Talk:Paperback Writer

Single infobox

The information box is perfectly fine as it was at 22:50 on 25 June 2005. Therefore, changing it reflects personal preference only, especially when the newer box has incorrect information. Finally, calling a revert vandalism is immature and inappropriate. Nowhere in the help file on vandalism does it say that changing something from a user's arbitrary aesthetic preference constitutes vandalism.

The Single infobox is both a space saver (less bytes) and contained corrected information. Cbing01 01:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The new infobox is grammatically poor (e.g. from the album not featured on an original album), contains incorrect information (time length is in fact two minutes and eighteen seconds) and saves a negligible amount of space. Also, please stop calling reverts against your arbitrarily preferred edits "vandalism." That's just ad hominem and immature.

U.S. Number One Hits

I've changed the line about this being their only #1 U.S hit single in 1966 to it being their only #1 U.S hit single released that year, as "We Can Work It Out" was #1 for three weeks in 1966, but had been released in December 1965. In fact, I'm not sure if noting this fact at all isn't misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.85.212 (talk) 02:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Quality Issue

Whoever wrote this entry (I assume they also contributed to other Beatles singles entries) did a very good job, especially in drawing connections between these songs and then-contemporary rock music (ie "mod"--the folk rock and Otis Redding connection on "Day Tripper") without resorting to silly rumors or fatuous and inaccurate musical categorizations--it's a feat few other mid-60s classic rock contributors on wikipedia have managed; I'd urge whoever wrote this and/or many other Beatles singles to help out with other rock entries, the Stones, the Byrds, the Doors, the Yardbirds, etc., since I think some of these are in danger of being too heavily influenced by overly fannish amateurs who stick to party-lines, rumors, and often-baised and overly trendy insights cribbed from the "rock establishment" without incorporating the most important and obvious historical information about many of these songs; especially the Rolling Stones singles are extremely erratic in quality and consistency. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.91.137.57 (talk • contribs) 03:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Promotional Video?

How about some information about the promotional video for this song - which some consider to be the first music video by a band. When/where was it filmed?

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~) so people know who you are or can respond properly. If you're worried about showing your IP address, may I suggest signing up (it's free)? Kodster (Talk) 20:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Cover

As the article states, the UK - and therefore most "official" - cover for this single was the butcher cover. I, therefore, think replacing the cover up now with that one would be correct and uncontroversial. However, I can't find an image of the cover as the cover of this single, only as the cover of "Yesterday and Today". I encourage anyone who can find one to put it up. It would be admissible from any source under fair use. --MQDuck 08:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

In the UK, the original single release did not have a picture cover. The butcher picture was only used in press advertisements. Reissues did have picture covers, with the 1986 release using the butcher picture on the back cover (also available as a picture disc). J2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.130.62.197 (talk) 19:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Single Chord Section not correct

It's written that mccartney tried to base the song's melody a single chord, which sounds reasonable, but the reference to "the word" seems wrong. In "the word" a single note is stretched (this has nothing to do with the single chord of this song). 80.121.19.88 (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Genre

if And your Bird can Sing from Revolver is Hard Rock this Song surely is also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.44.228.26 (talk) 19:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I will change it. Lordsurya08 (talk) 07:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've changed it back. We do not use our own opinions and original research here; we follow what the reliable sources say. Rodhullandemu 16:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Neither of them are hard rock. As far as I'm concerned, the only Beatles song that really is hard rock is "Helter Skelter". -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 09:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Martin Amis

It's impossible for this song to be about Martin Amis as the article suggests: Amis was 17 at the time! He published his first book in 1973, 7 years after Paperback writer was released...

He couldn't even qualify for the appellation of "aspiring author".

I think it's a case of McCartney's memory being defective, although I can't check because the source for this is not online. Rodhullandemu 16:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Martin Amis was 16 when the song came out. And probably 15 when it was written! He wasn't a famous writer until well after the Beatles broke up.

The correct reference is probably Kingsley Amis - Marin Amis' father. Who was a very very famous writer in the 50s,60s and 70s.

Cjmooney9 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC).

Found the New Yorker article online here, but you need a subscription to read the whole article. GoingBatty (talk) 16:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I searched the Daily Mail Archive - in 1965 (the year mentioned in the New Yorker article) Martin Amis was mentioned once, at the end of a piece on Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard, as Kingsley's 16 year old son. Kingsley was already a well established author by that time - not an "aspiring" one - so this sounds like an utter fabrication. Shilton (talk) 13:16, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Paul on guitar

Here Paul is stating that he played guitar on the record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL2EMIax1mU (time index 33:05) --JazzmanDE (talk) 22:16, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

We can't use YouTube as a source. Best, yeepsi (Talk tonight) 08:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

"We can't use YouTube as a source", what ever, why not? That's a bit of a sweeping statement isn't it, if several videos showed the same thing surly that would be a source, or if something like "several people commented on X", not necessarily as a source for X but the fact that the had all commented would be true and a fair source, why would you deny anything as a source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakacm (talk • contribs) 11:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Paul is quoted here as saying he played guitar on "Paperback Writer" - http://www.macca-central.com/macca-archives/guitarplayer.htm

Also, the promotional video cannot be used a guide for what instruments were played during the recording session. The person who keeps deleting my "Personnel" entry keeps citing the promotional video as their source. Revdangerfield (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The personnel list is based on the Ian MacDonald book, a valid source. A photo is not a source, nor are your own observations. The text already addresses the dispute and that it may be McCartney. We cannot say any more than that. It's not up to us to determine this, only legitimate sources. I don't see where a video is being used as a source. In the Personnel section, only published sources are being used. freshacconci talk to me 14:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

My sources are Paul McCartney's recollections in the July 1990 and November 2005 issues of Guitar Player magazine, and pages 179, 182, and 183 of "Beatles Gear" by Andy Babiuk. The information is all there, and includes color photos from that session. The facts speak for themselves.Revdangerfield (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Playing Paperback Writer on 23rd May 2015 at the O2 Arena in London, Paul McCartney introduced his performance as using the exact same guitar he'd used on the original recording of the single. This seems an unambiguous claim from the man himself. Ian McDonald's version of the personnel must be wrong. The only ambiguity is over who played the bass part -- this sounds very like McCartney's work on later tracks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlie mackle (talk • contribs) 19:40, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

January 2016: I think we need to revisit this – the whole Personnel list, in fact. Right now we give Ian MacDonald (2005) as our overall source, disregarding the extra refs such as Beatles Bible. But in fact MacDonald's list reads as follows:

• McCartney vocal, bass; Lennon backing vocal, rhythm guitar; Harrison backing vocal, lead guitar; Starr drums, tambourine

MacDonald is hardly an author who tends to underplay McCartney's contributions to any given song, as a rule, and those "extra" refs in the Personnel list include McCartney's own recollections, which have often been found to be slightly unreliable. (For instance, I'm surprised to see us crediting McCartney with bass guitar based on a statement in which he also mentions playing the Hofner on the song – I thought the whole point about the new, '66-era punchy bass sound was Mac's use of the Rickenbacker bass, no?) Regardless, the statements sourced to Babiuk in text above the list suggest a fair amount of uncertainty regarding the lead gtr and bass parts, yet we're going with a scenario that puts McCartney in the driving seat for both, which is contrary to MacDonald's version. And Beatles Bible has to go as a source, of course …

Any thoughts on this issue? JG66 (talk) 08:36, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Are we taking one source that says McCartney and Harrison played guitar, and another source that says Harrison and Lennon played guitar to come with all three playing guitar? As it is written now it indicates there are four guitar parts. I only hear two guitars on this track. Piriczki (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Aarch. Yes, I'd been thinking that too – with the latest changes, I've ended up listing two rhythm guitars … Will try to fix. The problem is, those authors that get it "right" re McCartney on lead guitar and bass also credit Lennon with the tambourine part. The tambo's so syncopated, so consistent and so prominent on the recording, I struggle to see it as having been played by anyone but Starr (who receives the credit elsewhere – in MacDonald, Womack, and in Fontenot's about.com article). But I concede it's not up to me to decide whether Lennon was up for the job …

Just stuck the Sennheiser Pro's on and listened to both mono and stereo mixes a couple of times. On the mono mix, I hear two guitars after the riff is played; the second part (I'd describe it as clanging, chiming) then appears to drop out following the first verse, once the falsetto backing vocals enter. A second guitar reappears at the end of the song, in the fadeout. In stereo, though, the two parts over the first verse (set left) are so heavily compressed, it's impossible to hear a second guitar there, imo; it's only at the start of the fadeout that something's clearly audible. But what the stereo mix does have is a couple of fills that are completely lost in mono: brief echoes of the main riff, set hard right, at around 0:48 & 1:35. I take the latter to be the Harrison fills that Rodriguez and others refer to. But there's still the second (rhythm) guitar in verse-one to consider – which may or may not be the same part that appears prominently at the end, I don't know. But it's definitely distinct from the stereo-hard-right fills. JG66 (talk) 16:58, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Since the two guitars, drums and tambourine are all mixed hard left, I'm guessing they are probably all on one track. That would make the basic backing track McCartney on lead guitar, Harrison on rhythm guitar, Starr on drums, and Lennon on tambourine. And the hard right guitar fills were an overdub played by Harrison according to Everett. That seems to make sense. Piriczki (talk) 20:43, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, done, although I've sourced it to Rodriguez. When I next get hold of Everett's book, I'll check for description of various backing vocals. There are clearly two "groups" of vocal parts, if that makes sense: Lennon & Harrison over the verses (Frere Jacques, etc); and the wall of voices at the start of the track and during the breakdown(s). I'm thinking that McCartney has to be a backing vocalist also – not exactly important, though. JG66 (talk) 05:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

My guess is that the basic track line-up was either Paul on bass, John and George on guitars and Ringo on drums or Paul, George and John on guitars and Ringo on drums, but as I said, it's only my guess. Just because Paul was photographed playing his Epiphone Casino guitar at the session and unusually with George on bass, it doesn't mean that it was necessarily the line-up on the released version and for all I know, he may have just brought it along to demonstrate the song's structure with. Even biographers can make mistakes and that's just life - there's no such thing as a 100% error-free non-fiction book. Don't forget that none of their memories were 100% infallible or flawless and LSD was certainly not going to be helpful to long-term memories - this page confirms that LSD alters memories. The photo with Paul on guitar and George was on bass was obviously a rehearsal, since neither was wearing headphones, and I've seen a photograph taken later that day of George, John and Paul wearing headphones and in addition, George has his Gibson SG electric guitar strapped on while Paul is seated playing his left-handed Rickenbacker 4001 bass - he clearly loved that bass by then. 220.245.23.160 (talk) 01:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Interpretation

Is there any interpretation for the "son working for the Daily Mail" and who the "dirty man" is?--Gg53000 (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

According to disc jockey Jimmy Savile, McCartney wrote the song in response to a request from an aunt who asked if he could "write a single that wasn't about love."[10][11] Savile said, "With that thought obviously still in his mind, he walked around the room and noticed that Ringo was reading a book. He took one look and announced that he would write a song about a book."

I wouldn't pay much attention to any nonsense that was spouted by Jimmy Savile. Paul McCartney said in an interview (possibly part of "Anthology" T.V series but not sure) that the song simply came about because he liked the sound of the word "paperback" and therefore wanted to write a song with this in the title.

Composer

According to this page, Paul McCartney wrote the song, with input from John Lennon. But the List of songs recorded by The Beatles page says that it was written entirely by Paul. So the two pages contradict one another. -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 09:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Bass

Just added a short note about the musicality of the bass playing.--Daveler16 (talk) 16:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Lost Footage Found

The article states 11 seconds of footage was found in 2019.

29 May 2019 article here https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-48444469 announces a much longer find, of 92 seconds, from the Top of the Pops 'live' appearance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.182.37.221 (talk) 02:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

In reference to Philip K. Dick

In an interview given to Der Spiegel in 2016, Philip K. Dick's last wife, Tessa Dick, said that John Lennon had called her husband during the 1970s and told him that Paperback Writer had been written in honor of him. Source (in German): [1]. Quote from the linked interview: "In den Siebzigerjahren rief einmal John Lennon bei ihm an und sagte ihm, den Song 'Paperback Writer' hätten die Beatles ihm zu Ehren geschrieben." ("In the 1970s, John Lennon called him [= Dick] to tell him that The Beatles had written 'Paperback Writer' in his honor.").

Of course, we also have John's own quotes in the article that it's mainly Paul's song, but if you look at those quotes closely, you'll see John actually talks about the tune as being entirely Paul's, not the lyrics. --2003:EF:13CC:B669:D4F8:985C:1136:9394 (talk) 12:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Bass Guitar

The significance of the bass guitar recording technique here could be further emphasised. EMI’s audio engineering policy was that too much bass guitar presence on a record would make the stylus jump out of the groove when played on domestic turntables

Young EMI engineers like Emerick disagreed and went all out to prove it could be done. Hence his wiring a bass speaker like a mic to capture all the bass guitar harmonics. Plus EMI got the new record-mastering equipment described in the article, apparatus that could cope with the sonorities and transient peaks produced by pop music.

McCartney, by the way, was the only Beatle who took the trouble to talk with EMI engineers about the disc-mastering process and even sat in on the mastering sessions to understand how it was done. 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:C0C2:61AF:A2BF:CAD9 (talk) 02:16, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source. Sundayclose (talk) 02:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Lewisohn, M. ‘’The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions’’ Hamlyn 2004 ed. p. 74

Emerick, G. ‘’Here, There, and Everywhere’’ Gotham 2007 ed. pp. 114-5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:C0C2:61AF:A2BF:CAD9 (talk) 02:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Lyrics

It’s a futile exercise trying to untangle who contributed what to a collaboration, especially decades after the event.

But were I a betting man, I’d wager that the lines:

It’s a dirty story Of a dirty man And his clinging wife Doesn’t understand...

... are Lennon’s. I can almost hear him saying them.

It’s Lennon’s best acerbic manner. And unlike McCartney, Lennon was a voracious reader, and will have encountered that clichéd plot often in the average paperback novel of that era. So he’s having a laugh at best-selling trash, along with the hungry-for-fame types who write it.

I doubt that any of the words apply to any person. Though the bit about ‘clinging wife’ makes me think a bit about Cynthia Lennon...2001:44B8:3102:BB00:C0C2:61AF:A2BF:CAD9 (talk) 02:39, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Question about references

In this edit, Newzild deleted a sentence in the first paragraph of the "Inspiration and lyrical themes" section without deleting the references following it. Should the references also be deleted, or do they also support the remaining sentences? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:57, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, Bat, he's right all the time (didn't you know?!) I'll check it in Nicholas Schaffner's book and Jon Savage's 1966 – if I remember right, McCartney's comments about Aunt Lil's complaint first appeared in an interview with Savile coinciding with the single's release. So the two points are essentially one and the same, but the interview, or at least the radio programme, should probably be mentioned as well. JG66 (talk) 02:15, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

New Yorker piece

Thanks for doing so much in the last little bit here JG66. I saw you mention in an edit summary that you couldn't access this New Yorker piece, so I thought I'd just copy-paste the relevant parts here:

As the Beatles matured, Lennon and McCartney collaborated less directly on songs, but they continued to trade ideas. McCartney began writing "Paperback Writer" in 1965, after reading in the Daily Mail about an aspiring author—possibly Martin Amis, he said. He imagined the song as a would-be author's pleading letter to a publisher. One day, he arrived at Lennon's house, in the London suburb of Weybridge. "I said, 'Look, I've got an idea here, it's a letter.' He said, 'Yeah, what?' I said, 'Something like this: "Dear Sir or Madam"'—and I virtually read out this letter to him. And he said, 'Good, that's it.' I said, 'Well, we could—' And he said, 'No, that's it. Done it!' That’s a good collaborator."

Cheers. Tkbrett (✉) 15:21, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Tkbrett, that's very good of you. Although – as I'm sure you can appreciate – the more McCartney talks in detail about a song over the years, and the more details he adds each time, the more I groan silently at his inconsistency ... (Which is why I mentioned that Fontenot's comment seems especially apt.) JG66 (talk) 02:55, 13 October 2021 (UTC)