For No One

Song facts

I wrote that on a skiing holiday in Switzerland. In a hired chalet amongst the snow.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Playboy Magazine, 1984

From Wikipedia:

“For No One” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. It was written by Paul McCartney, and credited to Lennon–McCartney. A blend of baroque pop and chamber music, the song is about the end of a relationship, and was one of McCartney’s most mature and poignant works upon its release. Mostly performed by the composer, the track is distinguished by its French horn solo, performed by Alan Civil and used as counterpoint in the final verse.

Writing and recording

McCartney recalls writing “For No One” in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps while on holiday with his then girlfriend Jane Asher. He said, “I suspect it was about another argument.” The lyrics end enigmatically with the line “A love that should have lasted years”. The song’s working title was “Why Did It Die?” The composition is built on a descending scale progression with a refrain that modulates to the supertonic minor.

The song was recorded on 9, 16 and 19 May 1966. McCartney sang and played clavichord (rented from George Martin’s AIR company), piano and bass guitar, while Ringo Starr played drums, tambourine and maracas. Neither John Lennon nor George Harrison contributed to the recording.

The French horn solo was by Alan Civil, a British horn player described by recording engineer Geoff Emerick as the “best horn player in London”. During the session, McCartney pushed Civil to play a note that was beyond the usual range of the instrument. According to Emerick, the result was the “performance of his life”. Civil said that the song was “recorded in rather bad musical style, in that it was ‘in the cracks’, neither B-flat nor B-major. This posed a certain difficulty in tuning my instrument.” Civil is one of the only session musicians to receive credit on a Beatles’ LP.

Reception

In her contemporaneous review of Revolver, for The Evening Standard, Maureen Cleave highlighted “For No One” among McCartney’s contributions to the album and deemed it “as moving as ‘Yesterday'”.

Thomas Ward of AllMusic describes “For No One” as “one of Paul McCartney’s great ballads with the Beatles”, adding that it is “a simply beautiful song, full of idiosyncratic McCartney touches yet undeniably inspired”. Ward praises McCartney’s vocal performance and calls the song’s melody “one of the most inspired of the singer’s whole career”. Ward also admires the bass line and French horn solo, and concludes his review by calling the song “one of the most delicate and fine ballads of the Beatles entire canon”.

Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone writes that McCartney’s songs on Revolver “have a new caustic realism”. He calls “For No One” the “ultimate ‘you stay home, she goes out’ break-up song”. Lennon said of the song: “One of my favourites of his – a nice piece of work.” […]

Paul McCartney recorded a different version of “For No One” for the soundtrack of his 1984 movie Give My Regards To Broad Street.

[Switzerland] was very nice and I remember writing ‘For No One’ there. I suspect it was about another argument. I don’t have easy relationships with women, I never have. I talk too much truth.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

I can remember more about writing Revolver than recording it. I was in Switzerland on my first skiing holiday. I’d done a bit of skiing in Help! and quite liked it, so I went back and ended up in a little bathroom in a Swiss chalet writing ‘For No One.’ I remember the character in the song – the girl putting on her make-up.

Occasionally we’d have an idea for some new kind of instrumentation, particularly for solos. On ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’, John had wanted a flute. On ‘For No One’ I was interested in the French horn, because it was an instrument I’d always loved from when I was a kid. It’s a beautiful sound, so I went to George Martin and said, ‘How can we go about this?’ And he said, ‘Well, let me get the very finest.’

That was one of the great things about George. He knew how to obtain the best musicians and would suggest getting them. On this occasion he suggested Alan Civil, who, like all these great blokes, looks quite ordinary at the session – but plays like an angel.

George asked me, ‘Now, what do you want him to play?’ I said. ‘Something like this,’ and sang the solo to him, and he wrote it down. Towards the end of the session, when we were getting the piece down for Alan to play, George explained to me the range of the instrument: ‘Well, it goes from here to this top E,’ and I said, ‘What if we ask him to play an F?’ George saw the joke and joined in the conspiracy.

We came to the session and Alan looked up from his bit of paper: ‘Eh, George? I think there’s a mistake here – you’ve got a high F written down.’ Then George and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and smiled back at him, and he knew what we were up to and played it. These great players will do it. Even though it’s officially off the end of their instrument, they can do it, and they’re quite into it occasionally. It’s a nice little solo.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

It’s a song about rejection. The breakup, or marking the end of a relationship that didn’t work, has always been quite a rich area to explore in a song. Having been through it a few times – as I suppose a lot of people have – it was an emotion I could relate to, and it seemed like a good idea to put into a song because probably a lot of other people could relate to it too. In the song, I’m talking about two people who’ve broken up, but obviously, as with any writer, it all comes from your own experience, and inevitably you’re talking about yourself.

There are two short lines: ‘She wakes up / She makes up’. Then you have long lines after the two short ones. ‘She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry / She no longer needs you’. Then this: ‘And in her eyes you see nothing / No sign of love…’ It’s a horrible moment when you’ve broken up with someone, and you look at them – this person you used to be in love with, or thought you were in love with – and none of that old feeling is there. It’s like it just switched off too, and it’s not great to be on the receiving end of that.

[…] Jane Asher and I were together for around five years, so at the back of my mind I expected to marry her, but as the time got closer, I think I also realised it wasn’t right. You can’t ever put your finger on it, but when Linda came along, shortly after Jane and I broke up, I just thought, ‘Oh, I dunno, maybe this is more right.’ And then when Linda and I got to know each other, I felt, ‘This is more me; I’m more her.’ And there were little things with Jane where we just didn’t quite match up. I loved a lot of things about her, and I will always admire a lot of things about her. She’s a wonderful woman, but little bits of the jigsaw weren’t quite fitting.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present“, 2021

That was Paul’s. One of his good ones. All his semi-classical ones are the best, actually.

John Lennon – Interview with Ray Connolly, 1970 – From “The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive”

Whereas other people have been studying classical music for thirty or forty years, I’ve only seen this in passing. I’ve heard a French Horn, liked its sound, and used it in a Beatles song like ‘For No One.” But that was incidental to my work.

Paul McCartney – Interview for FI Magazine, November 1997

I was surprised by the inclusion of a lot of Beatles songs [on “Give My Regards To Broad Street”].

Either we were going to create a new musical with a whole new score or we were going to think of it as a live show. In which case, you go to see [Mick] Jagger or you want to hear “Satisfaction,” you don’t go to hear an entire evening of new numbers. We chose to take that direction, so most of the songs you’ve heard before. Some of them I haven’t performed anywhere except on record — songs like “For No One” — I thought that was a good enough reason to sing them again.

Paul McCartney – From “Give My Regards To Broad Street” press conference, October 1984

Even now, while only a few people come up to me and sayd, “I do like your Mozart horn concertos,” so many others say, “See that big grey-haired old chap over there? He played with The Beatles!” For me, it was just another day’s work, the third session that day in fact, but it was very interesting.

Alan Civil – Horn player – 1988 interview – From “Revolver (2022)” book

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 21 Jun 1966.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7009 Revolver 1966.
US: Capitol T 2576 Revolver 1966.

[b] stereo 21 Jun 1966.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7009 Revolver 1966.
US: Capitol ST 2576 Revolver 1966.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46441 2 Revolver 1987.

The vocal comes across louder in mono [a].

Last updated on November 13, 2023

Lyrics

Variations