Only a Northern Song
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| "Only a Northern Song" | |||||
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| Song by The Beatles | |||||
| Released | 13 January 1969 (U.S.) 17 January 1969 (UK) |
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| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 13, 14 February, 20 April 1967 |
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| Genre | Psychedelic rock, avant-garde | ||||
| Length | 3:27 | ||||
| Label | Apple Records | ||||
| Writer | George Harrison | ||||
| Producer | George Martin | ||||
| Yellow Submarine track listing | |||||
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| Anthology 2 track listing | |||||
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| Yellow Submarine Songtrack track listing | |||||
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"Only a Northern Song" is a song written by George Harrison and performed by The Beatles. The song was recorded in 1967 during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band but was omitted from that album. It was first featured in the Beatles' 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine and appeared on its soundtrack album, released early the following year.
"Only a Northern Song" has been described as Harrison's "personal denunciation of the Beatles' music publishing business".[1]
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[edit] Recording
The song's basic track was recorded on 13 February 1967, with overdubs added on 14 February and 20 April.[2] The song features an unconventional musical form and unusual instrumentation, including distorted trumpet played by Paul McCartney, Harrison's reverbed organ, and a glockenspiel played by John Lennon.
[edit] Composition
Harrison himself described the song as "a joke relating to Liverpool, Holy City in the North of England. In addition the song was copyrighted to Northern Songs Ltd. which I didn't own".[3]
Northern Songs was a music publishing company formed in 1963 primarily to exploit Lennon/McCartney compositions. The company had subsequently been floated in 1965, but whereas Lennon and McCartney each owned 15% of the public company's shares, Harrison owned just 0.8%.[4] Harrison was contracted by Northern Songs as a songwriter only, and because Northern Songs retained the copyright of its published songs, this meant "Lennon and McCartney, as major shareholders, would earn more from his [Harrison's] songs than him".[5]
Hence the song's "mild dissonance" and "nasally sarcastic" key-changes have been said to complement the "suppressed bitterness" of Harrison's lyric,[2] which features such self-referential lines as: "It doesn't really matter what chords I play/What words I say or time of day it is/As it's only a Northern Song."
As well as reflecting Harrison's dissatisfaction with Northern Songs, and its major shareholder Dick James in particular – "I was starting to get a bit of an idea that ... you'd only written half a song and he [James] would be trying to assign it"[3] – the song also suggests that, at this time, Harrison "had yet to recover his enthusiasm for being a Beatle",[2] Harrison having threatened to leave the group six months earlier, following their final live concert at Candlestick Park.[6]
[edit] Alternate versions
An edited and slightly sped-up version of the song's basic track, without the overdubs added 20 April, was released on volume two of the Anthology set in 1996, with a different vocal take containing some lyrical variations.
Since the originally released version of the track had been constructed from two separate takes, the original mix of the song was available in mono only until 1999, when a remixed version of the track was released on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack album.
[edit] Credits
- George Harrison – doubletracked lead vocal, organ, sound effects, noises
- John Lennon – piano, glockenspiel, sound effects, noises
- Paul McCartney – bass, trumpet, sound effects, noises
- Ringo Starr – drums
[edit] References
- ^ Southall, Brian (2007). Northern Songs. Omnibus Press, London. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-84609-996-0.
- ^ a b c MacDonald, Ian (2008). Revolution In The Head. Vintage Books, London. pp. 236-237. ISBN 978-0-09952-679-7.
- ^ a b Cited in Southall (2007), p. 46.
- ^ Southall (2007), p. 38.
- ^ Southall (2007), p. 46.
- ^ MacDonald (2008), p. 213.
