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TL;DR:

  • The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones played saxophone on a Beatles song inspired by a phone book.
  • Paul McCartney had mixed things to say about Jones’ role in creating the song.
  • The song appeared on one of the Fab Four’s successful compilation albums.
The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison in a row
The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison | John Pratt/Keystone/Getty Images

The Rolling Stones‘ Brian Jones played the saxophone on one of The Beatles’ songs. Paul McCartney said Jones didn’t play the saxophone solo very well. However, he felt Jones gave the song exactly what the Fab Four wanted.

The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones played on a Beatles song inspired by a phone book and The Four Tops

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes an interview from 1980. In the interview, John discussed “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number).” “That was a piece of unfinished music that I turned into a comedy record with Paul,” he said. “I was waiting for him in his house, and I saw the phone book was on the piano with the words ‘You know the name, look up the number.’ That was like a logo, and I just changed it.”

John revealed how the track evolved. “It was going to be a Four Tops kind of song — the chord changes are like that — but it never developed and we made a joke of it,” he recalled. “Brian Jones is playing saxophone on it.”

What Paul McCartney had to say about The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones’ saxophone solo

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discusses Jones’ “funny sax solo.” “It’s not amazingly well played but it happened to be exactly what we wanted,” he said. “Brian was very good like that. Brian always had a pleasant word. We always got on like a house on fire.

“He had a good old sense of humor, I remember laughing and giggling a lot with him,” he added. “And we would play jokes on him.”

Related

What The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones Asked John Lennon About The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’

How The Beatles’ ‘You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)’ performed in the United States and the United Kingdom

“You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The song appeared on the compilation album Anthology 2. The album topped the Billboard 200 for one week, staying on the chart for a total of 37 weeks.

The Official Charts Company reports “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” did not chart in the United Kingdom either. On the other hand, Anthology 2 reached No. 1 for one week and stayed on the chart for a total of 15 weeks.

“You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” isn’t one of The Beatles’ most famous songs but it has an interesting connection to The Rolling Stones.

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