Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 20, 29 October 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 3 December 1965 (UK), 6 December 1965 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, harmonium
George Harrison: tambourine
Ringo Starr: drums
Available on:
Past Masters
1
We Can Work It Out was released as a double a-side single with Day Tripper in December 1965. It was recorded during the sessions for the Rubber Soul album, and released on the same day.
The lyrics might have been personal. It is often a good way to talk to someone or to work your own thoughts out. It saves you going to a psychiatrist, you allow yourself to say what you might not say in person.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Recorded over two days in sessions amounting to 11 hours - The Beatles' longest time spent completing a song to date - We Can Work It Out bore the distinctive hallmarks of both its songwriters.
Paul McCartney wrote the upbeat verses and chorus, reportedly after a disagreement with Jane Asher, while John Lennon had the idea for the pessimistic "Life is very short" counterpoint.
In We Can Work It Out, Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, 'We can work it out, we can work it out' - real optimistic, y'know, and me impatient: 'Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.'
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
McCartney's contribution was written at Rembrandt, the house in Heswall, Cheshire he had bought for his father in July 1964. In the dining room of the large mock-Tudor house was a piano, which McCartney often used to work out new songs on. However, We Can Work It Out was written on an acoustic guitar in one of the bedrooms.
I had the idea, the title, had a couple of verses and the basic idea for it, then I took it to John to finish it off and we wrote the middle together. Which is nice: 'Life is very short. There's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.' Then it was George Harrison's idea to put the middle into waltz time, like a German waltz. That came on the session, it was one of the cases of the arrangement being done on the session.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Unlike its single counterpart Day Tripper, We Can Work It Out never became a fixture of The Beatles' live repertoire. They did, however, make three promo films for the song on 23 November 1965, at Twickenham Film Studios in London, in which they mimed to the song.
The black-and-white clips were immediately distributed to broadcasting organisations. The most commonly-used version of We Can Work It Out was a straightforward performance piece with the group wearing black suits; in another the group wore their Shea Stadium gear, and the third opened with a shot of John Lennon with a sunflower over his eye.
In the studio
The basic track of We Can Work It Out was laid down on 20 October 1965, while the group were recording Rubber Soul. In a four-hour session The Beatles rehearsed and then recorded just two takes of the rhythm track.
They then spent nearly five further hours overdubbing instruments, including Lennon's distinctive harmonium in the verses. The vocals took up much of the evening session, and were completed during a two-hour session on 29 October.
The other thing that arrived on the session was we found an old harmonium hidden away in the studio, and said, 'Oh, this'd be a nice colour on it.' We put the chords on with the harmonium as a wash, just a basic held chord, what you would call a pad these days.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Chart success
Day Tripper was originally intended to be The Beatles' final single of 1965. However, We Can Work It Out was felt by the group and Brian Epstein to be the more commercial song.
Lennon disagreed, and fought to retain Day Tripper as the lead song. The result was the single being marketed as the world's first double a-side, which was released on 3 December in the UK - the same day as Rubber Soul; and three days later in the US.
Of the two songs, We Can Work It Out was more commonly requested by record buyers, and was likewise favoured by radio stations. In the UK it entered the chart at number one five days after its release, where it remained for five weeks and sold over a million copies.
We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper also topped the charts in the US. It was The Beatles' fastest-selling single since Can't Buy Me Love. It was with this release that Lennon's dominance of The Beatles began to cede to McCartney, who was steadily becoming more influential as a musical leader of the group.
Related articles:
- Recording: We Can Work It Out
- Recording, mixing: We Can Work It Out, Day Tripper
- UK single release: We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper
- Day Tripper
- US single release: We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper
paul is the only lead vocalist on the song
On the chorus which he is mainly responsible for, Lennon's voice is the most prominent.
"We can work it out/ We can work it out" is the chorus, and was written by McCartney. You're referring to the middle eight, which John wrote/helped Paul write.
I wouldn't agree that John's voice is more prominent, though.
John only sings harmony to Paul's lead throughout the middle eight, although his voice MAY be slightly LOUDER.
When there are two voices singing the same words, the line between who sings "lead" and who sings "harmony" is rendered meaningless, if not eliminated altogether. If John's voice is louder during the "Life is very short" bits then it IS more prominent. Which is not to call it a "lead" vocal, since there IS no single lead, just two voices harmonizing - although it might be called a twin-lead or something.
Interesting how all this disagreement has to do with just the TERMINOLOGY, since everyone agrees whose voice is whose! If I were doing the write-up, I'd credit Paul with "lead and harmony vocals" and John with just "harmony vocals". I don't think George sang on any part of this (Carlos and Lansdale can't hear him either), but I'll defer to Joe's claim that he "obviously" sang backup.
Hmm, it hadn't occurred to me that George might not be singing on this at all. I'll recheck my sources and see what I can come up with.
No need to check the sources. There are just two vocals, Paul and John.
And Paul double-tracked in the verses, obviously.
I'm agree with Albert Cunning, John only sings harmony. The lead vocalist is paul. In the middle, paul is leading too with john singing below him.
This kind of things are the reason why paul talks everyday to defend his beatle legacy, because everyday people tries to rewrite (changing small bits than become big when you take all) the histoy in john's favour.
Paul has to defend his Beatle legacy every day! How interesting.
I would think that with books and interviews, he has already defined his position on who did what.
Who else of importance could dispute him?
In matters concerning partnerships, it is usually the deceased person who has to be defended against revisionism.
Yeah, but you see a lot people in beatles forums and the media complaining about paul "rewriting the history" only because his version is different from lennon`s, which by the way had the bad habit to change his recollections about the beatles as much his clothes.
Since Lennon was a Beatle, he earned the right to say what he felt whether he changed his clothes or not.
Paul's recollections doesn't seem to be that much different from Lennon's with a few exceptions.
Remember that both of them are talking about recollections that occured over 40 years ago.
Naturally, more fans would defend someone who has been dead for almost 29 years and nothing is going to change that.
There are a lot of differences between Paul's version and John's version about "who wrote what". It's not only the eleanor rigby and in my life disagreements like some experts claim, they have quite different recollections about who was the composer of a considerable quantity of songs: There's place, ticket to ride, this boy, do you want to know a secret, you're going to lose that girl... And the list goes on. We can work it out is a minor example of that, paul says the middle was co-written, but lennon said that was his. I don't who is right, because obviously I wasn't there with them, but most of the people doesn't take Paul's version as seriously as john's, even when the discussion is about a song like this, which is mainly McCartney's.
Returning to the "we can work it out vocal debate", it's your decision to change the mistake about john sharing the lead, because of course this is your "bible", but I tell you most, if not all, the books and websites about the Beatles coincide with what I'm saying. I mean, I had read a lot books about The Beatles and all mentioned Paul as the only lead vocalist in We can work it out.
If you're going to give john a lead vocal credit in we can work it out only because his voice sounds a little bit more prominent in the middle(which I think is not the case), you might as well do the same with Paul in mean mister mustard (his harmony vocal sounds louder than john's voice for a great part of the song) or in Norwegian wood (Paul's voice sounds louder than john's in the middle section , and according to the musicologist Ian McDonald ,McCartney sings the melody in that part). If you're writing the Beatles "bible" you have to be bit more objective and fair. I would like to see you change the mistake about john singing lead with paul on we can work it out, but I think probably it's not going to happen.
All said, I think your website is great.
Ps: forgive my English, my native tongue is Spanish.
Both Lennon and McCartney were listed as having sung 'vocals'. I preferred not to distinguish between lead, harmony and backing vocals here (although George obviously does the latter) as evidently there's some conjecture surrounding their roles.
I've listened to the remasters a bit more closely, though, and I think you're right - Lennon is doing harmony vocals, McCartney is on lead.
Goodness me, the mono version has a lot more bass in it than the stereo.
Glad you like the site Sebastian, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I did not say that John was the lead vocalist for any part of We Can Work It Out.
I stated that "Lennon's voice is the most prominent" for one section of the song.
What was so fascinating about the Beatles' vocals was that whether Paul was singing lead or harmony, his voice was virtually always the higher (pitch-wise, not volume-wise) part. So if it was a John song, Paul's harmony would almost always be the higher of the two - and generally the highest or middle parts when George harmonized with them; John generally singing the lowest part be it lead or harmony. In some cases Paul's harmonies would be louder than John's or more distinct in the mix owing to the higher pitch; however the writer almost always sang the lead part on their own songs.
Additionally, sometimes the harmonies were so unique that they became almost a 'counterpoint' lead vocal due to both the structure of them as well as their relative volume to the lead vocal.
Also...on the new remastered version of this song, I could swear there's a banjo or second guitar on the 2nd bridge, and for that matter, a second guitar on the verses. I'm sure I'm wrong about the former and it's just John picking the strings of the guitar with lots of compression; but if there isn't a second guitar on the verses, then they've ADT'd John's guitar.
Lead vocal, harmony vocal . what shalls? Its one of their best songs, because of their vocals and it doenst intrest me, if Johns vocal is a lead vocal or a harmony. I never eben thought about it.
The "Life is very short" is Johns baby and its the counterpoint to the part of Paul.
I hear a guitar on a clean setting. Perhaps George's Gretsch?
I think it's interesting that people are fussing and fighting about who's singing the lead vocal on the "fussing and fighting" part.
When I was younger, I always had me favourite Beatle songs and me least favourite Beatle songs. "We Can Work It Out" always got a fast-forward from me. I never much cared for it....often regarded it as "McCartney Fluff".
Now that I am older I find this song more appealing to my ears, especially John's bluesy middle eight. It's very haunting to me, sound wise. Whenever I hear this song now, rather than skip over/FFWD, my old ears wait and relish in the middle eight.
Yesterday and Today was my first Beatles Album. I loved it! I got it in about 1967 when I was six. Lennon and McCartney had some of the best vocal harmony's in R&R. Their harmony in the chorus of We Can Work it Out is my personal favorite. Johns voice in that song was perfect.
I don´t think George has a vocal harmony part, it´s John´s double track, as well as Paul lead vocal is double tracked too(there wasn´t ADT at that time), George only playing tambourine ? I don´t think so. I´ve also read somewhere that Paul played acoustic guitar and George the bass (??????) Any idea ?
I agree that I have never heard George in the harmony's here. The middle 8 is probably my favorite Beatles harmony and I've listened to it closely many many times. My question to all is I cannot tell the difference between the vocals in the two middle 8 sections. The harmony is so close I believe that the same vocal recording was used for both sections? Can anyone tell a difference?
I was quite surprised to learn that it was John who played that distinctive harmonium which contributes so much to the feel of this song. Music writer Ian MacDonald, who seems to be a bit of a Paul partisan, nonetheless had this to say about that: "[Lennon's] passages are so suited to his Salvation Army harmonium that it's hard to imagine them not being composed on it. The swell-pedal crescendos he adds to the verses are, on the other hand, textural washes added in the studio, the first of their kind on a Beatles record and signposts to the enriched sound-palette of Revolver."
"Since Lennon was a Beatle, he earned the right to say what he felt whether he changed his clothes or not."
That's obviously true. It becomes a problem when he's lying through his bloody teeth, as in the Rolling Stone interview, which of course came out as a book, which sold a lot of copies, which is STILL the source of Beatles information for a distressingly large number of people.
It is easy to judge in hindsight what was uttered and printed over forty years ago.
I believe they played this song live only on their December 1965 UK tour. Would be interesting to hear, but lamentably no recordings exist from that tour...at least I've never come across any!