Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11 August 1964
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 4 December 1964 (UK), 15 December 1964 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Available on:
Beatles For Sale
An even collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, Baby's In Black was written in a hotel room while The Beatles were on tour in the summer of 1964.
It has been speculated that the song is about Astrid Kirchherr, the German photographer and artist whom The Beatles befriended in Hamburg. She was engaged to the group's first bass player, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died of a brain haemorrhage in April 1962.
Baby's In Black we did because we like waltz time – we used to do If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody, a cool 3/4 blues thing. And other bands would notice that and say, 'Shit man, you're doing something in 3/4.' So we'd got known for that. And I think also John and I wanted to do something bluesy, a bit darker, more grown-up, rather than just straight pop. It was more 'baby's in black' as in mourning. Our favourite colour was black, as well
Anthology
By 1964 Lennon and McCartney had began to write alone, although they continued to help each other complete songs when the need arose. Baby's In Black, however, was a joint effort written, as Lennon remembered in 1980, "together, in the same room".
It was very much co-written and we both sang it. Sometimes the harmony that I was writing in sympathy to John's melody would take over and become a stronger melody. Suddenly a piebald rabbit came out of the hat! When people wrote out the music score they would ask, 'Which one is the melody?' because it was so co-written that you could actually take either. We rather liked this one. It was not so much a work job, there was a bit more cred about this one. It's got a good middle.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
The song became a key part of The Beatles' live shows, right up until their final concert on 29 August 1966, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. They also performed it at Shea Stadium and at the Hollywood Bowl. A version from one of their Hollywood Bowl shows was included on the Real Love single in 1996, and is unavailable elsewhere.
In the studio
The first song to be recorded for Beatles For Sale, Baby's In Black was completed in a single session on 11 August 1964.
It took 14 takes to perfect, although only five of those were complete. Lennon and McCartney sang their parts simultaneously into the same microphone, to give a feeling of closeness.
The opening guitar note caused particular problems during the session. After the track was completed, George Harrison taped a number of edit pieces consisting of variations of the note, although none were used.
The Hollywood Bowl live version is positively surreal. They’re playing one of the most “grown up” sounding songs they had written to date and the music is being completely ignored for all the screaming. They could have been playing “Chopsticks” up there and it wouldn’t have mattered.
They actually sounded quite good considering they couldn’t hear themselves very well.
For sure. The live performances at the Bowl and also in the Munich video are electrifying. Makes the studio version almost tame by comparison. What a great song! Love Paul’s twirling in the middle, and George’s casual chord strums right before the end. He was singing along the whole way through without mike. Poor guy wanted in!
i love that song and would of loved to see it live <3 <3 :):)!!!!!!!!!
The chords grid is tricky…
Wow. So few comments on such a gem of a song. The greatest Everly Brothers song not written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.
Very insightful, very witty. Damned impressive. You’re right, it does have that quality.
I see it’s on the Real Love single too.
I was always mystified by George’s lead on this song. The guitar sounds drunk. I like it though, it’s really unique, and definitely Beatle-esque.
Yeah – it fits the blues style of the song
It was played by Paul. He also played the drums. Everything but John’s vocal was done by Paul on this track.
What the hell are you talking about?
That kind of “one-man band” thing wouldn’t have happened until the White Album at least.
It certainly sounds ridiculous for 1964.
Nonsense.
funny, I just came here to post the same exact thing about the drunk sounding solo! Great minds think alike I guess
George was like Ringo, a sympathetic musician. And like Ringo, his arrangement ideas always fit the song, like the Japanese-influenced trills on “Don’t Let Me Down”. I also like how George (and John?) treat the last verse. It has an almost bagpipes-like sound. This was one of my favorite non-hits from their early period.
The ‘trills’ you mention are played an a keyboard by Billy Preston. Nothing to do with George.
Thanks for the correction. I just re-listened to it and you’re absolutely right. My memory of it from years ago was faulty..
LOL! That’s an apt description. I like it though.
Very C & W influenced, yes, George’s ‘drunk’ guitar sounds great & the comment about Astrid is very interesting.
I love this one, but the recording has always sounded a bit sloppy to me. Maybe needed another couple of takes to get down, but the vocals on the final one are basically perfect so I suppose you can sacrifice a bit of integrity in the backing.
R Moore….any real Beatles fan knows Ringo’s style well. Thats damn Ringo on this track. Julian is correct, although his timeline is a bit off. (Paul was starting to do tracks on his own, basically, by 1966.)
Not so, Paul recorded She’s a Woman on his own in 1964 . Around the same time as they worked on this album.
I don’t think so, I’m pretty sure that John got credit for the guitar chords on the ‘snare’ beats on ‘SAW’ haven’t seen any evidence to suggest George and Ringo didn’ play.
I think the first Paul ‘solo’ track was Yesterday.
No, Paul did not record that (nor this) on his own, and the only songs he was doing on “his own” by 1966 was “Yesterday” and it’s not a one-man-band recording. Good grief…..
I heard that one day George arrived dressed in all black. One of the others said “Baby’s in Black.” Since he was the youngest, they sometimes called him baby. That is where the idea for the song came from.
No. It was their pet black rat that they called “baby”. THAT’s where the idea for the song came from.
(I can write unsubstantiated crap too).
Could be about Astrid.
Could also be John singing about Cynthia, wanting John to be the man he wasn’t anymore.
Tho written face to face, John wrote many 3/4 waltz type songs (This Boy, Yes It Is, Dig A Pony etc) while I don’t think Paul wrote any 3/4 waltz songs.
When analysing the songs musically, we have to differ melody from harmony. The melody in Baby´s in Black is very typical Lennon: Long and falling notes. Even the competitive McCartney said in later years about this song “…sometimes the harmony I was writing in sympathy for John´s melody…”. But everybody, has a tendency to say that before Yesterday they composed everything “together”.
When analysing songs musically, you need to put aside your biases, refer to FACTS as known and related by the people involved, and then try to write something of value.. Alas, you’ve yet to succeed in this.
the guitar solo for BIB here always sounded to me like it was staggering drunk if that could be put into music lol
Re: “Baby’s In Black was typically the third song in the group’s set, often following Rock And Roll Music and Long Tall Sally. “We used to put that in there, and think, ‘Well, they won’t know quite what to make of this but it’s cool’,” McCartney later recalled.”
As far as I can tell ‘Baby´s in black’ was not used in that position at any known time from the 64-65 Christmas show, Europe & USA 65 and up to the last show in 66. ‘Rock and roll music’ and ‘Long tall Sally’ were the last two songs of the Christmas Show, and and the first and last during the 1966 set, in Europe 65 they had ‘I feel fine’ and ‘Ticket to ride’ between them. ‘Baby´s in black’ was used in different positions in the set for each tour.
Thanks Jonas. I’ve removed that section from the feature, because I can’t back it up right now. I’m not sure where it came from in the first place!
Always loved the guitar at the beginning. Quite dark lyrics and as mentioned above, the guitar sound fits perfectly into the darkness of the song. Great vocal harmony in the “Oh, how long will it take…!” part. Powerful enough if I may say so.
Useless knowledge; usually, the same Beatle introduced the same song at every performance, even for different tours. But this song is one of the rare ones that was first introduced by Paul -at the 1965 NME Show in London, and then shifted to John. He -John- sometimes introduced it as ‘Baby´s in Black-pool’, which Paul also did by the way!