Lennon/McCartney
Rating:
***** (excellent)
‘Drive My Car’ is the perfect opener with the perfect intro. This is the most rocker song of the album, with great hard rock vocals, very ironic lyrics, superb bass playing, a fine guitar solo and full of ‘beep-beeps.’ The song also would have been a good option to be released as a single.
George (1977): “If Paul had written a song, he’d
learn all the parts and then come in the studio and say ‘Do this.’ He’d never
give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on ‘Drive My Car’ I
just played the line, which is really like a lick off ‘Respect,’ you know, the
Otis Redding version. And I played the line on the guitar and Paul laid that
with me on the bass. We laid that track down like that. We played the lead part
later on top of it.”
John (1980): “His (Paul’s) song, with contributions from me.”
Paul (1994): “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 are always fatal (to songwriting). ‘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.’ Well, we tried, and
John couldn’t think of anything, and we tried, and eventually it was, ‘Oh let’s
leave it, let’s get off this one.’ ‘No, no. We can do it, we can do it.’ So we
had a break... then we came back to it, and somehow it became ‘drive-my-car’
instead of ‘gol-den-rings,’ and then it was wonderful-- because this nice
tongue-in-cheek idea came.”
Recording
|
Recorded: October 13, 1965 at Abbey Road, London,
England Instrumentation: Paul McCartney - lead vocal, bass guitar,
slide guitar, piano George Harrison - lead guitar, backing
vocal Ringo Starr - drums, tambourine, cowbell |
Releasing
|
|
Release Date |
Title |
Format |
Label |
UK
|
1965, December 3 |
RUBBER SOUL (UK) |
LP |
Parlophone |
|
1966, July 8 |
NOWHERE MAN |
EP |
Parlophone |
|
|
1973, April 19 |
THE BEATLES /
1962-1966 (Red Album) |
LP |
Apple |
|
|
1976, June 10 |
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL MUSIC |
LP |
Parlophone |
|
|
US |
1966, June 20 |
YESTERDAY AND TODAY |
LP |
Capitol |
|
1973, April 2 |
THE BEATLES /
1962-1966 (Red Album) |
LP |
Apple |
|
|
1976, June 7 |
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL MUSIC |
LP |
Capitol |
Lyrics
|
DRIVE MY CAR Asked a girl what she wanted to be She said baby, can’t you see? I wanna be famous, a star of the screen But you can do something in between Baby you can drive my car Yes I’m gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I’ll love you I told that girl that my prospects were good And she said baby, it’s understood Working for peanuts is all very fine But I can show you a better time Baby you can drive my car Yes I’m gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I’ll love you Beep beep, beep beep, yeah! Baby you can drive my car Yes I’m gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I’ll love you I told that girl I could start right away And she said listen babe I’ve got something to say I got no car and it’s breaking my heart But I’ve found a driver and that’s a start Baby you can drive my car Yes I’m gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I’ll love you Beep beep, beep beep, yeah! Beep beep, beep beep, yeah! Beep beep, beep beep, yeah! Beep beep, beep beep, yeah! |
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