One After 909

From Wikipedia:

“One After 909” (sometimes titled “The One After 909” in early recordings) is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1970 album Let It Be. It was written by John Lennon, with input from Paul McCartney, and was credited to their joint partnership. The album version is the live performance from the rooftop concert which took place on 30 January 1969. This performance is also included in the Let It Be film. The song was written no later than spring 1960 and perhaps as early as 1957, and is one of the first Lennon–McCartney compositions. “One After 909” is perhaps more reminiscent of early American rock ‘n’ roll than any of the other songs from the rooftop show, and as a joke for the rooftop chatter, Lennon sings a variant on the opening line of “Danny Boy” after the song is finished.

Origin

In his 1980 Playboy interview Lennon explained, “That was something I wrote when I was about seventeen. I lived at 9 Newcastle Road. I was born on the ninth of October, the ninth month [sic]. It’s just a number that follows me around, but, numerologically, apparently I’m a number six or a three or something, but it’s all part of nine.”

McCartney said, “It’s not a great song but it’s a great favourite of mine because it has great memories for me of John and I trying to write a bluesy freight-train song. There were a lot of those songs at the time, like ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Freight Train‘, ‘Rock Island Line‘, so this was the ‘One After 909’; she didn’t get the 909, she got the one after it.”

Different versions

On 5 March 1963, the Beatles recorded a version of the song in five takes during the same session that produced their third single, “From Me to You“, and its B-side “Thank You Girl“. They were unhappy with the result and that version was not released at the time. Various takes from the 5 March session, and an edit of them, were released in 1995 on the Anthology 1 compilation. The song was shelved for six years, until the Beatles re-recorded it for their Get Back project, and eventually saw the release in Let It Be.

“One After 909” is included on 2003’s Let It Be… Naked, in a remixed and remastered version of the 1969 rooftop concert take. The original third take of the song was released as part of the 2021 re-release of Let It Be. […]

You wrote Love Me Do before The Beatles?

Yeah, we did we that. We did a few before The Beatles really – Love Me Do, One After 909. That was very much in my front room in our little house and I Saw Her Standing There. I’d started that and we worked on it together so we had those really before The Beatles broke.

Paul McCartney – From interview with Sean Lennon – John Lennon at 80, October 4, 2020

It was a number we didn’t used to do much but it was one that we always liked doing, and we rediscovered it. There were a couple of tunes that we wondered why we never put out; either George Martin didn’t like them enough to or he favoured others. It’s not a great song but it’s a great favourite of mine because it has great memories for me of John and I trying to write a bluesy freight-train song. There were a lot of those songs at the time, like “Midnight Special”, “Freight Train”, “Rock Island Line”, so this was the “One After 909”; she didn’t get the 909, she got the one after it! It was a tribute to British Rail, actually. No, at the time we weren’t thinking British, it was much more the Super Chief from Omaha.

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

The bit you won’t see in the [Get Back] film is our kid telling John that I was the one who remembered the “one after 909” from Forthlin Rd rehearsals! At least Pete Jackson has sent me the outtake!

Mike McCartney – from Twitter, December 31, 2021

That was something I wrote when I was about seventeen. I lived at 9 Newcastle Road. I was born on the ninth of October, the ninth month [sic]. It’s just a number that follows me around, but, numerologically, apparently I’m a number six or a three or something, but it’s all part of nine.

John Lennon – From interview with Playboy, 1980

Lyrics

Variations

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Videos

Live performances

“One After 909” has been played in 19 concerts and 35 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “One After 909” has been played

Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

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The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1 is an in depth, revealing exploration of McCartney’s creative and personal lives beyond the Beatles.

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