Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 13 October 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 3 December 1965 (UK), 20 June 1966 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass
John Lennon: vocals, piano, tambourine
George Harrison: harmony vocals, guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, cowbell
Available on:
Rubber Soul
Love
The first song on 1965's Rubber Soul album, Drive My Car reversed the traditional boy-girl roles in The Beatles' songs, presenting a tale of a gold digger and wannabe star who wants a man purely as a chauffeur and for sexual services.
Paul McCartney's first draft of the song featured a chorus based around the line, "You can buy me golden rings". He and Lennon reworked the song with some difficulty, eventually discarding the clichés and settling upon the idea of a headstrong woman.
The lyrics were disastrous and I knew it... This is one of the songs where John and I came nearest to having a dry session. The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which is always fatal. 'Rings' is fatal anyway, 'rings' always rhymes with 'things' and I knew it was a bad idea. I came in and I said, 'These aren't good lyrics but it's a good tune.' The tune was nice, the tune was there, I'd done the melody. Well, we tried, and John couldn't think of anything, and we tried and eventually it was, 'Oh let's leave it, let's get off this one.' 'No, no. We can do it, we can do it.' So we had a break, maybe had a cigarette or a cup of tea, then we came back to it, and somehow it became 'drive my car' instead of 'gold-en rings', and then it was wonderful because this nice tongue-in-cheek idea came and suddenly there was a girl there, the heroine of the story, and the story developed and had a little sting in the tail like Norwegian Wood had, which was 'I actually haven't got a car, but when I get one you'll be a terrific chauffeur.'
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
The song contained clear sexual overtones, from the first verse's "You can do something in between" to the suggestive promises of "a better time".
'Drive my car' was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed. Black humour crept in and saved the day. It wrote itself then. I find that very often, once you get the good idea, things write themselves.
Many Years From Now
The song's arrangement was suggested by George Harrison, who had been listening to Otis Redding's Respect, then a minor hit. Harrison suggested that Drive My Car's bass and guitar parts should play similar lines in an approximation of Redding's bass-heavy sound, resulting in one of The Beatles' most effective performances of 1965.
I helped out such a lot in all the arrangements. There were a lot of tracks though where I played bass. Paul played lead guitar on Taxman, and he played guitar - a good part - on Drive My Car.
We laid the track because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on Drive My Car I just played the line, which is really like a lick off Respect, you know, the Otis Redding version - and I played that line on guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that. We played the lead part later on top of it.
Crawdaddy
The 2006 album Love mixed Drive My Car with extracts from The Word and What You're Doing, together with Taxman's guitar solo and horns from Savoy Truffle.
In the studio
Drive My Car was recorded on 13 October 1965. The session began at 7pm and ended at 12.15am - The Beatles' first to end after midnight.
The group took some time to perfect Drive My Car's arrangement. Although they recorded four takes of the rhythm track, only the last of these was complete.
The basic arrangement saw McCartney on bass, Harrison playing guitar - contradicting his Anthology recollections - Lennon on tambourine and Starr on drums. The group then overdubbed piano, lead guitar, piano and cowbell parts, along with lead vocals by Lennon and McCartney, and backing vocals by Harrison.
The horns in the "Love" remix are from "Savoy truffle".
Michael - you're right, thanks for the correction. I've amended the article.
There was always some confusion about who played bass, because Harrison said he played the bassline. But you have to know, he never actually spoke of playing bass! His quote from the Anthology has been taken out of context, the whole quote is as followed:
"I just played the line, which is really like a lick off [Donald "Duck" Dunn's part for Otis Redding's 'Respect', September 1965] and I played that line on the guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass" (Growing up at 33 1/3: The George Harrison interview, 1977).
The basic track of the recording appears on the left channel of the final mix:
drums (Ringo), tambourine (John), bass (Paul), guitar (George)
Onto this, overdubs were recorded, first the main vocal track with Lennon-McCartney leads and backing from Harrison (center on cd, right channel on vinyl).
The third track has only Lennon's double-tracked vocal for "and maybe I'll love you" and "beep"s (second ending and coda). This track appears on the left channel.
The fourth track (right channel) features continuous cowbell, McCartney's guitar (which doubles Harrisons guitar in the intro and takes the solo and coda) plus Lennon on piano. (The record sleeve says "Paul on piano" but that's wrong. In the coda, you can hear Paul's guitar and the piano (plus cowbell) playing at the same time and they all were recorded on one track.
That is confusing. The quotation from George in Anthology wasn't taken out of context - it was from the interviews conducted for the television series and the book. Where historical quotations were used (and can be seen most commonly with John Lennon's sections) small numbers detail the year in which they were said - this is explained in the book's Editorial Note at the start.
As George's claim to the bass part of Drive My Car doesn't have a number alongside it, I think it's safe to say it's his actual words, in context, from the 1990s. It contradicts the 1977 interview, of course. I guess memory may have been at fault somewhere along the line. But thanks for the track-by-track breakdown - I'll amend the line-up.
I think even in the Anthology he is only speaking of playing "the bassline", not playing the instrument bass.
"Drive My Car" was also available on the "Yesterday...and Today" album.
SD, I think the "maybe i love you line" is sung in unison by paul and john. WHY? Because until revolver they didn't have the luxury of the adt (artificial double tracking) so if that vocal part was recorded in only one track, i dont see how john could posible sings two vocals parts live.
Paul and John both sang almost every line together with George joining in for the chorus. The only line someone sang solo was "maybe I'll love you" by John. Check the harmony vocals on The Beatles: Rock Band if you don't believe me. I'm quite sure they had double-tracking in 1965.
Yes they had double tracking in 1965, but until revolver they hadn't artificial (automatic) double tracking. So until revolver, if they wanted double tracked vocals (which they used it a lot in the early records) they had to record the vocals twice, and for that they needed two tracks. And "the maybe i love you" vocals were recorded in one track. For better explication go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_double_tracking
¿So Paul can't play piano and lead guitar at same time because are recorded in one track, but john can sing two vocals parts at the same time?
Now you have to check again drive my car harmony vocals in rock band because the video shows that Paul sings too the "maybe i love you" line.
In fact the only mistake that the rock band did is show George singing with paul in the drive my car verses and not john.
check this video from the rock band video game ( especially in the minute 2:11 . paul singing that line)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNVQ9e2zEJs
All of you seems to know quite a lot about The Beatles. But I'm not sure that you really feel the music.
I really can't understand how you can consider that its Paul who sings "and maybe I love you". Even wilder is the theory, that its Paul and John. Common! Its George who sings that line. No doubt at all.
jaaa, well so it's George, Day tripper . I love the beatles music, we are only discussing here for fun, and I feel the music, that’s why I like to talk about it.
Returning to the "maybe I love you" discussion, I think I gave a pretty good explanation why " the maybe I love you" line is sung by paul and john in unison and not john double tracked. It's not a crazy theory, you know.
Again, there is no room for a discussion, no room for a theory. Its George, who sings "and maybe I love you", no matter what would be possible. Just listen to it, you can hear it.
Wasn't the line originally "You can buy me DIAMOND rings"?
It's John & Paul with an emphasis on John singing "and maybe I'll love you..."
Day Tripper be trippin'! John's voice is unquestionably the most prominent, and George can't be heard at all.
According to Anthology, "you can by me diamond rings" was the original line---but they balked at that. You've got to admit, "baby you can drive my car" is more unique than "baby you can buy me diamond rings".
The Anthology book says golden rings, not diamond ones. McCartney says the same in Many Years From Now. I've never read an original source where either Lennon or McCartney mention diamond rings.
This is one track that absolutely KILLS in mono. Blows the stereo version(s) away.