When The Beatles entered the studio for what would become their first-ever overnight session on the evening of October 13, 1965, Paul McCartney knew the song he was bringing to the group was “disastrous.” To his credit, the melody was all but complete. The problem was the lyrics: full of cliches, repeated lines from past songs, and a general lack of inspiration that tempted the band to give up on the song altogether. Fortunately, a tea and cigarette break (and a clever euphemism) saved the day.
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The Beatles began recording “Drive My Car” at around 7 pm on the evening of October 13. Their work day stretched until just after midnight on October 14, making it the latest recording session the Fab Four ever had thus far. In those five hours, the band took what Paul McCartney described as “disastrous” and John Lennon called “crap” and turned it into the opening track on Rubber Soul.
“The lyrics were disastrous, and I knew it,” McCartney later recalled in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now. “This is one of the songs where John and I came nearest to having a dry session. The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which is always fatal. ‘Rings’ is fatal anyway. ‘Rings’ always rhymes with ‘things,’ and I knew it was a bad idea. I came in, and I said, ‘These aren’t good lyrics, but it’s a good tune.’ The tune was nice. The tune was there. I had the melody.”
At first, neither McCartney nor Lennon could turn this lemon into a hit. Just when they were about to give up on the song, they took a quick break, and inspiration struck.
How Paul McCartney Turned This Beatles Song From “Disastrous” to “Album-Worthy”
When Paul McCartney first brought his song to John Lennon, the main hook was “Baby, you can buy me golden rings.” Lennon called the idea “crap” and “too soft,” so they decided to rough it up a bit. In Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney recalled the band taking a break from their songwriting to have a cup of tea and a cigarette. When they returned to the song, “gold-en rings” turned into “drive my car.” McCartney said the phrase “was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed. Black humor crept in and saved the day. It wrote itself then. I find that very often, once you get the good idea, things write themselves.”
“It was wonderful,” McCartney continued, “because this nice tongue-in-cheek idea came, and suddenly there was a girl there, the heroine of the story, and the story developed and had a little sting in the tail like ‘Norwegian Wood’ had, which was, ‘I actually haven’t got a car, but when I get on you’ll be a terrific chauffeur.”
According to some rock ‘n’ roll legend, The Beatles’ opening track on Rubber Soul was at least partially inspired by a conversation between Cilla Black and her then-boyfriend, Bobby Willis. As a protogée of Brian Epstein, Black was fairly close to The Beatles. Per the mini-series Cilla, when Epstein offered a recording contract to Willis, Black protested, saying she ought to be the star and Willis ought to be the road manager driving the car.
In any case, The Beatles song that Paul McCartney originally thought was “disastrous” became an instantaneous, cheeky classic upon Rubber Soul’s release on December 3, 1965.
Photo by Eyles/Daily Herald/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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