"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 release Yesterday and Today. The song reflects the reciprocal influences shared between the Beatles and the American band the Byrds. On release, it was widely considered to be Harrison's best song to date. A recording by the Hollies was issued in Britain on the same day as Rubber Soul and peaked at number 20 on the national singles chart.

Harrison wrote the song for Pattie Boyd, the English model whom he married in January 1966. The lyrics convey an ambivalent tone, however, and have invited interpretation as a message to a casual love interest. Harrison based the song's jangly guitar riff on one used by Roger McGuinn in the Byrds' adaptation of "The Bells of Rhymney". "If I Needed Someone" features prominent three-part harmony vocals and Rickenbacker twelve-string electric guitar – the instrument that the Byrds had adopted to replicate Harrison's sound in the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night. The song's use of drone and Mixolydian harmony also reflected Harrison's nascent interest in Indian classical music. Following its inclusion in the set list for the Beatles' 1965 UK tour, it became the only Harrison composition performed live by the group.

The Hollies' success with the song gave Harrison his first chart hit as a songwriter, although his criticism of their performance led to a terse exchange in the press between the two groups. Several other artists covered the track in the first year after its release, including the American bands Stained Glass and the Kingsmen. A live recording by Harrison, taken from his 1991 tour with Eric Clapton, appears on the album Live in Japan. Clapton also performed the song at the Concert for George tribute to Harrison in 2002, while McGuinn released a cover version on his 2004 album Limited Edition.

Background and inspiration

thumb|left|upright=0.55|The [[Rickenbacker 360/12, a guitar popularised by the Beatles in 1964 and subsequently adopted by the Byrds]]

In addition to reflecting George Harrison's interest in Indian classical music, "If I Needed Someone" was inspired by the music of the Byrds, who in turn had based their sound and image on those of the Beatles after seeing the band's 1964 film A Hard Day's Night. According to music journalist David Fricke, the composition resulted from "a remarkable exchange of influences between the Beatles and one of their favorite new bands, the Byrds". The two groups formed a friendship in early August 1965, when the Byrds were enjoying international success with their debut single, a folk rock interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", and Harrison and John Lennon attended their first shows in London. Although the concerts received unfavourable reviews in the British music press, Harrison lauded the band as "the American Beatles". In late August, the Byrds' Jim (later Roger) McGuinn and David Crosby met up with the Beatles in Los Angeles, where they discussed with Lennon and Harrison the music of Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar and American Indo-jazz pioneer John Coltrane. The meeting led to Harrison introducing the sitar on Lennon's song "Norwegian Wood", and to Crosby and McGuinn incorporating Indian influences into the Byrds' "Why" and "Eight Miles High".

Harrison likened "If I Needed Someone" to "a million other songs" that are based on a guitarist's finger movements around the D major chord. The song is founded on a riff played on a Rickenbacker 360/12, which was the twelve-string electric guitar that McGuinn had adopted as the Byrds' signature instrument after seeing Harrison playing one in A Hard Day's Night. When McGuinn told him this in Los Angeles, Harrison was appreciative of the recognition, particularly as his contributions to the Beatles were often overshadowed by those of Lennon and Paul McCartney. In late 1965, Harrison acknowledged the Byrds' influence on "If I Needed Someone" when he sent a copy of the Beatles' new album, Rubber Soul, along with a message for McGuinn and Crosby, to Derek Taylor, the Byrds' publicist. In his note, Harrison said that the riff was based on the one McGuinn had played on the Byrds' adaptation of "The Bells of Rhymney", and that the rhythm was based on the drum part in "She Don't Care About Time". McGuinn later recalled: "George was very open about it. He sent [the record] to us in advance and said, 'This is for Jim' – because of that lick [in 'The Bells of Rhymney']."

Writing in The Beatles Anthology, Harrison commented on the difficulties he faced as a nascent songwriter during the Rubber Soul period, relative to Lennon and McCartney, both of whom had been writing "since they were three years old".

"If I Needed Someone" was the first Harrison composition to become a chart hit, as a result of the Hollies' cover. but by the group's standards at the time, it was one of their least successful singles.

Many listeners perceived the single as the Hollies attempting to align themselves with the Beatles. and that "the way they do their records, they sound like session men who've just got together in a studio without ever seeing each other before. Technically good, yes. But that's all." Lennon also criticised their treatment of the song,

Although he and Harrison later became "great friends", Nash attributed the single's relatively low chart position to Harrison's derision of the group's performance. Author Ian Inglis writes that the formation of Crosby, Stills & Nash – comprising Crosby from the Byrds, Nash from the Hollies, and ex-Buffalo Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills – brought the connections behind "If I Needed Someone" "full circle". Everett comments that the three-part parallel harmony singing, for which Crosby, Stills & Nash were "revered", suggests the influence of "If I Needed Someone".

Retrospective assessment and legacy

Writing in Rolling Stone in January 2002, Greg Kot described "If I Needed Someone" as Harrison's "finest tune to date" by 1965. In the same publication, David Fricke included it in his list of the "25 Essential Harrison Performances". Fricke described the track as, variously, a "folk-rock diamond" and "the ultimate compliment" to the Byrds in its "striking blend of cool dismissal ... and crystalline riffing". Writing for Q magazine, John Harris recognised Rubber Soul as marking Harrison's "first decisive stride forward" as a songwriter, with "If I Needed Someone" suggesting for the first time that he could match the standard of Lennon and McCartney's work. Bruce Eder of AllMusic identifies the song as a "near-classic" written by Harrison during a period when his association with the Rickenbacker guitar had helped define the folk rock sound of groups such as the Byrds. In a 2002 review of Rubber Soul, for Mojo, Richard Williams admired the track as "a little gem, an early classic of power pop which lasts not a second too long".

Doug Collette of All About Jazz describes "If I Needed Someone" and "Think for Yourself" as "his most stylish tunes" and examples of Harrison's rise within the Beatles, although he highlights the guitarist's use of sitar on "Norwegian Wood" as a more creatively important contribution. In his article celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rubber Soul, Rob Sheffield identifies the album as the work on which the Beatles became true recording artists. He cites "If I Needed Someone" as one of the tracks that, in their focus on modern, independent-thinking women, presented "complex and baffling females, much like the ones the Beatles ended up with in real life".

Among Beatles biographers, Ian MacDonald recognises the song as having been influenced "far more" by Indian classical music than by the Byrds. While he views it as Harrison's "most successful song" up to 1965, MacDonald considers that the lack of contrast between the verses and the bridges renders the track "monotonous", revealing an "obstinate quality" that typifies much of Harrison's writing. Tim Riley disagrees, instead recognising that the bridge "sets things in motion" compared to the verse's "ebb and flow". In addition to admiring the group's performance, particularly the restraint Starr employs to resolve the tension created by the VII chord change, Riley describes "If I Needed Someone" as "every guitarist's hook-bound fantasy". Writing in Barry Miles' book The Beatles Diary, Peter Doggett considers it to be Harrison's best song "by far" up to that point, and he describes the group's harmony singing as "stunning" and "the tightest they'd yet achieved on record". In 2011, Rolling Stone ranked "If I Needed Someone" at number 51 in its list of the "100 Greatest Beatles Songs". Having struggled to maintain their relevance against British Invasion bands, the Kingsmen recorded the song with an arrangement that authors Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez recognise as "a prototypically American response to British folk". This version, which failed to chart in the US when issued as a single, later appeared on the group's 1966 album Up and Away. Other artists who recorded it in 1966 include the Cryan' Shames, for their debut album, Sugar and Spice, and Hugh Masekela, who released it on Hugh Masekela's Next Album and went on to collaborate with the Byrds on their January 1967 single "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star".

thumb|left|upright=0.8|Roger McGuinn performing with the Byrds in 1972. McGuinn released a cover version of the song in 2004.

Harrison performed "If I Needed Someone" throughout his 1991 Japanese tour with Eric Clapton, a version from which appeared on the 1992 album Live in Japan. When discussing his choice of material for the tour, which was Harrison's first since his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar, he told Billboard that the song was an obvious inclusion, given that the Beatles had played it during their only visit to Japan, in 1966. On this 1991 live version, in Inglis' description, Clapton's "looping guitar solos" complement Harrison's vocal, which is more prominent than on the Beatles' original and sung in the style of Dylan. In November 2002, a year after Harrison's death, Clapton performed the song at the Concert for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall.

According to press announcements prior to the release in December 2002, Roger McGuinn recorded "If I Needed Someone" for inclusion on the multi-artist Harrison tribute album Songs from the Material World. The song did not appear on that release, but in 2004 McGuinn issued it as the opening track of his album Limited Edition. In his book on the making of Rubber Soul and its legacy, Kruth describes McGuinn's cover as "a supersonic reading" from the "master of the Rickenbacker twelve-string chime". In interviews to promote Limited Edition, McGuinn recalled Harrison's adaptation of the "Bells of Rhymney" riff as being "kind of a cool cross-pollination" and said that it was "a great honor to have in some small way influenced our heroes the Beatles".

Other artists who have covered "If I Needed Someone" include James Taylor and the doom metal band Type O Negative. The latter included it with "Day Tripper" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" as part of a Beatles medley on their 1999 album World Coming Down. In 2005, Nellie McKay recorded the song in the lounge jazz style for the multi-artist compilation This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul. The English folk duo Show of Hands have also covered the song, Their version appeared on the 2006 compilation Rubber Folk and on Harrison Covered, a Harrison tribute CD accompanying the November 2011 issue of Mojo.

Personnel

According to Ian MacDonald, the line-up on the Beatles' recording was as follows:

The Beatles

  • George Harrison – double-tracked lead vocal, lead guitar
  • John Lennon – harmony vocal, rhythm guitar
  • Paul McCartney – harmony vocal, bass guitar
  • Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine

Additional musician

  • George Martin – harmonium

Notes

References

Sources

  • Full lyrics for the song at the Beatles' official website
  • "Legendary Guitar: George Harrison's Rickenbacker 360/12" at gibson.com