{"id":580,"date":"2025-03-10T12:13:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T12:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/?p=580"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:18:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:18:38","slug":"57-if-i-needed-someone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/57-if-i-needed-someone\/","title":{"rendered":"57: If I Needed Someone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If I Needed Someone is one of two George Harrison songs on Rubber Soul (the other being Think For Yourself). The story of this track sheds light on George’s continued growth as a songwriter, his relationship with other artists and aspects of his personality as he came to terms with fame.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"BeatlesThe Beatles Bible<\/span><\/div>

Inspired by Roger McGuinn\u2019s guitar work for The Byrds, \u2018If I Needed Someone\u2019 was written by George Harrison and first appeared in the UK on the Rubber Soul album.<\/p>\"RubberContinue reading on Beatles Bible \u2192<\/a><\/div><\/div>

\"Wikipedia\"Wikipedia<\/span><\/div>
"If I Needed Someone" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by George Harrison, the group's lead guitarist. It was released in December 1965 on their album Rubber Soul, except in North America, where it appeared on the June 1966 rel…<\/div>Continue reading on Wikipedia \u2192<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Musically the song is another step forward from previous Harrison compositions. Like Lennon-McCartney’s earlier I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride, and the contemporaneous Day Tripper it is based around a riff. I think the song is influenced by all three. The sound of the riff has most in common with Ticket To Ride, but the backing vocal arrangement during the instrumental section and outro is reminiscent of the corresponding section of Day Tripper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Riff from intro<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Instrumental section with three part ahs over the riff (similar IMO to Day Tripper and later Helter Skelter)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The song has a distinctive approach to melody and harmony that is characteristic of Harrison songs and in this case a dreamy quality that is due to the use of the Myxolydian mode, with the same “drone” notes are returned to, even while the chords change. This effect is emphasised by McCartney’s well-judged bass line which also stays on the same pattern all the way through the verse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s a very mid-late sixties sound – one of the elements that would come to be associated with psychedelia, and an important contribution to the overall colour of the album and the Beatles’ sound moving forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ian McDonald has suggested that the modal flavour of the song was an early result of George’s exposure to Indian music, but I think it’s as likely that he already favoured this kind of harmony, and later recognized it in the Indian music he came to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“… somewhere down the line there was a point where I heard Ravi Shankar\u2019s name, and then I heard it again, and then the third time I heard it I thought, \u201cWow, this is like a funny coincidence, this name Ravi Shankar.\u201d And I talked about him with Dave Crosby from the Byrds. And he mentioned the name. And I said, \u201cYeah I keep hearing this name\u2014I\u2019ve gotta get a record.\u201d I went and bought a record; I put it on, and it just seemed to me like it hit a certain spot in me that I can\u2019t explain. My intellect didn\u2019t really know what was going on, but it just hit a spot where it seemed very familiar to me. The only way I could describe it was my intellect didn\u2019t know what was going on musically, and yet this other part of me really identified with it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, I\u2019m not sure, maybe I\u2019d heard it. We used to have shortwave radios, you know, when I was growing up, and all evening the radio would be on, and my mother was always tuning it into all kinds of weird\u2014whatever you could pick up on it. So maybe I\u2019d heard it from Algeria or somewhere, or maybe I heard it in some other lifetime! Who knows? It was something that was like it just called on me, and I just heard it, and I felt very familiar with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(George Harrison in a 1992 interview with Timothy White in George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters edited by Ashley Kahn<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Byrds’ Influence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although, in my view Lennon-McCartney were the main influences on Harrison’s songwriting at this stage (as you might expect), like them Harrison was always very open about his inspiration from other artists. In this case he explicitly recognized the Byrds and Roger McGuinn’s adaptation of the Bells Of Rhymney as the source of the riff, and like on this song Harrison uses the Byrds’ signature sound, the 12 String Rickenbacker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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