{"id":104651,"date":"2025-05-15T22:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104651\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T22:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:29:11","slug":"self-indulgent-beatles-song-was-dropped-from-their-most-famous-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104651\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Self-indulgent’ Beatles song was dropped from their most famous album"},"content":{"rendered":"

The song was written about The Beatles’ publishing companyDan Haygarth<\/strong><\/a> Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter<\/p>\n

20:55, 15 May 2025<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison in 1964(Image: Michael Ochs Archives)<\/p>\n

As the band’s primary songwriters, Paul McCartney and John Lennon assumed creative control of The Beatles. The two wrote the vast majority of the group’s songs, with their work receiving the joint credit of Lennon-McCartney, regardless of whether they were solo or joint compositions.<\/p>\n

About their writing partnership, Wilfred Mellors wrote in 1972: “Opposite poles generate electricity: between John<\/a> and Paul<\/a> the sparks flew. John’s fiery iconoclasm was tempered by Paul’s<\/a> lyrical grace, while Paul’s wide-eyed charm was toughened by John’s resilience.”<\/p>\n

George Harrison<\/a> was also a talented songwriter but John and Paul’s prominence meant he had to battle to make his voice heard and to get his songs considered.<\/p>\n

The Wavertree-born<\/a> star had written some songs that The Beatles<\/a> recorded on their early records – he was given a quota of compositions for each album.<\/p>\n

When the band retired from touring in 1966 and focused on recording innovative music in the studio, George grew frustrated with the supporting role as a junior songwriter he had to play on ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’<\/a> and ‘The White Album’.<\/p>\n

‘Sgt Pepper’<\/a> included one song written by George<\/a> – ‘Within You Without You’. During the recording sessions for the album in early 1967, the band also recorded another of his compositions but it did not end up being included.<\/p>\n

This was ‘Only a Northern Song’. The title referred to his Northern roots and the band’s publishing company Northern Songs, of which John and Paul were majority shareholders with 15% each. George and Ringo Starr<\/a> held 0.8% each.<\/p>\n

About the track, George<\/a> said in 1979: “(It) was a joke relating to Liverpool, the Holy City in the North of England. In addition, the song was copyrighted Northern Songs Ltd., which I don’t own, so: (quoting the lyrics) ‘It doesn’t really matter what chords I play \u2026 as it’s only a Northern Song’.”<\/p>\n

George<\/a> elaborated on this in a 1999 interview with Billboard. He said: “I realized Dick James (Northern Songs managing director) had conned me out of the copyrights for my own songs by offering to become my publisher.<\/p>\n

“As an 18 or 19-year-old kid, I thought, \u2018Great, somebody\u2019s gonna publish my songs!\u2019<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Beatles drink a beer in a still from their movie ‘Help!’ which was released in 1965(Image: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“But he never said, \u2018And incidentally, when you sign this document here, you\u2019re assigning me the ownership of the songs,\u2019 which is what it is. It was just a blatant theft.<\/p>\n

“By the time I realized what had happened, when they were going public and making all this money out of this catalogue, I wrote \u2018Only A Northern Song\u2019 as what we call a \u2018p**s-take,\u2019 just to have a joke about it.”<\/p>\n

The song was recorded at Abbey Road in February 1967 but it was not included on ‘Sgt Pepper’<\/a>. Producer George Martin and the rest of the band were said to be less than impressed with it.<\/p>\n

However, it did see the light of day the following year in the ‘Yellow Submarine’<\/a> film. The band had little involvement in the film and provided songs to fill their contractual obligations.<\/p>\n

‘Only a Northern Song’ was then released on the accompanying album in January 1969. It received a mixed response, with critic Ian MacDonald describing it as “self-indulgent dirge”.<\/p>\n

About the track, writer Brian Southall said it was George’s: “personal denunciation of The Beatles’<\/a> music publishing business”. Mojo’s Peter Doggett said it was “gloriously ironic” and Alex Young called it “lyrically the quintessential track”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The song was written about The Beatles’ publishing companyDan Haygarth Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter 20:55,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,26608,8345,269,11693,20686,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-104651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-george-harrison","10":"tag-john-lennon","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-paul-mccartney","13":"tag-ringo-starr","14":"tag-the-beatles","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114514215947966219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}