Originally released on Rubber Soul in the UK, ‘Nowhere Man’ was born of John Lennon’s feelings of isolation in his Weybridge home, where he spent many hours in solitary contemplation away from the mayhem of Beatlemania.
I’d spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good and I finally gave up and lay down. Then ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
In March 1966, the Evening Standard newspaper published an article by journalist Maureen Cleave about John Lennon’s home life. While the piece became notorious for Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” statement, it revealed much more about the off-duty life of the Lennons.
He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England. ‘Physically lazy,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more.’
Evening Standard
The theme was touched upon again in Hunter Davies’ authorised biography of The Beatles.
I can get up and start doing nothing straight away. I just sit on the step and look into space and think until it’s time to go to bed…If I am on my own for three days, doing nothing, I almost leave myself completely. I’m just not here. Cyn doesn’t realise it. I’m up there watching myself, or I’m at the back of my head. I can see my hands and realise they’re moving, but it’s a robot who’s doing it.
The Beatles, Hunter Davies
‘Nowhere Man’ was written by Lennon during the late stages of Rubber Soul, when he and Paul McCartney were struggling to come up with enough songs for the album.
I was just sitting, trying to think of a song, and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and going nowhere. Once I’d thought of that, it was easy. It all came out. No, I remember now, I’d actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. I was cheesed off and went for a lie down, having given up. Then I thought of myself as ‘Nowhere Man’ – sitting in his nowhere land.
The Beatles, Hunter Davies
When McCartney arrived the next day to begin a songwriting session, he found Lennon asleep in his conservatory.
When I came out to write with him the next day, he was kipping on the couch, very bleary-eyed. It was really an anti-John song. He told me later, he didn’t tell me then, he said he’d written it about himself, feeling like he wasn’t going anywhere. I think it was actually about the state of his marriage. It was in a period where he was a bit dissatisfied with what was going on; however, it led to a very good song. He treated it as a third-person song, but he was clever enough to say, ‘Isn’t he a bit like you and me?’ – ‘Me’ being the final word.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
‘Nowhere Man’ made its way into The Beatles’ live repertoire, and was one of the songs performed during their final concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on 29 August 1966.
The song also made a brief appearance in the 1968 animation Yellow Submarine, when The Beatles sang it to Jeremy, a creature living in the Sea of Nothing.
In the studio
The Beatles recorded ‘Nowhere Man’ over two days. The first of these was 21 October 1965, when they taped two takes of the song after a period of rehearsal.
The first of these takes was a false start; the second was a rhythm track played on just electric guitars, with a three-part vocal harmony introduction.
The next day the group began a remake, completing the rhythm track in three attempts. They then overdubbed vocals onto the second of these, including John Lennon’s double tracked lead vocals.
We were always forcing [the Abbey Road staff] into things they didn’t want to do. ‘Nowhere Man’ was one. I remember we wanted very treble-y guitars, which they are, they’re among the most treble-y guitars I’ve ever heard on record. The engineer said, ‘All right, I’ll put full treble on it,’ and we said, ‘That’s not enough’, and he said, ‘But that’s all I’ve got, I’ve only got one pot and that’s it!’ And we replied, ‘Well, put that through another lot of faders and put full treble up on that. And if that’s not enough we’ll go through another lot of faders’…Anyway you’d then find, ‘Oh, it worked!’ And they were secretly glad because they had been the engineer who’d put three times the allowed value of treble on a song. I think they were quietly proud of all those things.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
I’ve always thought of ‘Nowhere Man’ as a perfect, pop-rock song. It’s complete – just the right length for 60’S AM radio, Lennon’s vocal, the splendid harmonies, the ideal guitar solo ending with the descending chords before the chime of the last note. All in all, perfection in pop music. It’s been my long-time favorite Beatles single.
I agree. My feelings too.
I agree. totally agree.
I perfectly agree with you. Still one of my very Beatles favourite.
i know how lennon felt,i had the same feelings about myself as well.we’re all nowhere men or nowhere people.that’s the whole universal message of the song.it cheers you up when you’re down.it makes you think.one of his best vocals and the three part harmonies could’ve been recorded a cappella and it would’ve still been superb.
I’ve thought that the point would be made better if they had done that. It’s funny, because for a while, I forgot the song was in THIRD person! But then it came up out of the shuffle, and the a cappella introduction blew my mind.
Did any of that make sense?
This one is really interesting!
Here is what Everett writes:
“A fourth track with Harrison’s and Lennon’s overdubbed Strats … mostly in tight unison but the two players are betrayed by intonation-related beats and by different parts at the second retransition (2:03-2:06) were on the left [channel], except for the two-man solo, which was placed on the right… (Tom Hartman alerted me to the doubled Strat part in May-June 1999 conversations.”
In 1980 Lennon recalled that they ran outputs from his and George’s amplifiers and attached the cables to a small speaker. The speaker was then miked and fed to the board, adding to the treble effect that they demanded for the guitar sound.
Thanks for the info about the two-man guitar solo!
Is it just me, or do the boys go slightly flat by the end of the vocal introduction? The transition from the vocals to the instrumentation has always stuck out to me because of that.
You must have perfect pitch. I do and I always thought the same thing.
That’s always bugged me as well. The first note out of the bass makes it clear. Also, in my opinion, a terribly unorganized and overly busy bass line.
One Paul’s most memorable bass lines, keeps the whole thing moving along while creating another trademark melody.
Same with the intro to “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.” Ouch.
One of the best solo guitar instrumentals of all time.
Surely the best by one of the Beatles.
I’ve always thought Nowhere Man was a perfect song recorded on a particularly good recording day. The backing track without the vocals is perfect. Almost no vocals needed. But then here come the best vocalists in all of rock and roll and it completes the song. George’s guitar fills are perfectly timed. I always have to listen to Nowhere Man until the end when Paul adds the final harmony.
I agree with Jon S, the best vocalists to grace rock ‘n roll. We hear the harmonizing magic here on this song, “If I Needed Someone” and of course their earlier songs like “This Boy” and “Yes It Is”. With “Because” on their last recorded album we’re treated to it one last time. No better three-part harmony anywhere.
“Nowhere Man, please listen, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Time after time you refuse to even listen, I wouldn’t mind if I knew what I was missing.”
Hmm. You Won’t See Me was recorded at the last Rubber Soul session, apparently, about three weeks after Nowhere Man, but does anyone know which song was written first?
Ha, well done!
I always found these two songs one of the VERY few repetitive moments for The Beatles with the very similar “ooh-lalala”s, but it turns out even the lyrics are similar!
Nowhere man is still great, though.
Sang it two days ago in a pub, went down well!
There was a book that stated this, opining that “You Won’t See Me” and “Nowhere Man” was the worst sequencing of consecutive songs on any Beatles album. I disagree, thinking that there are countless other track sequences that are worse. However, what I want to know is if this was your original idea or if your thinking was influenced by this book whose title I can’t recall.
I believe that was Ian MacDonald’s Revolution In The Head.
Great catch.
Local Cheshire legend has it that when the Fabs arrived at the Royalty Theatre, City Road, Chester on May 15th 1963, they dropped off their gear and asked where they could go for a walk. An electrician told them of the cottage named “Nowhere” which they could find by walking through the park and across the stone bridge towards Handbridge. It is claimed locally that this stayed with Lennon.
funny when i reaad that John wrote this about himself, because i read years ago it was about the Maharishi they went to see
You may be thinking of Paul’s “The Fool on the Hill.”
that was Sexy Sadie, Nowhere man was written before they went to India
Yes I have heard this from a reliable source. It is also very close to the bear and billet pub where John’s grandmother was born. Maybe they were visiting there also.
I lived in Chester from 1962 – 1970 and I walked to school across Handbridge over the weir of the river Dee, i recall that area very vividly, I can see Lennon being impressed by the atmosphere. Thanks for the memory!
This “new” information that John & George played the solo simultaneously on twin Fender Stratocasters rings false for me. One, George played the lead live on his Epiphone hollow body, not on a Fender. Two, It doesn’t sound like two guitars, it sounds like ONE GUITAR. Three, Mark Lewisohn makes zero reference to this in his “Recording Sessions” book.
I DON’T BUY IT.
George was the “defacto” lead guitarist of the band, therefore the “live” argument means nothing; the solo (great as it is) is not overly challenging, well within John’s abilities; Lewisohn’s silence is just that-an argument from silence, and not valid; as the electric guitar tracks throughout the song were quite modified, the make of the guitars used is not as significant; re “double-tracking”, this was then, and is still today, a common “studio trick” used to fatten up individual tracks or a whole song. IOW, could very well have been two strats, singing away!
Lewisohn would not have detected John and George playing in unison on a single track when he listened to the tapes twenty years after the fact. There are at least two pieces of auditory evidence suggesting they did in fact both play lead. The first electric guitar chord, for example, has more notes than there are strings, supporting the notion that they either deliberately or accidentally (and I believe the latter) played slightly different chords. This is what they did on the first chord of “A Hard Day’s Night,” but in that case the difference was definitely intentional. The second piece of evidence comes from the end of the guitar solo. We hear a slide from the B (7th fret of the E string) to the open E followed by the swell of a decay from a harmonic. The attack is not audible, so it was played by adjusting the volume knob on the guitar (or, less likely, using a volume pedal) from silent to maximum volume while the note rang. It is not possible, using the techniques the Beatles were using in 1965, to play the solo and produce the described harmonic sound in a single track unless two guitarists are playing in unison. Listen to the recordings from the 1966 tour (Budokan, Candlestick, etc.) and note that George is unable to produce this effect on stage as you can always hear the attack on the last harmonic note.
My information came….directly…from George, so it’s not a guess. And no it doesn’t sound like one guitar, and no Epiphany on earth sounds like that lol
What guitars they used onstage has nothing – zero, nada – to do with which instruments they used in the studio. Both George AND John used their Casinos onstage for that tour.
The record definitely sounds like two guitars.
You’re free to “not buy it”. You’re also free to be wrong.
The 2 part guitar solo may have some legs. Sounds to me like a 12 stringer for the first 4 bars of the solo and then a 6 stringer. Sounds awfully close to a Gretsch for me too, that one.
I used to play a pre-1965 strat, and I discovered that by putting the pick-up selector between two settings (which is hard to do quickly because there was a spring action to gravitate to only one of the three pick-ups), I got a very gretschy sound, stunningly so. I cannot imagine it was a result of two picks up being activated, I think the circuitry was either intentionally or inadvertently “corrupted”. Maybe john or george had already discovered that. In any event, I agree that there is gretsch-like quality to one of the guitars on this song (assuming there are two), with that it could have been a strat. Or, perhaps I had a corrupted strat! I don’t recall which two pick-ups did the trick, but perhaps someone can try to confirm my report, as I no longer know anyone with a strat.
Re: pre-1965 Strat three-position blade selector switch.
I would occasionally balance the switch between bridge and middle pickup, less often between neck and middle pickup.
Doing so means that both pickups are selected, but the result is out of phase – a sound later popularized by guitarist Mark Knopfler.
It doesn’t sound like a Gretsch. It sounds like an out-of-phase Strat. Perhaps that’s what is heard during the ‘Nowhere Man’ guitar solo, which sounds like double-tracked Strats played through a Vox AC30.
That alone isn’t the whole of it, though. Those wicked lads turned the recording console into a treble boost! There is also a lot of compression in use on the solo parts – a Fairchild 670, some insist.
It says John and George both play lead. Is George playing the lead fills and then John playing the solo?
As for the solo, I CLEARLY hear 2 guitars,so it’s John & George. The fills, I think just George.
when John goes to the bridge (“nowhere man, please listen……”) time stands still for me. What a composer. Not too many in his tree.
You mean it must be high or low?
I think it’s not too bad.
Great song (no surprise there), but ya, always loved that bright guitar sound! Genius!
Tom, what a nice response, well worded. The idea of time standing still and that not too many in John’s tree. Yep.
Time standing still …. when we hear Beatle songs we say ‘that’s one of my favorites’ … and this one is no exception. It has a special meaning for me (if it’s OK to tell a personal story)… I was 14 and visiting the Philippines (from living in California) for my school summer vacation. One bright day some older friends (who could drive) and a girl who I had a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ thing for those months that seemed like years and I drove to a rather large house. It was the house of a famous artist/sculptor (I didn’t see him), friends of my hosts… his wife was very nice and said he also liked to play classical guitar at night, so I could see that in the sultry night. Anyway, at the back was a large white stucco building, two story ceilings. In it were the couple’s son and his friends (they were around 19 or so, so that made them seem older than me), and they were a very pro sounding band, and they were doing Beatle songs! It was like a scene from a Beatle video, with large white sculptures all around and airy light. They had great equipment and I was amazed at their sound, singing and playing. Well, the artist’s wife (who we were calling auntie by then) asked me, why don’t you play something with them? (We were discussing music, and ‘Juliet’ said made encouraging sounds, Yes, he can sing nice…. I wasn’t even thinking but suddenly I was in front of the one mic. The guys were very gracious and asked what should we do. I just happened to say, How about Nowhere Man? And just like that, without even checking the key or sound or anything (it was one of those moments) we began with me singing lead! ‘He’s a real nowhere man….’ and then the instruments kicked in and the guys harmonized, and we were all at the key; it of course must have been the original key of the song. It was just wonderful, and even the bridge was right there, with even the last ‘ping’ on guitar. I suppose I could have stayed there singing Beatle songs all day, but having some manners, it was just that one song. Sorry for taking all this space, but just want to share some of the magic that the Beatles will always have, all over the world.
sorry for the edit: but in my previous post I wrote ‘the one mic’ implying only one microphone. There were actually three mics, and the other guys shared the other two; I especially remember the guy harmonizing like Paul.
First off, just as there is a capo on the acoustic rhythm guitar of John’s there is also a capo on at least ONE of the two Strats which are playing during the verses. And yes it two guitars during the verses, not just one (it may be indeed one player double tracked, but it is two guitars, and at least one of the parts if not both are capped). It is often reported that George did the verses and John and George did the lead section. But the verses are either two Georges or George and John together….there are plainly two guitars in unison on the verses.
Regarding the capo….you can demonstrate this for yourself.
1 The first chord of the song is a D9. Capo your guitar at the 2nd fret, then play a D7 shape with the “E” string open, and you will hear that first chord played by the Strat just after the intro.
2 Throughout the song, listen CLOSELY to the riff itself (B, A, G#, E, B). Listen CLOSELY and you will hear on the record that the notes A-G# are on two different strings, not on the same string, as they would be if you were playing this riff the way most people do (including George live, who doesn’t mess with a capo, but then he doesn’t mess with a Rick 12 for “Ticket to Ride” live either). You can plainly hear the open string (playing the A note, this is the open “G” string when you are capped at the second fret) then hear the sound CLOSE DOWN as he hits the the G# (which will be on the D string when you are capoed). That open and then closed sound is a characteristic you can hear throughout the entire song (verses). In the solo, they are probably not using any capo, and recall that the solo was done at a different time (and appears on the right side only in the stereo mixes).
John and George played this solo together, it was the first question I asked George when I met him at Abbey Road in 1968.
I always found it strange that people characterize this song as misanthropic and evidence of John’s supposed depression around this time. The lyrics are at times hopeful. To me it sounds like john is having a dialog with himself, saying “Come on now, its not as bad as all that”. Musically the song is bright, mostly major key with childlike harmonies.
For example:
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere man, The world is at your command
And:
Nowhere man don’t worry
Take your time, don’t hurry
Leave it all till somebody else
Lends you a hand
I know this is an older comment but I have some insight…when you’re depressed and not doing a lot, that’s some of the stuff you say to yourself, or that other people tell you to cheer you up.
That whole laying-around-all-day thing, day after day — some of it could be exhaustion but as someone who has struggled with episodic depression for my whole life, as well as ADD, that’s kind of exactly what it’s like.
And I have an amateur theory about that. They all did amphetamines in Hamburg — high-powered amphetamines called “prellies,” and John was the heaviest user and continued using at least up until “Please Please Me.”
“George Harrison and Sutcliffe were regular users of prellies, but John Lennon was the heaviest in the group. Two pills a night were more than enough for most,’ Lewisohn writes, ‘but John frequently took four or five, and in conjunction with hour after hour of booze he became wired, a high-speed gabbing blur of talent, torment and hilarity.’ ” https://www.villagevoice.com/the-drug-that-helped-turn-the-beatles-into-the-worlds-greatest-band/
These were legalish and helped them do the all-nighters at the Cavern Club. But amphetamines exact a toll, in that they make your brain dump a lot of dopamine, which is what creates that happy, productive, focused, pleasurable high. This is why Adderall works for people with ADHD. But when amphetamines wear off, you have a brain with a lot less-than-normal dopamine, and it crashes.
When you stop taking amphetamines, even Adderall, it takes a while for your brain chemistry to begin pumping out normal amounts of dopamine again on its own. In the meanwhile, you can be very depressed, apathetic, unmotivated, and take little pleasure in life. Also highly irritable, bad tempered. All things that have been reported, even self-reported by John, for the 64-66ish time frame.
Why didn’t it affect the others? They didn’t take as much; and they were innately more optimistic and less prone to depression, perhaps. And John really didn’t want to be a married family man in his early 20s while everyone else was whooping it up in the clubs and such, so there were lifestyle stressors.
Given what I personally know about even milder amphetamines such as Adderall, I’d be very surprised if John Lennon *didn’t* suffer depressive after-effects from the prellies use. I’m not a psychiatrist and I might be wrong.
The solo from Nowhere Man is one of the first I learned to play. It isn’t very hard or I couldn’t play it. John and George had got strats by then and I can hear that’s what is being used for the rhythm. Sounds like it for the solo too. They’re different from a Gretsch or an Epiphone with P-90s. Strats have a clangy sound. There’s something about the bridge saddles and string spacing that’s different, it makes the timing of hitting the strings slightly different and has its own tone. I have a strat and an SG and they’re different feeling and sounding.
This was one of the benefits of Paul moving from the Hoffner to the Rick. The Rick has much more liveliness. Paul’s bass line really provides a great foundation to the song and (for the bass player) it’s fun to play
I can tell that he clearly loved his Rickenbacker bass.
Who played the tuning fork?
Tuning fork? Isn’t it a flageolet on the guitar?
It’s called a “harmonic”. It’s played on the guitar by lightly touching the string above the 7th or 12th fret (12th in this case), plucking the string while simultaneously releasing the finger from above the fret.
There is no tuning fork.
MikeP, I believe it’s actually at the seventh fret in this song…
Nope that one’s on the 12th. I play it all the time with the record.
The most common harmonics are the 12th and the 7th – both used on Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”.
I just listened to the song again and the harmonic is on the 5th fret, not the 12th. Both harmonics produce an E, but an octave higher when you use the 5th fret.
I just listened to it again and played the 5th fret harmonic and then again with the 12th fret harmonic.
It is definitely, unequivocally, the 12th fret. In addition to the 5th being wrong in pitch, it also can’t ring out like the 12th.
Sorry, but you are simply, but completely, wrong.
A great John Lennon song off the brilliant Rubber Soul album. This was very much Lennon’s state of mind during this period, as he often explained. Wonderful harmonies and lead guitar solo. I love the lyrics of this song.
I’ve found that I like to listen to this song as a reference to mankind in general. This may not have been his original intent, but “Nowhere Man” can easily be related to mankind’s predicament of not really knowing, for certain, his place in existence. “doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to…”.Listen to the song as if you were considering mankind, not just one man.
I second that. When you begin to know yourself, then you start to know others. We’re all basically the same, but only the wiser would admit it.
The Yellow Submarine Songtrack mix of this song is a revelation, IMO the definitive version of this great, great song. John and George we will miss you.
I completely agree on this. YSS is where first truly good stereo mixes were done for several tracks, and it goes to show that a complete remixed catalog is a must. Let’s not forget that stereo mixing was something nobody cared much about back in the sixties, and today it’s the standard format. Once you listen to this version of Nowhere Man, you probably won’t go back to the old mixes.
I agree 100% that the Beatles catalog would benefit from the YS remix treatment. But I fear that any current remixes would be made to benefit McCartney’s ear. So up the bass, bury the lead guitar…. I hear it in the Abbey Road and Sgt Pepper Giles Martin remixes. Anyone else?
In all the Beatles’ output, all those peaks, my fave moment is the glock ‘ping’ at the end of the middle guitar solo. a) the tone is perfect. b) the timing is perfect and c) it is completely off the wall. I don’t know who put it in but it is blissful genius.
One of those unique, magic little things the Beatles threw into many of their songs. I also love it — get shivers down my spine sometimes when I hear it.
Might this be one of McCartney’s best bass performances?
If you listen to the isolated guitar track on The Beatles Rock Band you will notice that George plays an acoustic guitar as well as John.
If not, it’s certainly one of his better ones.
I just properly noticed the bass line for the first time and my socks were summarily blown off.
I was just listening to the deconstructed video of “Nowhere Man” on YouTube and evidently, there are two acoustic guitars played by John and George.
This song always moves me. I am moved any time John lets his vulnerability and sweetness show, and that moment in the ‘middle third’ when he pleads with our nowhere man to listen, and the way he sort of caresses “the world is at your command” bit… *sniff*. It’s as sweet as Paul pleading with Jude to take a sad song and make it better. Then, that high harmony from Paul at the very end… yep. That’s my heart good and melted.
Wonderful bass from Paul, too – and one you can can only properly properly appreciate with headphones.
I have forever loved this song. It’s always been one of my all time favourites. My son is 16 and a big Beatles fan, which makes me proud. When discussing “Paperback Writer” he declared it to be the first Lennon-McCartney song not written about love, in all its many forms. While it was something I hadn’t really considered before, I came back with “what about Nowhere Man?”. So we both consider this to be the first non love-related song they wrote, but I’m surprised to see no mention of it on either the song description or the forum comments. can anyone think of an earlier one?
How about ” Don’t Bother Me” by Harrison from “With the Beatles”. The lyrics as the title suggest are not totally about love.
it doesn’t sound like a Strat to me, but maybe thru a small speaker & sound board, you could get that womderful sound…
I think ever person her missed the fact that the rhythm guitar by John is the best part of the song.