Talk:List of songs recorded by the Beatles/Archive 1

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Should this be added to The Beatles WikiProject?

Stu 10:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It should be in my opinion ~ Jean-FrédéricFr 11:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up per AfD

With respect to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Beatles songs I've created a small table at List_of_Beatles_songs#E that also merges content from List of Beatles songs by singer and List of Beatles songs written by Lennon/McCartney etc. The original idea was to have one big table. Please consider the current one a prototype and discuss here the columns and the way they are filled. Once there is consensus on the table content and structure, it might still be best to proceed first by letters and only then see how a complete table would look like. This way there would remain a decent version to roll back to. Maybe the letters can be retained as anchors in such a huge table.--Tikiwont 10:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks it's looking good. Having though about this, I would also like to be able to sort the cover versions separately, ideally by the date of the originals. I'm not sure how wide the table can go. Kappa 10:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about covers done by the Beatles such as Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby or covers of Beatles songs such as Eleanor Rigby. I assume the first, which is so far only indirectly addressed by the Author column. What exactly do you have in mind? The second is also interesting, but too vast for specific info in this table. At best there might be a note if a song has been covered with a link (See e.g. Italian cover versions of The Beatles' songs) On a general note I'd be wary to have too many columns because the smaller the columns get, the more text will be wrapped, making the whole table longer.

Great That looks fantastic, except the "Single" column seems redundant if you have chart positions. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 15:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I picked this up from the discussion and being s single is strictly speaking a prerequisite for being charted as single (But are there any Beatles' singles that didn't reach the charts?). Moreover, the E list contains one that has only been released in US. So maybe we should rather have (instead) one general Notes section, even if it amounts to some compromise with respect to systematics and sorting.--Tikiwont 12:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Singles If you had a U.S. chart position of 32 and a U.K. chart position of n/a that would make sense to me, but I suppose it could be ambiguous to someone else. I would personally prefer a generic notes section, but having separate chart listings is handy for sorting them. Also, I would recommend ultimately merging all of the tables for precisely that reason: you could sort all of them simultaneously. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 15:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The idea is of of course eventually to merge all small tables. I've just found out how to set an anchor, so one could still navigate by first letter as in the lits. But there might be unexpected bahaviour due to the size. E.g sorting the singles by chart downwards will first list the blanks, so this is a good reason to add n/a in any case for the non-singles. These I wanted to keep in any case, just one Notes section at the end, for e.g. Cover. I've updated the columns accordingly.--Tikiwont 12:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a couple concerns with this layout. I assume we are using the attribution scheme from List of Beatles songs written by Lennon/McCartney, but this seems a bit objective, I'm not sure where these decisions come from and if there are any sources for them. Plus in many cases such as "Eleanor Rigby" there is not even consistency between quotes from band members about who wrote what parts. My other concern is the sung by column. In many cases the background vocals are sung by the other Beatles and these vocals are often quite important. For instance in "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," Harrison sings the verses and Paul or John sing harmony with him on the chorus, in the same way as Paul and John sing together on "Every Little Thing" which the chart attributes to them both. Also for a song like "Paperback Writer," which notably features four-part harmony in the intro, should this be mentioned in the list and how? Perhaps a "George, with Paul and John" approach would work? Maybe the backing vocals issue is too specific for the list? Either way this chart is an improvement from the other various lists, and I do think the author and singer columns are a good idea, especially since that is probably how I would use the list. One final thing, I feel that there should be some distinction made between songs that were officially released by the Beatles, songs released by Tony Sheridan and the Beatles, songs released only on Anthologies and others. For instance I see in the C section "Carol," "Clarabella," and "Crying Waiting Hoping," which I've never heard of before and have no pages. I hope this is helpful. -Tripswithtiresias 21:04, 15 September 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tripswithtiresias (talk • contribs)

As you gather, the idea is to merge existing information from other lists and tables, and information on author and singer. There are certainly issues e.g. with attribution but they do not change if we put all in one place. It seems to me that many articles discuss attribution, and the basic choice is whether to list the standard credits or something else. Updating and correcting would actually be easier afterwards, since it can then be done for single fields or via search and replace, whereas now songs need to be moved form one list or list part to another. I understand that your question about Anthologies translates into the question, what to allow as legit entry in the albums column, e.g only the original studio albums. Given that we have now 8 columns already, I'd say to try to use the notes column for everything else. --Tikiwont 13:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree, you are right, it's much better to merge them all first and discuss the materials later.  :) --Tripswithtiresias 21:46, 25 September 2007 (EST)

For me it looks more practical to merge the whole lists 'vertically' to fill the author and singer columns and then go through the individual songs / letter blocks to fill the other columns. I've started with the singer list. --Tikiwont 09:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

List of Beatles songs by singer is merged now. --Tikiwont 13:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Al above mentioned lists have been merged to mostly fill the columns for authors and singers. It might now be best to continue to fill entries (lines) by song proceeding by blocks of letters. to avoid edit conflicts as well as the necessity to look up song articles several times. --Tikiwont 16:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I've now merged all tables together. There are still some glitches such as the blanks and that it sorts the chart poristions as strings and not as numbers. But while tehre are content questions as per above and below, I'd say the merge and basic cleanup has been done.--Tikiwont 11:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Content

I just filled in the Y section and it brought up a couple questions I had about how some of these columns should be filled. First, what is to be done with songs that were originally released a B-sides only? They have all been subsequently released on CD, so I included the first CD it was released on and a note that it was a B-side. Although I wonder if what it's A-side was should be included. Also for Yes It Is I ran into the sticky situation of it first being released on Beatles VI which was an American release. Should this page list both the American and British chronologies? I think not especially since the CDs have been standardized to the British releases. So should this be changed to Past Masters, Vol 1? Finally for Anthology only releases the year becomes the year recorded, not the year released like it is for official releases. This should, I think be clarified at the beginning of the article. --Tripswithtiresias 23:10, 25 September 2007 (EST)

Well, also form above, I gather that one idea is only to list the original studio albums. In any case I'd say albums should be wikilinked. As regards the B-sides, would it help to wikilink the entry to the a side?. I've tried that out for above example. --Tikiwont 13:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Author column

Beside filling in some more authors, there are two more general changes by George cowie: (1) listing the full names also for the Beatles, which uses more space, and (2) effectively overwriting the more differentiated attribution scheme for Lennon/McCartney form that was actually part of the merge from List of Beatles songs written by Lennon/McCartney and is explained in the current list header. Unfortunately doing all this together in one step will make it difficult to restore later the old authorship list unless we revert now. If we later want to change it or agree to use full names this can easily be done. --Tikiwont 19:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Crediting Mal Evans

Since this article consistently attempts to identify the true author of each song instead of crediting everything to "Lennon-McCartney" or "Harrison," I think it is important to credit Mal Evans for co-writing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Fixing a Hole." The most important evidence for this is Evans's private diary. I think this evidence should more than suffice, especially because Paul McCartney has never denied Evans's claims and because Evans really had no incentive to lie in his own private diary, which has never been proven unreliable. But even more importantly, Evans's diary is confirmed by other sources: McCartney admits that Evans was with him when he developed the "Sgt. Pepper" concept. Evans had musical ability, as demonstrated by co-writing a song with George Harrison, "You and Me (Babe)," for Ringo Starr's album, and producing the hit "No Matter What" along with several other songs for Badfinger. Allon Fambrizzi 16:45, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Allon Fambrizzi

Regarding his musical ability, there is counter-evidence. Watch him in the Let It Be film of "Maxwel's Silver Hammer" trying to hit the anvil at the proper time. Read the story where McCartney had to nod to Evans to instruct him when to play and release a single note on an organ; McCartney taped or scribbled on the proper key so Evans would know which note to play! Mal Evans was no musician and we only know about him because of his roadie/confidante role with the Beatles.

Regarding his diary claims, that's evidence, but not irrefutable evidence, and it comes from an interested party: Evans himself. You asked, why would he lie in his own diary? Who knows? Maybe he had an exaggerated sense of his own importance to the process. Other people have claimed writing credit for songs because they suggested a lyric, but no one in the industry suggests that such contributions warrant a credit. Consider Timothy Leary. He thought he was entitled to composer credit because the two words "Come Together" were a slogan for his political campaign. The point is this: Mal Evans may have thought he was a co-writer, but that doesn't it make it so, no matter where he wrote it or who he told.

In other cases such as this--albeit typically involving established musical talents like Lennon, McCartney, Donovan, etc.--we've relied on multiple accounts that agree (such as when John and Paul agree about who wrote a song) or accounts by disinterested observers. In this case, we have only Evans' word. McCartney has not publicly disagreed, but why should he? There's no legal reason to do so, and any publicity about this is guaranteed to make him look bad: "rich Beatle denies claim of fallen ex-comrade."

Evans claim is countered by the legal status of the composition--which credits Lennon and McCartney only--and while we have agreed to try and resolve who among those two wrote all or most of a song, that doesn't mean that any Tom, Dick, or Harry that comes along with a claim should be recognized.

I strongly disagree that Evan's diary is sufficient evidence as claimed above by Allon Fambrizzi. John Cardinal 18:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, we shoudl not go further than the articles themselves and can in any case not report the same level of detail here. Since both articles currently mention Evan's claim, we could mention it here as well, but at most as claim, not as an attribution of co-authorship. --Tikiwont 09:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Tikiwont, I didn't reply earlier, but I agree with your change which was to add Evan's claim in the Notes column. That's basically the edit I made before this discussion topic arose. John Cardinal 22:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is accurate to call it a "claim" because, well, Evans never publicly claimed it, so Evans's claim cannot be characterized as a bid for publicity. Also, I don't think the legal status of Evans's co-authorship claim is strong evidence, because from all accounts Evans was unconditionally devoted to the Beatles, doing literally anything the band asked him to at little pay. Finally, I think the argument favors the notion that Evans had more than enough musical ability to co-write a song:

1. He actually co-authored another song, "You and Me (Babe)", written with George Harrison

2. The Beatles thought enough of his abilities to produce records for Badfinger, and several songs he produced became hits (including "No Matter What"). Indeed, he had a good enough ear to initially recommend signing Badfinger, the band that became the biggest act on Apple besides the Beatles.

3. I think the fact that Beatles actually consistently allowed Evans to play instruments on their records (and he did so numerous times, usually uncredited: sax on "Helter Skelter", tambourine on "Dear Prudence," etc.) favors the idea that Evans had some musical ability: they wouldn't let a complete hack play on their records repeatedly.

Finally, the evidence that Evans helped develop the "Sgt. Pepper" concept is documented by other sources. And, let's face it, the evidence for many of the other authorship claims are simply the unconfirmed recollections of Lennon and/or McCartney years later. Allon Fambrizzi 02:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)Allon Fambrizzi

"unconfirmed recollections"??? We are talking about two of the most popular songwriters of all time. They wrote hundreds of songs, and many, many people witnessed them actually composing songs. For most songs, they agree about how it was composed and while some of those recollections are not precise, many are. There is ample reason to trust their recollections far more than Mal's diary. (BTW: Has that diary been confirmed to be authentic?) With Evans, there is evidence that he wrote songs--as you described--but there is also evidence that he had little or no musical ability. He was a roadie/assistant, and that means he was sometimes in the right place. Absent legal standing, and absent acknowledgment by anyone else, Evan's diary is not sufficient for WP to grant him co-composer status. John Cardinal 04:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Just read the WP article on "No Matter What" and it says that the version that became a hit was not produced by Evans, but rather by Geoff Emerick. John Cardinal 04:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I really think that if you read the diary extracts you will find the co-authorship claim compelling [1]. I was somewhat skeptical myself after hearing of the issue from WP articles, but after actually reading the diary extracts and finding out that Evans was credited as co-author of another song with George Harrison, I became convinced that Evans actually co-authored the songs. I'll respond to your claims one by one:

1. Lennon and McCartney generally wrote their songs in private, so the vast majority of the authorship claims are indeed based on individual, unconfirmed recollections. They may have been quite popular, but they did not write their songs on stage. And, despite what Paul has said about the disagreement being confined to two songs, most of the accounts of songwriting given by either have discrepancies. Who wrote "I Call Your Name," for example? McCartney claims he helped John write it, but John says it was "his song" and he wrote it "when there was no Beatles and no group." McCartney is credited as a contributing writer in this article, although it is not known in any detail what he contributed to it and his comment that he contributed to it came 1994, over 30 years after it was written. If you look closely enough, discrepancies such as this appear on numerous songs, and for many of the "with McCartney" and "with Lennon" claims, the extent of the "with" contribution is entirely unclear.

2. It is telling that you didn't raise the issue of the authenticity of Evans's diaries in your first response, because no serious doubt exists as to their authenticity. The diaries, written on a 1963 issue Postal Office Engineering Union diary, were not part of the 2004 suitcase hoax but rather were in the possession of Evans's ex-wife, Lily, who has released execerpts which were published in the Times.

3. In terms of "legal standing", Lennon and McCartney co-authored each of the songs written by either of them while members of the Beatles, yet co-authorship credit is not shared equally between the two for each of the songs. So "legal standing" is not dispositive on this article.

I think the evidence for Evans's co-authorship is just as strong, if not stronger, than any of the other "with X" or "with Y" claims in this article. Evans's diary has never been contradicted by anything written or said by McCartney; he had no motive to lie or exaggerate his claims in his diary, and the diary was written contemporaneous to the events it describes and is generally accurate in other regards. It is misleading to say that Evans "claimed" co-authorship; rather, his diary is strong objective evidence of coauthorship.

Allon Fambrizzi 05:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)Allon Fambrizzi

First, Thanks for deleting grammar lesson. It doesn't help your case. Second, it's clear we will never agree. Third, I have a question. Some sources say both Donovan and Mike Love had significant input to "Dear Prudence". Are you prepared to add their names to this list and the song's article as co-authors? If not, why not? John Cardinal 12:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

My view is that we should credit on the basis of what reliable primary sources tell us. From some preliminary googling, I think there may be a case for crediting Mike Love as a co-author of "Back in the USSR," because according to several sources he suggested the "California girls" bridge portion of the song-- and I frankly doubt that McCartney would have had the temerity to so blatantly lift from a Beach Boys song otherwise-- but it isn't clear whether Love just suggested McCartney use it or actually that part. What source exactly are you referring to for his contribution to "Dear Prudence"? However, Donovan never claimed that he helped write "Dear Prudence" outside of teaching Lennon the finger-picking style, although it seems he helped with the lyrics to "Julia." Here is what he said in an interview:

John could already play acoustic guitar but I taught him finger style in India. He looked at me playing and said, 'How do you do that?' He really wanted to know and he learnt it really fast… It was a joy to teach him and we were very good friends as I was with all of them. I taught him the secret moves over two days. The first thing he wrote was the moving ballad to his mother, "Julia ". I helped him with the lyrics a bit as he said I was good at child songs. And he wrote "Dear Prudence" soon after learning the new style. [2] ::Also, I still think you'd agree with me on Mal Evans if you'd read the excerpts from the diaries.

Allon Fambrizzi 15:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)Allon Fambrizzi

Source Format

I changed the source format to put multiple cells on a single source statement. That makes it easier to tell which song was changed when using the Diff function to compare versions; when the Diff function shows a change, it shows a line of context before and after the change, which in the old source format didn't usually show enough information to know which song was changed. John Cardinal 21:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)