Michelle is a love ballad by the Beatles, started by Paul McCartney, with the middle eight co-written by John Lennon. It is featured on their Rubber Soul album, released in December 1965. The song is unique among The Beatles other recordings in that its lyrics are partially in French. Michelle won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967, and has become one of the most famous Beatles songs in France. The instrumental music of Michelle originated separately from the lyrical concept: “ ...Michelle was a tune that Id written in Chet Atkins finger-picking style. There is a song he did called Trambone with a repetitive top line, and he played a bass line whilst playing a melody. This was an innovation for us; even though classical guitarists had played it, no rocknroll guitarists had played it. The first person we knew to use finger-picking style was Chet Atkins. .. I never learned it. But based on Atkins Trambone, I wanted to write something with a melody and a bass line in it, so I did. I just had it as an instrumental in C. ” — Paul McCartney The words and style of Michelle have their origins in the popularity of French Left Bank culture during McCartneys Liverpool days. McCartney had gone to a party of art students where a student with a goatee and a striped T-shirt was singing a French song. He soon wrote a farcical imitation to entertain his friends that involved French-sounding groaning instead of real words. The song remained a party piece until 1965, when John Lennon suggested he rework it into a proper song for inclusion on Rubber Soul. “ ...wed tag along to these parties, and it was at the time of people like Juliette Greco, the French bohemian thing... So I used to pretend to be French, and I had this song that turned out later to be Michelle. It was just an instrumental, but years later John said: You remember that thing you wrote about the French? I said: Yeah. He said: That wasnt a bad song, that. You should do that, yknow. ” — Paul McCartney I had been listening to (blues singer) Nina Simone -- I think it was I Put a Spell on You. Thats what made me think of the middle eight for Michele .. I love you, I love you, I lo-ove you, John Lennon explained in his 1980 Playboy Magazine interview. McCartney asked Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. It was because Id always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I cant speak French properly so thats why I needed help in sorting out the actual words, McCartney said. Vaughan came up with Michelle, ma belle, and a few days later McCartney asked for a translation of these are words that go together well — sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble.When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the I love you bridge. Lennon was inspired by a song he heard the previous evening, Nina Simones version of I Put a Spell on You, which used the same phrase but with the emphasis on the last word, I love you. Each version of this song has a different length. The UK mono is 2:33 but the stereo version is 2:40 due to an extra guitar solo. The US mono was the longest of all, at 2:43, until the Rock Band version was released; it runs 2:50.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 13:40:21 +0000
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