The Beatles Song That John Lennon and Paul McCartney Wrote and Recorded on the Same Day
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were a stellar songwriting duo who could write a hit song in a matter of minutes. However, the pair would still work to polish and refine the track in the studio, ensuring it wouldn’t sound rushed. Still, sometimes inspiration took over, and they would try to finish a piece as soon as possible. One song from The Beatles’ The White Album was written and recorded by the two bandmates on the same day.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote and recorded ‘Birthday’ in one day
“Birthday” is the opening song in the second half of 1968’s The White Album. The Beatles had scheduled an earlier recording session on Sept. 18, 1968. Paul McCartney had arrived at the studio earlier than the others and started to play the riff from “Birthday” before John Lennon and the others came.
In Many Years From Now, McCartney said he and Lennon decided to write lyrics around the riff, and they managed to finish the track and record it all on the same day.
“We thought, ‘Why not make something up?’ So we got a riff going and arranged it around this riff. We said, ‘We’ll go to there for a few bars, then we’ll do this for a few bars.’ We added some lyrics, then we got the friends who were there to join in on the chorus. So that is 50-50 John and me, made up on the spot and recorded all on the same evening.”
As to why the song is titled “Birthday”, McCartney isn’t sure because it wasn’t anyone’s birthday he knew of. However, it gave the track “life” since most people associate birthdays with parties and good times.
“I don’t recall it being anybody’s birthday in particular, but it might have been,” McCartney added. “But the other reason for doing it is that, if you have a song that refers to Christmas or a birthday, it adds to the life of the song, if it’s a good song, because people will pull it out on birthday shows, so I think there was a little bit of that at the back of our minds.”
John Lennon called the song a ‘piece of garbage’
There are several Beatles songs that John Lennon didn’t look back fondly on, and “Birthday” is one of them. In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview With John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon called the song a “piece of garbage” and admitted that it was “made up on the spot.”
“‘Birthday’ was written in the studio. Just made up on the spot,” Lennon told David Sheff. “I think Paul wanted to write a song like ‘Happy Birthday Baby’, the old Fifties hit. But it was sort of made up in the studio. It was a piece of garbage.”
Lennon tended to enjoy the more reflective and meaningful Beatles tunes, so it tracks that he wouldn’t enjoy this song.
McCartney gave ‘Birthday’ new life with a live rendition
While John Lennon thought “Birthday” was a flop, Paul McCartney gave it new life in his solo career. The “Let it Be” singer released a live version of the song on Oct. 8, 1990. Released initially on Tripping the Live Fantastic, the single version No. 29 on the U.K. charts and No. 3 in Italy. While it wasn’t a significant success, it still performed better than when it was only attached to The Beatles.
