It was a personal thing, not for those of us on the outside but for those four members that made up the band known as The Beatles [on the inside]. I’m convinced that no band – rock or even allergic to rock, will ever eclipse what The Beatles group created in prolific songwriting. My God, if you put that amount of quality songwriting to maybe a thing like having children instead it would have been equivalent to populating an entire country, or even a continent – the world! What other group of four can possibly hold up to this standard; this amount of songwriting proficiency? I mean there have and always will be great bands that come and go but the body of work from these four individuals can hardly be matched, in my mind anyway. Even the Rolling Stones admitted they could not compete years ago. I think the 60’s and 70’s really created that fertile songwriting ground as there were so many great bands that started, stopped, kept pace and even continued through all the changes in musical tastes that were prevalent from the 1950’s through even the late 1990’s. The Beatles became a standard, maybe not for all musical genres but a standard for many rock bands [or even solo artists] that followed as to whether they would “make it” or not in the world of music.
This particular Beatles song appeared as the opening track on their Abbey Road album. “Come Together” was ranked by Rolling Stone as number 202 of the 500 greatest songs of all time, the year was 2004. Just to be transparent here, “Come Together” is not my favorite Beatles tune, not even one of my personal top ten from this band but there are some interesting facts that we can be discovered by dissecting it. Noticing that the tune was exceptionally similar to a 1950’s hit by Chuck Berry entitled “Catch Me If You Can”, Paul McCarty suggested to John Lennon that they slow the tempo down so as to avoid a controversy. But controversy came anyway as handlers for Chuck Berry’s music sued John Lennon. The lawsuit was successful however it didn’t yield much of a cash settlement. Instead, Lennon was made to contribute three new songs of his own to share with the Berry musical estate consortium. [According to Wikipedia].
I found it interesting that Wikipedia never mentioned [from what I could find anyway] the belief that the four stanzas in this song actually describe each member of the band. It’s uncanny to believe otherwise now especially knowing the conflicts that were brewing inside between the members of the Beatles at that time. Details about all the tension was rumored but what has been identified as real since then is –
– Lennon’s relationship with Yoko Ono was causing an issue because John was pushing Paul to allow Yoko to join the band. Everyone knows this would have been an absolute disaster as she was not worthy of anything even remotely close to belonging to this iconic band.
– George Harrison had a legitimate grievance of his own. Unbeknownst to many onlookers at the time, Harrison had been restricted to no more than two of his original writings per album release which in his mind had stymied his creativity. This fact would have probably ended his stay with the band in any circumstance.
– It seems that Paul was busy making other plans for his continuing career as well. There were considerable rumblings of a “I want to leave the band” dissention going on as his relationship with John Lennon had deteriorated to the point of beginning a multi-year falling out between the two.
Reading through the lyrics of “Come Together” with the above in mind it’s difficult not to see striking similarities among the band members in each stanza of this song. George no doubt being described in the first stanza with lyrics like “he one holy roller”, and John representing the character in the second stanza with phrases like “… you got to be free”, while Ringo is detailed out in the third stanza with “he one spinal cracker”. The fourth stanza is undoubtedly a description of Paul at that time – “he got early warning”, “mojo filter” and “got to be good looking cause he’s so hard to see”. And as it turns out, members of the band were attempting to assess exactly what Paul’s plan was, of course not much later did we find out that Paul’s plan was to boogie!
You can find all these details in the lyrics below –
“Here come old flat top
He come grooving up slowly
He got joo joo eyeball
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please”
“He wear no shoe shine
He got toe jam football
He got monkey finger
He shoot Coca-Cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free”
“Come together, right now, over me”
“He bag production
He got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard
He one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease”
“Come together, right now, over me”
“He roller coaster
He got early warning
He got muddy water
He one mojo filter
He say, “one and one and one is three”
Got to be good looking ’cause he’s so hard to see”
“Come together, right now, over me”
“Oh”
“Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah”
“Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Oh”
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Paul Mccartney / John Lennon
Come Together lyrics © Ultra Music Publishing Europe Ag
The Beatles – Come Together Lyrics
Excellent song! Same as you, not my favorite. The Long And Winding Road might be my #1. The lyrics never mention a woman yet many believe it’s to a woman. My thoughts are it’s to God.
https://youtu.be/fR4HjTH_fTM?si=x0NQCz6z2W6_aH-a
Thanks! That’s funny, because I think the long and winding road is certainly in the top three. I was humming that just yesterday [no pun intended]. I think the song is probably about life which includes his individual destiny, which includes God. Might have been some past relationship though, that would be my experience. Let It Be has become one of my favorites from this band over the years however. It is about Paul’s mother Mary who died when he was just 14 years old. Strawberry Fields, definitely one of my top three, it’s about John’s experience as a kid, he was basically orphaned, brought up by an Aunt because his mother didn’t want him and his father left the family. He passed by an orphanage one day named “Strawberry Fields” and wrote the song about it and his personal experience. Yoko became a huge troublemaker early on for the band, she was very masculine for a woman, even looked like a guy if you remember, only with tits, I think that’s why John was so into her. He had had homosexual encounters in the past, so she represented a perfect match for him.
Probably my top three songs are The long and winding road, [to which Paul became very pissed off when longtime producer Phil Spector took the original version of the song and created what Paul described as an overly orchestrated monstrosity then quickly released it. Paul had requested that Phil send him the demo after adding in orchestra so he could have a listen for any changes. Instead Phil Spector doctored it up with orchestral background and released it. Word has it that Paul became very angry because he thought it drowned out his dominant piano intent for the song and he didn’t like it. I’m used to it but it does become very dominant in the background of the song. Anyway, Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road, and Strawberry Fields – these are tough to replace from the top of my list. Perhaps “Don’t Let Me Down” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something” and “In My Life” and “We Can Work it Out” are all in my top 10 favorites.
If you haven’t read the lyrics to Strawberry Fields it’s pretty moving, worth a look. A very sad storyline. Imagine life without a father and mother around.
You pretty much nailed my top 10 also. So great, they don’t have anything like it anymore.
Amen!