Forgotten Beatles Song happen to be most Avanguard

By editorial board on August 29, 2022

The Beatles You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) Happens to be one of the most important songs. See why.

Recorded over a two-year period, “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” is a strange cocktail jazz/ska/comedy mantra, and it is unlike anything else in the Beatles’ canon.

On the surface, it’s a throwaway tune, and many students of the Beatles have regarded the song in that fashion for half a century.

But the Beatles did not throw away songs, and “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” is absolutely no exception. It is not only a deeply intentional composition, but also a Rosetta Stone, an object that tells us a great deal about the Beatles.

A prime indication that we should take “You Know My Name” seriously is the fact that it is one of the only recordings that the Beatles worked on during one era, set aside, and completed in another era.

Initial recording for the track was done in May of 1967 during the Magical Mystery Tour sessions. However, “You Know My Name” was not completed at this time but revived two years later, during the sessions for Abbey Road. The Beatles would sometimes revisit compositions they had attempted years earlier — but this is one of the only instances of them actually re-opening archival recordings sessions/tapes.

Another exceptional aspect of “You Know My Name” is that two-thirds of the song is given over to the most transparent homages the Beatles ever recorded, to two different sources: the psychedelic vaudeville group , The Bonzo Dog Band, and the vastly influential English comedy team, The Goons. (I will explain shortly.)

“You Know My Name” also reveals how creatively engaged McCartney and Lennon were with each other, even in the dusk of their partnership. It reflects a playfulness (and an intensity and artistry not dampened by that playfulness) that was at the heart of the Lennon/McCartney relationship. It represents what happens when two friends enjoy challenging each other to make something new.

Even this late in the game (the second session for “You Know My Name” took place just four months before their final session together), Lennon and McCartney were still pioneering.

There are four significant stylistic elements in “You Know My Name”: The avant-garde mantra of the repeated title lyric; the ska section; the cabaret section; and the comedy section. Each represents a window into what John Lennon and Paul McCartney were listening to and thinking about as they moved through Beatle-life.

 

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