I'm Only Sleeping

Today we start a few songs from the next album, Yesterday and Today. Overall, this album wasn't a hit--it was the only Beatles album to actually lose money for Capitol Records, and its controversial cover featured the guys in white smocks posing with decapitated baby dolls and chunks of raw meat (appropriately dubbed the "butcher cover"). The album was also released only in the United States and Canada. Capitol threw the songs on the record together pretty randomly, which angered the Beatles themselves since they'd always carefully and thoughtfully arranged their songs before.

This album features several songs we've already covered, such as "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "Yesterday", "If I Needed Someone", and "What Goes On". The first new song is "I'm Only Sleeping". The song has been covered several times, mostly famously by The Vines for the soundtrack to the 2001 film I Am Sam (which consisted entirely of covers of Beatles songs). That's actually the version I'm familiar with--before today I thought it was an original song by The Vines. I kind of prefer the Vines version as well; in the Beatles version, John's voice sounds so high and distorted that it's strange. 

There's an interesting section on Wikipedia regarding the interpretation of this song.

The first draft of Lennon's lyrics for "I'm Only Sleeping", written on the back of a letter from 1966, suggests that he was writing about the joys of staying in bed rather than any drug euphoria sometimes read into the lyrics. While not on tour, due to his lack of routine, Lennon would often spend his time sleeping, reading, writing or watching television, often under the influence of drugs, and would often have to be woken by McCartney for songwriting sessions. In a London Evening Standard article published on 4 March 1966, which contained quotes from an interview in which Lennon made his "more popular than Jesus" remark, Maureen Cleave, a friend of Lennon's, wrote, "He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England. 'Physically lazy,' he said. 'I don't mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more.'"

That's all for today! See you tomorrow. 

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Heard It Tally: 18
Songs Completed: 99