Baby, you're a rich man

To create “Baby, You're a Rich Man” (as was often the case in the Lennon – McCartney authorial duo, for example, in the cases when “ A Day in the Life ” or “ I've Got a Feeling ” were created. ^[3] ) fragments from two unfinished songs were combined: couplets from Lennon’s incomplete song “One of the Beautiful People” ( Rus. One of the beautiful people ) were combined with the chorus “Baby, you're a rich man ...” ( Rus. Baby, you rich ) composed by McCartney, but not yet used by him for anything. The musicologist Walter Everett notes that the song as if “asks the unnamed Brian Epstein what he likes about being one of such“ wonderful people “”. ^[four]

“We just made one of the two songs, just like with A Day in the Life, ” Lennon later admitted. The effect, of course, was not as grandiose, but “Baby You're a Rich Man” was recorded more quickly - from the beginning to the end it took only one six-hour change of sound recording. The rumors that the final line of the refrain “baby you're a rich fagot Jew” (baby you're a rich fag Jew) refer to Brian Epstein are baseless. Initially, the song was supposed to be used in the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, but it was ahead of the cartoon by almost a year and was released on the back of the single “All You Need Is Love”. An instrument that sounds like an obtrusive pipe is actually nothing more than a primitive synthesizer “Clavioline” ^[5] .

The song begins with a loss in the G key in the mixolidian fret , then the G chord goes to ♭ VII / I (Fadd9 / G) with the words “now that you know who you are ”, and everything seems to end on “dangling” (with the sustain pedal depressed at the piano) G (sustained harmonic tone) chord. ^{[4] [6]} Further, however, the song goes into C key (C major) and begins to resemble “ Norwegian Wood ” using “east” sounding tunes (in the style of Indian classical gamak music) played on the Clavioline synthesizer. ^{[4] The} musicologist Alan Pollack also notes unusual chorus moves (“Baby you're a rich man”) in the bass line — from C to G through ♭ III (B ♭ ). ^[7]

There is a working title of One Of The Beautiful People ^[8]

The song was recorded and mixed (in monophonic) on May 11, 1967 at Olympic Sound Studios . The melody, sounding like an oboe that was not used in the recording, was played on the Clavioline electric keyboard instrument (one of the synthesizer predecessors, which had a keyboard of 3 octaves and was able to play only one note at a time) ^[2] ; to evuk was also added the effect of spin-echo ( rus. rotating echo ) - sound return ( eng. feed back ) with a delay ( eng. delay ); this melody was used in transitions from the end of one line of the verse to the beginning of the next. ^[9]

Membership

(by Lewison ^[2] and MacDonald ^[10] )

• John Lennon - recorded double-tracked ( double-tracked ) lead vocals , clavioline , piano
• Paul McCartney - backing vocals , bass , piano
• George Harrison - backing vocals, guitar , clapping
• Ringo Starr - drums , tambourine , maracas , clapping
• Eddie Cramer - Vibraphone
• George Martin - sound engineer
• Keith Grant - Recording Engineer
• Mick Jagger backing vocals

The fact that Mick Jagger was also present, but his name is mentioned on the box with the tape of this recording session at the end of the list, may indicate that he participated in recording backing vocals near the end of the song. ^{[2] [3] [10]}

Initial Editions

“Baby, You're a Rich Man” was released as a song on the B side of the single “All You Need Is Love” on July 7, 1967 in the UK and July 17, 1967 in the United States . Later this year, against the desire of The Beatles, the song was included in the American album Magical Mystery Tour ^[11] (published both in monophonic and in “ pseudo-stereo ” versions).

As originally assumed, the song is present in the soundtrack of the 1968 cartoon Yellow Submarine (but was not included in the soundtrack album from this cartoon soundtrack album ). ^[2]

Further Publications

For the 1971 Magical Mystery Tour album to be published in Germany, George Martin and sound engineer Jeff Emerik created the first “true stereo” mix of the song; unable to recreate the spin-echo effect used in the original mix in 1967, they simply skipped it ( English they simply omitted it ). ^[9]

When the Beatles catalog was standardized for releasing their albums on CDs in 1987, the Magical Mystery Tour (in stereo, from the German edition of 1971) was included along with other original The Beatles studio albums. ^[12]

For the second time, the stereo mix “Baby, You're a Rich Man” was created in 1999 for the DVD edition of the cartoon Yellow Submarine and the accompanying album with the soundtrack Yellow Submarine Songtrack (where the song was included this time). ^[13]

In 2009, remastered stereo (from the 1971 edition) and mono (from the 1967 edition) versions of the Magical Mystery Tour album were released on CD . ^[14]

The song sounds on the final credits of the film "The Social Network " ( Eng. The Social Network ), but is not included in the disc with the soundtrack to the film. ^[15] .