Got To Get You Into My Life

Song facts

That’s mine; I wrote it. It was the first one we used brass on, I think. One of the first times we used soul trumpets.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Playboy Magazine, 1984

From Wikipedia:

“Got to Get You into My Life” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, first released in 1966 on their album Revolver. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is a homage to the Motown Sound, with colourful brass instrumentation and lyrics that suggest a psychedelic experience. “It’s actually an ode to pot,” McCartney explained. A cover version by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, produced by McCartney, peaked at number six in 1966 in the UK. The song was issued in the United States as a single from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Music compilation album in 1976, six years after the Beatles disbanded. Another cover version by Earth, Wind & Fire from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film soundtrack peaked at number nine in the US in 1978.

Composition and recording

Though officially credited to Lennon–McCartney, McCartney was primarily responsible for the writing of the song, to which he also contributed lead vocals. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios between 7 April and 17 June 1966 and evolved considerably between the first takes and the final version released on album. The song seems to have been hard to arrange until the soul-style horns, strongly reminiscent of the Stax’ Memphis soul and Motown sound, were introduced. The original version of the track, taped on the second day of the Revolver sessions, featured an arrangement that included harmonium and acoustic guitar, and a partly a-cappella section (repeating the words “I need your love”) sung by McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison. In the description of author Robert Rodriguez, relative to the “R&B-styled shouter” that the band completed in June, this version was “more Haight-Ashbury than Memphis”. Author Devin McKinney similarly views the early take as “radiat[ing] peace in a hippie vein”, and he recognises the arrangement as a forerunner to the sound adopted by the Beach Boys over 1967–1968 on their albums Smiley Smile and Wild Honey.

The brass was close-miked in the bells of the instruments, then put through a limiter. This session, on 18 May, marked the first time that the Beatles had used a horn section.

The song starts with a blaring brass fanfare, McCartney’s vocals entering at 0:07. The chorus of the song appears at 1:04, with the song’s title sung. The song then switches between a verse and the refrain. A short electric guitar solo appears at 1:53 and at 2:10 the horn fanfare re-enters. The song closes with fading vocals of McCartney.

In Barry Miles’ 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, McCartney disclosed that the song was about marijuana. “‘Got to Get You into My Life’ was one I wrote when I had first been introduced to pot … So [it’s] really a song about that, it’s not to a person.” Many lyrics from the song suggest this: “I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there / Another road where maybe I could see some other kind of mind there.”,'”What can I do? What can I be? When I’m with you, I want to stay there / If I am true, I will never leave and if I do, I’ll know the way there.” “It’s actually an ode to pot,” McCartney explained, “like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret.”

Release and reception

Parlophone released Revolver on 5 August 1966 with “Got to Get You into My Life” sequenced as the penultimate track, between Harrison’s “I Want to Tell You” and Lennon’s “Tomorrow Never Knows“. According to Devin McKinney, while McCartney’s songs can be heard individually as “simple affirmations”, in the context of their placement on Revolver, “each song gains” from the reflected depth of the Lennon and Harrison compositions. McKinney writes that “Got to Get You into My Life” “is notable for being as expressive of a simple livid frustration as any McCartney music to date: its two minutes are a tight mass of constipated fury, an existential annoyance expressing itself as romantic confusion”.

In his review of the song for AllMusic, Thomas Ward writes: “McCartney’s always been a great vocalist, and this is perhaps the best example of his singing on Revolver. One of the overlooked gems on the album.” Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork considers Revolver to be McCartney’s “maturation record” as a songwriter in the same way that Rubber Soul had been for Lennon in 1965. He highlights “Got to Get You into My Life” as one of McCartney’s “most demonstrative songs” on the album and a reflection of his innate “optimism and populism”. Chris Coplan of Consequence of Sound admires the psychedelic tone of Revolver, but says that this experimentalism renders the more standard pop songs, such as “Got to Get You into My Life” and “Here, There and Everywhere“, “seemingly out of place” within the collection.

Musicologist Walter Everett describes “Got to Get You into My Life” as “always … one of the LP’s most popular tracks” due to the success of its cover recordings, the first of which was a 1966 UK top-ten hit by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, co-produced by McCartney, and the 1976 single release of the Beatles’ original. Music critic Tim Riley says the song is the “most derivative cut” on Revolver but nevertheless identifies it as an authentic rhythm and blues track that shows how well the Beatles had mastered the style. Riley especially praises the song’s closing section, introduced by a Harrison guitar break that he describes as “dazzling” in sound and a combination of “crimped energy” and “tasty ornaments”, followed by McCartney’s vocal interplay with the brass.

When asked about the song in his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said, “Paul’s again. I think that was one of his best songs, too.” […]

What we had to get into our lives, it seemed, was marijuana. Until we happened upon marijuana, we’d been drinking men. We were introduced to grass when we were in the US, and it blew our tiny little minds.

What happened is that we were in a hotel suite, maybe in New York around the summer of 1964, and Bob Dylan turned up with his roadie. He’d just released Another Side of Bob Dylan. We were just drinking, as usual, having a little party. We’d ordered drinks from room service — scotch and Coke and French wine were our thing back then — and Bob had disappeared into a back room. We thought maybe he’d gone to the toilet, but then Ringo came out of that back room, looking a bit strange. He said, “I’ve just been with Bob, and he’s got some pot,” or whatever you called it then. And we said, “Oh, what’s it like?” and he said, “Well, the ceiling is kind of moving; it’s sort of coming down.” And that was enough.

After Ringo said that, the other three of us all leapt into the back room where Dylan was, and he gave us a puff on the joint. And you know how a lot of people take a puff and think it’s not working? We expected something instantaneous, so we kept puffing away and saying, “It’s not working, is it?” And suddenly it was working. And we were giggling, laughing at each other. I remember George trying to get away, and I was sort of running after him. It was hilarious, like a cartoon chase. We thought, “Wow, this is pretty amazing, this stuff.” And so it became part of our repertoire from then on. How did we get our pot? To tell you the truth, it just showed up. There were certain people you could get it from. You just had to know who had some.

Paul McCartney – From Paul McCartney reveals the stories behind his greatest hits | The Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk) – From “The Lyrics” book, 2021

We put trumpets on because it sounded like a trumpet number. None of the others did, so we haven’t used them on any other tracks, so it’s a nice novelty.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off The Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

Paul. I think that was one of his best songs, too, because the lyrics are good and I didn’t write them. You see? When I say that he could write lyrics if he took the effort– here’s an example.

John Lennon – 1980

I’d been a rather straight working class lad, but when we started to get into pot it seemed to me to be quite uplifting. It didn’t seem to have too many side effects like alcohol or some of the other stuff, like pills, which I pretty much kept off. I kind of liked marijuana and to me it seemed it was mind-expanding, literally mind-expanding. So ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ is really a song about that. It’s not to a person, it’s actually about pot. It’s saying, ‘I’m going to do this. This is not a bad idea.’ So it’s actually an ode to pot, like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret. I haven’t really changed my opinion too much, except if anyone asks me for real advice, it would be stay straight. That is actually the best way, but in a stressful world I still would say that pot was one of the best of the tranquilizing drugs. I have drunk and smoked pot and of the two I think pot is less harmful. People tend to fall asleep on it rather than go out and commit murder, so it’s always seemed to me to be a rather benign one

Paul McCartney, 1994

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 17,20 Jun 1966.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7009 Revolver 1966.
US: Capitol T 2576 Revolver 1966.

[b] stereo 22 Jun 1966.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7009 Revolver 1966.
US: Capitol ST 2576 Revolver 1966.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46441 2 Revolver 1987.

Mono [a] has a noticeably longer fade (8 seconds) that helps, and louder bass and percussion. The brass sound on mono [a] was augmented on June 20 by lifting brass sound from the master and overdubbing onto the mix done on June 17. This overdub, being on the mix tape, was not done in stereo [b]. [a] and [b] have different vocals at the fade, the line “every single day of my life”, which may be the use of different vocal tracks of the doubletracking.

Last updated on August 1, 2023

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