PTPOP - A Mind Revolution

In My Life - A Tale of Two Songs

• PTPOP • Season 7 • Episode 2

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🎙️ Podcast Episode: “In My Life – A Tale of Two Songs”

#TheBeatles #JohnLennon #InMyLife #RubberSoul #Songwriting #BeatlesHistory #PaulMcCartney #LyricAnalysis #ClassicRock #1960sMusic #MusicPodcast #PTPOPAMindRevolution #BehindTheLyrics #FolkRock #PodcastLife

In this episode of PTPOP: A Mind Revolution, I take a deep dive into “In My Life”, one of The Beatles’ most iconic songs. But what if I told you the original rough draft looked nothing like the final version?

What if The Beatles' legendary flair for songwriting wasn't entirely their own doing? Join me on a journey as I question the authenticity behind one of their most cherished tracks, "In My Life." This episode sheds light on how John Lennon's original handwritten draft morphed into a polished classic on the Rubber Soul album, delving into the inspirations and potential influence of Paul McCartney on its final form. Drawing on insights from Mike Williams' "Sage of Quay" show, we explore the possibility that The Beatles may not have had the time or means to write their extensive catalog, inviting listeners to reconsider the traditional narrative of their creative genius.

The Beatles faced an incredible challenge in the fall of 1965, racing against time to produce Rubber Soul. The cast of characters—Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr—found themselves under immense pressure to compose over a dozen new songs in just over a month. We take a closer look at the relentless recording sessions at Abbey Road Studios, where the band transcended their origins as a cover band to establish themselves as musical innovators. The rush to meet the December release date didn't hinder their creativity; instead, it sparked a transformation that left an indelible mark on pop rock history.

Amidst the chaos, "In My Life" emerged as a timeless masterpiece, raising questions about the collaboration and synergy that fueled its metamorphosis. Was it purely Lennon's vision, or did others play a pivotal role in refining its lyrics and melody? This episode celebrates The Beatles' undeniable brilliance while inviting listeners to ponder the mysteries of their chemistry. Share your insights with us via email or YouTube, and as we unravel the layers of The Beatles' genius, we hope to spark a conversation that continues beyond the episode.


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Link to the rough draft of In My Life https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/in-my-life/lyrics-in-my-life_02/

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Speaker 1:

Look deep, deep into my eyes. You are witnessing a demonstration of the awesome power of the human mind, the unlimited potential of total concentration. My mind is totally focused, able to maintain absolute and utter control. A mind such as this is a powerful force. It could even rule the world. Hey, you must remember that no harm will come to you. No harm will come to you. No harm will come to you. Just relax, just relax. You will do exactly as I tell you.

Speaker 2:

Hey there everybody. Pt Pop here in a mind revolution, leading you out of the rabbit hole one grain of truth at a time. Welcome back. Thanks for downloading me Today.

Speaker 2:

My friends, I'm taking a deep dive into the evolution of one of the Beatles' most cherished songs in my life. But did you know that the original handwritten draft was drastically different from the final version that we all know and love? It really is. It's so different and it's so odd how the two versions are so completely different. It makes you wonder did the same person finish this song and start it? So I'm going to analyze and compare and contrast John Lennon's early version and his early draft with the polished masterpiece that made it to their sixth album, rubber Soul.

Speaker 2:

Now, along the way, I'm going to explore a few things. I'm going to explore the origins of the song. What inspired Lennon to write it, the stark difference in rhythm, rhyme and storytelling. I'm going to briefly discuss John Lennon's own 1980 Playboy interview remarks where he reflected on the song and his personal connection to it. We're going to briefly discuss did Paul McCartney have a bigger role in shaping the lyrics than he admitted? And what does the transformation reveal about the Beatles' creative process and their shift into more introspective songwriting, with history analysis and speculation.

Speaker 2:

This episode is a must for the avid Beatles fan and songwriters and artists and music lovers in general. So it's going to be a good one. But before I get into today's topic at hand, I want to invite each and every one of you to watch my two YouTube channels. I have youtubecom forward slash ptpop, which is a channel where I primarily discuss the evils of working in call centers and the corporate world, and then I do an artistic channel where I review electronics and talk about art at Skating Bear Studios. So if you want to support this channel, you know, please tune into those channels and give them the thumbs up, like and subscribe. But if you want to support this particular channel, you don't have any cashola in the old pockets. Just listen to my podcast, download it, like, subscribe and share. But if you have some extra cashola in those pockets, man, you're rolling in the dough. Visit my Patreon channel, which I'll leave a link to in the description here, and make a contribution, subscribe there. We can see behind the scenes of my Skinny Bear Studios and my PT Pop channel. So on with the show, my friends On with the show.

Speaker 2:

So, as a one-time rabid, rabid, insane Beatles fan I was. I was crazy about the Beatles. I can tell you that at one time I believed the official story of the Beatles, their success and their songwriting capabilities with all of my heart. I never questioned it, I never thought twice about it. I was insane about the Beatles from the age of eight years old until about 38. So about 30 years of just non-questioning, devout loyalty to this band. And I would get into verbal altercations with friends that told me that they sucked and they didn't like them. And I'm like you don't know. You don't know what you're saying. They're. They're like the greatest group ever, man dude. They're like the best thing. How can you put, not put down the Beatles and not like them? You know I get like all upset about it, but as a songwriter myself now, I've been a songwriter now for 30 years. I've produced two award-winning documentary films. I've published three novellas. I'm a poet, a photographer and I'm an artist. I'm a painter. I do all these creative things.

Speaker 2:

When I stumbled upon the differences between the rough draft of In my Life and I saw the final version of it, I went whoa, hold on here. These are two completely different authors. I thought to myself. There was no questioning it. It was almost like two completely different people. Now the same person wrote and I'll post the link to the rough draft from the Beatlesbiblecom in the description here. But when I saw the rough draft they both look like the same penmanship of John Lennon. But it's two completely different and entirely different takes on the song and I have to give credit where credit is due. Now, I did not discover this on my own.

Speaker 2:

Sage of Quay host Mike Williams awesome guy, great show turned me on to this whole Beatles conspiracy thing about the Beatles not even being a real band, not writing their own music, and at first when I first heard this I was like this guy's got to be nuts right. Then I started to watch his videos and he has almost airtight proof that there's no way the Beatles had time or the energy or the accessibility to write as many songs as they did in such a short period of time with the busy schedule they had. But he specifically turned me on to Rubber Soul and Rubber Soul he does a whole thing about Rubber Soul and how there's no way in the world they had enough time to write 14 new songs, record them, master them, get them to the record company and get them for a release date of early December 1965, with only a month in the studio. Now his analysis, and check it out go to Mike Williams, go to Sage of Quay on YouTube and you can see his analysis. It's breathtaking. It's really well done, well thought out, well analyzed and it's very eye-opening. But his analysis of Rubber Soul to me is the smoking gun that proves that the Beatles may not have been as songwriters as we all thought they were. Now will we ever really know that? Probably not. But it looks like something else may have happened that we don't know about. And again, I'll provide you a link to the rough draft of this song. You know the handwritten rough draft that John Lennon scratched out on a piece of paper in 1965.

Speaker 2:

Now, before we get into all this analysis, let me talk to you about the history of this song. Now, this song in my life was released on the Beatles' sixth album, rubber Soul, which was released for sale in stores on December 3rd 1965. And it was released in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It was released in the UK, I believe, on the 3rd and in the US on December 6th. Now the albums had different songs on them for some reason. I don't know the history behind that, but the uk release had 14 songs. The us release had 12 songs. For some reason the us release took a song from the album help that had just been released a few months earlier, which is called I've just seen a face and they put it on rubber souls and opening track. Why they did that I I don't know. That's a whole other story.

Speaker 2:

Now, this next analysis is from the book titled the Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewis. I've got this book right here and I've been looking through it. I read this book years ago. I was fascinated with it In this book. Recording Sessions is a book that catalogs and goes over in great detail all the different recording sessions of all the different albums and songs on each Beatle album and what tracks they lay down when they record the drums, when they record the bass and the vocals and the harmonies and lead guitar and solos and things like that. It's a fascinating book. At least I thought so when I read it many years ago.

Speaker 2:

Now the book states that the recording of Rover Soul commenced on 12 October 1965 and ended on 13 November 1965. Lewiston states the problem was. They had very little material to work with and time was getting on. John and Paul, really for the first time in their lives, had to force themselves to come up with more than a dozen new songs, which they later admitted was very impossible. Then, with George and Ringo, they had to zip through a crash series of recording sessions in order to have the LP in the stores by early December. The recording sessions did not even begin until the 12th of October 1965.

Speaker 2:

So think about this. Okay, for those of you that are musicians, I'm a musician. I've written over 150 songs, I've released five CDs of original music and I can tell you that writing a song just one song is a very hard task. You sit down, have an initial idea for a song and if you're all by yourself, you've got to come up with the words and the music, you've got to come up with the arrangement, a whole bunch of things and you change it. So you sit down if you want to write a song about one topic. That idea evolves over time, it changes, it metamorphosizes. You sit and you stress over it. You put it down, you pick it up, you walk away from it for a few days, you wrestle with it. It's like an enigma or a beast that you were like. Now some people can just knock a song off and make a hit in a couple of seconds.

Speaker 2:

But think about this. I mean they had this song. They had 14 songs to record right, 14 brand new songs that mostly mostly John and Paul wrote. Ringo and George had to learn them. So Ringo and George had to learn what lead guitar to play, they had to learn what drums, how to play the drums in these songs, and Paul had to figure out what bass line to create in all these songs. Now, coming up with a bass line is not a simple task. Okay, you just don't go. Okay, well, I'll play these notes and it'll be great. You know Snoop-de-woo? No, it's not that simple. It's not like they portray it in the media.

Speaker 2:

Keep in mind that the Beatles, prior to their fame, they didn't get famous until 1962. Prior to that, they were basically a bar band and all they did was play cover tunes. Like 95 to 99 percent of their repertoire were cover tunes Chuck Berry, little Richard, larry Williams, ray Charles, all kinds of other people's music. Now, when you're creating a cover tune, it's simple, it's already done for you, it's already laid out, the canvas has already been painted. You're just copying what the other band did.

Speaker 2:

So if you're Paul McCartney and you're doing Roll Over Beethoven, you know how to play the bass line because it's already been played for you on the record, same with George Harrison's lead guitar work, same with John Lennon and George Harrison's singing the whole thing it's already done for you. But when you're creating a new song, it's from scratch. And if you're not accustomed to writing songs and you've just been a bar band, I mean I can't even begin. I wouldn't even know where to begin. If someone said you know, boys, we need you to write 14 songs. Uh, what you know? It's an arduous task, I would say an impossible task for four guys that are allegedly just a bar band. So keep that in mind when you think about these guys who, between 1962 and 1970, wrote all these amazing, amazing songs. How did they go from just being a bar band to genius songwriters?

Speaker 2:

So the Beatles recorded Rubber Soul to Every Road Studios no 2 between October 12th and November 15th, and here are just some quick dates. So the recording dates began October 12th, october 16th through the 17th. This is of 1965. There were early takes of the song Norwegian Wood, october 21st. Nowhere man was recorded October 3rd I'm sorry, november 3rd. Now we're into November 1965, michelle was recorded November 10th 1965, in my Life was recorded November 10th 1965, in my Life is recorded and the instrumental break that was played by George Martin on piano, which sounds like a harpsichord but really wasn't I think it was a sped-up piano the instrumental break wasn't recorded until November 18th, november 11th. Girl and Wait were recorded November 15th, final Recording Sessions Before Mixing and Mastering. So this is like a 50, november 15th, final recording sessions before mixing and mastering.

Speaker 2:

So this is like a 50,000-foot overview of the recording sessions. Now the sessions it says here in Lewis and his book were fast-paced as the Beatles had to finish the album quickly to meet their December 3rd 1965 release date state and allegedly this urgency resulted in some of their most experimental introspective songwriting up to that point. Now I beg to differ. Okay, if you're under the gun, you're in the biggest recording studio in london or england, whatever, emi, you're in abbey road number two. You've got a record company saying boys, boys, you've got to get 14 songs recorded or they're going to break your knees. Do you have time to be introspective? Do you? Do you have time to sit back and write an introspective song like In my Life? Do you have the luxury to do that? And by the time it was released the album was done and completed on December 3rd 1965. They had written, allegedly had written, some of the most iconic songs of the decade and of pop rock history. Pretty good for guys that were just slupping around Hamburg with broken down guitars and amps that had never really written a lot of really good songs. I don't know, and this is just three years after they got famous. So the album was released just in time for the 1965 holiday shopping season. So they wanted Capitol Records and Parlophone wanted to get this album released in early 1965, december 65, so they could beat the holiday rush which all of us Christians at Christmas time. Back in those days the kids were just dying to buy Beatle records. So they're like mom, mom, mom, get me the new Rubber Soul album. And this helped it become an immediate success because there was there was a demand for the record at that time, especially at the holidays of Christmas. Now, now it impacted the charts in UK, the album and the charts on December 11th 1965, and quickly reached number one. It's staying at the top for eight weeks. Us it topped the Billboard 200 on January 8th 1966. I'm not certain why. I don't know why it took so long. It took almost a month to break the charts. There's probably more bands in the US. It remained number. I don't know if it went to number one. It doesn't say here. My mind knows don't say I believe it went to number one, but it remained on the charts for six weeks. How long did it take to manufacture records in 1965? Now Mike Williams discusses this at a great extent in his analysis of this Now.

Speaker 2:

1965, there were no MP3s, there were no digital streams. It was all done on vinyl. Which vinyl comes from? Plastic, melted plastic and there's an entire long, lengthy process to create a vinyl album. Back in the 60s. It didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 2:

In 1965, manufacturing a vinyl record like Rubber Soul took approximately two to four weeks From the final mix at EMI no 2 or Nabby Road Studios to be ready for distribution. Here's a breakdown of the process. So mastering typically takes 1-2 days. So after the final mix is approved, the mastering record is transferred to what's called a lacquer disc, which I believe is like a master disc that they create the press from for the vinyl. So engineers carefully adjust levels to ensure proper sound quality. On vinyl electroplating and stamper creation 1-2 weeks to ensure proper sound quality on vinyl Electroplating and stamper creation one to two weeks. And the lacquer master is electroplated to create a metal master. They create a metal master from the lacquer, which is what they make all of the billions of records from.

Speaker 2:

From this stampers are created. This is all done in an assembly line. This is all done in a very vast assembly line of people making records out of a stamper with melted plastic and they press the records with a machine and this is a very time-consuming process and it required precision. Now vinyl pressing the electric plating takes one to two weeks. The vinyl pressing takes one week. So once the stampers are ready, the vinyl records are pressed in high volume factories.

Speaker 2:

Heated polyvinyl chloride PVC Pellets were melted and pressed between stampers to create each record. Then you've got to print the covers and labels. That takes one to two weeks. Now if this is all going on concurrently, right, you know we're looking at anywhere from one to three weeks to get this all done, to make millions of records that get in stores worldwide. This isn't just happening in just the US and in England.

Speaker 2:

The album is released throughout Europe, the United States I believe it was released in Japan and a variety of other countries like Australia, places like that. So the album had to go around the globe on ships and airplanes. It wasn't digitally transmitted, so the process was very lengthy. Now think about this, and again I'll give this credit to Mike Williams in order to print covers and labels and to print the circular cardboard part of the record vinyl where the songs are listed the title of the album and the songs number one you have to have a title to the album. Now I've heard an interview with John Lennon or Paul McCartney saying that to come up with the name of the album, they just drove around in the car.

Speaker 2:

They would sometimes drive around in their car and just toss up ideas, you know, and originally we're going to call it Plastic Soul. We're going to call it Plastic Soul man, you know. And then we said why don't we call it Revolve? It goes round and round, you know. Now we'll call it Rubber Soul man. They didn't even have a name for the record yet. So you have to have a name Before you can press anything at the records, at the record printing plants, you have to have a title to the record and you have to have the track listing.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and in order to come up with a track listing, the producer usually sits down and decides what order the songs should go in, and they're usually arranged by, you know, up front. The first track on the first side will be the catchiest song that they think is going to be the hook to draw the listener into the album. Okay, so you've got to think about that. Then you've got to think about that. Then you've got to think of what songs you want to have come after that. So you've got to think do I want to start off with an upbeat track and then follow it with another upbeat track, then go to a more introspective track? And in order to do that you have to have. You can't just toss it out there. You have to be methodical and intentional about the listing of the songs that are going to be on the album. Before we can send this information to the record company, before we can send the master to the record company, you have to know the track listings and the name of the album.

Speaker 2:

So, for instance, in the UK pressing they started to open the album with Drive my Car, which is an upbeat, funky, kind of Motown sounding song. Then the next song was Norwegian Wood, which is a very introspective song. Another introspective song that John just happened to toss off in the middle of all this high, crazy pressure in the studio. Then you Won't See Me, which is kind of a funky, more upbeat song, the Noir man, which is kind of like I wouldn't say psychedelic, but it's more of an introspective song. Think for Yourself. So it goes upbeat, introspective, kind of upbeat, introspective. Think for yourself. Upbeat the words, kind of funky, upbeat Michelle's a ballad. What goes on is country upbeat, country tune. Girl introspective I'm looking through you upbeat In my life. Introspective Weight upbeat. If I needed someone upbeat. If I needed someone upbeat Run for your life upbeat.

Speaker 2:

So they had to figure out what's going to make the best mix of the album to draw the listener in and keep them on the album and want them to keep listening to it over and over again. There's a whole psychology behind the track listing on these albums. Completely. I've done this with my own CDs. I know this is how they do it. They want to keep the listeners hooked onto the album.

Speaker 2:

So you've got to ask yourself a question okay, if Rubber Soul was done in this amount of time, such a short period of time, how in the world did they get the album to the record company's printing plants without the track listing or the name of the album? Yet? And rubber soul is a pretty cool name. It's pretty. I think it's the coolest name of one of their records. And the album cover is cool too, that weird warped looking, um, the warp looking uh. Picture of themselves, which I found out in an interview with one of the two, john or Paul, that I don't know where they were, but they were wherever they were preparing the album cover art and somebody accidentally knocked the photograph over and it looked um, warped in the photographic imaging equipment and they went oh, do that, you know, keep it like that. That's. That's a really kind of a vague remembrance of that story.

Speaker 2:

So then let's say they get the name of the songs, they get the name of the album, they get the track listing down, then they've got to send this all to the record company so they can make the records, get the center sleeve, create the outer sleeve, then they have to do packaging and distribution, which takes two weeks. Now finished records were assembled with covers, shrink, wrap and shipped to distributors and then, depending on some shipments, some were air freighted for faster delivery, some were sent by boat, by cargo ship. So the entire process is extremely lengthy. Now, from what I read here, from this analysis I did online, the total approximate manufacturing time after they got the master is anywhere from two to four weeks time after they got the master is anywhere from two to four weeks. So, rubber Soul, allegedly the recording finished on November 15th and they had it on store shelves by December 3rd. Guys, they had it on store shelves by December 3rd. It makes no sense. They finished on December 15th, so in two weeks they had their records produced. They had them physically produced with the vinyl printed, packaged and shipped around the world globally in two weeks on. Even today it takes. How long does it take me to get a package from china? It sometimes takes two weeks just to get a pair of pants from china. And that's today. In 20, you know, in 2025, you're trying to tell me that they somehow pulled out all the stops just to get they. What did they stop the production on every other record and every other boat and every other plane. They just stopped everything.

Speaker 2:

The mixing and mastering process for Rubber Soul, it says here, was incredibly fast. The Beatles were on tight deadline to release the album before Christmas of 65, but they had to mix and master two different versions of both albums. They had to have a mono and then they had to mix and master two different versions of both albums. They had to have a mono and then they had to mix a stereo version, two completely separate and independent mastering sessions. They alleged that the final recording sessions were completed on November 15th and the mono mixing sessions were done by November 17th, but on November 18th.

Speaker 2:

I don't understand this. If the records show that the mono mixing sessions were done by the 17th, it says that November 18th of 1965, george Martin recorded the harpsichord-like piano solo for In my Life and an additional mixing was completed. So the album still wasn't done. It really wasn't done until November 18th. It's not even. It's maybe. What is that 18th? It gives them 12 days. Well, it gives them just two weeks to get it on the stores by December 3rd or December 6th. Then November 20th, stereo mixing sessions. It's even less time November 22nd, final mixing and mastering completed. So now they've got a week. They've got a week to get this in the stores by December 3rd to December 6th. The dates don't add up. Nothing adds up. Nothing makes sense here.

Speaker 2:

Mastering and preparation for pressing. From the records here it says November 22nd and 23rd of 65, master tapes are sent for lacquer cutting. November 25th, vinyl pressing began. It's allegedly December 3rd. Rubber Soul was officially released. I don't believe this for a second. I just don't. So that's just kind of leading up to what we're talking about today. And it was recorded and mastered in just over a month, which is like Herculean. It's an overwhelming achievement. It's just an amazing achievement. It's beyond superhuman and I don't really know what the real story is.

Speaker 2:

But the song In my Life originally came about because it took in the shape of a lengthy poem in 1964 that John Lennon had written. The initial lyrics found their inspiration in a bus route that John Lennon frequented in Liverpool, and he referenced various landmarks along the way, such as Penny Lane, strawberry Fields. But Lennon hated the original lyrics. Now let me read to you the original lyrics and I'll bring these up here and I'm just going to read them to you. And the rough draft has been featured in several publications that explore the Beatles' songwriting process, notably the Beatles' anthology in 2000. The comprehensive volume includes facsimiles of original manuscripts provided insight into the band's creative development. It's also in the Beatles' lyrics by Hunter Davies released in 2014. So here's what the rough draft reads. Now. If you can pull up the rough draft on the link I provide in the description, try to follow along, but it's handwritten and some of the things are scratched out.

Speaker 2:

Now the first verse is the same first verse as what was originally released. It says there are places I'll remember all my life, though some have changed, some forever, but not for better. Some have gone, some remain. Second verse Penny Lane is one I'm missing Up church and to the clock tower In the circle of the abbey. I've seen some happy hours, okay. Then the third verse which is scratched out. There's a third verse that I had to really look at it and read it, but it says the five bus into town, the trans shed with no trans, the past, the Dutch in St Columbus. Okay, let me read that again. It actually reads past the tram's shed with no trans, on the five bus into town, past the Dutch St Columbus, to the Dockers umbrella. They pulled down and what. I did some research on. I couldn't figure out what the heck is he talking about the Dockers umbrella pulled down. So I went on to Google and I just searched for the Dockers umbrella and it came up with the Liverpool Overhead Railway. There was an overhead railway in Liverpool.

Speaker 2:

Now there's another scratched out verse that reads In the past we spent some good times. Caldeo's one was good for jumping, but if you want to really find me, I couldn't make out all of it. Then it says all these places have their memories, some with loves people knew, some with something I couldn't read. Some are dead and some are. It looks like. It says some are growing, but it's probably living. So I put the lyrics into chat GPT and the scratched out section that I couldn't read. It says in the market I spent some good times all before we said our goodbyes, but if you really want to find me, all these places have their meaning and I think they found that in a book. Now this is what makes no sense.

Speaker 2:

Now, if you know the original song, this is entirely different, completely different, from the final version of the song. It's almost as if somebody grabbed the lyrics from him and said, look, look, you've got a good thing going here, john. I kind of liked the first verse, let's see what I can do with it. And somebody took it into another room, sat down and rewrote it Because they needed a song, I don't know. Or they had a staff of songwriters at EMI that was working with the Beatles that helped them write their music. I have no idea. Now the scratched-out words seem to include an early version of locations Liverpool, tram sheds, dockyards and St Columbus. The docker's umbrella they pull down. This likely refers to canopies or structures near the docks, which I've already discussed about the overhead trams. The bottom scratch-out section appears to contain alternative lyrics, perhaps an early draft of the famous final stanza.

Speaker 2:

Now there's a significant transformation between the rough draft and the final version of In my Life and it's really hard for me to understand. As a songwriter, I understand the metamorphosis of a song from beginning to end. I understand how it works. I know the pain and the trauma you go through trying to write a song, if you're struggling with it. I know how hard it is. But think about this John had to not only think of the lyrics, he had to think of the melody too. So he had melody, he had lyrics, you had rhyme, pentameter, all of that stuff. Now, before I go into the final analysis of the song, let me read the final version of the song. Think about what I just read to you. The final version of the song says goes like this Now, the first version is the same.

Speaker 2:

The first verse there are places I remember all my life, though some have changed, some forever, not for better. Some have gone, some remain. Now that is actually different than what I think I read originally. No, it's exactly the same. Okay, so the first verse is the same. Second verse is a chorus. Actually, all these places have their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living in my life. I love them all. Verse two is but of all these friends and lovers, there's no one that compares with you. All these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. Then it repeats the chorus. Though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I'll often stop and think about them in my life. I love you more. Then there's the piano solo. Then they repeat the chorus. Then there's the outro Entirely, completely, entirely different in every way, shape and form from the rough draft.

Speaker 2:

Right Now, you may not agree with me. You may say, pete, you know as an artist, geez, you've got to know there's a metamorphosis. You start off with an idea and then. But my point is that the rough draft is so completely and utterly different from the final version. It's almost as if two different people worked on the song. Okay, and the changes are not just minor lyrical tweaks, they're not Between the two songs. The changes are not just minor lyrical tweaks but rather a complete restructuring of the songs Rhythm, rhyme, scheme, overall poetic flow. It's entirely different.

Speaker 2:

Okay, the key differences between the rough draft and the final version. Rhyme and meter the rough draft is more pro-like, almost conversational, with uneven line lengths. The final version has a clear, structured rhythm with an AABB rhyme scheme in most verses. Example in the rough draft it says on the bus into town, past the tram sheds with no trams, past the dock in St Columbus to the dockers umbrellas that they pulled down. The final version reads some are dead and some are living in my life. I love them all. The final version tightens the flow into a consistent metrical pattern that enhances the musicality.

Speaker 2:

Now, keep in mind again, these are just four guys that were in a bar band, that weren't known to be songwriters at the time. Somehow, someway, I don't know. It's almost as if the original version was just a rough idea of something John had while he was riding a double-decker bus around, or maybe he was at home in a cloud of pot smoke and he just threw it down and somebody picked it up and went. You know what? I can finish this all for you, son. Let me finish this for you. It's two entirely different songs.

Speaker 2:

Number two the subject matter from specific locations to universal themes. So John starts off allegedly writing about specific locations that he saw around town in Liverpool. The rough draft reads like a nostalgic travelogue listing locations around Liverpool Penny Lane, church Road, abbey, the Abbey, dockyards, tram Sheds, st Columbus. The final version is completely different. It broadens the perspective, turning into a meditation on love, memory and time. The shift makes the song more relatable or appealing to the general public. It's more commercially appealing, appealing to anyone reminiscing about their past rather than just those familiar with Liverpool. So I don't even know how to explain it.

Speaker 2:

But how did John, who was hopped up on pot at the time under all this pressure in the recording studio to make hit songs and get it to the recording studio and on the shelves by December 3rd, have the time and the luxury and the freedom to sit down and be so focused on this one song and so introspective that he took this one horrible rough draft and turned it into this magnificent, well-sculpted poetic masterpiece, I don't know, kind of interesting. There's an emotional shift from sentimentality over geography. The rough draft has a stronger sense of place. It paints a personal, geographically-rooted picture of Liverpool. The final version replaces those references with intimate reflections on relationships and time. The line in my life I have loved them all delivers a universal emotional response or resolution, making the song deeply resonant. In other words, I think somebody like George Martin sat down and said look, john, we've got to do this. I like your song and I'm fond of Liverpool as well, but you've got to take this song and make it appealing to the general masses. So let me grab the song from you and I'll finish it off for you and we'll make a hit out of it, okay, all right, john, have you seen my bong? Have you seen my bong? No, john, your bong is. I think you left it in the toilet. No, I think something like that happened.

Speaker 2:

Now the structural refinement of the final is interesting. The rough draft lacks a chorus and feels like an evolving thought process. There's no end to it. It's an open ending. Like you know, it's not going to end.

Speaker 2:

The final version balances repetition and phrasing to make it memorable. So let me ask you this john lennon at the time uh, this is 1965, so he's like 25 years old. He's been schlepping around hamburg for the better part of five years with broken down equipment in a broken down van, playing predominantly cover songs. Somehow he just happened to uh have an epiphany at the last minute, under the pressure of the recording studio in a cloud of pot smoke and he somehow structured this thing to make it a perfect masterpiece. I guess the final version balances repetition and phrasing to make it memorable. Masterpiece.

Speaker 2:

I guess the final version balances repetition and phrasing to make it memorable. Example here I'll give you the rough draft. Meanders with inconsistent line lengths, the final draft tightens every line into a predictable rhythm, making it smoother to sing. The final version is poetic versus a journalistic tone. The rough draft is closer to a diary entry or a personal memoir. The final version reads like a polished poem, very carefully chosen words.

Speaker 2:

Now, why does this matter to you? You say Pete. Why does this matter Now? Why does this matter to you? You say Pete. Why does this matter Now? Some would say that the dramatic shift reflects John Lennon's evolving songwriting approach, moving from raw personal memory to a more polished, emotionally impactful piece. It also shows McCartney's possible influence, as he often helped tighten Lennon's lyrics to make them more fluid and commercially viable. Okay, now there are thoughts that perhaps Paul McCartney helped write this song. But there's conflicting stories about that, you know. John says he didn't, paul says he did, paul says he helped on the middle eight or on the chorus. Who knows what the truth is, who knows where the song came from, who knows? And the thing about it also is, you've got to think about the opening riff of the song. I've got my guitar here Not tuned up people, but you know.

Speaker 2:

Do where'd they come up with that? Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a hook for a song? Because so not only did they have to sit down and come up with the words, melody, restructure this horrible rough draft, they also had to come up with the instrumentation for everybody in the band Ringo, paul, george, john. What are they all going to play? And they were under pressure and they had like three weeks to do it.

Speaker 1:

I don't know man.

Speaker 2:

Seems kind of a far-fetched story. So, yes, the transformation between the rough draft and the final version is massive. It evolved from a personal, scattered memory dump into one of the most poetic and introspective songs in the Beatles catalog. I mean, this song is played at weddings. It's played at funerals. Everybody plays this song. Who's anybody? Who's in the acoustic? You know the acoustic solo. You know acoustic solo musicians around town, excuse me, oh my in my life, made me gaseous, oh my in my life, maybe gaseous. The refinement of the meter, rhyme and sentiment turned it from a local story into a timeless classic.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry, guys, I don't know John Lennon or any of the Beatles. I don't know him personally. I never sat down and had lunch with him, but this is a guy that was in a turbulent time in his life. He was smoking pot and he was mentally in a weird place. Somehow he went from I want to hold your hand allegedly to this timeless classic.

Speaker 2:

Seems kind of far-fetched and it's as if two different people wrote them. It feels like two entirely different people wrote these versions. The huge jump from the rough draft to the final version suggests that either Lennon went through a major creative shift under pressure in the middle of studio number two, or that someone else grabbed the song and finished it off for him, someone like I think I don't think it was Theodore Adorno, I think it was George Martin, or these songs were already written for them before they walked into the studio, which Mike Williams discusses at length in his analysis of this. But the huge jump suggests something, and somebody else must have played a significant role in finding the lyrics, at least the way it seems. Now there could be a couple explanations for the drastic change. I don't know. You know, the rough draft is just raw and almost stream of consciousness, where the final version is meticulously crafted. It's possible that Lennon started with personal memories, then deliberately reshaped them to a more poetic universal theme. But the shift to me is so dramatic it doesn't seem like something that John at that time would be capable of, you know. I do know that John allegedly wrote more instinctively rather than methodically refining lyrics like this. But I don't know. I didn't know John. This is just what I've read and heard. Paul McCartney did often step in with John's songs to smooth out lyrics and refine the musicality and flow, but McCartney denied writing lyrics, though he admitted he helped with the melody. Now Lennon told Playboy in 1980 that Paul helped with the middle eight. Now, given how much structure was added to the final version, it's possible Paul McCartney influenced the rewriting process more than Lennon later admitted.

Speaker 2:

Was there a ghostwriter outside, uh, working on it? Now the final version doesn't retain much of the original structure. It's not just edited, it's completely structured, and I don't know it's it's. It's something to think about. You know, and you know the official narrative always pushes what geniuses they were and what wonderful boys they were. And they were just sitting around drinking rum and coke and smoking ciggies and writing songs. But guys, these were men. These were four men, the prime of their lives. They had a lot going on in their lives. And I know, when I was 26, there's something that I really wanted badly and that was girls. I wanted to go meet girls. That's all I thought about. Now let me go back here and I'm just going to quote something from I don't know if I did this or not I quoted the 1980s with Playboy magazine. I'll finish with this.

Speaker 2:

So in 1980, john Lennon said he discussed In my Life and its origins, acknowledging it is one of his most personal songs. My life and its origins, acknowledging it is one of his most personal songs. He reflected on its meaning and the songwriting process, saying it was the first song that I wrote that I consciously about my life Before. We were just writing songs a la Everly Brothers, buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought to them than that. This was the first song that I wrote that was really consciously about my own life and it was sparked by a remark journalists and a writer in England made after In His Own Right, which is one of John Lennon's books, came out. I wrote a list of places I remembered and I thought that's a bit boring so I made it into a song. Instead of writing about specific places, I wrote about emotions.

Speaker 2:

Lennon also touched on McCartney's role in the composition, which had been subject of debate over the years. John says Paul helped with the middle eight, but all the rest is mine. However, mccartney later disputed this, claiming he co-wrote the melody. The disagreement between them highlights an ongoing mystery in Beatles history. So that's my analysis of In my Life.

Speaker 2:

So if you take a look at it from an outside perspective, you can take off your Beatle hat, your Beatles fanaticism, and step back and take a look at it. It's still going to be hard for you, because if you really don't know what it's like to work in a studio, if you don't know what it's like to work on a song, if you don't know what it's like to try to come up with all the integral parts of a song the guitars, the bass, the drums and put that all together at once and create 14 brand new songs for a release date of December 3rd and you've only got like three and a half weeks. It's going to be hard for the average person to put this all together and go. You know what? Maybe the Beatles weren't who we thought they were. Yes, I'm implying that, but the evidence is in this album.

Speaker 2:

This album is a smoking gun to make you go, wait a minute. How did they do all this by themselves? But I don't know. We don't really know and I don't know if we'll ever know. I mean, we just have to take it at face value that they were allegedly just four geniuses that rolled out of bed one day and just happened to find each other and get abandoned Happily ever after took place, you know. So let me know what you think, send me your comments to skatingbearstudios at gmailcom or watch on YouTube. I'll probably have this posted just the audio posted on YouTube, and let me know what you think. But I think the facts are pretty much right there in front of us. But let me know what you think and thank you for downloading me. I'm Pete Depop. This is Mind Revolution and all of you take care out there and have a good day. Bye.

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