Money is a cover of the Barrett Strong song which appears as the climactic rocker at the end of With The Beatles. As with Twist And Shout, from the Please Please Me album, John Lennon pulls out all the stops in a powerful vocal performance. The entire band turns up the energy as the song progresses and this is one of the more intense cavern-style rockers captured on an official release.
The Beatles BibleOriginally recorded in 1959 by Barrett Strong, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ was the thrilling closing track on The Beatles’ second album.
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Wikipedia“Money became John Lennon’s song, one he always sang, a scarred boy who craved money and sex and was injecting passion into every performance.” (Mark Lewisohn, All These Years (Volume 1) Tune In)
According to Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In, Money (That’s What I Want) was just the second Tamla/Motown song to be released in the UK. Along with Devil In Her Heart, it was one of the covers that George Harrison recalled having been selected in after hours visits to Brian Epstein’s NEMS record store, and though it wasn’t a hit in Britain (peaking at number 61) it went directly into the Beatles repertoire from 1960, featuring in their earliest Hamburg sets.
It was a great choice: Barrett Strong’s original (August 1959) already had the hallmarks of a classic. It was co-written by Berry Gordy and Janine Bradford (although Strong himself seems to have had an important role). The unsentimental no-nonsense lyrics are immediately an antidote to the cliched love song. The signature piano riff, doubled by a slightly heavy guitar and the heavy tom groove during the verse have a rocky and rebellious sound. The vocal approach is not a million miles away from Ray Charles’ influential What’d I Say (released June 1959) with call-and-response backing vocals filling in the “That’s What I Want” in a similar style to the way Raelettes echoed Charles. While Ray is smooth, Barrett Strong adds a little edge.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something a little dissonant about the way the 7th chords and the piano riff rub against one another, it gives the song a bit of additional grit and tension which I’ve always loved.
The Beatles keep all these elements (with the crucial piano being played by George Martin on the album release) but George and Paul’s backing vocals are more powerful and John and Ringo just keep turning up the heat.