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The Beatles - Come Together lyric meanings and song
facts
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| Timothy Leary was a psychologist who became
famous for experimenting with LSD as a way to promote social
interaction and raise consciousness. Leary did many experiments on
volunteers and himself and felt the drug had many positive qualities
if taken correctly. When the government cracked down on LSD, Leary's
experiments were stopped and he was arrested on drug charges. In
1969, Leary decided to run for Governor of California, and asked
John Lennon to write a song for him. "Come Together, Join The Party"
was Leary's campaign slogan (a reference to the drug culture he
supported) and was the original title of the song. Leary never had
much of a campaign, but the slogan gave Lennon the idea for this
song. |
| John Lennon was sued for stealing the guitar
riff and the line "Here comes old flat-top" from Chuck Berry's "You
Can't Catch Me." The lawsuit did not come from Berry, but from
Morris Levy, one of the music industry's most infamous characters.
He owned the song along with thousands of other early rock songs
that he basically stole from the poor, black, and unrepresented
artists. Levy sued the Beatles, or more accurately, John Lennon,
over the song around the time the Beatles broke up. For years,
Lennon delayed the trial while he and the Beatles tried to sort out
all the legal and business problems that plagued Apple Records.
Finally, in an attempt to avoid the court room as much as he could (Lennon
felt like he was appearing in court more often than not), he settled
with Levy. In return for dropping the suit, Lennon agreed to record
his Rock N Roll album, which was just a series of covers of
songs Levy owned. Lennon always wanted to make a cover album and was
thrilled to have the opportunity, and Levy wanted the value of his
songs to increase, and when a Beatle re-records a song, that is just
what happens. To make a long long long story short, Lennon recorded
the album over the Lost Weekend, a year-or-two period when he was
separated from Yoko Ono and lived in LA. During that time he was
often drunk or high, and was rather sloppy and useless. Levy was
getting frustrated with the lack of progress. Phil Spector was the
producer, but in a fit of madness (which was not too unusual for
Spector) he ran away and stole the recording session tapes. Levy
invited Lennon to his upstate NY recording studio, and that is where
he finally recorded the album. (thanks, Matthew - New York, NY) |
| The whispered lyric that sounds like "shoot"
is actually Lennon saying "shoot me" followed by a handclap. The
bass line drowns out the "me." |
| The Beatles recorded this on July 21, 1969 and
it was the first session John Lennon actively participated in
following his and Yoko's car accident 3 weeks earlier. John was so
insistent on Yoko being in the studio with him that he had a
hospital bed set up in the studio for her right after the accident,
since she was more seriously injured than he was. (thanks, Adrian -
Wilmington, DE) |
| The line "Ono sideboard" refers to Yoko. |
| The British Broadcasting Company (The BBC)
banned this because of the reference to Coca Cola, which they
considered advertising. |
| This has one of the most commonly misheard
lyrics in the history of popular music: "Hold you in his -armchair-
you can feel his disease." It's actually "Hold you in his arms, yeah,
you can feel his disease." All published sheet music had the "armchair"
lyric, including the inner sleeve of the 1967-1970 compilation,
which contained lots of other errors too, notably on "Strawberry
Fields Forever." (thanks, Mark - London, England) |
| The Beatles released this as a "double A side"
single with "Something." |
| In 1969, this won a Grammy for best engineered
recording. |
| When rumors were spreading that Paul McCartney
was dead, some fans thought the line "One and one and one is three"
meant that only George, John and Ringo were left. The line "Got to
be good lookin' cuz he's so hard to see" was supposed to be Paul's
spirit. (thanks, jill - placentia, CA) |
| Aerosmith's cover version was a #23 hit in
1978. They played villains that year in the movie Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is considered one of the worst
films ever. Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees were also in the movie. |
| In 2001, Beck, Moby, Marc Anthony, and Nelly
Furtado were scheduled to put on a tribute concert in Radio City
Music Hall called "Come Together: A Night For John Lennon." Due to
the terrorist attacks on America, it was postponed and dedicated to
the people of New York City, with proceeds benefiting victims of the
attacks. |
| Nortel used this in commercials. |
| On an early demo version of "My Monkey" by
Marilyn Manson (whose vocals were sped up to sound like "a demonic
toddler"), Manson sang the second verse as an opener. It appeared on
Demos in Lunchbox by Manson's former band, The Spooky Kids. |
| This has been covered by Michael Jackson, Tina
Turner, Meat Loaf, Guns N' Roses, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson,
Nazareth, and Oasis. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada, for above 2) |
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