Okay, so I’m familiar with how the Beatles assigned songwriting credits - anything John Lennon or Paul McCartney wrote was credited to “Lennon/McCartney”, even if only one of them wrote a particular song. George Harrison and Ringo Starr got separate credits whenever they wrote something.
So how come George Martin never got any partial songwriting credits? I know he was ‘just’ the producer, but it’s pretty clear that he had a pretty major impact on the construction of a lot of songs, including complete string arrangements, and sitting down at the piano to help come up with some melodies.
Is there something in a producer’s contract that prohibits him from sharing songwriting credits on the album?
I don’t have my CD of Yellow Submarine nearby, but I do know Sir George Martin wrote side 2. How he’s credited for it, I don’t remember. Anyone else have their copy nearby?
Jeremy…
Nobody ever calls me after they’ve done something smart.
On Side 2 of Yellow Submarine, George Martin is fully credited with every song except the last, which was written by Lennon & McCartney and arranged by George Martin. At the top of the Side 2 list, a note says, “Original film music composed and orchestrated by George Martin.”
“Tip your hat to all good people, living or dead, but bend your knee to no one.” – Alan Schwartz
Okay… Did he receive any credits on any other albums? Where does the line between producing and composing/arranging fall? He did make some significant contributions to the songs.
Some of the major contributions by George Martin:
On ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, he re-arranged the song to put the chorus at the beginning, instead of opening with the first verse as the Beatles originally planned.
“Yesterday” - George Martin decided it needed strings, so wrote the music for a string quartet, recorded it, and added it to the song without any input from the Beatles. After that song, Martin scored a lot of the Beatles’ songs, because Paul couldn’t read or write music. So whenever they needed other musical additions, Martin would write it.
“In My Life” - While the Beatles were out of the studio, George Martin experimented with an Elizabethan-style keyboard solo, played it himself and added it to the song. (It’s actually a fairly major and distinctive part of the song).
“When I’m Sixty-Four” - George Martin wrote the entire Clarinet accompaniment.
“All you Need is Love” - George Martin wrote the entire ending.
A lot of people were never credited on the Beatles albums, in fact no one besides John, Paul, George, and Ringo were ever noted, with the exception of George Martin as producer and orchestrator.
My favorite Beatles trivia question: Who played lead guitar on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’?
Eric Clapton
“If I pinch my nose with my fingers, close my mouth tight,
and blow real hard, I can make my ears bleed. It’s
not as cool as Superman’s X-ray vision, but it’s my own
special talent.”
[quote]
Yeah, and how did Clapton thank Harrison for letting him work on a Beatle’s tune?
He falls in love with Harrison’s wife, Patti Boyd (sp?), writes Layla about her, and later marries her.**
And later divorced her. Harrison and Clapton are still good friends and have referred to each other as “Husbands-in-Law”
In the Seventies and Eighties, Martin worked as a producer of albums by Mahavishnu Orchestra, America (seven albums), Jeff Beck, Gary Brooker, Neil Sedaka, Jimmy Webb, UFO, Cheap Trick, Ultravox, Kenny Rogers and Paul McCartney (Tug of War and Pipes of Peace).
The last ten years he’s been living off his Beatle related fame with the Anthology series and a few TV specials like The Making of Sgt. Pepper. He also produced Elton John’s Princess Di rehash of Candle in the Wind. That song brought Martin’s “#1 song” total to something like 30.
Thus saving his life, of course…I mean, if he hadn’t married his current wife, would Boyd have fought off Harrison’s attacker with a chair? Hmmmmmm! (Stolen from Howard Stern.)
Back to Martin…doesn’t he still do all McCartney’s albums? I know he did a big chunk of “Give My Regards to Broadstreet” and pretty much scored the entire “Liverpool Oratorio.” Judging from the documentary-type shows I’ve seen their working relationship pretty much goes like this:
Paul: “And here for a couple minutes, I’d like a sort of high sound like ‘deedle-deedle, dee’.”
George: “You probably want a flute there.”
Paul plays some notes on a piano and George writes them in musical notation on a score.
Seems like Martin would have to have the patience of a saint to work like that for so many years. Especially through the hippy-trippy days.
He’s exclusively listed as the producer on all of the Beatles albums, with the following exceptions:
A Hard Day’s Night was produced by Walter Shenson. George Martin is listed as the Musical Director.
Beatles '65 and Help! – produced in England by George Martin and in the U.S.A. by Dave Dexter, Jr.
Let It Be was reproduced for disc by Phil Spector. George Martin is thanked: for what isn’t specified.
The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl – original remote recording produced by Voyle Gilmore, final mixdown and sequencing produced by George Martin.
On Rubber Soul, Martin is credited on The Word with playing the harmonium, and on In My Life with playing the piano. The only songs he’s credited with writing are on Yellow Submarine.
Everything else you describe should be considered the producer’s job. While he may have added various touches to the songs, he didn’t write them.
And personally, I think Yesterday would have sounded better without the strings.
“Tip your hat to all good people, living or dead, but bend your knee to no one.” – Alan Schwartz
It’s a producer’s job to get the idea that a song could use an 8-bar piano solo, sit down and write it, play it himself and record it, and add it to the song? If so, where do you draw the line between songwriting and producing? That was basically my original question. After all, other people have gotten songwriting credits for doing nothing more than suggesting a couple of words in a stanza or whistling a couple of bars of music.
George Martin actually played instruments with the band on a lot of songs, and as I said he wrote significant parts of some songs, including the entire ending of “All you Need is Love”.
George Martin did far more than just produce. For one thing, he played instruments on a lot of the songs, and the parts that he played he often wrote.
He also came up with a lot of musical realizations of vague concepts the Beatles had. For instance, on “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, John Lennon went to George Martin and said, “I want some kind of circus-like music”, and that was it. George wrote it all. That’s not a producer’s job - that’s songwriting. Hell, a lot of producers aren’t even musicians.
Songs George Martin actually played on:
“Baby it’s You” - Piano
“You Really Got a Hold on Me” - Piano
“Not a Second Time” - Piano
“Money (That’s What I Want)” - Piano
“Slow Down” - Piano
“Matchbox” - Piano
“A Hard Day’s Night” - Piano
“No Reply” - Piano
“Rock and Roll Music” - Piano
“Kansas City” - Piano
“What You’re Doing” - Piano
“You Like Me Too Much” - Piano
“The Word” - Harmonium
“In My Life” - Piano
“If I Needed Someone” - Harmonium
“Run For Your Life” - Tambourine
“Yellow Submarine” - Singing Chorus
“Good Day Sunshine” - Piano
“Got To Get You Into My Life” - Organ
“Tomorrow Never Knows” - Piano
“Penny Lane” - Piano
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” - Organ
“Getting Better” - Playing Strings on Piano
“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” - Piano, Organ
“Lovely Rita” - Honky-Tonk Piano
“A Day in the Life” - Harmonium
“All You Need is Love” - Piano
“Across the Universe” - Organ
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” - Organ
“Sun King” - Organ
OK, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the music industry, but I did study the basics of the music biz in college with the then-editor of Downbeat magazine (true!). We’re going on 20 years here, so some of the details are a little soft around the edges, but here goes:
Songwriting credits, especially in the various popular music genres, are rather haphazard. There is no “law” as to who is required to receive credit. It’s more a case of convention, ego, group dynamics, and occassionally contractual agreement (which, I believe, is why Beatle songs continued to be credited to Lennon AND McCartney long after they had ceased any meaningful collaboration).
Once in a great while, there may be a court case – usually over plagarism, but the teacher also told stories of jazz musicians who were forced to list their ex-wives as co-authors of songs as a way of paying alimony (songwriter royalties – mechanical and performance – are governed by law.)
I seem to recall that Paul used a similar dodge to opposite effect. Early in his post-Beatle career, he found his royalties were tied up in the whole Apple / break-up fiasco. So he listed Linda as co-author of his songs. HER royalties were not affected by the various legal entanglements, so she got paid. When the various litigants complained, Paul used this leverage to negotiate a quick (and favorable) settlement.
In his autobiography, George Martin claims he was the first producer to insist on (and get) an album credit. This is purely my own speculation, but perhaps he never received a songwriting credit because A) he felt winning the producer’s credit battle was victory enough; B) for reasons of professional politics, he didn’t want to be seen or thought of as an artist; C) he worked with numerous other groups and didn’t want to be thought of as literally the 5th Beatle; D) his first love was classical music, and he didn’t want to separate himself any further from that end of the business; or (most likely IMHO) E) he honestly didn’t feel that his contribution merited such credit. If that is the case, I think we ought to respect his decision.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
I think that about covers it. I suspect that it just never occurred to anyone. Martin was a different musician of an older generation, and his job was producing. But their unique relationship led to lines being crossed all over the place (McCartney later on actually did a lot of producing as well), and no one thought anything of it. And of course, we know nothing of any private deals he may have had with the Beatles. It’s clear if you read what the members of the band have said then and since that they held Martin in the highest esteem and understood that he added quite a bit to their music. So for all we know they passed him a swack of money at some time and said, “Thanks.” Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just one of those people that doesn’t go digging for gold at every opportunity.
I do wish he got more credit from the public, though. A lot of the advances credited to the Beatles (the use of orchestras in rock, overdubbing, feedback, and a whole host of new musical techniques) actually originated with Martin. I think he was as much a genius as the other four. (okay, more than Ringo).
Note, too, that at times musicians buy a song from a songwriter for a flat fee. The original songwriter gets no credit at all. I knew one songwriter who had sold several songs to other groups on this basis (though I hastens to add that I’m not claiming the Beatles ever did this; two songs involved are Alvin Lee’s “I’d Love to Change the World” and Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You.”)
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
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