The Beatles – Come Together
About The Song
Recorded over six days at the end of July 1969, ‘Come Together’ is the opening track from Abbey Road and according to John, “‘Come Together’ was an expression that Timothy Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with one. But I came up with this, ‘Come Together’, which would’ve been no good to him.”
Paul McCartney had noticed that, in its original form, “Come Together” bore more than just a passing resemblance to something by one of their early heroes. “He originally brought it over as a very perky little song, and I pointed out to him that it was very similar to Chuck Berry’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me,’” McCartney recalled. “John acknowledged it was rather close to it, so I said, ‘Well, anything you can do to get away from that?’ I suggested that we tried it swampy – ‘swampy’ was the word I used – so we did, we took it right down.”
To resolve a legal dispute, John recorded “You Can’t Catch Me” on his Rock’n’Roll album. As he explained, “‘Come Together’ is me – writing obscurely around an old Chuck Berry thing. I left the line in ‘Here come old flat-top’. It is nothing like the Chuck Berry song, but they took me to court because I admitted the influence once years ago. I could have changed it to ‘Here comes old iron face’, but the song remains independent of Chuck Berry or anybody else on earth.”
Having slowed the song to a funkier groove, the band recorded “Come Together” at Abbey Road over six sessions, starting on July 21, and the song was released as a single on October 6. The secret to the song’s success lay in its simplicity. The performance was tight and undoubtedly had a swampy funkiness to it. As John recalled in 1980 to Playboy, “It was a funky record – it’s one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favorite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’d buy it!”
Although when given double-A side status in America it topped the US charts it could only make no. 4 in Britain. Upon its release the New Musical Express review described it as, “Probably the funkiest thing The Beatles have ever done.”
