Money (That's What I Want)

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Money (That's What I Want) is a 1959 song by Barrett Strong. The Beatles covered it on their 1963 album With The Beatles. They also covered it live from 1960 to 1964.

Contents

[edit] Original Version

Money (That's What I Want) was originally written by Tamla founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford and first released in August 1959 by Barrett Strong. By June 1960, it was the first hit record for Gordy's Motown label, having already been a hit in the midwest. The song reached number two on the US R&B chart and number twenty-three on the pop chart.

[edit] The Beatles' Version

George Harrison recalls discovering the song, "Brian [Epstein] had had a policy at NEMS of buying at least one copy of every record that was released. If it sold, he'd order another one, or five or whatever. Consequently he had records that weren't hits in Britain, weren't even hits in America. Before going to a gig we'd meet in the record store, after it had shut, and we'd search the racks like ferrets to see what new ones were there... Devil In Her Heart and Barrett Strong's Money were records that we'd picked up and played in the shop and thought were interesting." The Beatles' version lowered Strong's from it's original key of F down to E. Ringo Starr remembers, "The cover songs recorded for With The Beatles were chosen by whoever liked them. It was interesting that when I joined The Beatles we didn't really know each other, but if you looked at each of our record collections, the four of us had virtually the same records. We all had The Miracles, we all had Barrett Strong and people like that. I suppose that helped us gel as musicians, and as a group."

[edit] Recording

The earliest recorded version of The Beatles playing this song is from the unsuccessful audition for Decca Records on January 1, 1962. The song was recorded six times for BBC Radio. The first was on May 21, 1963 for the Saturday Club program, recorded at the Playhouse Theatre in London and broadcast four days later. They returned to it on June 1 for the third edition of Pop Goes The Beatles. The show was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio in London and broadcast on June 18. This was the first recorded instance of John Lennon singing "I wanna be free" in the final verse. The album version of the song was recorded on July 18, 1963 in seven takes. On July 30, George Martin added the song's piano chords. The piano overdub was completed in seven attempts, numbered eight to fourteen. An edit of takes six and seven was made on August 21 and a mono mix was made that day. More piano overdubs were made on September 30, while The Beatles were holidaying abroad. Anthology 1 contains a live version of the song, recorded on October 24, 1963 at the Karlaplansstudion in Stockholm, Sweden. The show was aired on November 11. Stereo mixing for the album version of the song was done on October 29 and October 30, less than a month before the album's November 22 release. The only live performance of the song on film was for the UK TV special It's The Beatles. It was filmed at Liverpool's Empire Theatre on the afternoon of December 7, 1963 and broadcast later that day.

[edit] Recording Sessions

[edit] Personnel

[edit] The Beatles

[edit] Guest Musicians

[edit] Production

[edit] Available Versions

[edit] The Beatles

[edit] John Lennon

[edit] Ringo Starr

[edit] Pete Best

[edit] Known Unavailable Versions

[edit] Available On

[edit] Sources

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