"Day Tripper" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out" in December 1965. The song was written primarily by John Lennon with some contributions from Paul McCartney and was credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the band's Rubber Soul album. The single topped charts in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. In the United States, "Day Tripper" peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and "We Can Work It Out" held the top position.
"Day Tripper" is a rock song based around an electric guitar riff and drawing on the influence of American soul music. The Beatles included it in their concert set-list until their retirement from live performances in late August 1966.
In the UK, "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper" was the seventh highest selling single of the 1960s, and the Christmas number one of 1965. As of December 2018, it was the 54th best-selling single of all time in the UK – one of six Beatles singles included in the top sales rankings published by the Official Charts Company.
Background and inspiration
"Day Tripper" was written early in the Rubber Soul sessions when the Beatles were under pressure to produce a new single for the Christmas market. John Lennon wrote the music and most of the lyrics, while Paul McCartney contributed some of the lyrics. Lennon based the song's guitar riff on that from Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step", which had also been his model for "I Feel Fine" in 1964. In a 1980 interview, Lennon said of "Day Tripper": "That's mine. Including the lick, the guitar break and the whole bit." In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, McCartney claims that it was a collaboration but Lennon deserved "the main credit".
Lennon described "Day Tripper" as a "drug song" in 1970, and in a 2004 interview McCartney said it was "about acid" (LSD). The song title is a play on words referring to both a tourist on a day-trip and a "trip" in the sense of a psychedelic experience. Lennon recalled: "Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But [the song] was kind of ... 'you're just a weekend hippie.' Get it?" In Many Years from Now, McCartney says that "Day Tripper" was about sex and drugs; he describes it as "a tongue-in-cheek song about someone who was ... committed only in part to the idea. Whereas we saw ourselves as full-time trippers ..."
During the sessions for Rubber Soul, a rift was growing between McCartney and his bandmates as he continued to abstain from taking LSD. After Lennon and George Harrison had first taken the drug in London early in 1965, Ringo Starr had joined them for their second experience, which took place in Los Angeles when the Beatles stopped there during their August 1965 US tour. Given McCartney's continued abstinence, author Ian MacDonald says that the song's lyrics may well have been partly directed at him, a perspective shared by music journalist Keith Cameron.
When writing and recording their new songs, the Beatles drew on their experiences from the recent US tour. Throughout the summer, soul music had been one of the dominant sounds heard on American radio, particularly singles by acts signed to the Motown and Stax record labels. Author Jon Savage writes that in the British pop scene of late 1965, American soul music was "everywhere", and the Beatles readily embraced the genre in both "Day Tripper" and the Rubber Soul track "Drive My Car". According to MacDonald, Lennon possibly came up with the riff in an effort to improve on the Rolling Stones' 1965 hit single "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", which similarly showed the influence of Stax soul.
Composition
Guitar riff
thumb|left|300px|Main guitar riff
The main compositional feature of "Day Tripper" is its two-bar, single-chord guitar riff. The riff opens and closes the song, and forms the basis of the verses. In addition, the pattern is transposed to the IV chord during the verses and to the V chord for the bridge.
Recording
The Beatles recorded the song at their first session after completing "Drive My Car". The session took place at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London on 16 October 1965. Unusually for the time, the group allowed visitors into the studio, as Lennon's wife Cynthia and his half-sisters Julia Baird and Jacqui Dykins attended part of the session. The band rehearsed the song for much of the afternoon before taping the basic track. The line-up was Lennon and Harrison on rhythm and lead guitar respectively, McCartney on bass and Starr on drums.
Take 3 was selected for overdubs, having been the only take in which the performance did not break down. On the studio tapes from the session, Starr can be heard encouraging his bandmates to "really rock it this time" before take 1. MacDonald describes Starr's drumming over the choruses as "another in-joke", further to the Beatles' channelling of the Stax sound on "Drive My Car", as his reversion to fours on the bass drum recalls Al Jackson's playing with Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
Lennon and McCartney overdubbed lead vocals, with McCartney the more prominent singer in the verses' first and third lines, and Harrison added a harmony vocal over the choruses and the instrumental bridge. Starr overdubbed the tambourine.
Music journalist Rob Chapman views the guitar interplay on "Day Tripper" as an example of the Beatles' "baroque sonata" approach to musical arrangements.