The composition
‘In My Life’ was composed at Kenwood, John Lennon’s house in Weybridge, England.
I used to write upstairs where I had about ten Brunell tape recorders all linked up, I still have them. I’d mastered them over the period of a year or two – I could never make a rock ‘n’ roll record but I could make some far out stuff on it. I wrote it upstairs, that was one where I wrote the lyrics first and then sang it. That was usually the case with things like ‘In My Life’ and [‘Across The] Universe’ and some of the ones that stand out a bit…I think on ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘In My Life’ Paul helped with the middle eight, to give credit where it’s due.
Rolling Stone, 1970
McCartney’s recollection of the song is somewhat different. Although he and Lennon said much over the years about the backgrounds to their songs, only when discussing ‘In My Life’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ did their memories substantially differ.
I arrived at John’s house for a writing session and he had the very nice opening stanzas of the song. As many of our songs were, it was the first pangs of nostalgia for Liverpool…As I recall, he didn’t have a tune to it, and my recollection, I think, is at variance with John’s. I said, ‘Well, you haven’t got a tune, let me just go and work on it.’ And I went down to the half-landing, where John had a Mellotron, and I sat there and put together a tune based in my mind on Smokey Robinson and the Miracles…
I recall writing the whole melody. And it actually does sound very like me, if you analyse it. I was obviously working to lyrics. The melody’s structure is very me. So my recollection is saying to John, ‘Just go and have a cup of tea or something. Let me be with this for ten minutes on my own and I’ll do it’…
I tried to keep it melodic but a bit bluesy, with the minors and little harmonies, and then my recollection is going back up into the room and saying, ‘Got it, great! Good tune, I think. What d’you think?’ John said, ‘Nice,’ and we continued working with it from then, using that melody and filling out the rest of the verses…
So it was John’s original inspiration, I think my melody, I think my guitar riff. I don’t want to be categorical about this, but that’s my recollection… I find it very gratifying that out of everything we wrote, we only appear to disagree over two songs.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
One of the first songs to be recorded for Rubber Soul, The Beatles recorded the rhythm track of ‘In My Life’ on 18 October 1965. This they did in three takes, after a period of rehearsal.
The instrumental break was left without a solo, as the group was undecided as to how it should sound. This dilemma was solved on 22 October by George Martin.
‘In My Life’ is one of my favourite songs because it is so much John. A super track and such a simple song. There’s a bit where John couldn’t decide what to do in the middle and, while they were having their tea break, I put down a baroque piano solo which John didn’t hear until he came back. What I wanted was too intricate for me to do live, so I did it with a half-speed piano, then sped it up, and he liked it.
Anthology
Martin originally tried the solo on a Hammond organ, which didn’t give the desired sound. He then switched to a piano, performing the celebrated solo slower and an octave lower than it sounds on the final version, so that it gave the desired harpsichord effect when sped up.
I did it with what I call a ‘wound up’ piano, which was at double speed – partly because you get a harpsichord sound by shortening the attack of everything, but also because I couldn’t play it at real speed anyway. So I played it on piano at exactly half normal speed, and down an octave. When you bring the tape back to normal speed again, it sounds pretty brilliant. It’s a means of tricking everybody into thinking you can do something really well.
Sounds Of The Sixties, BBC Radio 2
I love this song and I adore these comments as well. May I please try to clarify this issue. I believe they are referring to the musical link created by the melody of “With lovers and friends… ” heading back to … “In my life”. That may be considered the “middle 8” here, and it is genius. The song is genius, combining classical music with popular music and coming up with something unique and beautiful.
Paul is only writing that he took the musical ideas John handed him, told him to go have a cup of tea, sat down and put it all together. John is only saying he wrote the lyrics and had the general musical idea beginning with “There are places I remember…”. They really do not disagree that much. Both could be basically right. Paul could feel he tied it all together musically and John could remember that he had the musical idea and Paul tied it together with a twist on “With lovers and friends…”. Both agree on George Martin’s classical music input on the piano… Are they so far apart? I don’t think so. John certainly did not have a complete musical composition when he went to Paul. Paul certainly did not say he came up with the basic idea… they both deserve credit, and we may accept both 80 % to 90 % of both accounts.
Peace and love to all.
Cheers.
Vive les Beatles pour une éternité !
Umm… not quite. John is saying that all Paul contributed (musically) was the instrumental middle 8 bars, and some harmony ideas. This is a Lennon song musically and lyrically through and through.
Paul disagrees, read Many Years From Now
There seems to be disagreement about what constitutes the middle 8 in this song. In And I Love Her, the middle 8 is “a love like ours, could never die…etc” In that sense, this song has no middle 8. George Martin seems to be taking full credit for the piano break, so I don’t think John is referring to that when crediting Paul.
Actually he says Paul contributed with the melodies of the middle 8 plus the harmony/instrumental of the whole song. This is a rare case of a true 50/50 Lennon-Macca composition.
John wrote the music to the verses and all of the lyrics. Paul and John wrote the music to the middle eight, which happens to be the chorus as well. That’s what John said numerous times in many interviews and he would have no reason to lie. In My Life and Michelle are the standouts on Rubber Soul.
Yes! Exactly what I loved about this song. It perfectly sits in the pocket. The little plucking feeling (I think played on a Harpsichord) feels like it could have been taken right from any of the greatest classical masterpieces.
well, with the proviso that none of us were there, the disagreements are interesting. Basically Lennon is saying the melody is his and Paul helped tie the song together musically. Basically 80% Lennon and 20% Paul. Paul is saying that he wrote the intro bit and the music for the song…more of a 50/50 mix…Similar to their disagreement on Rigby…Lennon says he wrote about 50% of the lyrics…Paul said Lennon contributed about 20% with George, Ringo and Pete Shotten all helping with lyrics…So, who’s right? Who knows?
Pete Shotton in his book about Lennon said he was there when Eleanor Rigby was written and Lennon’s lyrical contribution was “Zilch”. Likewise, McCartney swears he wrote the melody to “In My Life” on a keyboard on a stair landing at Lennon’s house during one of their twice weekly three hour songwriting sessions. Lennon claimed to have done acid “A thousand times” and was a heroin addict so why would his memory be reliable?
Just because John did lots of LSD and heroin, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of remembering the past correctly.
I’m not saying that his or the other Beatles’ memories were perfect – nobody does.
The song belongs to John. Sorry, Paul.
Oh no. The song belongs to The Beatles. And if even John admitted Paul contributed it is a true Lennon/McCartney song.
I think Paul is amazingly talented, I mean at a genius level music wise Paul also seems like a great person. John and he were the best of friends. Paul however gets tiresome sometimes on these type of issues. So unnecessary.
I didn’t realize you were there.
Considering the number of songs they worked on and the fact that people’s memories can be unreliable,if they only disagreed on who wrote two of those songs, I’d say that ain’t bad at all. In both cases they agree that there was some collaboration; the disagreement is over the extent. I can easily imagine how such disagreements arise- they frequently arise in other bands. That’s one reason why crediting all the songs they wrote to Lennon-MccCartney was a good idea: there was no need to argue over the precise amount of credit each one should have for each song. At some points John wrote more; at others Paul wrote more. It seems to have more less evened out over time.
Of all the Beatles songs I love, know by heart, and have played for decades (which is almost all of them), this is, at once, the most heartbreaking and exhilarating.
Whenever I hear this track (and I’ve heard it thousands of times) images of people always flash through my mind. Like a dream, almost. But not a dream, just memories crowding one upon the other that feel dream-like at this point.
Sadness. Happiness. Melancholy. Wishfuillness. All of it in a rush.
Only music (lyrics, melody, and arrangement) can do that to a human. Nothing else.
Of all the Beatle songs, and I love them all, it is this one that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. Sometimes I purposely won’t play it as I know the lyrics will instantly bring me back to people and places long gone.
Who is the woman Loved mentioned in the song?
This is the all time best “life” song that has ever been written. The words the melody the feeling. My wife and I walked my daughter down the isle to an amazing piano player do this in slow tempo. Hope some of you Beatle fans can one day do the same at your daughters wedding.
A fabulous idea!!! Congratulations!!!
This song ranks up with the greatest Beatles tunes, Strawberry Fields, I Am The Walrus, Elanor Rigby, and A Day In The Life. Those songs were all masterpieces, the kind of songs where you could say, even if a person never did anything else in life, that song alone made them great.
In My Life has now been analysed sylistically, mathematically, by structure, tone, melody etc, by some Harvard people, and they found a very high probability for who made this song (the music that is).
You’ll find the allegedly convincing result here: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-lennon-mccartney-statistical-analysis-authorship.html
The so-called scientific study “proves” Paul’s contribution to “In My Life” was minimal which is at variance with his recollection. I hope Paul doesn’t give in to any possible urge he may have to publicly respond to this. The song is a Lennon/McCartney masterpiece and let’s leave it at that.
All that matters is it’s a great Lennon / McCartney song as so many of them are. Just let it be.
If you meant to tell people to “just let it be”, as it’s a bad thing to try and seek the truth about these things, I think that appears as kind of an arrogant thing to say. It being a “great Lennon / McCartney song” isn’t necessarily “all that matters” for everyone. But maybe I misinterpreted you (sorry if that’s the case, then I’ll stand corrected). Anyway, it’s perfectly legitimate and actually very interesting for many Beatles-fans to get knowledge about these things.
About the study – which of course isn’t 100% scientific in itself – personally, I don’t think Paul didn’t contribute to this song. He clearly did. Far more than 0.018% or whatever that meant (I don’t think that’s what it actually meant..). What seems to be a reasonable reading of it though, is that John’s recollection of this is more believable than Paul’s. Nothing more.
PS I’m the same guy as “Vince”, had to create a new account.
Why are you here? This type of discussion is what this site is meant for.
That article misrepresents the actual findings of the study https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/xcq8a1v1/release/5
“Our model produces a probability of 18.9% that McCartney wrote the verse, and a 43.5% probability that McCartney wrote the bridge, with a large amount of uncertainty about the latter. Because it is known that Lennon wrote the lyrics, it would not be surprising that he also wrote the music. Lennon claimed (Compton, 1988) that McCartney helped with the bridge, but that was the extent of his contribution. Breaking apart the song into the verse and the bridge separately, it is apparent that the verse is much more consistent stylistically with Lennon’s songwriting. Thus, a conclusion by our model is that the verse is consistent with Lennon’s songwriting style, but the bridge less so. The bridge having a probability that McCartney wrote the song closer to 0.5 may be indicative of their collaborative nature, as suggested by Lennon, of this part of the song.”
However they do not see the findings as clear proof of authorship: “While it is tempting to interpret the results of our model as revelations of a song’s true author, other interpretations are just as compelling. For example, a disputed song such as “In My Life” which according to our model has a high probability of the verse and bridge each being written by Lennon, may in fact have been written by McCartney who stated he composed the song in the style of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (Turner, 1999), but actually wrote in the style of Lennon, whether consciously or subconsciously.”
Not that all the calculations are completely reliable anyway – they have the bridge to And I Love Her – clearly based on a Lennon idea – as 26% likely to be written by McCartney, while the bridge to Norwegian Wood – clearly a McCartney idea and acknowledged as such by Lennon – is only 33% likely to be written by McCartney. Similarly, Thank You Girl is listed as 10% likely to be written by McCartney despite that it was a co-write, certainly Lennon started it but McCartney contributed more than 10%. So while this study is helpful and illuminating, it shouldn’t be used as “proof” of anything.
Overall, yes, it’s definitely a Lennon song.
But I don’t doubt for a second that McCartney contributed to it
– on the “though I know I’ll never lose affection” section
– possibly when creating their vocal harmony, slight changes in the melody became necessary
Although the mathematical approach sounds appealing to me, it appears they are concluding that Paul contributed less than John even said he did. And they then add that Paul wrote The Word, and John said he wrote it. So, I’m going to choose to believe that John wrote the verses melody, and Paul wrote the middle 8 melody. And then I’ll repeat my mantra that part of the magic of the early and mid Beatles was that they didn’t worry much about who was contributing what, and their surrendering of their individual egos was what made them so much better together than they were apart. They completed each other artistically in such a perfect way. It was only later after the bond was broken that they started worrying about individual credit. In the early days they spoke in terms of “we” I think.
It’s wrong that Lennon claimed that he wrote The Word all by himself. At least, in the BBC interview he did on Desember 6, 1980, he said it was a Lennon/McCartney collaboration. He listed every single Beatles song with their respective writer/composer(s) in this interview.
John did not list EVERY song.
I never liked the melody that much, and the harmonies are harsh to my ears. All I can contribute is that the melody goes up at the end: I loved YOU MORE steps up in a way very similar to: I believe in YesTERDAY, which might be a bit of evidence in favor of Paul. In John’s favor, the word “life” is straggled over several notes: all my li-uy-uy-ife, though some have changed. Like: and when I ask you to be my hi hi hine in ISHKB.
I heard this song recently after many a year and it kind of resonated with me. My takeaway is that a current “love” was John’s inspiration for writing it. But I can’t seem to find anything that talks about who that is. Does anyone know who John is referring too?
I thought the lyric is I love you more, but it’s I’ll love you more???
Most lyric sites have it in present tense: I love you more
I believe that John was writing about his mom, Julia…
… see my longer comment below…
The mathematical approach fails to take into account Paul and John spent 10’s of thousands of hours together playing, writing, traveling, and come form the same background. Paul knew John and John knew Paul. Relationships build similarities far too complex for mathematical interpretation. The song is brilliant in almost every sense of the word. John and Paul, 50/50, 80/20, 60/40 in any order or any percentage, are complimentary. Two distinct voices and minds coming together to create something greater than each individually. The combination is what makes the Beatles songs, along with George and Ringo, the masterpieces they are.
In the lyrics “in my life, I loved you more”
Who is he talking about specifically??
This was the reading at our wedding. It was the second marriage for both of us and our daughter-in-law did it justice. I hope all our adult kids recognized we were honoring their other parents.
Hi. Fantastic site but can I just makeva suggestion re one line in the original lyric….
‘In the circle of the Abbey’ refers to the Abbey’ cinema rather than the Childwall Abbey pub..
. The abbey cinema was just up the road from Penny Lane/Smithdown Place and on the bus route described into town. Naturally ‘in the circle’ also fits as a cinema rather than the pub, which is a lovely place but 2-3 miles off the bus route.
In the late 1970s the cinema closed and the building became home to a supermarket called Lennon’s (part of a chain and unrelated to John!) and later different supermarkets / bingo hall/snooker club.
The Childwall Abbey pub was indeed known to John, though. John Paul and George played there as PaJoGe for George’s brother’s wedding reception in the late 1950s
Thank you. That’s very helpful.
Just about my favorite song by The Beatles. Despite all the debate on who contributed what to composing the song, this is a great example of the of the parts being greater than the sum of the whole. From Ringo’s signature drumming which is very pronounced and stands out in the verse and chorus, to George’s intro and closing lead guitar notes, to George Martin’s baroque piano interlude, to Paul’s underlying bass driving and pushing the verse portions, to John’s beautiful and soulful lead vocal and the timeless harmonies throughout, this to me was The Beatles at their very best. In a mere 2 minutes and 27 seconds, this song inspires us to reflect on our own lives, as John does, remembering people, places and events in the past, but finding that the most important and closest of memories are for those that we love. Simply a beautiful and universal message for us all.
In our wedding we each chose 1 song to play for each other.
The church we were members of refused to play this song for me at my wedding. This not only ended our membership to the church. It ended my association to organized religion. I just suddenly realized how petty and controlling religion was and I just had enough of it.
I am glad I left that whole hypocrytical lifestyle behind me. I never would be where I ended up had I caved to that pressure and gave in.
I was just amazed that such a great song where I was telling my bride of everything I had experienced none compared to her… could be seen as being obscene and vulgar…
When that organized religion was exposed years later in the abuse of children by priests…
I felt kinda vindicated by the descision to leave.
It’s remarkable to see how invested people can get in one “side” of an ambiguous division of credit. As a student of contemporary pop culture (literally, in an academic sense), it’s clear to me that this discrepancy – and others like it – is largely related to the fact John only ever had a decade in which he could reflect on this body of work and make his perspective known.
The obvious pride John took in this song, and his sense that it was both a personal achievement and a milestone in his evolution as a writer, seems to have made him overstate how little Paul contributed to it. In turn, it seems as though Paul reflexively overstated his contributions. (It’s important to bear in mind that there are dozens of exemplary compositions attributed to the two, and neither typically had any trouble admitting they had minimal involvement when that was the case.) Since Paul has made it sound like a 50/50 split, and John characterized it as 90/10, the reality is probably something more akin to 70/30. It’s entirely possible that John had put so much into the composition by the time he shared it with Paul, he truly didn’t realize how much the subsequent development was a combined effort; this is a fairly common phenomenon that occurs in long-term writing partnerships.
It’s a bit sad and ironic that John’s song about recognizing the inherent value of relationships of the past would, itself, become ground zero for such a debate.
As far as the song goes, it is top 5 for me and i.love how John closes singing with that higher octave, lending to the beautiful vulnerability. A passing thought on who wrote it? It point to “I’ll Be Back”, a song no one disputes John wrote the beginning and main parts. “You know if you break my heart I’ll go (followed by a mini resolution) …But I’ll be back again” is a very similar melodic style to “There are places I remember (followed by) some have gone and some remain”. As for the “do do do do do do” individual guitar note riffs…they are very similar, the only difference is that it starts “In My Life’s” intro and follows “I’ll Be Back’s” opening intro. The middle melody, I think Paul did help. John’s lyrics 100%
Lewisohn got it wrong on there being a tambourine on this.
The “tambourine” is actually a ching-ring, mounted above one of the cymbals on Ringo’s drum kit. It’s similar to a tambourine on sound because it has the same small finger-style chimes. Ringo moves between the ching-ring and the bell of the cymbal during the verses.
There are photographs of Ringo’s kit with a ching-ring mounted from the sessions.