The fact that the tumblr Beatles fandom leaves “Oh Johnny (I Don’t Know)” so unacknowledged is insane to me.
Maybe it’s because Oh Johnny seems too “fanfiction” to exist: an unreleased song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1960 with lyrics like “Oh Johnny Johnny/ How can I tell ‘em you’re the one I’m going with/I don’t know, I don’t know/ Oh Johnny Johnny, what do I tell my father?”
But nope. It’s totally real. I mean, it sounds awful since it was a 1960 home recording, but it exists.
I’ll link the rest of the Forthlin Road Tapes under the cut too. (Warning that they sound like shit because of the recording quality).
This song would eventually be released on Beatles For Sale. The verses of the original are basically the same, but the bridge is totally different (lyrics and melody).
But the bassline is the same.
This is really interesting, because while the bassline in this version isn’t very loud, once you hear it, it is noticeably more complex than Stu’s usual playing. It’s not a very difficult line to play, so we assume it is being played by Stu, but was more than likely written by Paul. This is suggested by the complexity, and supported by the fact that he kept that bassline for the album version of the song.
The lyrics of the original bridge are:
Well don’t leave me alone out here
Have courage and follow me my dear
(Both lines do not end in "my dear" as previously assumed, more on that later).
This is thematically very similar to In Spite Of All the Danger and You Must Write Every Day: needing courage, and being left alone. We believe that John living in Gambier terrace was looming large for Paul at this time, so that may be related. It also has an interesting echo in a much later song.
Here is the Beatles For Sale version for comparison:
If Paul was already writing basslines at this stage then maybe he was more familiar with the instrument than is usually assumed. This may be an early example of him “muscling in” on another band member’s territory, and could have contributed to the tensions between Paul and Stu. It is also possible that Paul is actually playing the bass here, but we can’t know whether this line was within Stu’s capabilities. Klaus, Pete, and Paul have all defended Stu’s playing, while acknowledging that it was basic.
Paul writing basslines and giving them to Stu could also have fed the idea that he was trying to take over the bass player role. We believe Paul when he says he didn’t want to play bass, but it could have looked a certain way to others.
Mike can also be heard playing ‘drums’ on a guitar case.
There's a short clip that precedes this song on the 2007 bootleg called Strong Before Our Birth, included here for interest:
As far as we can tell this is John (though we considered Paul) putting on a Spike Milligan style silly voice, saying "I need de sun, I do". The "I do" could be Paul, even if the beginning is John.
This is a John song, though Paul strongly disputes that it was John's alone. These are the first times 909 makes an appearance, but we'll discuss later appearances as they appear in the recording catalogue. This was eventually included on Let It Be, but it was originally recorded on the second of the Forthlin Road tapes, in June/July 1960.
In this version Paul seems to be singing lead with John singing high harmony. It makes sense that they would try recording the song in different configurations, but it's interesting to hear Paul sing lead on a John song. Makes us wonder if maybe Paul was telling the truth and it wasn't just a John song.
The drums are most likely being played by Paul's brother Mike, and the bass would be Stu.
The strumming (in both versions) is clearly meant to evoke a train sound, we assume this was an invention of Paul's. (This guess is largely based on Paul's train-like drum pattern he got Ringo to do for "Ticket To Ride").
Lyrics:
Well, my baby says she's trav'ling on the one after 909
She said move over honey I'm travelling on that line
She said move over once, move over twice
Come on baby don't be cold as ice.
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 909
Well I begged her not to go
and I begged her on a bended knee,
She said you're only fooling around,
she's only fucking around with me.
I said move over once, move over twice
Come on baby don't be cold as ice.
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 909
Picked up my bags, run to the station
Railman says you've got the wrong location yeah
pick up my bags, run right home
Then I find I've got the number wrong yeah
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 909
I Said move over honey I'm travelling on that line
she said move over once, move over twice
Come on baby don't be cold as ice.
Said she's traveling on the one after 909.
Picked up my bags, run to the station
Railman says you've got the wrong location yeah
pick up my bags, run right home
Then I find I've got the number wrong yeah
She said she's trav'ling on the one after 909 woo
Move over honey I'm travelling on that line woo
Said move over once, move over twice
Come on baby don't be cold as ice.
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 9 0,
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 9 0,
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 9 0,
Said she's trav'ling on the one after 9 0,
We'll leave discussion of Paul's 1969 reaction to the song (seen in Peter Jackson's Get Back) until much later.
Though we have one really outrageous theory. In John's 1980 Playboy interview he said:
"That was something I wrote when I was about seventeen. I lived at 9 Newcastle Road. I was born on the ninth of October, the ninth month [sic]. It’s just a number that follows me around, but, numerologically, apparently I’m a number six or a three or something, but it’s all part of nine."
So in some way maybe the song has to do with his birthday. 9 09 would be the American way to notate a date, which makes sense considering the song was based on American train songs, according to Paul in Barry Miles' Many Years From Now
It has great memories for me of John and I trying to write a bluesy freight-train song. There were a lot of those songs at the time, like ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Freight Train’, ‘Rock Island Line’, so this was the ‘One After 909’; she didn’t get the 909, she got the one after it! It was a tribute to British Rail, actually. No, at the time we weren’t thinking British, it was much more the Super Chief from Omaha.
If the song is somehow related to John's birthday, even though John was born in the 10th month, not the 9th, though maybe that's why it's the one after 909 would be 1009, maybe it isn't as straight forward as we think. Also between George's dad was in charge of bus routes in Liverpool, and Paul was obsessed with buses. It's possible the 909 was a real bus that held personal significance.
ADDITION:
When we first listened to this track, we didn't have much to say on the track itself, but now that we can hear it clearer, it's very clear that the lyrics they say aren't "fooling" but "fucking."
There are all sorts of studio chatter audios where they swear, but it rarely happens in songs, so this is kind of unique and exciting.
It's also worth noting that Paul is at least a word behind John the entire first half of the song. Maybe the song isn't as old as Paul said, maybe it was new in 1960, or maybe this was just the first time Paul wasn't just playing on it. We can speculate but can't know for sure, but what we do know is, for some reason Paul didn't know the lyrics very well.
This one is interesting cause it’s named, meaning someone heard the lyrics “An Important Number” when reviewing the song. And while there are lyrics towards the end, we can’t pick out those specific ones at all.
The main lyrics seem to be “keep on” and “we’re going back” over and over again. While most songs from this tape we do have thoughts on lyrically, this one seems very much like the first jam of the day just warming up. There really isn’t any message behind these lyrics.
However there is one very interesting vocal thing. Paul or one of the others is mimicking a shaker with their voice. We don’t know of any other time the Beatles did that, so it’s very interesting to hear here.
As far as music, we notice that the guitar and bass are far louder than anything else, which is why we can’t actually hear what anyone is saying with any sort of clarity. We wonder if they were trying something new and put the recording equipment closer to Stu and George rather than Paul and John. With today’s knowledge we find this quite silly, of course the vocals would be too quiet to hear, but then, maybe they just didn’t know and wanted to find out what happened. Or, continuing with our theory that the Kirchherr tape was created for Stu to practice his bass from, it could have been closer to the bass so that was the loudest thing and the easiest to work off of.
This instrumental is one of Paul's earliest compositions, and a modified version was included on Anthology 1. It’s credited to Paul alone, so it predates any Lennon/McCartney agreement.
It's a short, pleasant, guitar piece. It’s impressive really that Paul could compose something like this at such a young age, and teach it to his band mates. We can make out a basic but mostly competent bass line (played by Stu), a rhythm guitar (presumably John) and two more guitars (Paul and George).
In a couple of places one of the 6 string guitars mimics a bass-guitar sound (e.g. around 24 seconds in). We debated whether this was George or Paul. Paul could be getting frustrated with Stu’s bass line, or have included the sound in his composition before he showed it to his friends. Or maybe George was already doing something we would see him do much later during the Get Back sessions: filling in the space where he felt a bass line was needed (see the discussion about the bass line for Two Of Us).
According to the Anthology liner notes:
Cayenne is an instrumental composed by Paul McCartney. A good number of the earliest titles written by either Lennon or McCartney, or both, were instrumentals, written in the late 1950s when tunes without a lyric were prevalent.
There’s a Spanish sound to it, and we’re curious what inspired that. It makes us think of Besame Mucho and Hot As Sun (released on McCartney, but written in ‘58 or ‘59).
The entry for Cayenne on the Beatles Bible compares it to The Shadows, but doesn’t specify a song, and we don’t see the connection (we looked through a dozen or so Shadows songs. We did learn that Cliff Richards is gay in the process, though. See this interview with Piers Morgan, and this article).
It's not a very clear recording, but it was included in Anthology, so official lyrics are available. These are likely directly from Paul and George. They seem accurate (there are other songs on Anthology with less reliable lyrics).
Paul sings the melody, in a silly voice, with John adding low harmonies on the first verse and falsetto harmonies on the second and third. We discussed the possibility that Stuart’s voice could be heard, but the consensus seems to be that it’s just John and Paul.
John does a spoken word section, with typical Lennon humour:
My darling,
When you brought me that toast the other morning
I, I looked into your eyes
And I could see that National Health eyeball
And I loved you
Like I’ve never done
Like I have never done before
Len Gary has a scene in his book that sounds suspiciously like this spoken section. Gary's book came out in '97, and Anthology 1, which this was on, came out in '95, so it is very likely Gary used this as inspiration for that scene.
The song is a parody of a style, rather than a direct cover of a specific song, but we want to compare it to "That’s When Your Heartaches Begin" as made famous in 1942 by The Ink Spots. The spoken section in particular (starting around 1:50) is a great example of what John is parodying here.
This is especially interesting because they cover this song on these tapes, though they cover the Elvis version, not this one.
While the song is very playful, it could be interpreted as being about John and Paul's possible romantic relationship. Or it could just be a fun silly number about nothing much at all.
This was and still is a very popular song to record. It was originally released in 1929 recorded by Morton Downey, and was most recently recorded in 2016 by Noël Akchoté.
It was hard to figure out which version Paul was basing his off of. There are so many covers to choose from (over 30), but, we noticed a lyric change that changed the meter as well:
The original lyrics say “a million miles away” but Paul sings “a thousand million miles away”. A quick search revealed that one recording artist had made that change to the lyrics: Kay Starr.
It is interesting to note that her name was Catherine Starks, which is fairly similar to Starkey. We both wondered if maybe this is where Ringo got the idea to use Starr as his stage last name. We also wonder if the Hurricanes ever performed it and that’s why Paul, John, George, Stu and Mike recorded it. But that’s just a theory, and a pretty baseless one at that.
Kay Starr recorded the song twice; once in ‘53 and again in ‘60. Neither recording was released in the UK, as far as we can tell. However, it’s possible that one of the boys had a copy via the Liverpool sailors.
But we have another, more likely theory. We believe that Radio Luxembourg probably broadcast the ‘60 release, and that’s where they heard it.
The melody and flourishes are consistent with Kay’s 1960 version, but there are some noteworthy differences/errors. Suggesting that they’d only heard it a few times and Paul probably didn’t have access to his own copy. This means we have probably listened to the song more times while making this post than Paul did before they recorded it.
Kay Starr’s lyrics are available here.
Paul’s lyrics:
If you should find a way in somebody else’s kiss
Then I will always be in love with you
If you can bare to stay a thousand million miles away
Then I will always be in love with you
I can’t give you any more I tried so hard to please
So let me thank you for
Those tender memories
If you should find a way in somebody else’s kiss
Then I will always be in love with you
[instrumental]
If you should find your bliss in somebody else's kiss
Then I will always be in love with you
For having only heard it a handful of times, Paul did pretty well. It’s impressive, frankly.
This is an original instrumental from the first Forthlin Road tape (also known as the Kirchherr tape) from April/May 1960. It's called instrumental #1 on Strong Before Our Birth.
There is a prominent, simple bass line, played by Stu. And two guitars, one strumming, one picking. We’re guessing the strum is John and the pick is George, but we don’t have a lot to base that on.
This is our first guest post! From @peaceloveandstarrs (an instrumentalist):
It starts out in a sort of random, rambling sort of way, like they're trying to figure out exactly what it is they wanna play, maybe settle on a key signature. But once they settle in, it gets a nice little groove.
The melody is simple, and the bass and rhythm lines are almost plodding along for the most part, keeping time which makes sense since there's no percussion at all. There are a few moments where they go into a triplet rhythm, which I'm going to guess is normal for this style. Not a blues player, the closest I’ve gotten is playing in a jazz band. Close but not quite.
The tempo changes keep it interesting. And George changes the melody as the song goes on, making it more technical, more complicated. Definitely a sign of his growing talent and future writing ability! Makes listening to the songs he would come to write as a Beatle and later his solo career that much more interesting, knowing where he started. I’m pretty sure this was recorded as an improvisation, if I remember correctly, so he was coming up with this melody on the spot. Such an admirable talent given I can’t improvise at all.
The ending is definitely the most interesting to me. I can tell they're trying to make an exciting finish, end it with a flourish, that kind of thing. The little pause right before the final push to the end is a tease, making you think they're done. But wait, there's more! Always fun.
Overall, it's a nice little track. I wish the balance had been better at times - sometimes the bass and rhythm lines overpowered the melody - but I'm gonna guess that's a product of the technology of the time. Again, pretty impressive to think that they did this on the spot, no prior rehearsal or writing.
