For No One

Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 9, 16, 19 May 1966
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Released: 5 August 1966 (UK), 8 August 1966 (US)

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, piano, clavichord
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine, maracas
Alan Civil: horn

Available on:
Revolver

Paul McCartney's meditation on the end of a love affair was one of the highlights on the Revolver album.

Revolver (Remastered)

The Beatles. EMI 2009, Audio CD, $9.98

For No One was written in March 1966 while Paul McCartney was on holiday with Jane Asher in Switzerland. It was originally called Why Did It Die?

I was in Switzerland on my first skiing holiday. I'd done a bit of skiing in Help! and quite liked it, so I went back and ended up in a little bathroom in a Swiss chalet writing For No One. I remember the descending bassline trick that it's based on, and I remember the character in the song - the girl putting on her make-up.

Occasionally we'd have an idea for some new kind of instrumentation, particularly for solos... On For No One I was interested in the French horn, because it was an instrument I'd always loved from when I was a kid. It's a beautiful sound, so I went to George Martin and said, 'How can we go about this?' And he said, 'Well, let me get the very finest.'

George Martin wrote down the understated melody that Paul sang to him, and Alan Civil performed it. Always pushing boundaries, Martin and McCartney decided to insert a top note into the score outside the instrument's normal range.

We came to the session and Alan looked up from his bit of paper: 'Eh, George? I think there's a mistake here - you've got a high F written down. Then George and I said, 'Yeah,' and smiled back at him, and he knew what we were up to and played it. These great players will do it. Even though it's officially off the end of their instrument, they can do it, and they're quite into it occasionally. It's a nice little solo.

The song was admired by John Lennon, who in 1980 described it as "One of my favourites of his - a nice piece of work".

The distinctive chords were played by McCartney on George Martin's clavichord, brought in to Abbey Road from his house.

It was a very strange instrument to record, and Paul played it. But we wanted a very special sound, and French horn was what he chose.

Paul didn't realise how brilliantly Alan Civil was doing. We got the definitive performance, and Paul said, 'Well, OK, I think you can do it better than that, can't you, Alan?' Alan nearly exploded. Of course, he didn't do it better than that, and the way we'd already heard it was the way you hear it now.

Recording for the song began on 9 May 1966, with 10 takes of the rhythm track recorded: McCartney on piano and Starr on drums. To the last of these they added clavichord and percussion.

McCartney's lead vocal was added on 16 May, and Alan Civil's horn solos were recorded on 19 May.

I played it several times, each take wiping out the previous attempt... For me it was just another day's work, the third session that day in fact, but it was very interesting.