Beatles Countdown #79: Michelle

Apr 08

Doug1960s paul mcartney, the beatles No Comments

Coming in at #79 is one of Paul McCartney’s most acclaimed & recognizable compositions from 1965′s Rubber Soul: “Michelle!”

One of the most memorable songs from the band’s folk-rock album, the genesis of “Michelle” actually began around 1959 as it was one of the first instrumental pieces Paul wrote. Back then, he wrote all of his songs on his first guitar, a right-handed Zenith that he turned upside down to be able to play. Songs like “I Saw Her Standing There” had their beginnings in this stage of Paul’s songwriting, but “Michelle” stood out as it was his first attempt at playing in a finger-picking style. While he was inspired by the song “Trambone” by Chet Atkins, the style foreshadowed Paul’s future desire to break out of the rock style of writing songs as this style was fairly innovative at the time. Originally called “Instrumental In C,” the song started to get more life during John Lennon’s stay at art school. He would invite Paul & George out to college parties where French culture happened to be a huge trend. Trying to fit in, Paul would sit in the corner playing the song while making up French words to match the song. Years later when prepping for the recording of their first true landmark album, John suggested that Paul pay some serious attention to the composition.

Trying to keep the French theme intact, Paul got in touch with Jan Vaughan, a French teacher. In an interesting fact, Jan was the wife of Ivan Vaughan who actually introduced Paul & John to each other. In Paul’s own words: “I said, ‘I like the name Michelle. Can you think of anything that rhymes with Michelle, in French?’ And she said, ‘Ma belle.’ I said, ‘What’s that mean?’ ‘My beauty.’ I said, ‘That’s good, a love song, great.’ We just started talking, and I said, ‘Well, those words go together well, what’s French for that? Go together well.’ ‘Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble.’ I said, ‘All right, that would fit.’” Years later, Paul would send her a check as he considered her to be a co-writer of the song. The final piece to come together for the song would be from John who suggested the “I love you” bridge section that was inspired by Nina Simone’s “I Put A Spell On You.” John would later comment on how he would always find ways to add a blues-y, discord-y feel to otherwise straight love songs of Paul and this song stands a prime example for it. In the end, Nina Simone & Chet Atkins helped inspire a piece ultimately composed by Paul McCartney with some help from John Lennon & Jan Vaughan thrown in there. Pretty easy to see why the song got so much praise.

With that praise, the song turned out to be one of The Beatles’ most acclaimed recordings ever. The song actually was the only one to ever win a Grammy for Song Of The Year despite being nominated for songs like “Hey Jude, Yesterday,” & “A Hard Day’s Night.” While the band picked up awards in 1965 (such as the prestigious “Best New Artist”), the band went home from the 1966 ceremony with no awards despite being nominated for nine! The Beatles would then only get nominated for two awards in 1967 (one of them being for Klaus Voormann’s cover art for Revolver) and their hopes had to be low, but when they won one of the top four awards at the ceremony, it was a big triumph over a ceremony that overlooked them. Sure, The Beatles were really only active for about seven Grammy ceremonies, but they really only picked up eight awards. That may seem like a lot, but in hindsight, The Beatles only winning one of the Big Four awards four times is a little sad for perhaps the most acclaimed band of all time. Perhaps I’m being critical of the Grammy’s, but the criticisms the ceremony get today were just as prevalent then as they are now. Back on the song though, “Michelle” would be named the 42nd most performed song of the 20th Century by BMI and remains a pure stand-out from their breakthrough album Rubber Soul. It’s easy to see why the song won a Grammy and remains popular to this day, but with 78 more songs to go, the quality’s only going to keep going up from here.

Song: Michelle
Album: Rubber Soul
Year: 1965

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