(1) When the Beatles used the innovative 2-part harmony singing, developed “eyeball to eyeball”, they didn’t consider one or the other to be the “lead” and are on record as finding it amusing that this only had to be decided by the sheet-music writers

(2) Rightly or wrongly, Paul is consistent in his opinion that when one of these 2-part creations is present, that section is “co-written”. Note that he’s not talking about two parts that go in lock step in thirds – if you listen carefully to all the great 2-part songs (There’s a Place, etc.) the voices sometimes go in different directions, sometimes one changes why the other stays steady, and often jump between thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths in crazy and wonderful ways – thus there’s not really disagreement on the middle 8 of this song – John came up with the words and chords and they then did an eyeball to eyeball session to arrive at the harmony, during which both melodies were likely changed and re-changed until they were happy. Whether or not you call that co-composing by Paul is irrelevant – that was how the creative process worked. And the fact that one of the most memorable parts of the track, the triplet or waltz rhythm, was George’s idea, further shows that it’s all about chemistry, not so much about individual accomplishment. All you have to do is listen to the solo records to see how important chemistry was – when it was taken away, you were left with talented humans – when it was present there was true magic.

(3) In general, I am disturbed by the amount of deference accorded here to Ian MacDonald. He was a great *writer*, but not a great listener and that book is riddled with errors and completely silly takes. This may be the Beatles Bible, but the dearly departed Mr. MacDonald is a long long way from being the holy ghost or one of the apostles. I’m glad to have the book and keep it on my desk for reference, but I take everything in it with a pillar of salt – he was a bitter man with some twisted and misplaced hostility towards some of these wonderful songs. If you don’t believe me, read his review of almost any Harrison song.

He continued the same vain in ‘you won’t see me” where he says “act your age” and once again threatens her with “you won’t see me”.

The way Lennon sustains ‘time’ differently on the second bridge is also nice, with his volume dipping in the middle of the word.

I’m sure intricacies like this could be found all over the Beatles’ catalogue – I’ve only studied this one in particular so closely because it’s one of my favourite sections in any Beatles song. Simple but sublime.