THE BEATLES - “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out”
(#207, 18th December 1965)
As pop gets more explicit, it’s easy to become nostalgic about acts’ creative attempts to smuggle drugs and sex into their songs. But most of the time the references work the way they do in “Day Tripper” - she’s a big teaser, she’s a day tripper, subtle stuff there lads! The song’s a frustrated goodbye, but who’d really blame a girl for having fun with boys whose eagerness to please is so apparent? I had it in my mind that this was a track where the Beatles rocked out, and the riff/backbeat matrix reminds me of the Stones’ recent hits, but there’s a neatness, a pertness about this band on this record. The breakdown could be the chance to nail the riff to our skulls but the band’s ascending, harmonised “aaah”s turn it into a big pop celebration instead. And it’s wonderful, but I’m left wondering who exactly are the teasers here.
The tambourine from “Day Tripper” shows up on “We Can Work It Out”, where everyone sounds more relaxed. Paul McCartney uses precisely banal language to deliver a lesson in reasonable conflict management in the verses, with Lennon’s witty harmonium humming in agreement. From my perspective, grown up in a house which owned a copy of Sergeant Pepper’s and not much else (by anyone!), the waltz-time middle eight is the first time the Beatles really sound “Beatlish”, the storied makers of reassuringly delightful songs. 7
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Tom on May 17th, 2005
(It’s nice to be back. I will try not to make a habit of month-long laziness.)
Lena on May 17th, 2005
I was wondering when you’d return! Welcome back!
I like both of these songs about equally, and yes, they do seem poised between what had already come and what was to be - I don’t know if this is where Oasis start with their Beatles influence, or whether that comes later. (I think it does.)
Why two songs though? How did that work as a single? Would radio stations play both songs, back to back, or what?
Tom on May 17th, 2005
Some singles are officially classified as “double A sides” and are listed on the charts as such. In theory this means that radio programmers are free to play both, in actual fact this doesn’t often happen. With some singles the ’switch’ happened halfway through the record’s life, as the record company asks DJs to play the other side in an attempt to prolong its chart run.
The double-A side lives on in the era of 2 CDs per single: the last one to top the chart was, I think, “Flap Yr Wings”/”My Place” by Nelly.
I reserve the right in Popular to be entirely disproportionate in the attention I give to each side of a double-A!
Lena on May 17th, 2005
Thanks!
Anonymous on May 18th, 2005
First time I heared “We can..” I thought it was about how the Beatles were really good at solving problems, and how you should employ them rather than trying to solve the problem yourself.
Check the lyrics, nothing contradicts this…
(Mark Grout - Anon)
Alan Connor on May 18th, 2005
Hello again!
Resurrection Watch: “We Can Work It Out”s include Stevie Wonder’s, Chaka Khan’s, Petula Clark’s and King Missile’s. And “Day Tripper”s include Jimi Hendrix’s, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66’s, Yellow Magic Orchestra’s, Mae West’s, Sham 69’s, Nancy Sinatra’s, Randy California’s, James Taylor’s and (shudder) Ocean Colour Scene’s and Oasis’s.
Anonymous on May 18th, 2005
Huzzah! Tom’s back! One feared that “The Carnival is Over” finished you off for good!
That being said, I was at first baffled by the 7–then I thought fair enough for a double A-side: 8 for “Day Tripper” and 6 for “We Can . . .” So, then, OK.
Because I’m working on a book (tentatively titled Britannia Waives the Rules) which examines the effect of the “Permissive Society” legislations on British literature and culture (collapsing the distinctions between “high” and “low” art), I found the comments about “smuggling” sex and drug references into the lyrics interesting. It was so very daring then–and absolutely quaint–charmingly so, I think–by today’s standards.
Last week, I ended my queer lit course with the novel Breakfast on Pluto (in which, in one scene, the characters sing “We Can Work It Out”) and spent a whole class session showing video clips–including one of the Beatles stoned out of their minds and miming “Day Tripper”–of 60s British acts in order to contextualize the pop culture fantasies of the protagonist. Most of the class loved it. (A few looked puzzled or distressed.) Strange thing is, a extraordinary number of these twenty-year-olds know many of these songs–they were singing along with them. No one can convince me that, since the sixties at least, pop music isn’t the most influential cultural tradition of the postmodern world.
And yes, this record is an almost paradigmatic example of a certain “Beatleness” that still brings me cheer whenever I hear it.
Doctor Mod
Anonymous on May 18th, 2005
As to the Resurrection Watch–
I once saw/heard Annie Lennox (still in Eurythmics then) sing “Day Tripper” live in concert (We Two are One Tour, 1989). I don’t know if she ever recorded it, though.
Doctor Mod
Tom on May 18th, 2005
Yes, it’s an 8. I was wrong, knew it pretty much as soon as I’d published it but (my own self-imposed) rules are rules.
Rosie on May 18th, 2005
Ooh! Nice to see you back Tom - I missed you!
Elle Bee on May 19th, 2005
Never forget Cheap Trick’s cover of “Day Tripper”. Never do that.
Anonymous on May 19th, 2005
When it comes to re-makes, “Day Tripper” must have accumulated one of the oddest assortment of artists ever. Along with those already mentioned, I find at All Music Guide: Lulu, Anne Murray, Otis Redding, Mongo Santamaria, and Whitesnake.
wwolfe
Alan Connor on May 20th, 2005
Okay, so it’d be better to hear personal responses to these songs, but this is Cover Heaven, so let’s add in, for “Day Tripper”, Booker T & The MGs, Whitesnake and ELO. And for “We Can Work It Out”: Big Youth, Dionne Warwick and Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.
Anonymous on May 20th, 2005
Was John Lennon secretly gleaning inspiration form travel catalogues and brochures ?
Spending too much time in ariports and hotels ?
Ticket to Rhyde ? Then Day Tripper ?
Not a co-incidence, methinks.
What’s next ? Drive My Car ?
Brian
Caledonianne on July 14th, 2007
And then there’s the - ahem - Sacha Distel take on “We can work it out”…
Lyfsabeech on August 7th, 2008
I have a demo disc of these two tracks, back to back on an A label disc. Sent to Pete Murray in 1965. Is it worth keeping?
Lyfsabeech on August 7th, 2008
I have a demo disc of these two tracks, back to back on an A label disc. Sent to Pete Murray in 1965. Is it worth keeping?