Come together

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Come together
The Beatles
publication 26th September 1969
length 4 min 19 s
Genre (s) Blues rock
Author (s) Lennon / McCartney
album Abbey Road

Come Together ( English Come together ) is the opening song of the album Abbey Road from 1969, the British band The Beatles . It was written by John Lennon and, as usual, attributed to the Lennon / McCartney duo . A month after its release on Abbey Road , the title was released as a double A-side along with Something in October 1969 .

It was the Beatles' 21st single, reaching number 1 in Germany and the United States and number 4 in the UK. The song is ranked 202 of the list of the 500 greatest songs of all time the music magazine Rolling Stone .

Origin and copyright dispute

The song is based on a song Lennon wrote for Timothy Leary's gubernatorial campaign that Leary led against Ronald Reagan in California . The slogan of the Leary campaign was Come together, join the party. The campaign ended abruptly when Leary was sentenced to prison for drug possession.

The song became the subject of a lawsuit against Lennon, led by Chuck Berry's editor Morry Levy, because a line of text in Come Together should be too close to Berry's You Can't Catch Me . After an out-of-court settlement was reached, Lennon promised to record three more songs that Levy had the rights to.

Cover versions

The most successful cover version of the song comes from the American hard rock band Aerosmith . It was recorded in 1978 and appeared on the soundtrack of the films Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , in which Aerosmith also appeared, and Armageddon - The Judgment Day . The cover version reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 . Michael Jackson , who also held the rights to the song, covered Come Together in 1988 for his concert film Moonwalker . In 1992, the song was released as a B-side of the single Remember the Time and in 1995 in shortened version on the album HIStory - Past, Present and Future Book I .

Other cover versions include Gotthard (1994), the Eurythmics (1987), Tina Turner (1976, for her music documentary All This and World War II ), Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen in honor of Lennon's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Tom Jones released a live recording of the piece on his 1999 album Reload. Another live recording can be found on the 2013 album Live in Concerts by the Henrik Freischlader Band . Jazz versions come from the Mike Westbrook Band, who recorded an entire Beatles album live with Off Abbey Road (1990), and the jazz guitarist Nguyên Lê on his album Songs of Freedom (2011).

Joe Cocker covered the song in 2007 for the soundtrack of the film Across the Universe . The band Godsmack released their version in 2012 on the album Live & Inspired. On July 27, 2012, the Arctic Monkeys performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London , they played both their own song and Come Together. In 2014, the American country singer Eric Church released a cover version of the song exclusively on the vinyl edition of his album The Outsiders. The German band AnnenMayKantereit published a cover version of the song on their YouTube channel.

Musician

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hit balance sheet, German chart singles 1956–1998 on CD-ROM . Taurus Press Verlag popular music-literature, Norderstedt 1999
  2. ↑ The Beatles Bible - Come Together
  3. ↑ Come Together . The Beatles Bible
  4. ↑ Come Together (Beatles Cover) - AnnenMayKantereit. June 23, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 .