Michelle (song)

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Michelle
The Beatles
publication December 3, 1965
length 2 min 42 s
Genre (s) Pop , ballad
Author (s) Lennon / McCartney
album Rubber Soul

Michelle is a ballad of the Beatles , on their sixth studio album in 1965 Rubber Soul appeared.

Emergence

Text and composition are mainly from the pen of Paul McCartney , although the piece was ascribed to the Lennon / McCartney writing team, as was customary in the Beatles' time .

McCartney inspired a student who played guitar at a party and sang a French song for the song, the lyrics of which are partly in French . Fascinated by the Parisian bohemian scene , which was popular in the early 1960s, Paul McCartney began to work on the piece around September 1965 ( the Beatles had a few weeks of vacation between the US tour in August 1965 and the recording sessions for the new album) . Since his command of the French language was limited, he asked Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and wife of his former schoolmate Ivan Vaughan, through whom he had met John Lennon , for help. She also had the idea to use the name Michelle .

The piece was recorded in the usual line-up on November 3, 1965 at Abbey Road Studios with John Lennon and George Harrison on acoustic guitar, McCartney on bass and Ringo Starr on drums. Lennon and Harrison sang the background voices. The guitar solo played by George Harrison in the middle and at the end of the song was written by producer George Martin according to his own account . In 1967 the song won a Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

Commercial win

The original version of The Beatles was not released as a single in the UK . In contrast, it was very successful in other European countries and reached number 1 in France and Norway , among others . In Germany, Michelle came 6th in March 1966.

In the UK, the Overlanders recorded a folk version of Michelle in 1966 and released it as a single. They reached number 1 in the British charts and were also able to place themselves in other European countries, albeit worse than the original of the Beatles.

In the USA and Canada a version of the duo David & Jonathan was released, which reached number 1 in Canada and number 18 in the US hit parades. In the UK, this version came in at number 11.

Others

Paul McCartney in the White House

On June 2, 2010, Paul McCartney performed at the White House and sang the song Michelle in the presence of First Lady Michelle Obama .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barry Miles: Paul McCartney. Many years from now. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999. ISBN 3-499-60892-8 ; Pp. 313-316.
  2. ↑ Steve Turner: A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song . New York, HarperCollins, 2005, ISBN 0-06-084409-4 , p. 94.
  3. ^ Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years . ISBN 0-600-61207-4 , p. 67.
  4. ↑ www.youtube.com: Excerpt from an interview with George Martin from 1993 for the Swedish documentary Den femte beatlen . Retrieved June 16, 2016.