When listening to the Beatles , there’s an expectation that what you’re listening to features all four members. For the most part, that’s entirely the case, as each band member worked their magic in tandem to create their signature sound. However, there are a handful of exceptions when it comes to this rule, whether for artistic reasons or days when members decided that day was just not for theirs to shine.
In the early days, the members of the band had to be tight-knit to survive, a trait that was heavily utilised in films like A Hard Day’s Night, mainly because relatability and humour sell, but also because their natural camaraderie and desire to simply have fun were characteristics they genuinely possessed. Despite commercialist demands, they enjoyed each others’ company and confided in one another despite facing something as overwhelming as Beatlemania.
Most of the time, their dynamics in the recording studio also reflected this innate team spirit, with each member getting the opportunity to platform their talents in unique ways, contributing to songs with their flare and creating a distinctive sound that elevated their music beyond the sum of its parts. Even when they began exploring other influences and genres, they each adorned tracks with their own fingerprints, even if others appeared more prominent in their presence.
However, surprisingly, a handful of tracks in the band’s discography don’t actually feature all four members, with reasons ranging from respected creative choices to fallouts and broader tensions within the group. The most obvious example includes ‘Yesterday’, a song so heavily engrained in Beatles lore and legacy that the fact it only features Paul McCartney is often overlooked.
For the song, all other members relinquished control and allowed only McCartney to contribute vocals and acoustic guitar, accompanied by a string quartet, to give it its overwhelming and emotional appeal. ‘Yesterday’ became one of the band’s most iconic songs, but technically, it’s a McCartney solo under the guise of a Beatles track.
On the other side of the coin, McCartney experienced the strangeness of sitting out with ‘She Said She Said’, albeit for more insidious, anger-fuelled reasons. As the band began to delve deeper into psychedelia in the 1960s, McCartney began to worry they were becoming too experimental, and it didn’t help that he felt John Lennon was trying to turn them into an avant-garde group on purpose, no matter the commercial ramifications.
Therefore, write recording the song, McCartney uttered a frustrated “fuck you” to Lennon after he brought the track “pretty much finished,” causing him to leave the studio in the heat of the moment and not perform his contributions. In his absence, George Harrison ended up with Lennon on guitar and Ringo Starr, as always, on drums.
Each member had their time in the sun at one point or another, not just due to conflict but because the sound of the track or the vision of those who wrote it warranted a unique approach. Take ‘Within You Without You’, for instance, a track that only features Harrison and a group of musicians from India, recorded in isolation to see his creative vision come to life without input from any of the others.
This was a similar case with Lennon’s intimate ode to his mother, ‘Julia’, alongside Starr’s solo lullaby ‘Good Night’, as well as McCartney’s other solo venture ‘Wild Honey Pie’ and the Lennon and Ono-created ‘Revolution 9’, which features the pair along with Harrison and Starr. Interestingly, although different to the rest of their catalogue, each of these seven tracks reflects a different side of the band’s artistry, demonstrating not only their flexibility but individuality when it came to distinctive visions.
Songs that didn’t feature all four Beatles members:
- ‘She Said She Said’
- ‘Yesterday’
- ‘Good Night’
- ‘Within You Without You’
- ‘Wild Honey Pie’
- ‘Revolution 9’
- ‘Julia’