The song was written (like quite a few others) while Paul was on holiday with long-term girlfriend Jane Asher. Like several of his songs written while he was with Jane, it seems to deal with their relationship. On the surface it is quite positive: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nSomeday when we’re dreaming
Deep in love, not a lot to say
Then we will remember
Things we said today<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThis is looking forward to the future when they’ll be deeply in love; you’ll be mine till the end of time; love is here to stay. But the full lyric is much more ambivalent and doubtful – there’s more than a chance that, as proved to be the case, that day will never come:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nYou say<\/strong> you will love me if I have to go.
You’ll be thinking of me. Somehow I will know.<\/strong>
Someday when I’m lonely, wishing you weren’t so far away,
Then I will remember things we said today.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\nYou say<\/strong> you’ll be mine, girl, till the end of time.
These days such a kind girl seems so hard to find.
Someday when we’re dreaming<\/strong>, deep in love, not a lot to say,
Then we will remember things we said today.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe whole situation is being framed from line one as a dream that may or may not come true. You say, somehow, someday. The true meaning of the lyric is only subtle in the words themselves. We are imagining a future where the couple are deeply in love and looking back nostalgically. But this not something the protagonist shares, and the doubts and uncertainties are emphasized by the wistful, almost sinister, minor chords (alternating between Am and Em7). At the end of each verse there is a moment of uncertain optimism, a lovely melody with two part harmony over hopeful but uncertain C and F chords, before transitioning (via a distinctly dubious Bb) back to the the Am\/Em7 pattern so that the theme and title is stated “Then we will remember things we said today” in a doubtful tone. The music makes it clear: the verses are about what his partner says<\/em> and imagines<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBy contrast, the bridge is about what the protagonist thinks. At this point switches to major chords*: A, E7, D7, B7. The lyrics are much more happy go lucky, here today and perhaps, despite his protestations, gone tomorrow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nMe, I’m just the lucky kind<\/strong>.
Love to hear you say that love is love.
And though we may be blind<\/strong>,
Love is here<\/strong> to stay and that’s enough<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI emphasize “love is here” and “that’s enough”, rather than “love is here to stay”, because that is the unmistakeable, but subtle, effect of the switch to major chords. It sounds like he really means “love is here today<\/em> and that’s enough”. This is about blind luck, we can’t see into the future. The music then switches back (via a funky Bb7 chord that says “let’s not get ahead of ourselves”) to the minor chords – the protagonist is going along with his partner’s dream. Sure, we’ll go on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nTo make you mine, girl.
Be the only one.
Love me all the time girl.
We’ll go on and on.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThere is so much craft and subtlety about Things We Said Today. The theme and lyrics – among McCartney’s best I think – are extremely clever in themselves. McCartney says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIt was a slightly nostalgic thing already, a future nostalgia: we\u2019ll remember the things we said today, sometime in the future, so the song projects itself into the future and then is nostalgic about the moment we\u2019re living in now, which is quite a good trick.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
This is an understatement. It’s not just about the one person’s idea of future nostalgia; thoughtful little choices using different pronouns across each verse tell the story from shifting perspectives throughout: “You<\/em> say”, “I will<\/em> remember”, “We will<\/em> remember”, “When I’m<\/em> lonely”, “When we’re<\/em> dreaming”, “Somehow I will<\/em> know”. But what really makes Things We Said Today outstanding is the way the music casts these already subtle ideas against a shifting backdrop of optimism, doubt, uncertainty and fortune. The more you look at it, the more you realize: the song is much more than the sum of its parts and a bit of a masterpiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/summary>\nListen out for a massive cheer at this point in the live version<\/a><\/p>\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things We Said Today is a track from the A Hard Day’s Night album, and was the B-Side to the single release of A Hard Day’s Night, too. Written by Paul McCartney, it is a particularly cleverly crafted song and all the more so because it wears its sophistication very lightly; this is a classically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,8,6],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-song-a-day","tag-a-hard-days-night","tag-b-side","tag-single"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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