Think for Yourself
From BeatlesWiki
Think For Yourself is a song off The Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was written by George Harrison.
Contents |
AKA and Working Titles
- Won't Be There With You, working title
Writing
It is unclear who or what the song was written about, with even George himself later claiming not to remember what it was about. In his limited-edition 1980 biography, I Me Mine, George says, "Think For Yourself must be written about somebody from the sound of it - but all this time later I don't quite recall who inspired that tune. Probably the government." The song, although it has a completely different mood, has many similarities to George's peaceful 1967 song Within You, Without You, though Think For Yourself is more of a bitter song.
"Although your mind's opaque
Try thinking more if just for your own sake
The future still looks good
And you've got time to rectify all the things that you should"
- Think For Yourself, 1965
"Try to realise it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you"
- Within You Without You, 1967.
Recording
The song was recorded during a session on November 8, 1965. They recorded the basic track; guitars, bass, and drums in one take. They then overdubbed fuzz bass, lead guitar, tambourine, maracas, electric piano, and vocals. George recalls, "Paul used a fuzz box on the bass on Think For Yourself. When Phil Spector was making Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, the engineer who's set up the track overloaded the microphone on the guitar player and it became very distorted. Phil Spector said, 'Leave it like that, it's great'. Some years later everyone started to try to copy that sound and so they invented the fuzz box. We had one and tried the bass through it and it sounded really good." Before it was recorded, George Martin taped the group rehearsing the song. The Beatles were aware of this, playing into the microphones instead of at each other. This 20-minute recording was unused, save for six seconds of it used in the Yellow Submarine film.
In The Film Yellow Submarine
Though not technically played in the Yellow Submarine film, a six second snippet of a vocal rehearsal of the song was "sung" when Old Fred told The Beatles to sing something in order to wake up the Lord Mayor.
Personnel
The Beatles
- Lead Vocals: George Harrison
- Lead Guitar: George Harrison
- Backing Vocals: John Lennon
- Piano: John Lennon
- Backing Vocals: Paul McCartney
- Bass: Paul McCartney
- Drums: Ringo Starr
- Tambourine: Ringo Starr
- Maracas: Ringo Starr
Production
- Producer: George Martin
- Engineer: Norman Smith
Available Versions
- Take 1 plus overdubs, November 8, 1965, (Rubber Soul)
- Vocal Rehearsal (AKA Beatle Speech), November 8, 1965, (Bootlegs (complete version), Yellow Submarine film (six-second snippet))
- Vocal Rehearsal Monitor Mix, November 8, 1965, (Bootlegs)
Available On
- Rubber Soul, 1965.
- Yellow Submarine Songtrack, 1999.
Cover Versions
- Coope Boyes and Simpson
- Yonder Mountain String Band
