You Never Give Me Your Money

This was me directly lambasting Allen Klein’s attitude to us. No money, just funny paper. All promises and it never works out. It’s basically a song about no faith in a person.

Paul McCartney

From Wikipedia:

“You Never Give Me Your Money” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was written by Paul McCartney (though credited to Lennon–McCartney) and documented the financial and personal difficulties facing the band. The song is the first part of the medley on side two of their 1969 album Abbey Road and was recorded in stages between May and August that year.

The song was the first one to be recorded for the medley, which was conceived by McCartney and producer George Martin as a finale for the Beatles’ career. The backing track was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes, London, but the remainder of overdubs occurred at EMI Studios. Musically, the song is made up of a suite of various segments, ranging from a piano ballad at the beginning through to guitar arpeggios at the end.

Background

The song was written by McCartney when he was staying with his wife Linda in New York in March 1969 shortly after their wedding. This was a break following the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. John Lennon and McCartney were at risk of losing overall control of Northern Songs, the company that published their songs, after ATV Music bought a majority share. McCartney had been largely responsible for the group’s direction and projects since the death of manager Brian Epstein in 1967, but he began to realise that the group dynamic of the Beatles was unraveling. He was particularly unhappy at the others, who wanted manager Allen Klein to help resolve financial matters. McCartney later said that the song was written with Klein in mind, saying “it’s basically a song about no faith in the person”. He added that the line “One sweet dream, pack up the bags, get in the limousine” was based on his trips in the country with Linda to get away from the tense atmosphere with the Beatles, though author Walter Everett thought the line was also a nostalgic look at the Beatles’ touring years, which had ended in 1966.

Realising that Abbey Road could be the group’s last album, McCartney and Martin decided to combine various portions of tracks into a medley, which would act as a climactic finale of the group’s career. McCartney later said that the idea of a song suite was inspired by Keith West’s “Excerpt from A Teenage Opera”. Some musical segments of “You Never Give Me Your Money” were reused for the “Golden Slumbers” / “Carry That Weight” portion of the medley, including the opening verses and later guitar arpeggios.

Structurally, the music begins with a piano ballad and moves to several other styles, including boogie-woogie piano, arpeggiated guitars and nursery rhyme. Beatles author Ian MacDonald speculates that the guitar arpeggios at the end of the track were influenced by “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and the middle section of “Here Comes the Sun“, and that the overall structure was inspired by Lennon’s “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” from the previous year’s album The Beatles, which also joined unrelated song fragments together.

Recording

The basic backing track was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes on 6 May 1969. Recording started at 3pm and went on until 4am the next morning. McCartney sang lead and played piano, Lennon played an Epiphone Casino guitar, George Harrison played a Fender Telecaster guitar fed through a Leslie speaker, and Ringo Starr played drums. The group recorded 36 takes, selecting take 30 as the best, which was made into a rough stereo mix. The basic structure of the song as it appeared on Abbey Road had not been worked out at this stage, and the original recording ran onto a loose jam session, ending up as a fast rock-and-roll instrumental towards the end.

The track was completed in EMI Studios. McCartney overdubbed a lead vocal onto the basic track on 1 July, and further vocals and sound effects were added on 15 July. On 30 July, a reduction mix was made of the original eight track tape, so further overdubs could be made, and a rough mix of the Abbey Road medley was put together. The cross-fade from “You Never Give Me Your Money” into the next track, “Sun King“, proved to be problematic, and the group made several attempts before deciding to merge the songs via an organ note. McCartney completed the instrumental overdubs the next day, on 31 July, by adding a bass guitar part and additional piano overdubs, including some punched-in honky-tonk piano in place of the original.

The final recording session occurred on 5 August, when McCartney made a number of tape loops at EMI Studios, including bells, birds, bubbles and chirping crickets. Martin mixed the track into stereo on 13 August, and made 11 attempts at a final mix, combining the tape loops with the cross-fade into “Sun King”, replacing the earlier organ note. He made another attempt at a final mix on 21 August, and this was used for the finished master. […]

We used to ask, ‘Am I a millionaire yet?’ and they used to say cryptic things like, ‘On paper you are.’ And we’d say, ‘Well, what does that mean? Am I or aren’t I? Are there more than a million of those green things in my bank yet?’ and they’d say, ‘Well, it’s not actually in a bank. We think you are…’ It was actually very difficult to get anything out of these people and the accountants never made you feel successful.

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

“Funny paper” – that’s what we get. We get bits of paper saying how much is earned and what this and that is, but we never actually get it in pounds, shillings and pence. We’ve all got a big house and a car and an office, but to actually get the money we’ve earned seems impossible.

George Harrison – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

The business problems at Apple Records […] really were horrible. The business meetings were just soul-destroying. We’d sit around in an office, and it was a place you just didn’t want to be, with people you didn’t want to be with. There’s a great picture that Linda took of Allen Klein, in which he’s got a hammer like Maxwell’s silver hammer. It’s very symbolic. And that’s why we have the little nod and a wink in the middle section to “You Never Give Me Your Money”, in the lines “I never give you my pillow / I only send you my invitations”

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” book (2021)

Allen Klein and Dick James, who sold our publishing in Northern Songs without giving us a chance to buy the company, were both hanging around in the background of this song. All the people who had screwed us or were still trying to screw us. It’s fascinating how directly we acknowledged this in the song. We’d cottoned on to them, and they must have cottoned on to the fact that we’d cottoned on. We couldn’t have been more direct about it.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” book (2021)

I’d got married to Linda, and our relationship offered some respite from the dreary infighting and the financial stuff. The lines ‘One sweet dream / Pack up the bags, get in the limousine’ were a reference to how Linda and I were still able to disappear for a weekend in the country. That saved me.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” book (2021)

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] stereo 13 Aug 1969. crossfaded 21 Aug 1969.
UK: Apple PCS 7088 Abbey Road 1969.
US: Apple SO-383 Abbey Road 1969.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46446 2 Abbey Road 1987.

The crossfade joins it to the next song Sun King / Mean Mr Mustard and includes sound effects not part of either song. The sound effects in the join are the Aug 5 additional recording listed above, credited as part of this song but really a separate tape used when the crossfade was done.

Lyrics

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Live performances

“You Never Give Me Your Money” has been played in 96 concerts and 16 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “You Never Give Me Your Money” has been played

Going further

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Never_Give_Me_Your_Money