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"You Won't See Me" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The lyrics address McCartney's troubled relationship with Jane Asher and her desire to pursue her career as a stage and film actress. The Beatles recorded the song during what Mark Lewisohn describes as a "marathon" final recording session for Rubber Soul,Template:Sfn to ensure the album's pre-Christmas release.

Background and inspirationEdit

File:57 Wimpole Street.jpg
McCartney wrote the song in the basement music room at 57 Wimpole Street (pictured in 2018), the Asher family's home in central London.

"You Won't See Me" is about a crisis in McCartney's relationship with girlfriend Jane Asher, who was refusing to comply with McCartney's wishes that she stay at home and put his interests first.Template:Sfn She had accepted an offer to appear in a stage production at the Bristol Old Vic theatre in 1965, while the Beatles were recording Rubber Soul.Template:Sfn McCartney attempted to telephone her in Bristol, but she rejected him by not returning his calls.Template:Sfn McCartney later said that it was "shattering to be without her".Template:Sfn

McCartney had lived in the Asher family home at Wimpole Street in central London since 1963. He recalled writing the song in the family music room in the basement of the house. His composition originated from "a two-note progression that I had very high on the first two strings of the guitar: the E and B strings". He developed this by playing descending semitones on the B string while letting the top string ring out. He described the song as "very Motown-flavoured" with a "James Jamerson feel".Template:Sfn He drew musical inspiration for the composition from the Four Tops' UK hit single "It's the Same Old Song" (1965).Template:Sfn

During this period, McCartney also wrote "We Can Work It Out" and "I'm Looking Through You" as commentaries on his relationship with Asher.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The more biting tone of his lyrics marked a change from his typical love songs, in Howard Sounes' interpretation,Template:Sfn McCartney later said of the band's approach to songwriting on Rubber Soul: "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand."Template:Sfn

RecordingEdit

The Beatles recorded "You Won't See Me" during the last day of recording for Rubber Soul – an all-night session that started at 6 pm on 11 November 1965.Template:Sfn The deadline for completing the album was up, and the band needed to record three songs that night, in addition to finishing work on "I'm Looking Through You".Template:Sfn As a result, they cut the song in only two takes.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At 3:22, it was the longest track the Beatles had recorded up until that point.Template:Sfn The fadeout is slightly longer on the mono mix.Template:Sfn

McCartney played piano on the basic track and then overdubbed his bass part. The tempo gradually slows down throughout the song, a point that music journalist Robert Fontenot attributes to McCartney leading the performance on piano, rather than Ringo Starr's timekeeping abilities on the drums.<ref name="Fontenot/About">Template:Cite news</ref> In author Jonathan Gould's description of the song, the tempo appears to "drag" due to McCartney's "hyperactive Motown-style bass line".Template:Sfn Mal Evans, one of the Beatles' roadies, is credited on the album sleeve as having played Hammond organ.Template:Sfn His contribution consists solely of an A note held throughout the final verseTemplate:Sfn and the coda.Template:Sfn Gould also comments on the effect achieved by John Lennon and George Harrison's wordless backing vocals over the verses, saying that their voices represent "a pair of deaf ears" by "embodying the girl's indifference" to McCartney's complaints.Template:Sfn Starr augmented his drum part with a separate hi-hat overdub, adding rhythmic accents throughout the song.Template:Sfn

Release and receptionEdit

Rubber Soul was released on 3 December 1965 on EMI's Parlophone record label.Template:Sfn "You Won't See Me" was sequenced as the third track,Template:Sfn between Lennon's "Norwegian Wood" and "Nowhere Man".Template:Sfn While the album was an immediate commercial success,Template:Sfn some reviewers in the UK were unprepared for the artistic progression the Beatles had made in their musical arrangements and as lyricists.<ref name="Williams/MojoSpecial">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn

In his review for Record Mirror, Richard Green wrote: "It is possible to say that Lennon and McCartney are the great songwriting team of the day and that Beatles performances are spot-on, but this LP cannot support that statement." He included "You Won't See Me" among the tracks that were "dull and ordinary" with "none of the old Beatles excitement and compulsiveness about them".<ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).</ref> Melody Maker said that the band's sound had become "a little subdued" and that songs such as "You Won't See Me" and "Nowhere Man" "almost get monotonous – an un-Beatle-like feature if ever there was one".<ref name="Williams/MojoSpecial" /> By contrast, Nikki Wine (aka Eden) of KRLA Beat found the album "unbelievably sensational" and described "You Won't See Me" as "One of the greatest arrangements and blending of melodies by the Beatles ... and it has to be one of the best cuts on the disc."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Among more recent appraisals, Tim Riley says that the song's "antagonism can't help being tempered by [McCartney's] melodic suavity, so he winds up sounding like an innocent victim rather than a co-conspirator in a love affair"; similarly, the arrangement and the position of McCartney's vocal in the mix ensure that "the texture becomes more engaging than the emotion."Template:Sfn Riley nevertheless admires the complementary aspect of McCartney's bass and piano contributions, adding of Rubber Soul as a whole: "without ever being intrusive, his bass emerges as an irreplaceable part of the overall texture. Because he virtually breathes melody, his bass lines begin to soar with inventive counterpoint to the band ..."Template:Sfn Ian MacDonald says the song, like "Nowhere Man", "needed something to lift it" and rues the group's use of the "irritating 'ooh-la-la-la' backing-vocal formula". He concludes that, while it is "redeemed" by McCartney's fluid bass playing, "'You Won't See Me' soon founders under the weight of its own self-pity and expires long before struggling to the end of an unusually protracted fade."Template:Sfn In his song review for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger finds the buoyant melody at odds with the dejected lyrics, but he praises the vocal arrangement, particularly "the brilliant interaction of counterpoint melodies" through the addition of Lennon and Harrison's harmonies.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

PersonnelEdit

According to Ian MacDonald:Template:Sfn

Anne Murray versionEdit

Template:Infobox song In 1974, "You Won't See Me" became a big hit for Anne Murray, reaching number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.Template:Sfn Lennon is said to have told Murray that her version of "You Won't See Me" was one of his favourite Beatles covers.Template:Sfn Murray also performed the song with the rock band Chicago on their 1974 TV special "Meanwhile Back in the Rockies."

Murray later re-recorded the song as a duet with Shelby Lynne as part of her 2007 Duets: Friends & Legends album.<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref> A self-professed Beatles fanatic, Murray covered several other songs of theirs as singles, including "Day Tripper" and "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You". The soulful backing vocals were devised by Murray's backup singer, Diane Brooks, and the bass line was devised by her bass player, Skip Beckwith.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Chart performanceEdit

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Weekly chartsEdit

Chart (1974) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report) 49
Canadian RPM Top Singles<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

5
Canadian Adult Contemporary<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

4
New Zealand (Listener)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

13
US Billboard Easy Listening 1
US Billboard Hot 100<ref>Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990 - Template:ISBN</ref> 8
US Cash Box Top 100 8

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Year-end chartsEdit

Chart (1974) Rank
citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

72
citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

54
citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

48

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ReferencesEdit

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SourcesEdit

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External linksEdit

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Template:Rubber Soul

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