Beatles Countdown #78: No Reply

Apr 08

Doug1960s john lennon, the beatles 1 Comment

John Lennon’s first complete story & the opening track to The Beatles’ fourth album stakes it claim on the countdown at #78: “No Reply.”

Written about a man unable to get in touch with his unfaithful girlfriend & the pain that follows, “No Reply” would be John Lennon’s version of “Silhouettes,” a 1957 hit by The Rays with a similar topic. John had originally written the song for Tommy Quickly, one of Brian Epstein’s artists, but John realized the potential of the song & saved it from becoming one of “The Songs Lennon And McCartney Gave Away.” The song would become John’s first complete story and their music publisher Dick James commented on how Lennon was improving in his songwriting seeing as this song actually resolved itself. Before that, John (and apparently Dick James) had thought that his stories drifted off from the subject matter in a vague open-ending way instead of finishing the story. Lennon would go on to write a bunch of timeless stories with the absence of his songwriting-ADD (i.e. “The Ballad Of John And Yoko”), but “No Reply” definitely started him down that style of songwriting. While it was primarily a Lennon song, Paul would claim that he helped with a few missing elements to the song which was the custom for the duo at the time. John never spoke out against this and his silence must be his concurrence; the two really only disagreed on the credit for three songs in their whole career. Three out of hundreds! More on that later and back to the song…

Like the rest of the album, the song was written & recorded in haste as the band was fast-approaching a deadline. Knowing that, it’s amazing to see how well the song turned out given that it’s definitely a great start to the album to differentiate from their past three works. Despite being a fairly plain song musically (key of C, AABA song format, et cetera), the song did feature some great lyrical work such as the line “If I were you I’d realize that I love you more than any other guy; and I’d forgive the lies that I heard before when you gave me no reply.” Sure, The Beatles have had a ton of memorable lines (I passed one the other day painted onto a day care while on vacation in Colorado Springs); but this one definitely has to be an overlooked lyrical gem from the band. The singing has to be commended here too and it’s interesting to note that Lennon had originally intended to sing the higher harmony part, but after wasting his voice on other tracks, McCartney had to take over the duties. Normally, Lennon would have done it regardless like in “Twist And Shout,” but like everything, I’m sure the stress & fatigue the band was facing at the time of Beatles For Sale affected their singing as well. Despite that fatigue, the album still started with a big bang in “No Reply.”

Song: No Reply
Album: Beatles For Sale
Year: 1964

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