When I'm Sixty-Four

When I'm Sixty-Four
The Beatles
publication	June 1, 1967
length	2 min 38 s
Genre (s)	Music hall , pop
Author (s)	Lennon / McCartney
album	Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

When I'm Sixty-Four ( English When I'm sixty-four ) is a song by the Beatles , the 1967 as the ninth track on the LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released.

Recordings

The recordings for the piece took place on December 6th, 8th and December 20th and 21st, 1966 at Abbey Road Studios . The composition is by Paul McCartney and was recorded between the recording sessions for Strawberry Fields Forever . Ringo Starr played the percussions with a hard jazz broom and used different bells. When mixing, the recording was increased by about a semitone to make McCartney's voice sound younger. Lennon / McCartney are named as the copyright holder .

Even in their early club days, the band often played the song when the system failed at concerts. In July 1966, McCartney's father James turned 64, which likely inspired his son to pull the title out of his archives and record it. However, the text and melody have been modified several times.

George Martin said of the song:

“If you look at the lyrics you can see that underneath the jokiness they are saying 'Isn't old age awful? Banality, tedium, nothingness, poverty, routine '. "

“If you take a closer look at the text, you will notice that something else is written between the funny lines: 'Isn't that old age terrible? Banality, boredom, nothingness, poverty, habit '. "

- George Martin, Summer of Love , 1994, p. 36

instrumentation

The song is mainly accompanied by a clarinet trio (two B-flat clarinets and a bass clarinet), which is also unusual in other music genres, but above all of course for rock and roll. George Martin said that this goes back to Paul McCartney's request, "to get around the lurking schmaltz factor" ( German : "to bypass the intrusive schmalz factor "), through the "classic" use of the clarinets. In the last verse, one of the clarinets plays the second part of Paul McCartney's singing: an unusual method of accompaniment, especially in 1967. Other accompanying instruments include a piano , electric bass , tubular bells and electric guitar .

Film Yellow Submarine

The piece was used in the cartoon Yellow Submarine in 1968 . Immediately before the song, a short text appears showing that 64 years corresponds to 33,661,440 minutes. Then the intro counts up from zero to 64 in different ways.

German language versions

Marius Müller-Westernhagen published a German version in 1972 under the title When I am old . In 1976 there was another German version under the title When I am sixty-four , sung by Udo Lindenberg . Franz Hohler published a Swiss German version under the title Weni mol alt bi . A version with stanzas in Kölsch and Saxon by Daniel Dickopf is available from the Wise Guys .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Zytglogge Verlag, Tonträger - Cabaret: Franz Hohler ( Memento of October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Alternative text to "When I'm 64". (No longer available online.) In: wiseguys.de. Archived from the original on December 17, 2016 ; accessed on April 1, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.