Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 22, 23 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott
Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, backing vocals, bass, piano, lead guitar, drums, handclaps, percussion
John Lennon: backing vocals, lead guitar, 6-string bass, drums, handclaps, percussion
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums, handclaps, percussion
Available on:
The Beatles (White Album)
Love
The opening track on the White Album, Back In The USSR was written by Paul McCartney and inspired by Chuck Berry's Back In The USA and the Beach Boys' California Girls.
The song was intended by McCartney to be a parody of Chuck Berry's 1959 hit.
It's tongue in cheek. This is a travelling Russkie who has just flown in from Miami Beach; he's come the other way. He can't wait to get back to the Georgian mountains: 'Georgia's always on my mind'; there's all sorts of little jokes in it... I remember trying to sing it in my Jerry Lee Lewis voice, to get my mind set on a particular feeling. We added Beach Boys style harmonies.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Back In The USSR was written in Rishikesh, India, while The Beatles were meditating with the Maharishi. Another member of the party was the Beach Boys' Mike Love.
I was sitting at the breakfast table and McCartney came down with his acoustic guitar and he was playing Back In The USSR, and I told him that what you ought to do is talk about the girls all around Russia, the Ukraine and Georgia. He was plenty creative not to need any lyrical help from me but I gave him the idea for that little section... I think it was light-hearted and humorous of them to do a take on the Beach Boys.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Two other influences found their way into Back In The USSR: Hoagy Carmichael's Georgia On My Mind, and the pro-industry 'I'm Backing Britain' campaign led by British prime minister Harold Wilson. According to Ian MacDonald, the song's original title was I'm Backing The UK, then I'm Backing The USSR.
The song caused an anti-Beatles conservative backlash in America, led by the John Birch Society which charged the group with encouraging communism. Back In The USSR did become a favourite song of The Beatles' Russian fans, who heard it through tapes smuggled into the country.
In the studio
Unusually, the drums on Back In The USSR were recorded mainly by McCartney, with contributions from Lennon and Harrison, after Ringo Starr had temporarily walked out of the group.
According to Barry Miles, Starr left when McCartney criticised him for messing up a tom-tom fill. With the atmosphere in the studio already often tense, the altercation was enough for the normally amenable Starr to reach his limit. He left London and spent a fortnight on Peter Sellers' yacht in the Mediterranean.
I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John, who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko since he moved out of Kenwood. I said, 'I'm, leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.' And John said, 'I thought it was you three!'
So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!'
I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, 'I'm going on holiday.' I took the kids and we went to Sardinia.
Anthology
The recording of Back In The USSR was completed in just two days. On the first, 22 August 1968, McCartney played drums, with Harrison on lead guitar and Lennon on bass. They taped just five tracks, the last of which was the best.
The next day they added two more drum, bass and lead guitar tracks, a piano part, lead vocals from Paul McCartney and backing vocals from Lennon and Harrison. All three Beatles contributed handclaps.
Back In The USSR was mixed on the same day, during which they added the sound of a Viscount aeroplane taking off and landing. The effects came from Abbey Road's collection, and had previously been recorded at London Airport.
Related articles:
- Recording: If I Needed Someone, In My Life
- Boys
- Recording, mixing: Run For Your Life, We Can Work It Out, The Word, I'm Looking Through You
- Old Brown Shoe
- Recording: You're Going To Lose That Girl
I have a great book on the Beatles-- "Beatlemania Forever"--- and I read that John was notified about the ultra-conservatives' charges of the Beatles being pro-Bolshevik. He was told that some were saying Beatles music was un-American. John's response? "That's very observant of them."
We can always seem to count on Lennon for the perfect defense.
Maybe because I'm from the east, I don't resent the lyrics at all. And this is a great song due to the tune and chords and all the stuff which makes it rhythmic
Who plays the solo? Do you think it is george? It sounds like paul?
It's Paul.
Both? I doubt that. George probably did the first, paul did the second.
You're as always free to express your doubts and believe in what you think is "probably" right.
That doesn't make it true, of course.
The solo has excactly the "show off" feeling Macca usually has in his solos. Also the way he plays, it sounds not as clear and precise as George, but more "spectacular".
Anyway, I don't know where this "second" solo is supposed to be. It's Paul's song, he plays drums and guitar and piano - and most of the bass is John and George (I thought all of it).
I hate to reference the rock band video reconstruction but I guess that might be an accurate depiction of who plays what guitar (with George doing the first and Paul playing and singing over his solo on the last verse. If you notice Paul makes sure that anytime there is a solo that he played he makes sure that the rock band studio scenes show him playing them (even if he is playing another instrument for the rest of this song).
Again, I said "probably". Not for sure, unlike Mr. Iknoweverythingthatpaulmccartneyhaseverdone here I don't know. And what I'm talking about is the fast alternate picking.
Simply one of the best pop songs ever made. McCartney at the top of his craft!
After having spent two years in the hazy dreamscapes of Pepperland, the Beatles were serving notice they were back on the ground, rock & roll-wise.
No drowsy Mellotrons, no trippy backwards tapes, no eerie distorted vocals, this time they were leading off with screeching (airplane) tires, pounding piano, thudding drums, screaming guitars and Paul McCartney doing his best Elvis-meets-the Beach Boys impersonation.