, were sold at Sotheby’s in London for £7,800.
In the studio
‘If I Fell’ was recorded in 15 takes on 27 February 1964. On the same day they also recorded ‘Tell Me Why’ and the second and final remake of ‘And I Love Her’.
The song’s acoustic introduction – which is not repeated elsewhere in the song, musically or lyrically – made its first appearance on take 11. However, home demos recorded by John Lennon early in 1964 contained the passage.
The two-part harmony vocals was sung by Lennon and Paul McCartney into a single microphone. Lennon took the low harmony, allowing McCartney to dominate the verses.
The Beatles recorded ‘If I Fell’ twice for BBC radio. The first was taped on 14 July 1964 at Broadcasting House, London, and was transmitted two days later on the Top Gear programme. The second performance took place on 17 July at the BBC Paris Studio, London, and was first broadcast on 3 August. Neither rendition was included on the Live At The BBC collection.
Chart success
‘If I Fell’ was the third song on the UK version of the A Hard Day’s Night album, which was released on 10 July 1964.
The US soundtrack LP was issued on 26 June. ‘If I Fell’ was also the b-side of the ‘And I Love Her’ single, which reached number 12 on the Billboard chart.
‘If I Fell’ performed better in Norway, where it was a chart-topping single in its own right.
A rare UK single, with ‘Tell Me Why’ on the b-side, was pressed in the UK by EMI and released on 4 December 1964. It was made for export purposes, but a number of record dealers began shipping the discs back into the UK for resale. The catalogue number was Parlophone DP 562.
“That’s my first attempt to write a ballad proper. In My Life was the first one that worked as a ballad. This one has the same chord sequence – just around D and D minor and E minor, those kinds of things. It is semi-autobiographical. It is really about this girl – not about Cyn. It has an intro like a Fifties song: “If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true and help me understand…” Paul may have helped with the middle eight. So that shows I wrote sentimental love ballads, silly love songs, way back then.”
Just wondering: Where did you find this quote of John’s? I have the book ‘All we are saying’, by David Sheff — which is basically just a long version of the Playboy interview John did just weeks before he died — and what he says about his then wife, and, for me, more interestingly, Paul’s input, isn’t mentioned in the book at all.
Have you been given access to David Sheff’s original tapes?
I originally found this one to be one of those songs John and Paul disagreed over when it comes to writing-credits, but given what you have written is true, it seems that they are basically on the same wavelength — which of course DID happen from time to time…
I wish I had access to David Sheff’s tapes! I need to come clean here, though. I wrote this article before I had bought the Sheff book, and you’re right – that full quote isn’t there. I don’t know if it was in the original Playboy edition in 1980, but I suspect that All We Are Saying pretty much contains everything Lennon said in the interviews.
I’ve corrected the quote, to the one on pages 194-5 in David Sheff’s excellent book. The previous version, which you mentioned, was taken from the rec.music.beatles newsgroup, but the person who posted it did say: “I think I got it from a Playboy interview somewhere”. So I shouldn’t have been quite so careless when reproducing it!
The original quote was closer to the actual audio, but still not quite correct. The book version of the interview cuts out quite a bit, I’ve found, in terms of individual lines that the editors must have decided seemed like tangents. A shame, since the tangents are often the most interesting parts!
Here’s the quote and the link to the audio:
JOHN: That’s my first attempt at a – at a ballad. Proper. That was the precursor to ‘In My Life’. It’s the same chord sequence as ‘In My Life’, but – just about ‘round D, and B minor, and E minor, those kind of – things. And uh, it’s… semi-autobiographical, but not that conscious, you know. It’s really about – it’s not about Cyn, my first wife. If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true… I used to like intros like they had on forties songs, you know, that have a long intro, and then the song would start. So that’s all mine. The harmony’s Paul’s. […] So that shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads – silly love songs, as you call them – way back when.
Source: https://amoralto.tumblr.com/post/48091904152/august-1980-john-talks-to-playboy-writer-david
In Many Years From Now 1997, the competetive McCartney d o e s n o t say a word of “his” intro in If I Fell. But suddenly 2013, he does. I don´t believe him.
You don’t ever tire of obsessing over this realm of opinionation do you?
You don’t believe it. Not at all surprising, yet utterly meaningless.
Not only does he take credit for the intro in that Q Magazine quote above, but seemingly the whole song! “One song I wrote a little after Please Please Me was my best attempt at a preamble: If I Fell.” It’s primarily a John song and always has been. Paul even took credit recently for helping John write Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. And the hilarious part of that is, he said he helped him write the lyrics. I suppose he was the author of the 19th century circus poster that was hanging in John’s house. Revisionism or senility?
Obsession or simply twisting anything to your point of view.
Are you and Johan twins? Or maybe pen-pals (I’m using one of your usual tactics when someone has a differing point of view)? And the hilarious part is, neither of you seem to realize how silly and sad you look.
Just to keep on topic, Paul is clearly referring to the preamble when he talks about the “song I wrote..”.
I’ll leave the rest of your tripe to itself.
I saw an 80’s interview on YouTube with an author of a Beatles book who said – ‘paraphrasing’ – You can’t rely on Paul for accuracy because he rewrites history.
That’s a quote from Philip Norman, writer of “Shout!”, who is infamous for having a bias against Paul and George, neither of whom he finds much good to say about in that book. Years later, Norman admitted himself that he was unfair towards Paul, claiming he’d been jealous of Paul. Though he still never gave George any credit. (Or Ringo, for that matter.)
Hey man… McCartney is KNOWN for rewriting history of who did what. If you read through the Playboy interviews with John, you get a sense he honestly doesn’t give a damn who did what song and seems pretty fair with his memory of what went down. Where Paul is always trying to take more credit on stuff he had little do do with, and playing down John’s contributions on any of his babies. When Paul actually lobbied on changing “Yesterday” to McCartney/Lennon, that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks how obsessed Paul is with his fame, and credits, and his accolades, etc etc. John did not care. The most recent iteration of Paul wanting to work with Kanye, and Grohl, and Beck, almost comes off as desperate. Like Paul McCartney cares about Kanye West?? Anyway.
If you listen to John’s home demo the song is already complete, with intro, middle eight, et. al. Why would he trouble to complete a home demo solo if he had been working on it with Paul?
and John got the chrords wrong too in the interview. It goes D, Em, F#m…I think it’s their best ballad.
More accurately, the Sheff quote should be:
“The harmony’s Paul’s … and maybe the middle eight, let me think [sings the verse through]… yeah, that’s all mine. i think maybe the middle eight he introduced the chord in the… I might have mixed up the story on the middle eight to In My Life and this one – I think it’s *this* one he gave me the middle eight on the F.”
If true, then the home demo containing the middle eight can’t be adduced in evidence of John’s authorship of the latter, or of the intro.
On YouTube there is a demo of John doing ‘If I Fell’, where the section I’ve already mentioned appears to be a bit different melodically.
Slightly different chords used, as well.
I think I’m on to something here.
[While others, I guess, will think I’m just ON something.]
Please allow me to go off-topic, maybe cool things down a little. If you were lucky enough to be hiding in the closet while John and Paul were working on some new material, like the wonderful picture of them, guitars in hand, notebook and pens fore and aft, looking at each other for…inspiration? Anyway, if you could empty the trash can (bin, in Britain) after they left, what do you supose you would find?
All of the failed attempts and dud starts and not-quites. The part of songwriting that doesn’t get talked up so much. Songs that have 20 hours in them and just aren’t going to jell. They had plenty of those, too. Just sayin’.
If we suggest John_did_state that Paul may have helped with the middle eight, that wouldn’t really make too much sense, because the song doesn’t have a middle eight; although — as I’ve mentioned before — John was never too much into the technicalities of music.
…unless we assume that he meant the section that goes: “…her, ’cause I couldn’t stand the pain, and I would be sad if I knew love was in vain.”
That section actually HAS eight bars.
Hang on, that section’s lyrics, if I’m not mistaken, should read “and I/would be sad if our new love/was in vain. That’s what I hear, anyway.
You’re absolutely right.
I’m sorry, but that is THE BRIDGE . Saying it’s not because it’s more than eight bars is absurd . The English use “ middle eight “ meaning the bridge , regardless of how many bars it is. If you’re of the opinion that a bridge must have eight bars you can discount an awful lot of songs . It absolutely is the bridge . The song has an A ( in this case intro ) section, followed by the B section ( verses ) and C section ( Bridge ) . That’s exactly how it would break down . A B B C B C B etc.
The YouTube demo of If I Fell by John at his home is virtually one for one with the finished product. Paul may have helped with the chord progression, but whatever he did contribute it had nothing to do with the greatness of the song. I still contend that although Pauls song were more melodic in general, you get tired of his songs after repeated listening to, whereas Johns songs get better with each listening. I began as a McCartney fan in the 70’s but by the end of the 90’s, I switched my allegiance to John because his songs i never get tired of listening.
One of my favorite bits about this song is that if you listen to the LP, Paul’s voice cracks on the second “was in vain”.
This was fixed digitally for the CD release, which I honestly think was unnecessary and gratuitious.
I think you’re probably right. Thanks for that.
just to expand on matt’s comment – paul’s voice cracks on the stereo version of if i fell, the mono version is a different take, with perfect vocal – one of those odd fabs mono / stereo oddities (see please please me as an example)
Actually the mono was just ‘repaired’ by copying and pasting Paul’s earlier vocal of “in vain” over the second one. Not sure why they didn’t do that on the stereo mix. Maybe it was just an oversite. The stereo mixes had less importance at the time.
You’re all wrong. The original take was where Paul cracked. When they overdubbed, it was sung correctly. If you listen to the mono mix, the original vocal is mixed out and just the single track overdub is heard.
I can’t claim to know which of you are correct, but on the 2009 mono re-mix (which I’m listening to right now on pro quality headphones) something is odd about it–the sound of Paul’s voice warbles a little on that 2nd “in vain”. It definitely is a different take than from the previous “in vain” and from the one where his voice cracks. But that warble doesn’t sound like it’s his voice, but either a problem with the original tape or it’s been manipulated later somehow, or both. I haven’t heard the original mono LP version isn over 20 years so I don’t recall if that warble was there or not. But if it is, it may be due to the quality of the original tape of that take being compromised somehow. And if so, that’s possibly why they had to keep the cracked version in the stereo mix (which is kept on the 2009 re-mix–I double-checked).
Having been in a recording studio I am familiar with the sound of a “punch in” where one recorded track with a mistake is re-recorded live and at some point the engineer pushes the record button to start laying down the new track. It usually happens on a beat to other so it is not obvious.
I have always heard it on this song in the middle of the word “hope” which occurs after Paul’s voice cracked on “vain”. If you listen carefully you can hear that the voices sound suddenly different on the second beat during the word “hope”. There is a slight volume and balance shift suggesting it was a new take.
Here’s what might have happened: Paul’s voice started to strain and he ended up stopping during the take later in the song (to cough or whatever). George Martin spun the tape back and told them to start singing again and at that moment- for whatever reason- he “punched in” the new recording. I don’t know why her would do it there; it’s just that it sounds like a punch in to my ears..
But … That would mean that John ,and Paul would both have to punch in. They were recording four track at the time, and on this tune they were sharing a mic ,and that’s also assuming there were no instruments on that particular track. If indeed it was an isolated ( dedicated) track for the vocals , they would have both have to have punched in, not just Paul. They didn’t have tracks to spare as it were . Even if they went into the board on two mics, it would have been on only one track. Can’t have one without the other .
Indeed it does! I have the 2009 Stereo remaster CD of AHDN (which I’ve– metaphorically– worn the grooves out on) and I used to cringe in sympathy every time the fifth verse came round (it is a pretty high note), but now I kind of like it. It goes to show that even the almighty Paul McCartney’s voice cracks sometimes. 🙂 I wonder how that got past George Martin?
It’s a stereo mix. At the time WAY less important than mono mixes. There wasn’t much attention to it, as not a lot of people were gonna have stereo records anyway in 1964.
FYI, on the stereo mix of the US United Artists Soundtrack of AHDN, Paul’s voice doesn’t crack. I have it on vinyl from the early 70s.
That’s because the United Artists version of AHDN used fake-stereo mixes for the eight Beatle-recorded songs.
At that time, wasn’t Norman Smith at the controls?
He probably liked it too
I believe Paul “cracks-up” a bit, rather than cracks, probably at his not taken an adequate breath to prepare for that extremely difficult passage culminating with “… was in vain …” which is at the very toppermost of Paul’s (or nearly any male on Earth’s) vocal range. As a singer who has attempted it on numerous occasions, with only occasional success, my opinion is that the difficulty in hitting those high notes is second only to the difficulty of attempting to duplicate Paul’s vocals in the latter part of Oh Darling! which, well, call me a cab … I could never pull that off, and actually had to leave an audition for a Beatles cover-band once, many years ago, in embarrassment for my effort on that one was seriously lacking.
This is regarding Paul’s voice “cracking” during “If I Fell” — or as I like to call it:
“If I Were to Fall”
I can hear Paul’s vocal cracking quite well in the newly master CDs. Even better than before!
Soon after the crack, you can also very clearly hear one of them taking in a deep breath.
The vocal harmonies to me are quite impressive. Being a guitar player and this being one of the songs I know by heart, it is hard to stay in the same vocal key as John without venturing into Paul’s.
Totally agree… It was hard to get a perfect take of me singing john and playing at the same time without going to paul… Specially on “two… cause I couln’t stand…”
Not really . That’s what harmony is all about . When you’re referring to two part vocal harmonies, that means one is the melody , and the other the harmony. In this song , John sings intro ( melody ) , then when verse begins he goes into a harmony BELOW Pauls melody ( yes, I know John wrote it ) . On the last bar of each verse it’s John again on melody , then back to harmony on next verse etc. The bridge begins on the word “ Her “ cause I couldn’t stand the pain , and I would be sad if our new love was in vain “ . The words “ Love was in vain “ is where is gets further apart harmonically. I see there is much discussion in respect to that part . John was borderline on his low end, and Paul on the border on the top. Remember they were making the film,and recording the sound track in a very limited amount of time . To my heart, that is what makes the album ( HDN ) so endearing . They didn’t have endless studio time to record , hence on some tunes you’re getting close to the real intent of the songs . As every musician will say, sometimes an early take , albeit one not necessarily the best , has the feel, and that’s what we are all searching for . Ps. I can assure you had they recorded this song in 68-69 it would be nothing like this sparse little arrangement that just nails you …
Always intriguing to me was the closing chord-somewhat of a “chime” sound, presumably an overdub. I’ve never read anything to explain it.
It wasn’t a chord technically. It was George playing the seventh fret interval harmonic on D and G string. Assuming he did it on the 12 string Rick, it would certainly give the appearance of a chord, but on a 12 string they are all octaves except the high B and E string ( unison ) . Hence you would technically have four different notes, which would more that compensate for a chord ( three notes ) . But it’s a technicality. Interval or chord … It’s the harmonic that you hear . Brilliant finale.
This song is a monster – Lennon at a peak.
To me is 90 % John´s song. I have the original mono vinyl (1964) and there´s no crack in Paul´s “in vain”, and I have a stereo vynil copy too (1978) where Paul´s voice DOES crack. My little contribution.
Hearing that demo has turned me on to this song quite a bit; and personally, I think the song was better before Macca’s contributions, which kinda make it sound cheesy.
Problem is everyone is arguing about what contributions Paul made and if he didn’t make the contribution you thought he did, or didn’t make any contribution at all, does the song revert back to being non-cheesy for you?
Paul: “We wrote If I Fell together but with the emphasis on John because he sang it.”
Reality: “We sang If I Fell together but with the emphasis on John because he wrote it.”
One of the more charitable passages in his book, giving John full singing credit on a song with shared vocals. The emphasis on John had to come from somewhere, after all.
In case you are quoting “Many years from now”:
I’m SICK of people claiming Paul downsized any of John’s contributions. There is nothing “charitable” about his comment or any other.
And anyone who works together with someone else will acknowledge that it’s sometimes hard to tell afterwards who did excactly what, especially who’s idea was it first.
So it’s just Paul proving his point:
John is doing the lead vocal (when there is one, e.g. the intro), so he was the main songwriter. But it was obviously a close collaboration, since they do almost all vocals together.
Why is this concept so hard to get for so many people?!
Listen to who sings what and you have the songwriting credits right there (ALMOST always).
I agree that who does the singing is almost always the main composer(s) of the song. However, wouldn’t you agree that Two of Us, sung by both John and Paul, was not a songwriting collaboration but was, in fact, Paul’s song?
I would like to add that I agree with Paul when he says about this song, “People tend to forget that John wrote some pretty nice ballads.” He then says that they wrote it together. I might agree with that too if he’d only state what his contribution was. What percentage did he give himself? If it was something like 40%, his contribution would be significant enough to remember.
Read my post: ALMOST always. You even agreed on that.
Nuff said.
I don’t seem to get what your problem is.
Do you actually think Paul is lying?
As for percentage:
He says it was a coop with emphasis on John, obviously meaning something like 40-60.
In fact, the intro chords are really tricky, sounds more like Paul to me. But I can be wrong, I wasn’t there.
John sings the lead in the intro, so he wrote that for sure like you said before. Paul didn’t say he wrote those chords. I expect he would have if it were true. 40% sounds a little steep to me, seeing as he was so vague about his input. I distinctly recall that 60-40 was also what he gave for Norwegian Wood. According to John, Paul’s contribution on that one was the line about lighting a fire. At least John was specific (e.g., the “I love you, I love you, I love you…” middle section in Michelle which he says was his. Did Paul give him 40% on that song? I’ll give Paul credit for being specific about his contribution to Help (the counter melody). Therefore, I’ll take his word for it in that instance.
I don’t know if I’d call it lying simply because his lack of specifics makes it impossible to cross-check with info from other sources. Just skewing John’s songs a bit much in his favor while being conservative with his own songs. The reason I’m making a big deal about this is because Many Years From Now was intended to “set the record straight” according to Paul, and people take it as the last word on the Lennon-McCartney collaboration despite the fact that John is no longer around to confirm/dispute any of it. Believe me, I loved the time when I could listen to Beatles records without caring who wrote what because the songs were almost always good whether they were John’s or Paul’s. Knowing that the person who sang it wrote it was enough for me. It showed that it was indeed an equal partnership. It’s a shame Paul couldn’t just leave it at that, as if being considered equal wasn’t enough.
Given the number of songs they were developing at any one time, it’s ridiculous to assume they would remember accurately, years or decades later, exactly who came up with what. And don’t forget how many musical ideas or lyrics fell by the wayside during the writing or recording process. (Occasionally, the Anthology versions of some songs show them going quite a long way with an idea they then scrapped, such as the “somehow, someway” line in Got to Get You Into My Life on Anthology 2.)
I was involved in “teamwork” translation (that’s my job) for many years, and when I used to read something back after even just a few weeks, I honestly couldn’t remember if it was my draft that my partner had revised, my partner’s draft that I had revised, something half-finished by one that the other then finished off, or an “eyeball to eyeball” job. And that’s just boring corporate translation! When you’re talking about some of the greatest songs ever written by two of the most brilliant songwriters ever, who collaborated not only as writers but also as lead singers, backup and harmony singers and musicians, obviously the lines are going to be blurred. And that’s before you take into account the substances that may have been being ingested at the same time!
Rachel seems obsessed with percentages. It’s impossible to say whose chord structures, melody lines, lyrics, harmonies, arrangements and production values constitute what percentage! Let’s just agree that If I Fell is 100% brilliant.
Thank you.
Seriously.
Big time.
Thanks, great reply. Paul was obsessed with percentages in his book. I felt it unnecessary, petty and like you said, impossible.
David I agree – what you said makes so much sense
I like your style and I agree 1,000 percent!
Thank you for this comment, I 100% agree!
What a great response. I’m tired of listening that X rewrites history than the other was mad at the time and exagerated and so on and so on. All you said is true: teamwork is a bit like that, let alone they might sometimes have been on drugs and that may have mixed up their memories. There are lots of factors messing up with memories, not just drugs, age, feelings, remembering something that other person told us and we started to believed that we were the protagonists of that (it’s more common that what people think and it has nothing to do with lying. Sometimes people really feel they have lived that).
Sorry for the grammar mistakes!!!! I should have checked the comment.
I really admire Paul: however, this is John’s song entirely…the evidence is conclusive beyond ANY doubt…the song lyric, except for part of one line, is completely finished on John’s Home demo that ended up in the hands of the Beatles’ Chauffeur Alf Bicknell….later, John polished the one line in the lyric and that exists as well;and clearly, he wrote all of the music to this song, on his own, stem to stern….the chords in the demo are IDENTICAL to that on the finished record with one major exception: it was written in a different key on a guitar tuned down a whole step. On the demo, the first chord is F#m (Em if you’re in standard tuning). On the released Beatles version, the first chord is Ebm…to my mind, the greatest opening bars to any Beatles Ballad…This is, I believe, the greatest ballad on ANY record… let alone Beatles record…and this is where Paul comes in…Paul’s contribution may have been to help John change the key (lowering the pitch a half-step) thereby making it more suitable for the incomparable two-part harmony….Paul probably created his vocal part; however, this is an ARRANGING credit (NOT a songwriting credit).
First: I had to laugh when I read Rachel’s comment above again…
Second: Is it confirmed that the Demo was finished before McCartney added anything to the song?
Third: I think it is totally ridiculous how some people obsess here about who wrote what.
I don’t really care about how many percent belong to whom. But I don’t like people calling Paul a liar.
I certainly didn’t call Paul a Liar; but, I can say his recollection is in error concerning THIS song. Demo tapes are composition tapes…anyone will tell you that…you commit a song to tape either when your in the process of composing or to transcribe what you just wrote so as not to forget it…Paul and John have demos circulating that show them doing one or the other…both John and Paul have lapses in memory concerning certain songs..this is understandable. To date,no demo tape circulates of a song that they are in the process of writing together….”Michelle” and “We Can Work It Out” exist as Paul demos….however, both are missing the middle parts that John contributed later….these are “Home Demos”…solo efforts…and, “If I Fell” is complete on John’s demo to the extent I mentioned earlier…he deserves the full credit for this song: the different key signature on the demo is the clincher for the melody and chord structure…you can’t underestimate that…it makes it conclusive…and, of course, the lyrics are there as well….the only things missing are the two-part harmony and the change of key (which are questions concerning the arrangement…)…
A demo isn’t proof of anything. A song can either be finished or in progress when something is recorded. There are no rules on that. To assign some standard and assume every single demo the Beatles ever recorded was at the same stage of development is not logical.
Huh?… that’s nonsense. WORKING demos are composition tapes; and, alongside contemporary dated material, they are proof of everything relating to a songs creation. If you wrote songs, you’d readily understand that…I listed specific examples of Paul-centric songs that were unfinished in their “stages of development.” These are HOME cassette demos…every last one of them represents a solo effort from John, Paul and George. As I stated earlier, there are ZERO Beatles songs, in demo form, that are examples of collaboration…they are all solo efforts on the tapes (as you would expect!…you’re at YOUR home, making a demo!): either finished entirely (like Paul’s “Fixing A Hole” or John’s equally-finished “If I Fell”) or songs awaiting help (i.e. I gave you two of Paul’s unfinished tunes previously: “Michelle” and “We Can Work It Out”….add to that “Everybody Had a Hard Year”…John’s contribution to “I’ve Got A Feeling” which exists as a solo demo). You say there are no “rules” on that…well, there is a little thing called logic you’ve run up against here. You’d have to provide some evidence to support your claim. Incidentally, as far as I can tell from this thread, not one person has made the claim you suggest (i.e. “To assign some standard and assume every single demo the Beatles ever recorded was at the same stage of development is not logical.”)…in fact, only the opposite has been suggested…
So many words, but there’s still no prove that John recorded this demo without ever having played the song together with Paul – which could have happened any time, since they were spending so much time together.
It’s quite funny that you think there’s a definition of how and when a “demo” or “working demo” is to be made. “Working demos” are “composition tapes”, so who’s telling you they didn’t compose any part of that song together before? Were you there with John?
I agree with HarpoSpoke. There are no rules regarding home recordings. For example, Paul has some home recordings of Mull of Kyntire without Denny Laine, the co-writer. He even has home recordings of songs that he is covering. It seems we can be practising what have been working with others, or whatever we like, and therefore record it to see how well we did it. I record my singing when I practice. Never in my life have I written a song, but I suppose I can say those are MY songs, because I’ve made home recordings with them hahaha. That’s only logic.
see what he say in 2013 about the song…he basically claims its his own song…Paul: “I was a big fan of the preamble in my early days, which you find in lots of ’50s songs. A first verse that goes: ‘I was living in Kentucky when I did, did, did and I dud-dud-dud, and then I said…’ [breathes in deeply]… then you break into the bit of the song you want everyone to know. One song I wrote a little after Please Please Me was my best attempt at a preamble: If I Fell. [Sings] ‘If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be truuue…’ Then after the line, ‘just holding hands’, the song properly gets going. [Raises voice] That’s it, everyone!” even takes credit of please please me which is also a lennon number…lennon took credit wrongly on eleanor rigby but thats about the only one
I find Paul’s comments in regards to his contributions to songs that are predominantly John’s sometimes vague and inconsistent. I think what he really meant was: “One preamble I wrote a little after the Please Please Me album was recorded was the one for If I Fell…”.
For the record, I don’t think Paul wrote even the preamble by himself. John sang most songs on “A Hard Day’s Night” and if Paul had wrote that bit I think he’d have sung it. Plus if Paul had written this alone and they both wrote the rest together it would mean this is more a Paul song, but Paul himself claimed this is more John’s song (i.e. “John could write nice ballads”, “emphasis on John”).
Additionally, the demo does sound like a composition demo (John switches between what became his vocals and Paul’s) and it seems like John had pretty much everything on this one (it sounds great by the way!).
I think both John and Paul made mistakes on their recollections – it has more to do with the amount of songs they composed/time elapsed/drugs than ill intent. I don’t think John wrote Eleanor Rigby and I don’t think Paul contributed significantly on this one.
We’ll never know it for sure though. So all we have left is their legacy to listen and enjoy.
John Lennon in 1972 said in Hit Parader that he wrote IF I Fell completely. Is HE lying?
But in 1980 he might have mixed up In my Life and If I Fell. He was very sure in which one Paul had helped. In 1980 he thought Paul had helped with If I Fell.
Paul does not seem shy about claiming credits on John songs, especially the Beatlemania hits on which John sings, and which John said that he wrote. On the other hand, Paul does give some credit to John for tracks like Paperback Writer and Magical Mystery Tour (the song). The John “VERSUS” Paul bit might come more from Barry Miles than from McCartney – and that is another story.
Both of you guys got it wrong its D, Em7, and F#m7
While it may be a stretch to many in saying so, I think this is the very first time John intentionally refers to a previous Beatles composition in a song with the line “and I found that love was more than just holding hands” – a clear reference, I think, to “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.
That’s what I thought, too, when I first heard (and fell in love with) it. It may not have been entirely deliberate– sometimes you just come up with a line and it’s only afterwards you go, “Oh, that’s good, it could be referring to such-and-such.”
(I don’t sound like Sir Paul, do I?)
What do you think:
I must be sure from the very start
that you would love me more than her
Do these lines tell us that girl should sing that? Or is this a Liverpool slang and grammatically it should be “You would love me more that SHE DID”?
I always took it to mean that the girl he’s singing to would love him more than the girl who hurt him before. In a song, you can’t always use grammatically correct language, as it would sound awkward, so “more than her”, works fine, though it may be a bit confusing to some
Dear moderator, there is in Russia one site like yours. There is one topic in russian site https://music-facts.ru/song/The_Beatles/If_I_Fell/
Main aim the discussion is to decide from what person The Beatles sing this song, I mean sex – from boy or from girl? It is simple for native english speaking peoples? But not for us. Help us to solve this problem any way. Many Thanks.
By the way, author of last post Pavel is from our society.
I have been playing these songs since they came out. Every new song or album was a new guitar lesson..One thing about this song not mentioned here is that the actual melody line switches back and forth between John and Paul. Whenever they are both singing, Paul seems to have the lead melody and John is doing a low harmony. In places the jump John has to do is almost awkward but he pulls it off quite well as in. “see that I WOULD LOVE TO LOVE YOU, and that she….” Anyway, it’s something you notice when you work it out with a band.
There’s an Italian guitar maker called Galeazzo Frudua who has a fantastic breakdown of this song’s harmonies here.
This one has two singers; his YouTube channel has many other Beatle songs where he handles all the harmonies. He has *really* good ears.
The correct way to render the line in English would be “I must be sure from the very start that you would love me more than she,” but most native English speakers don’t have such a precise grasp of the language, and even if they did, to say it that way sounds stuffy. So “love me more than her” is understood to mean “love me more than she does.”
“One song I wrote a little after Please Please Me was my best attempt at a preamble (…)
Paul McCartney
Q Magazine, May 2013”
So now Paul claims that he wrote this one all by himself?
Perhaps he was specifically referring to the preamble, not the whole song.
He’s referring to the preamble
Just finished reading the discussions here about this song.
I think this song is an equal collaboration…
Just an observation guys. John sang alone on the intro. And they sang together (John & Paul) onwards on the entire song.
Have anyone noticed that Paul is actually singing the melody & John is singing the lower harmony?
My point is, if this song was of John’s majority, why is Paul singing the melody?
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not on a Paul vs John or John vs Paul argument ( I love them both) 🙂
On the lyrics, maybe it’s more of John’s… but on the whole, I think the two contributed almost equally.
Yes, it’s because Paul’s voice is higher than John’s and so naturally he’d do the higher harmony, some of the notes being too high for John to sing. Just like on the bridge of “A Hard Day’s Night”. Just an observation… but when there are harmonies involved, Paul ALMOST always takes the higher.
“Oh, I get high with a little help from my friends…”
It’s John’s song because in the demo he recorded, he is singing the part that ends up being Paul’s (not very well admittedly, as it was out of his range and he knew it). Had it been an equal collaboration, Paul would’ve sung this part from the beginning. Paul often sang in John’s songs where he couldn’t hit the high notes, like Any Time at All and A Hard Day’s Night.
If I Fell is one of my favorites from AHDN, and maybe my favorite John + Paul 2-part harmonies in the Beatles’ canon. It’s a beautiful, affecting song.
Harmonically it remind me a bit of Do You Want to Know a Secret–the three chromatically descending minor chords over the “doo dah doo” in DYWTOAS are used, to good end, over the “with you” part of IIF. And both songs have preambles and similar tempos.
A “sister” song to the great “And I Love her” – I think “If I Fell” is even better than that.
The harmony vocals here are amazing – John’s vocals in particular are very hard to sing!
Are you guys talking about a song from 50 years ago. We get it, if you love john, you look and try to point out all of johns greatness etc….If you love Paul, you point out everything Paul did and try to spin it. The only thing I have noticed is that Paul always contributed to songs in the studio and most certainly this type of song he would of contributed. Also, I notice how people try to minimize Paul’s contributions to the Beatles songs. Lets get real and move on in life. They were great musicians and everyone added in the studio. If you people believe everything that was written or said in interviews by John Lennon then you must be all crazy because he said a lot of stuff that made nonsense, he even said a lot a bad stuff about the Beatles music and about George, Paul and producer George Martin. John Lennon was a heroin and cocaine addict that lied all the time and had Yoko manipulating him like a lot of girlfriends do. However, he has been dead for so long and most of the world doesn’t care about a crack in a voice at 0200th of a second. Come on, get with it people. ….Life goes on and Music changes and progresses and musicians change stuff all the time in a studio and then the producers change their songs when they are at home relaxing. Then the song is cut up and pasted together and harmonies added and different takes are cut together and stuff is drowned out and then they have a product to sell to people like you. Especially people that will keep buying different versions of the same song and then buy books and treat Playboy interviews as a life long interview and Holy grail. Anyhow, you get the point. GET A LIFE GUYS! Paul McCartney is the only one that actually still sings Beatles songs and has been promoting the Beatles for over 40 years by including the Beatles songs in his concerts and keeping the music in the public eye. Lennon did 1 concert after the Beatles and it was laughable. He needed a big hit of heroin before he could face the crowd, Just like Michael Jackson.
Wellll…you obviously have no bias, do you? Come on a site like this and bash John Lennon on the page of one of greatest compositions?? Then all the personal stuff..I like the concert in Madison Square Garden from ’72 or whenever it was, only live performance of “Come Together” by either of the original composers I’m fairly sure (I give Paul credit for that bass-it really kicks the song up a notch).
John had some problems with drugs, yes even H, but Yoko was a much bigger addict and continued long after John had quit (and he didn’t even know). John kicked heroin around the end of the 60’s early 70’s(“Cold Turkey”_. It was quitting cigarettes that drove him nuts. And how exactly do you know he took a “big hit of heroin” before the concert?? How would he even perform? He seems perfectly lucid, not drooling all over himself or nodding and what not. What a hater, and even comparing him to the “king of pop”, what a joke. Plus what about the second performance that night? Another fix??
…And exactly when did John quit cigarettes?
What a patronizing distorted comment! Hard core fans of this website love the Beatles warts and all with no expiry date in sight. GET OVER IT!
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.
“If I Fell” is a fine song, written by John Lennon and recorded & performed by all four Beatles. “And I Love Her” is a fine song, written by Paul McCartney and recorded & performed by all four Beatles. Both songs are from The Beatles album “A Hard Day’s Night”. All this senseless bickering over “who wrote what” is maddening. Lennon has been dead for 33 1/2 years. McCartney’s memory of what did or didn’t happen at the height of Beatlemania craziness fifty years ago may or may not be a bit inaccurate. Who really cares at this point? The songs are still awesome.
This was written completely by John Lennon. As Lennon said in his Playboy Interviews, it was his effort at creating a ballad for ‘Hard Day’s Night’. To prove the point here, a rough demo tape of John Lennon doing this song completely by himself exists on YOUTUBE before it was ever recorded (with him singing the higher lead vocal). I really get tired of people trying to give Macca all the credit for everything — This was simply Lennon’s song 100%.
I don’t think anyone here was trying to give McCartney all the credit for writing this song. The question that people have been debating here is really just how much he actually contributed to it. Yes, this demo does sound surprisingly close to the finished product, but I personally feel that this would only fuel the debate further. A previous commenter questioned whether this demo was recorded before McCartney had added anything to the song. The answer that was subsequently given seemed reasonable, but I doubt that it would convince everyone who would choose to believe McCartney’s claim that they did in fact write the song together. Even if that turned out to be true, it certainly wouldn’t take anything away from how great the song turned out to be. Having gone through the comments section here, I personally doubt that anything new can really be added to this debate by now.
That’s right. John wrote “If I Fell” entirely on his own…zero help from Paul in the composition (Paul’s Q Magazine interview notwihstanding…) . The demo tape, as I stated previously, is a composition tape. There would be holes in the song structure if Paul’s recollection was accurate: which it clearly is not. Listen to Paul’s demos for “Michelle” and “We Can Work It Out” (as just two typical examples). In both cases, the demos are missing John’s contributions (i.e.. “I Love you , I love You, I Loooovvvve you” and “Life is very short” respectively….). There are no demos of songs that they wrote “eyeball to eyeball”….all existing home demos are solo composition tapes ( this is vital to understanding why it’s absurd for Paul to suggest that he had a hand in writing this song…). As for Paul’s suggestion that he wrote the introduction, that’s the most absurd claim of all. Any guitarist, who has studied the chord structure in this demo, will tell you that the demo for this song proves that John wrote the introduction. It’s beyond all doubt…it’s the most illuminating part of the tape. I’d always been fascinated by the opening chord structure to this song on the LP….John starts the introduction in Ebm which is an extremely odd way to start any song composed on the guitar. At the end of the introduction, he changes the key and moves it up a half step to a “guitar-friendly” key. The introduction is nearly the best part of the song because it’s so clever and unique (and, let’s not forget…beautiful…). The demo tape reveals how John wrote the introduction. He wrote it on a guitar that was tuned down a whole step. Here is the intro and chords as heard on the demo ” If I Fell [ F#m ] in love with you, would you promise [ F ] to be true, and Help [ E ] me understand [ C#m ] ’cause I’ve been [ F#m ] in love before, and I found [ F ] that love was more, than just [ Gm…this is the half step raise in pitch ] holding hands [ C ].” Now, that the entire song is in logical guitar-friendly territory, the song resembles familiar chord structures of Lennon songs composed in the keys of E and F. And, the introduction is very similar in structure to John’s introduction (w/ a key change mind you) to “Do You Want To Know A Secret” ( key of E ). So, while I’m sure it’s true that Paul was a “big fan of the preamble in my early days,” it’s beyond dispute that John was the only composer of a preamble in their Beatle days together….As for Paul? ….to paraphrase Walter Kerr, the problem with memory is not that it forgets, it’s that it tends to create….Now, having said that, I think it’s probable that Paul acted as musical director for this song providing John with his lower pitched harmony part…John usually deferred to Paul’s suggestions and judgments in the recording studio; however, that’s not a songwriting credit, that’s a producing credit….
Kendall,
With all due respect, I cannot help doubting that everyone who reads your comments are going to be convinced by your forceful and somewhat hyperbolic stance on this dispute even though you clearly took the time to think it out. While I can see where you’re coming from, I cannot take your claims surrounding the demo as definitive proof of Lennon having written the song by himself. The fact that it sounds more complete than some of the other demos we know of does not really clarify much about whatever standard anyone outside of the Beatles’ own circle applies to the compositional process of their songwriting other than their own thoughts and biases regarding the Beatles’ songwriting methods. For all we know it may very well have varied from song to song. And since your claims about Lennon’s writing of the introduction do not rely on any sources apart from your own observations (and I’m not sure I agree about your claim that every guitarist would agree with you since neither of us know every guitarist on planet earth) I don’t really find your claims entirely convincing. Now, I’m not saying you’re wrong about McCartney’s claims (no one here has really provided any definitive proof for either side) but the point I’m trying to make is that no matter where our biases lay, none of us really know the full account of the compositional process of this song due to many things which could be memory lapses here or biased claims there. We can only make up our own minds which you clearly have. I don’t expect to change your mind of course, but at this point what can we possibly say about this that hasn’t already been said?
Well Richard, I found your reply to be in a word: odd. Every guitarist I’ve encountered, when they see the chord structure I’ve transcribed from the demo (which is accurate), agrees with my post. It would not be sensible to think otherwise.The demo changes everything concerning our understanding of the songwriting process as it relates to this song: in particular, the recently-“disputed” introduction. I have to assume, from your post, that you’re not a guitarist. We’re dealing with the evidence before us; and, the evidence is fairly conclusive. Other than Paul’s unsubstantiated claim, there is zero evidence to support his claim of co-authorship. On the other side, we have John’s solo working demo and his handwritten original draft of the complete lyrics….Paul is not in evidence. Is it “humanly” possible that Paul might have helped a bit in writing the song? Sure. But, all of the the evidence suggests otherwise;furthermore, unlike “In My Life,” Paul never made this claim while John was still with us (and John discussed the writing of this song as a solo effort , in major interviews that Paul clearly read, on at least two occasions that I’ve encountered…). I don’t have a John bias…I have great respect for McCartney. I just don’t have great respect for his memory of the songwriting partnership….I’m not alone (as the posts on this thread readily attest….). There is nothing “hyperbolic” in my view. Quite the contrary, I’m being circumspect and sensible…the McCartney “loyalists” are not weighing the evidence….
First of all Kendall let me clarify that I am a musician, and while the guitar is not my primary instrument, I try my best to keep the instrument’s role in perspective whenever I am analyzing its role in a piece of music as I would any other instrument. And as for you finding my previous comment “odd” well all I can say is that with all the differing viewpoints and arguments to be found concerning the Beatles, some here and there are probably going to seem “odd” to just about any fan of the group whatever their biases and judgements concerning the subject of the Beatles, their lives and their music may be. Sorry that my own perspective struck you in such a way, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if everybody who visited this site had such feelings about at least one comment or opinion they’ve encountered here. It just is what it is. And as for my usage of the term “hyperbolic” I was largely thinking of the wordings of your opening statements (“zero help from Paul in the composition”) as much as the statements themselves (which I still find unconvincing) when I wrote that statement. If somehow you or anyone else here feels my usage of the word was misplaced than an apology is certainly in order. I am only focusing on your argument so please don’t take any of this personally.
Getting back to the main point however, I don’t have any reason to doubt that Lennon wrote the lyrics. But writing music and writing lyrics are not the same thing, and there is more than one way to combine the two while in the process of writing a song. By most accounts that I’ve come across, Lennon had a tendency to write lyrics before setting them to music (or collaborating with McCartney on the process) so the lyrical aspect of the songwriting was not part of my perspective here. I was only stating why I remain uncertain as to everyone agreeing with the firmness of your own viewpoint about the writing of the music. You may claim (and genuinely believe) that the existence of this demo is solid proof of Lennon having written the melody and chord progression by himself and use your own views of his compositional tendencies as support for your claim. But, even if every guitarist you know agrees with you, how exactly does that speak for every compositional method relating to the guitar. I have several friends who are guitarists and they all have different ways of working things out on their instruments (partly because they are proficient in different genres of music). Sometimes these guitarists have even tried working out ideas they found in other musicians, so if these musicians could then why not Lennon and McCartney? And why would it not be possible for such ideas from other people to find their ways into guitar based songs, or even demos of such songs?
For the record, I am not a “McCartney loyalist” and I have stated that I do not believe there is enough evidence to give a truly definitive account of the writing of this song. But it’s worth keeping in mind that Lennon did not always get everything right with his recollections either. Personal frustrations in his life sometimes affected the ways in which he described things to interviewers and his memory was no more lacking in flaws than McCartney’s. And while I personally feel that Lennon is occasionally overpraised in some areas, it does not change one iota of my admiration for his musicianship and songwriting. And even if McCartney’s claim turned out to be true (although I’m not saying it is as we both agree that the evidence there is lacking) it would not take anything away from Lennon’s own talents and accomplishments and it certainly would not change anything about the wonder that this song is.
Well Richard,
It’s not hyperbolic to say that John had zero help in the composition of “If I Fell.” It’s really that simple. The evidence, ALL of the direct evidence, supports that view. The peculiarity of the recorded opening chord structure (in Ebm ) was solved when John’s demo came to light. It does matter in THIS instance if you play guitar or not. Show my post to any guitarist, who is a Beatle admirer (and someone who has substantial knowledge of John’s songs and their structure), and have them work through the chords as I’ve transcribed them, and they will explain this to you. The demo chord structure is pure John Lennon and represents the way this song was clearly written. John did not have a “a tendency to write lyrics before setting them to music”: that rarely happened in his case (or Paul’s for that matter…”In My Life” and “All My Loving” are examples of lyrics first, music second and both John and Paul described that as a rare occurrence …). Usually, it was the music first…Paul has said, at various times, a title might suggest or inspire the music….Once again, your post was very odd. You wrote: “But, even if every guitarist you know agrees with you, how exactly does that speak for every compositional method relating to the guitar. ” Huh? It DOESN’T speak for “every compositional method relating to the guitar”….it speaks to this particular song and the direct evidence surrounding its composition…. Paul, in his dotage, has been trying to cadge additional “percentage” credit for some of the Lennon-McCartney catalog…some of that is clearly warranted even if his percentages are a bit silly;but, in a few definitive instances, it is not: “If I Fell” is one of the latter…his claim is much less than plausible. (It should be noted, as well, that Paul hasn’t been nearly as generous in acknowledging credit for Ringo or George who helped him with lyrics!). And yes, John made claim to substantial credit for the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” that, clearly, was not warranted; and, George helped him write “I Feel Fine” that he claimed was a solo effort…I’m well aware of those lapses. But, once again, those songs were not solo demo songs, they were collaborations…and we have ZERO demos of any collaborations! I’ve been an admirer of the fabs since they first appeared on Ed Sullivan back in 1964…I’ve been a musician for decades. I feel very confident that what I’m imparting to you here is correct. But, of course, if you wish to defer for some “reason” to Macca, go ahead: knock yourself out!
You can certainly feel that what you are stating is accurate Kendall. You clearly took the time to think your viewpoint out. Just because I disagree with the way you put it forth does not mean I do not respect your viewpoint. However, I do not appreciate you telling me to “knock myself out.” You seem to be forgetting that as I stated earlier, I do not believe there is enough evidence to completely verify all of the claims made by both Lennon and McCartney regarding the composition of this song, so I am rather baffled at your claim that I “wish to defer” to McCartney. Even if I am willing to consider his claim, that does not mean I wholly believe it. I only meant to infer as to why I was not certain that everyone who read your claim would agree with you. For all we know, you may very well be right. However, nothing you have stated has swayed me from the possibility (which I will not attempt to prove as there is no proof I know of) that Lennon may have at least taken some musical ideas from McCartney while working on the music for the song. I am not pretending to know that of course. And if I knew for certain that Lennon wrote all the music to the song I would certainly accept it. Although my uncertainties remain, I am not deferring to anyone. I am only trying look at the songwriting process as fairly as I can. As previously stated, I do admire Lennon, but I try to keep my perspective of his legacy as objective as I can due to my personal frustrations with the ways in which much of the general public have tended to analyze his legacy at the expense of the other members of the band. That is why I have issues with the way you put your own perspective forth, but that does not mean I would try to stop you from doing so. All I did was to state why I disagreed with you. There are plenty of instances where people generally but respectfully disagree with each other on sites such as this one.
I may have phrased my question about your claim “speaking for every compositional method relating to the guitar,” incorrectly. My intention had been to suggest that there are different ways any guitarist at all could apply musical ideas to their guitar playing. And as for my claim that Lennon often wrote lyrics before setting them to music, I would not have claimed it if I had not done some reading before arriving at that conclusion. We may have both gotten our views on this from different sources, and while I am open to the possibility that I am wrong, I did have reason to believe that this was largely how Lennon would work on his own songs in the mid 1960s at least. I’m not going to elaborate here, as I feel it would detract from the subject of this particular song which is what this comments section is here for anyway.
Finally Kendall, I have to tell you that I do not care that you think my comments are “odd.” I too took the time to think my own perspective out and I have tried to make my own position as clear and understandable as I could. I do not mind that we disagree on this subject. But like I said, given how many arguments there are among fans of the Beatles and how many differing perspectives on their legacy that there are, it hardly seems unreasonable to expect certain viewpoints to come off as “odd” to any fan of the band depending on his or her own biases and judgements. It is what it is. This is the Beatles we’re talking about after all.
I do not know you, so remember that none of this is personal.
Kendall Miller, you are right.
1. There are ZERO demos of any collaborations.
2. Lennon alone sings the whole song on the demo
3. During reading McCartney´s comments all the years, I have learnt not to believe a word of what he is saying, unfortunately.
Sigh…
Will this vicious circle never end?
So basically Kendall Miller’s argument is:
1). We have no OTHER example of demo for collaboration song (essentially a “no true Scotsman” fallacy)
2). “I really, really love John very much, therefore he must have written this genius song all by himself. And my nameless John-loving guitarists friends agree” (wishful thinking)
3). Paul is a liar (baseless accusation)
If anything the fact that the song is nearly complete on the demo and the lyrics sheet proves that it is NOT a “composition tape” of a work in progress but that of a song ready for the recording process, which is consistent with the idea that John could’ve recorded the demo after a joint session with Paul where the intro was added (possibly to demonstrate the finished song to the other Beatles and George Martin, or even to be sent to Dick James for copyright purposes).
If the song was a composition tape, it would sound like the Almeria demo tapes of his early attempts at Strawberry Fields or She Said She Said… We can’t deduce any kind of rules when it comes to why and when the Beatles recorded demos because there aren’t many of them to begin with. If we had 40 Beatles demos and none of them were collaborative you’d have a point, but a mere dozen is not enough to draw definitive conclusions…
As for the argument about the song structure , there doesn’t even seem to be one. Kendall merely asserts that it’s obvious that John wrote those changes without ever telling us WHY it’s obvious. Simply stating “It’s obvious to anyone with a brain” is usually a cover for an inability to make a sound argument.
What is it that makes it impossible for Paul to write such chord changes? Does Paul have some kind of weird brain damage that makes it impossible for him to conceptualize starting a song on an Ebm chord?
Everything John could do with a guitar, Paul could do and vice versa. Paul was perfectly capable of writing unusual chord changes. Despite their differences, their compositional practices were quite similar, seeing as they developed them together.
Again the fact that the main body of the song is all “guitar-friendly” chord progressions whereas the intro is more tonally ambiguous sort of opens the possibility that another composer intervened.
Other than that, Kendall’s position hinges on the idea that Paul is a mean-spirited liar, based on no evidence at all. Because yes, he’d have to be that. His story is far too detailed, even explaining his thought process and cultural references behind his (co-?)writing of the intro to be dismissed as poor recollection (whereas John’s much more vague and uncertain statements can be read as such, without calling him a liar)
The fact is, while some of Paul’s assertions are controversial and conflicts with John’s recollections, none of these assertions have ever been proven false.
So what exactly is the likelier scenario:
1). It’s *possible* for the Beatles to record a demo of a collaborative song.
or
2). Paul is a sociopathic liar out to destroy John’s reputation one song at the time.
Bear in mind that John’s recollections ADMIT that Paul may have contributed to the song. Had John said “I wrote every note and word, including the intro”, you might again have a stronger argument. One of them would’ve to be a liar. The fact that John confesses to confusing the song with “In My Life” makes his memories harder to trust than Paul’s.
The only sensible position is that WE DON’T KNOW. The rest is speculation, fanboyism, ego and posturing.
Kendall seems simply emotionally unwilling to admit that a song he loves could be written by anyone other than his favorite Beatle (painfully common among the fandom).
It is reasonable to believe most of this song was written on a melody and idea of John. They were at a hotel where there was a piano and they finished the body of the song. Paul wrote the first part with the intricate chords. The key change was because of the piano to guitar. John sang the first part because it was his thought and his idea.
I admire both McCartney and Lennon, but 1. Lennon’s solo demo is pretty much complete, with the preamble section and high melody line 2. If it was recorded after McCartney’s input (if any), why is he not on the demo with Lennon, singing “his parts”? 3. If McCartney wrote the preamble, why did he not sing it? 4. McCartney is always claiming his contributions on Lennon songs since Lennon died, and that is VERY unfair. Same with ‘Mr. Kite’ recently, and others. He doesn’t do the same with the songs that are mainly his. 5. Lennon’s handwritten lyrics are complete too.
… Also, why is McCartney still using Beatle songs as examples of his songwriting abilities, is he not proud of what he did with Wings and his solo career? He has written amazing songs after the Beatles disbanded too.
Someone is certainly biased. The beginning of the song is totally different from the completed song, hence preamble. The George V Hotel brought them in a piano which Mccartney played fairly well at that time, so it was probably easy for him to do the first part. John made the recording later. Mccartney has no problem saying that Harrison gave him the guitar riff for And I Love Her which really makes the song. He also says Maybe I’m amazed is one of his favorite songs. In my opinion John and Paul would have been just fine as a duo. They should have continued writing together.————————————————–
here there and everywhere has a preamble. that’s paul. should have used it as an example, not if i fell. do you want to know a secret is another preamble song by john.
I’ve recently noticed that EVERY SINGLE BLEEPIN’ SONG ON HERE (excluding George’s) gets involved in this great debate over who wrote it. I’m beginning to get just a liiiiitle tired of it. Which is why I never enter the debates. :p
You are not so silly after all !! 😉
I can understand you. But The Beatles is music history and people will always discuss who wrote what.
But!—the special thing in the matter of The Beatlles is the faults: There is an unbalance in the presentations of who composed the melodies.. There are uncountable examples of how McCartney gets the credit of the melody, or part of melody, that Lennon has composed. Not a single example of the opposite.
In Wikipedia McCartney is called “the most cuccessful songwriter in history”. But in that they have counted Lennon compositions! OK,McCartney had more number one hits in US, but in UK, and the rest of the world, it is Lennon. People don´t know that.
Many think I am nagging about this. But I think it is a music history scandal. Perhaps it has been better the last years.
If you composed songes, your life mission, and another person gets the credit of it, would you think it would be funny?
Johan-One thing we will agree with you on: you are a nag. And that’s not a positive attribute or a compliment.
Most people DO know, however, that John and Paul were EQUALS. Different, but equal.
THAT’S the point that you, in your never-ending pathetic quest to belittle Paul, have and apparently never-will understand.
If I Fell is a typical Lennon composition. Even the intro is typical Lennon: four changes of key! and a falling melody. That means that Lennon is joking. Who else than Lennon could have joked in this way? And the main melody is very typical Lennon:repeating three long notes.The competetive McCartney has always been embarrased by the fact that Lennon was the dominant composer before Yesterday 1965, and If I Fell was written 1964. I have always distrusted McCartney´s comments, especially comments abut the time before Yesterday.The tendency is that If Lennon composed the melody and McCartney helped a little with the harmony, McCartney said we wrote the song “together” and got the establlishment to believe it is a “co-composition”. (Sometimes he – I´m sorry to say – is bluffing: In a You Tube thing from 1990, he said “I wrote Help” ! but later corrected himself and said It is a Lennon composition).
Speaking of silly……..
Johan was there, after all, and knows EXACTLY who wrote what…..which translates to Lennon writing anything of value and McCartney absconding with the credit.
Your posts ARE interesting as a study in aspersive-obsessive psychology, however.
A beautiful ballad,a collaboration, but primarily John Lennon’s.Great harmonizing. A highlight of the album and film “A Hard Days Night”.
As a guitar player, I can tell which parts Lennon wrote, and which parts McCartney wrote.
Lennon is much more untrained, “primitive,” as does things that somehow work, yet no trained musician would dare to do them. His approach almost flies in the face of normal musical “sense.” McCartney uses his musical schooling, brilliantly employing certain chord structures that make total sense musically.
Obviously, Lennon wrote the intro, because of it’s weird, almost out of tune structure that defies logic.
McCartney clearly wrote the part where it goes up to D9, then down to G, to Gminor, etc. which is one of Macca’s fave musical motifs.
McCartney can go higher than Lennon, vocally, so he takes the “lead” so Lennon can do his flat monotone-y lower part. They did this constantly.
Interesting. Can you tell the words behind D9, G and Gminor?
To Thomas Lyding
Is this succession D9, G and Gminor so special?
Listen to Lennon´s middle part in Bad To Me from Dminor in “…let you go…” to G in “…just as long…”. It´s a marvellous step down in a wonderful middle part.
Or listen to the middle part in Lennon´s Yes It Is from Dminor in “…with you by my side…” to Gminor in “…if I could forget her…” .
Doesn´t Lennon “make total sense musically”?
Many covers playing Lennon´s Oh My Love miss the notes! in “…everything is clear in the world…”. Can you sing it? Is Lennon primitive?
I have even heard people missing the notes! in “…I´m crying…I´m crying…” in I Am The Walrus. Can you sing it? Is Lennon primitive?
Today it is very hot to talk about the chords. But the melody is more interesting than the chords. Listen to when Lennon changes the key the second time in the middle part I Should Have Known Better, “…oh oh oh ooho…”. That is a marvelous bit of music. Music in a “high level”.
And the lovely middle part-melody in Lennon´s Nobody Loves You, with the +chord.
Can you tell me more examples of McCartney´s serie D9, G and Gminor?
In Many Years From Now, Barry Miles, 1997 McCartney said Lennon composed If I Fell.
But for Q Magazine, May 2013, McCartney suddenly sais that he composed it! That means that most of the music writers in the future will use what I call the “M c C a r t n e y p r e s u m t i o n. That means: If you are unsure who composed what,let McCartney get the credit. Why? Because he did Yesterday.
Now it has come in You Tube a demo with Lennon alone singing the whole song: the intro,the verse and the middle part!! Could that mean that McCartney composed it? Of course not.
“Could that mean that McCartney composed it? Of course not.”
Proves nothing, as virtually all of your points (in virtually all your posts) do.
Johan,
Here is what the book ” Many Years From Now” By Barry Miles
page 162
SAID
Of the other songs used in the film, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I’m Happy Just to Dance with You’re and ‘I ”ll Be Back’ were ALL co-written with John”.
Paul : “”People forget that John wrote Some pretty nice ballards. People tend to think if him as an acerbic sit and aggressive and abrassive, but he did have a very warm side to him really which he didn’t like to show too much in case he got rejected. We wrote ‘If I Fell’ together but with the emphasis on John because he sang it. It was a nice harmony number, very much a ballad.”
The book came out in 1997.
“If I Fell” was a recorded on February 27, 1964. When John and Paul WROTE together.
So, did Paul go over to John House and Paul play dart’s while John had written the Songs! There is several songs where there is a dispute, For Example: “A Hard Day’s Night”, in which Paul said that he gave the Song the middle eight. Page 165 of “Many Years From Now” By Barry Miles
And with John in regards to “Eleanor Rigby” he said In Lennon Remembers, Lennon claimed to have written “a good half of the lyrics or more” of Eleanor Rigby. In 1971, Lennon publicly stated in Melody Maker that he written at least 50 percent of “Eleanor Rigby” and in Hit Parader the next year increased his claim to 70 percent of the lyrics. During his famous 1980 Playboy interview Lennon declared that, while McCartney had came up with the original concept, he and not McCartney had written 70 percent of the song. Which it is NOT TRUE! Pete Shotton which he his best friends with John Lennon dismissed Lennon’s claims to written most of the Song saying that Lennon’s contribution to “Eleanor Rigby” was “virtually nil”. And Allen Klein revealed in his 1971 Playboy interview that he was the one who had initially “reminded” Lennon of his authorship of “Eleanor Rigby” : John wrote 60 or 70% of the lyrics on “Eleanor Rigby”. He just didn’t remember until I say him down and had him sort through it all. And Allen Klein wanted to gain Lennon’s approval. This was the time when John was on “Heroin” the time he and Yoko met Allen Klein. And maybe John Lennon was hurt when Paul presented the Song “Eleanor Rigby” to the group which including Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Pete Shotton and he ask for help!
“The Beatles and the Historians” by Erin Torkelson Weber “Eleanor Rigby” pages 94 to 98.
So, You Can’t always believe John! Either….
Johan,
I don’t necessarily agree with everything you have written on this website. But I have to ask you:
Do you have to keep repeating yourself? Do you think your opinions have not reached enough people here? I guarantee you that far more people are aware of your basic opinions here than could possibly be kept track of.
If you have to keep commenting here, do you think you could at least lend a fresher perspective and new insights into your basic viewpoints rather than repeat them over and over again?
Does a solo demo proves anything, Johan? Of course not.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that this song is a great example of not so much J+P have harmonies, but TWO different lead/melodic parts. This is the case in many of their songs. It makes sense in this song because John wrote two different melodies, the first he gave to Paul because it was too high to sing. It’s the classic Beatle-case of “who is singing lead,really?”
AHDN was a monumental effort by the Beatles in every aspect. The time lines they had to work with were tight, and they had to come up with new tunes on the fly. The Beatles, especially Lennon & McCartney had written many songs by the time AHDN was due to be recorded but they did not have a backlog of songs sitting in a drawer somewhere to pull out on a rainy day. If I fell sounded like another perfect Beatles song when I first heard it, and one of the reasons the Beatles turned me on was that there seemed to be a genuine collaboration from the four members in creating their songs. As I got older I believed If I Fell was a Lennon song with McCartney contribution which would have been sorted out in the recording studio. Lennon’s demo is fairly conclusive evidence that he wrote wrote the song entirely, but even if he hadn’t, the song would not be diminished in my eyes. I like the variations and the Mono/Stereo versions where both singers have difficulty reaching some of the highest notes. I am not a musician though I claim to playing a harmonica for enjoyment, so I do not have the ability to break down a song into its minute parts as some of the contributors on these pages are able to do. I have looked at YouTube videos of guitarists re-creating Lennon’s guitar parts, and in most cases the guitar work is far more intricate than many people give John Lennon credit for, as though he was some sort of hack guitarist who happened to come up with great songs. I like the thought of songs improving in the studio with all four Beatles making contributions. When AHDN was being recorded the Beatles were a friendly cohesive unit and the quality of the Album is evidence of that. Those early years of Beatlemania must have been quite exciting while making it next to impossible to be creative as artists. Somehow, the Beatles pulled off a great feat in the midst of all the mayhem.
John in 1980: “I used to like intros like they had on forties songs, you know, that have a long intro, and then the song would start. So that’s all mine.” Paul in 2013: “I was a big fan of the preamble in my early days, which you find in lots of ’50s songs. One song I wrote a little after Please Please Me was my best attempt at a preamble: If I Fell.” Why do you state flatly that the intro was “Paul’s contribution” when (1)John claimed otherwise and (2)John’s demo includes the intro?
1972 Lennon Crawdaddy interview…. a much earlier recollection than McCartney’s 2013 Q magazine interview.
A list of songs, according to Lennon, written by himself, about which he had no comment:
There’s A Place; This Boy; All I’ve Got To Do; Not A Second Time; You Can’t Do That; A Hard Day’s Night; I Should Have Known Better; If I Fell; I’m Happy Just To Dance With You; Tell Me Why; Any Time At All; I’ll Cry Instead; When I Get Home; I’m A Loser; I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party; Ticket To Ride; Yes It Is; Help!; You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away; You’re Going To Lose That Girl; Nowhere Man; Girl; Rain; I’m Only Sleeping; Strawberry Fields Forever; Dear Prudence; Glass Onion; Bungalow Bill; I’m So Tired; Yer Blues; Cry Baby Cry; Goodnight; The Ballad Of John and Yoko; Come Together; I Want You (She’s So Heavy); Mean Mr. Mustard; Polythene Pam; One After 909; Hey Bulldog; Don’t Let Me Down; You Know My Name (Look Up The Number); Sun King; Dig A Pony; Dig It.
Songs which Lennon attributed directly to Paul McCartney, again offered with no comment:
I Saw Her Standing There; Tip Of My Tongue; I’ll Keep You Satisfied; Nobody I Know; Things We Said Today; Don’t Want To See You Again; I’m Down; The Night Before; Another Girl; Tell Me What You See; I’ve Just Seen A Face; That Means A Lot; You Won’t See Me; I’m Looking Through You; Woman; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; Fixing A Hole; Lovely Rita; Hello Goodbye; Your Mother Should Know; Fool On The Hill; Step Inside Love; Oo Bla Di; Martha My Dear; Blackbird; I Will; Mother Nature’s Son; Helter Skelter; Honey Pie; Lady Madonna; All Together Now; Get Back; Let It Be; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer; Oh Darling; You Never Give Me Your Money; She Came In Through The Bathroom Window; Golden Slumbers; Carry That Weight; The End; Her Majesty; Two Of Us; The Long and Winding Road.
Songs attributed jointly to McCartney and himself by Lennon and offered again with no comment.
I’ll Get You; I Want To Hold Your Hand; Baby’s In Black; Every Little Thing; What You’re Doing; Drive My Car; The Word; I’ve Got A Feeling
I’ve always loved this song with John and Paul singing together. I see it as mainly a John song but reading all the John vs Paul idiocy here it’s put me off listening to it to be honest, along with all the other contestable songs. I seriously wonder if there would be many more Beatle fans if not for this Lennon/McCartney schism. Beatle fans don’t exactly have a good rep. Thanks a lot, Jann Wenner.
Don’t let the crazy fans take your love away. This is a beautiful song sung by BOTH of them and I couldn’t care less who wrote what part because I’m not a Beatles fan who wants to participate in the exhausting John/Paul debate.
This is a great Lennon/McCartney collaboration, both in the writing and the harmonizing.
Beautiful!
I don’t think it’s idiotic for fans to debate whether Paul McCartney is taking more credit for what fans once knew to be John Lennon compositions. Especially when there’s evidence from multiple Lennon interviews that say the contrary. Nobody hates Paul or favors John by pointing out inconsistencies. I’m sure if any of you wrote songs and someone seemed to be taking more credit for your efforts after you were dead you would want your fans to defend you. Or at least talk it out and get closer to the truth. There’s no one more fanatical and obsessive and knowledgeable then the Beatle fan. Let us enjoy this and talk it out without the name calling and/or dividing us into John vs Paul people. We love the Beatles and we’ll defend the truth whatever it may be on the ultimate Beatle fan site…The Beatle Bible.
John contradicted himself regarding this particular song between the 1970s and 1980 inteviewes. He wasn’t very sure what Paul has contributed in If I Fell, but he said that Paul contributed with it. So maybe the demo was just a recording of a version of the song already reworked with Paul. It’s hard to know.
Not being sure is not a contradiction. And I’ll take a 1972 recollection over a 1980 recollection. It’s interesting that Paul has laser sharp clarity of his contributions 50 years and 400 pounds of marijuana after the fact.
Lennon remembered 8 years and 400 tabs of acid after the fact.
John always tried to keep the melody as simple as possible, as George Martin explained and as you can witness on many, many of his songs.
That intro melody is so strange and advanced harmonically, with the little half-note changes, it SCREAMS “Paul” all over the place. And they sing it together, too, although John IS more audible here.
With all the different “evidence” and interviews at hand I have no reason to doubt Paul’s version, because the main evidence is the music.
The home-demo doesn’t prove John didn’t work on it with Paul before recording it. Paul said John had the song almost finished but didn’t have an intro, so he wrote it for him. So it makes sense that John wouldn’t have recorded it without being finished.
As for Paul “claiming” praise for John’s work:
Nobody who actually DID read “Many years from now” will get the impression that Macca was self-praising and vain about his work and dismissive of the other’s and made lots of false claims.
In fact he always seems very balanced and humble and often points out the difficulty in excactly measuring the amount of contribution. Sometimes I felt he gave TOO much credit to John!
And he explicitely says that he’s relieved that of almost 200 songs they wrote John and he were only disagreeing on one or two songs, “If I fell” being one of them.
I think his remark about the intro from 2013 is consistent with what he says in the book, you just shouldn’t overrate his choice of words. He didn’t claim he wrote the whole song, he was talking about the intro specifically.
I also feel there often is a lot of negative attitude in these discussions. I won’t point fingers – the comments speak for themselves from which direction most of the negativity comes from…
Shame that there should be any different parties and fan-groups at all.
John and Paul were best together and they deeply respected and loved one another – I think their fans should definitely get over their need to belittle one of them because they want to make the other one look bigger.
“That intro melody is so strange and advanced harmonically, with the little half-note changes, it SCREAMS “Paul” all over the place. And they sing it together, too, although John IS more audible here.”
Intro is all John (double tracked) so you’re wrong there. Also the idea that anything melodically and harmonically advanced “screams Paul” is ill informed at best.
But the clincher for me is how deceptively Paul phrases this:
“One song I wrote a little after Please Please Me was my best attempt at a preamble (…)
Paul McCartney
Q Magazine, May 2013”
A) Please Please Me is a Lennon song.
B) The “preamble” to If I fell was on John’s demo – there’s no reason whatsoever for John to record a home demo alone of a complete song if they had written it together.
C) Even more interesting, a melodic preamble not used in the the rest of the song, like in this example, was a Lennon trait. He also used it in “Do you want to know a secret”. Paul has never used this technique as far as I know.
I don’t care who wrote, like everyone else I have an opinion, but only 2 people do really know or knew and I’m not one of them. What do know is this one of the best melodies they ever did, a hell of a Ballad and my favorite song of this great album.
Why the hell is this entire comments section people arguing over how much Paul contributed to the song when Paul & John repeatedly, over and over, in like literally every pre-breakup interview, emphasized the fact that they worked so closely that even if one of them wrote 99% of the song, they still “both” wrote it? We have plenty of examples from both of them wrt what their songs sound like when they haven’t run them through each other’s brains a couple times – The Beatles “sound” comes from the energy of their songwriting partnership & it’s only petty after-the-fact crap, largely driven and maintained by the media, that has people obsessively breaking songs down to freaking individual chords to figure out who did what instead of celebrating the incredible work these two men did together. Beatles fans seriously hate the f-ing Beatles so much.
A small update: The July 14, 1964 Top Gear recording of “If I Fell” (one of my favorites and until today I thought Paul had written it solo–John’s lead vocal should have tipped me off) appears on Live at the BBC Volume 2, track 17 on disc 2. There must be a review around here somewhere. WHAT A SITE! I caught the Beatle Disease in January of 1964 at age 12, saw them on Ed Sullivan the next month…yeah, like it was yeateday, was playing guitar soon after. I once held a ticket for the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl in my hand for a few seconds–but she wouldn’t let go of the other half!
For the most part, the song is beautiful. Who sings what when, and Paul’s memory seems to be the reason all of you are pissing up a pole. I got halfway through your comments and just quit. My God, people, you must all be a thrill to live with.