Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 7, 8, 11 April; 18 May; 17 June 1966
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Released: 5 August 1966 (UK), 8 August 1966 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass
John Lennon: rhythm guitar
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
George Martin: organ
Eddie Thornton, Ian Hamer, Les Condon: trumpet
Alan Branscombe, Peter Coe: tenor saxophone
Available on:
Revolver
Anthology 2
The second song, after Tomorrow Never Knows, to be recorded for Revolver, Got To Get You Into My Life was a Motown-influenced pop number written by Paul McCartney.
John Lennon particularly admired the lyrics of Got To Get You Into My Life, interpreting them as being about LSD.
Paul's again. I think that was one of his best songs, too, because the lyrics are good and I didn't write them. You see? When I say that he could write lyrics if he took the effort, here's an example. It actually describes the experience taking acid. I think that's what he's talking about. I couldn't swear to it, but I think that it was a result of that.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
In fact, the song was about marijuana, as McCartney later explained.
Got To Get You Into My Life was one I wrote when I had first been introduced to pot. I'd been a rather straight working-class lad but when we started to get into pot it seemed to me to be quite uplifting... I didn't have a hard time with it and to me it was mind-expanding, literally mind-expanding.
So Got To Get You Into My Life is really a song about that, it's not to a person, it's actually about pot. It's saying, I'm going to do this. This is not a bad idea. So it's actually an ode to pot, like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
The song took some time to get right in the studio – the Anthology 2 album has a version from the first day's recording, 7 April, played on a harmonium and sounding quite different to the final arrangement heard on Revolver.
The next day The Beatles tried a different arrangement, ending up with the rhythm track they settled on. On 11 April they overdubbed a guitar part, but the song remained untouched again until 18 May.
On that day they added Got To Get You Into My Life's distinctive brass and woodwind parts, plus two lead vocal parts, tambourine and organ.
The Beatles hired two members of Georgie Fame's group The Blue Flames, who Lennon and McCartney knew from the London club scene. Eddie Thornton and Peter Coe performed along with other freelance jazz musicians.
The Beatles wanted a definite jazz feel. Paul and George Martin were in charge. There was nothing written down but Paul sat at the piano and showed us what he wanted and we played with the rhythm track in our headphones. I remember that we tried it a few times to get the feel right and then John Lennon, who was in the control room, suddenly rushed out, stuck his thumb aloft and shouted 'Got it!' George Harrison got a little bit involved too but Ringo sat playing draughts in the corner.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
A final guitar overdub was recorded on 17 June 1966, and mono mixes were made on the same day.
My favorite Revolver song, sounds so big!
I think the guitars were part of the rhythm track, listen to the left channel, you can hear guitar bleed.
Excellent track but not my favourite recording – I’m always wishing the guitars were a little louder throughout, and not so much buried by the horns
Everett’s take:
Track one features Paul’s bass, Ringo’s heavily limited drums and a rhythm guitar (John?) which is heard to be often edited out. Track two has a tambourine and organ.
Track three contained three trumpets, two tenor saxes with mikes right in the bells and the signal heavily limited. The trumpets doubled their parts in an additional take for the ending in a tape reduction that also allows Paul to add a lead vocal, superimposed on the organ / tambourine track.
The fourth track features Paul’s double-tracked vocal, a quiet fuzz guitar that is most edited out and – necessitating a further reduction – George’s loudly ringing Leslie-treated guitar solo.
Why are the drum fills so down in the mix? Old “golden ears” must of been day dreaming about how he wanted to marry Paul again.
Who is “golden ears”? Geoff Emerick?
Childish, and shows a gross lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of the recording, mix, and re-mixes done.
Must have been daydreaming of the next silly comment you’ll make.
Supposedly there is a better mix of this song with louder drums on the 70’s era U.S. Apple pressings of this album. The guys who wrote “Fab 4 FAQ” state this in their book. Matrix should read ST 1-2576, ST 2-2576 (No “X” in matrix numbers)
Here’e the quote from the book, “Fab Four FAQ” regarding the rare mix. “The song’s more lamentable distinction is that the stereo mix on every commonly available version (the U.K. and Capitol albums, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Music compilation, and its accompanying 1976 single release, and even the Revolver CD) is far inferior to Apple’s mid-’70s mix.
At some point in the decade, albums originally released on Capitol were reissued on the Apple label. Coinciding with this cosmetic move was a more substantive one: stereo mixes were tweaked to rein in the awful wide-panning done the previous decade, bringing the instrumentation closer to the center.
This updating provided a fringe benefit to this track in particular. Ringo’s drum fills, coming at the end of each verse and heretofore somewhat buried, suddenly leapt from the speakers, giving the song some percussive pop to match the brass. The difference on the Apple release of Revolver is truly striking, making all other releases sound anemic by comparison.”
I have recently found a copy of this lp release and have listened to verify the claim….100% true. One day I will make a video on YouTube and post the link.
^BeatleMark^ Thanks for tracking this “lost” mix down… a bit is used in the Anthology DVD (used as bkgrd music around the Philippines documentation. I want to hear Ringo’s drums the way they should have been… not so far back in the mix they dissappear! Again Thanks.
I have an orange label Capitol pressing, and the louder drums in Got To Get You Into My Life are there to. There are no X’s in the matrix numbers.
This song is one where the UK mono and stereo versions differ. Paul’s vocals are quite different in the slow fade out and the backing is different there too.
Heard this in the Minions movie. It was awesome!!!
Are you a troll?
Got To Get You Into My Life – SI onto take 8 – stereo brass overdub (partial) from the various ‘sessions’ cds has the drum fill in all its glory. Maybe some whizzo could do some magic and dub it onto the original mix.
Love George’s lead guitar break but its way too short!
This is a great Paul McCartney number, it is off one of the greatest albums ever, “Revolver”. McCartney’s vocals are brilliant and the saxophone/ trumpet use in this is a masterstroke. As John Lennon said they are great lyrics. George Harrison’s lead guitar work in this song,( as it is in so many others), is fantastic.
Steve Turner’s excellent book ‘Beatles ’66’ argues very persuasively that this song is about LSD and that McCartney’s memory fails him on this point. The crux of the matter is the acceptance that McCartney first took acid before the Revolver sessions and not after as commonly reported. The lyrics make much more sense if they are viewed as being about a recent new experience and not a nearly 2 year old experience with pot.
Also the tracking places it right before Tomorrow never knows and we all know what that is about. This was deliberate as , imho, was McCarneys subsequent misleading tale of what inspired the song.
Yes, because you and Steve Turner were inside Paul’s head when he wrote it.
Unconvincing, and clearly unsubstantiated.
Paul said it was written after he was first introduced to pot. Nowhere does he say it was written just before the Revolver sessions. Many examples exist of the Beatles recording and releasing songs years after they were written. None of the lyrics imply LSD specifically, but “every single day of my life” seems to mirror Paul’s pot usage then and subsequently. I don’t recall any data that supports Paul as that emphatic about LSD.
I’m right behind you on Sir Paul’s memory fails on the point about LSD, marijuana, etc. All of us, (I was 18 when LSD the word came into my vocabulary in L.A., early 1966)…I’ve sincerely doubted “Got to Get You….” was about any one specific drug experience, pot or otherwise. Pressed to explain, good Sir Paul does his best to put an end to the barrage of questions and references to one song of all the hundreds (though many others are over-analyzed)…and put a lid on it (pardon the pun) with the references, questions, disputes surrounding ‘Got to Get You…”. “Blackbird” is another gem….no one in all the musicians, writers, Beatles fans, West Coast or East Coast in the United States of America, thought this tune was explicitly about black discrimination. No one. Later, Paul tells us this is what is was. I can appreciate his ownership of the lyrics….however, if it were so much about discrimination, why keep a secret until about 2014 or so…when he spills the beans after an opportunity arose surrounding “what was Blackbird really about” agendas by everyone needing to study to death the gorgeousness of The Beatles. To quote other Beatles lyrics: “LET IT BE”.
I heard the Paperback Writer riff in 1:52-1:55. Anyone confirm this?
eeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh, well………. there’s a similarity, I suppose. I wouldn’t call it the “same”.
!966 was quite a year for Paul McCartney when it came to music, must be his best ever:
Paperback writer
Eleanot Rigby
Here, there and everywhere
Yellow submaine
Good day sunshine
For no one
Got to get you into my Life
The family way
Penny lane
When I´m sixty-four
Somewhat strange considering the rather severe problems with an injured face that he was going through at the time.