Artistic re-rendering of the Rubber Soul album cover made of simple polygons.

94: Wait

Wait is a track from the Rubber Soul album, believed to have been written mainly by Paul McCartney.

I’ve always enjoyed this song but, I admit, I don’t think I’d listened to it for a few years. For me it’s one of those that shows the Beatles really hitting their stride as writers and performers. I was slightly surprised to learn that it had been originally recorded for Help! but was left off that album and later polished up for Rubber Soul. To me, it fits very well with the later record, having the clipped, no-nonsense pop energy of its best songs. I really like the drums and overdubbed percussion, and the way they propel the song moves through its rhythmically and dynamically varied sections. It’s quintessential Beatles with a dual lead vocal (unusually for a McCartney song, Lennon’s voice is more prominent in the verses).

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First recorded and left off the Help! album, ‘Wait’ was exhumed during the final day’s recording for Rubber Soul, nearly five months later.

Rubber Soul album artworkContinue reading on Beatles Bible →
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"Wait" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. The song is credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. In the 1997 book Many Years from Now, Paul McCartney recalls it as entirely his work. In a 1970 intervi…
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Lyrically, it seems to deal with the challenges of fidelity in a long-distance relationship, something the Beatles were very familiar with after their long years on the road. It is a topic seems to have preoccupied Paul in his relationship with Jane Asher and there is just a hint of a 1960s double standard at work:

I feel as though

You ought to know

That I’ve been good,

As good as I can be.

And if you do,

I’ll trust in you

And know that you will wait for me.

I guess a lot depends on how you read the line: “as good as I can be”!


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