John Lennon and Paul McCartney might have been the driving songwriting forces behind the Beatles’ most iconic and enduring tracks, but for one reason or another during their short tenure as a band, the Fab Four recorded songs without all four members present in the studio. Sometimes, a song’s arrangement didn’t necessitate every member’s attendance. Other times, it was purely logistical or experimental.
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The cohesiveness of the Beatles’ image makes it easy to forget that not every single song was a group effort. And indeed, that includes these four classic Beatles songs recorded without John Lennon in the studio.
“Yesterday”
Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” and “Blackbird” are two of the most famous examples of his solo work in the studio. But the former track is notable in that it was the first song he ever recorded without his bandmates present. Moreover, he did so at their behest. When McCartney first took the now-iconic track to the band, the other three members of the Fab Four struggled to come up with parts worth putting on the song.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as they say. Ultimately, it was John Lennon who suggested McCartney record it alone. “This was kind of a big deal at the time,” McCartney explained in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “We’d never recorded like that before. It had always been the band.”
“Here Comes the Sun”
Although it would be reasonable to assume that John Lennon missed the first days of recording Abbey Road because of the tensions permeating the group in their final years, the real reason was far less personal. Lennon, his wife, Yoko Ono, Lennon’s son, Julian, and Ono’s daughter, Kyoko, were in a car crash in Scotland on July 1, 1969. The subsequent hospitalization and days of rest at home caused Lennon to miss the first few recording sessions, which included George Harrison’s delicate number, “Here Comes the Sun.”
The other three members of the band were present, however. Harrison did the heavy lifting on vocals, guitar, synthesizer, and harmonium. Paul McCartney contributed vocals, bass, and handclaps. Ringo Starr played the drums and handclaps.
“Why Don’t We Do It In the Road”
Ironically, “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road” arguably sounds more like a John Lennon song than a Paul McCartney one. But Lennon wasn’t in the studio when McCartney decided to have a spontaneous recording session with drummer Ringo Starr. Lennon would later express his disappointment in McCartney for tracking the “White Album” song without the rest of the band, but McCartney said it wasn’t a purposeful slight.
“John and George were tied up finishing something, and me and Ringo were free,” McCartney explained. “So, I said to Ringo, ‘Let’s go and do this.’ Anyway, [Lennon] did the same with “Revolution 9.” He went off and made that without me. No one ever says that. John is the nice guy, and I’m the b******. It gets repeated all the time.”
“Don’t Pass Me By”
Closing our list of Beatles songs recorded without John Lennon in the studio is a Ringo Starr composition that was misattributed to Lennon when it was first released in Scandinavia. “Don’t Pass Me By” was a Starr song that the group sat on for years, with mentions of the tune dating back to the early 1960s. It would finally find a home on the Fab Four’s 1968 eponymous “White Album,” giving Starr his first solo composition on record.
While Lennon wasn’t physically in the studio, he did try to influence the overall arrangement of the track by suggesting to producer George Martin that they begin the song with an eccentric orchestral introduction. In the end, Martin said the idea was “too bizarre for us to use, and the score was scrapped.”
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