Nowhere Man

Lennon/McCartney

Rating: ***** (excellent)

Another John’s classic. It’s a deep song that talks about a man’s loneliness. It has very introspective lyrics, awesome (three-part) harmonies and a brilliant guitar solo played earlier than usually in a song. ‘Nowhere Man’ was a gold single in US (peaked at #3), released in early 1966.

John (1980): “I’d spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music... the whole damn thing, as I lay down. So letting it go is what the whole game is. You put your finger on it, it slips away, right? You know, you turn the lights on and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them.”

Paul (1984): “That was John after a night out, with dawn coming up. I think at that point in his life, he was a bit wondering where he was going.”

Paul (1988): “I remember we wanted very treble-y guitars-- which they are-- they’re among the most treble-y guitars I’ve ever heard on record. The engineer said, ‘Alright, I’ll put full treble on it,’ and we said, ‘That’s not enough.’ He said, ‘But that’s all I’ve got.’ And we replied, ‘Well, put that through another lot of faders and put full treble up on that. And if that’s not enough we’ll go through another lot of faders.’ They said, ‘We don’t do that,’ and we would say, ‘Just try it... if it sounds crappy we’ll lose it, but it might just sound good.’ You’d then find, ‘Oh it worked,’ and they were secretly glad because they had been the engineer who put three times the allowed value of treble on a song. I think they were quietly proud of those things.”

Recording

Recorded:

October 22, 1965 at Abbey Road, London, England

Instrumentation:
John Lennon - lead vocal, acoustic guitar

Paul McCartney - bass guitar, backing vocal

George Harrison - lead guitar, backing vocal

Ringo Starr - drums

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
US	1966, February 21	Nowhere Man / What Goes On	Single	Capitol
	1966, June 20	YESTERDAY AND TODAY	LP	Capitol
	1973, April 2	THE BEATLES / 1962-1966 (Red Album)	LP	Apple

Lyrics

NOWHERE MAN

He’s a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Doesn’t have a point of view

Knows not where he’s going to

Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen

You don’t know what you’re missing

Nowhere man, the world is at your command

He’s as blind as he can be

Just sees what he wants to see

Nowhere man can you see me at all?

Nowhere man, don’t worry

Take your time, don’t hurry

Leave it all till somebody else lends you a hand