Michelle (song)

"Michelle"
Song

"Michelle" is a love ballad by the Beatles, composed principally by Paul McCartney, with the middle eight co-written with John Lennon. It is featured on their Rubber Soul album, released in December 1965. The song is unusual among Beatles recordings in that some of its lead vocals are in French, although "Paperback Writer" contains the backing vocals "Frère Jacques". "Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967 and has since become one of the best known and most often recorded of all Beatles songs.

Composition

The instrumental music of "Michelle" originated separately from the lyrical concept:

...'Michelle' was a tune that I'd written in Chet Atkins' finger-picking style. There is a song he did called 'Trambone' with a repetitive top line, and he played a bass line while playing a melody. This was an innovation for us; even though classical guitarists had played it, no rock'n'roll guitarists had played it. The first person we knew to use finger-picking style was Chet Atkins. .. I never learned it. But based on Atkins' "Trambone", I wanted to write something with a melody and a bass line in it, so I did. I just had it as an instrumental in C.

— Paul McCartney

The words and style of "Michelle" have their origins in the popularity of French Left Bank culture during McCartney's Liverpool days. McCartney had gone to a party of art students where a student with a goatee and a striped T-shirt was singing a French song. He soon wrote a farcical imitation to entertain his friends that involved French-sounding groaning instead of real words. The song remained a party piece until 1965, when John Lennon suggested he rework it into a proper song for inclusion on Rubber Soul.

...we'd tag along to these parties, and it was at the time of people like Juliette Greco, the French bohemian thing... So I used to pretend to be French, and I had this song that turned out later to be 'Michelle'. It was just an instrumental, but years later John said: 'You remember that thing you wrote about the French?' I said: 'Yeah.' He said: 'That wasn't a bad song, that. You should do that, y'know.'

— Paul McCartney

McCartney asked Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. "It was because I'd always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I can't speak French properly so that's why I needed help in sorting out the actual words", McCartney said.

Vaughan came up with "Michelle, ma belle", and a few days later McCartney asked for a translation of "these are words that go together well" — sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble. When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the "I love you" bridge. Lennon was inspired by a song he heard the previous evening, Nina Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You", which used the same phrase but with the emphasis on the last word, "I love you".:

Each version of this song has a different length. The UK mono is 2:33 but the stereo version is 2:40 due to an extra guitar solo. The US mono was the longest of all, at 2:43, until The Beatles: Rock Band version was released, running at 2:50.

Musical structure

The song was initially composed in C, but was played in F on Rubber Soul (with a capo on the fifth fret). The verse opens with an F major chord ("Michelle" – melody note C) then the second chord (on "ma belle" – melody note D♭) is a B♭^7♯9 (on the original demo in C, the second chord is a F^7♯9). McCartney called this second chord a "great ham-fisted jazz chord" that was taught to them by Jim Gretty who worked at Hessey's music shop in Whitechapel, central Liverpool and which George Harrison uses (as a G♭7#9) (see Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord) as the penultimate chord of his solo on "Till There Was You". After the E♭⁶ (of "these are words") there follows an ascent involving different inversions of the D dim chord. These progress from A♭dim on "go" – melody note F, bass note D; to Bdim (C♭dim) on "to" – melody note A♭, bass note D; to Ddim on "ge..." – melody note B (C♭) bass note B; to Bdim on ...'ther..." – melody note A♭ bass note B, till the dominant (V) chord (C major) is reached on "well" – melody note G bass note C.

Personnel

• Paul McCartney – lead vocal, bass, acoustic guitar
• John Lennon – backing vocal, classical acoustic guitar
• George Harrison – backing vocal, 12-string acoustic guitar, lead guitar
• Ringo Starr – drums

Personnel per Ian MacDonald

MacDonald wrote that "Michelle" was made in nine hours and seems to have been played mostly, if not entirely, by McCartney using overdubs." He speculated that McCartney might even have sung the backing vocals and played the drums.

Awards and recognition

"Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967. The song's win over "Born Free", "The Impossible Dream", "Somewhere My Love" and "Strangers in the Night" was seen as something of a triumph for The Beatles, who had in 1966 been nominated, but were unsuccessful, in nine categories. In 1999, BMI named "Michelle" as the 42nd most performed song of the 20th century.

Chart performance

Chart (1966)	Peak position
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)	3
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)	1
French EP charts	1
Invalid chart entered Germany2	6
Netherlands (Single Top 100)	1
New Zealand	2
Norway (VG-lista)	1

Cover versions

• The song was a UK hit in 1966 by The Overlanders, hitting number one on the Record Retailer chart. The Overlanders released their version after the Beatles declined to release it as a single themselves in the United Kingdom and United States (although the original version was released in some other European countries, including Norway, where both versions went to number one).
• "Michelle" was also covered by David and Jonathan, whose version went to #1 in Canada and was otherwise a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1966. (U.S. Pop #18, AC #3)
• Italian singer Mango did an a cappella cover of the song on the album Disincanto (2002).
• The band Rubblebucket released a trip hop version of the song on their 2010 Triangular Daisies EP.
• Andy Williams did a cover of the song on his 1966 album, The Shadow of your Smile.
• Beatallica did a cover of the song incorporating the music For Whom the Bell Tolls of Metallica in their 2013 album, Abbey Load
• Matt Monro covered the song in 1976 with a String Quartet.
• "Michelle" was also covered by American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan.
• It features as one of Louis Andriessen's 1966 "Satirical Arrangements" of Beatles songs for singer Cathy Berberian.

Live performance history

McCartney singing "Michelle" to Michelle Obama

"Michelle" was performed by McCartney throughout his 1993 world tour. He has rarely performed the song since, but did include it in a 2009 performance in Washington, DC, in honour of Michelle Obama, the American First Lady, and he would play it on most (if not all) of his performances in France or other francophone countries.

On 2 June 2010, after being awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House, McCartney performed the song for Michelle Obama, who sang along from her seat. McCartney quipped, "I could be the first guy ever to be punched out by a president." Michelle Obama reportedly later told others that she could never have imagined, after growing up an African-American girl on the South Side of Chicago, that someday a Beatle would sing "Michelle" to her as First Lady of the United States.

References

• "1966 Grammy Awards". infoplease. 2007. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
• "BMI Announces Top 100 Songs of the Century". Broadcast Music, Inc. 13 December 1999. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
• Gavin, Patrick (2 August 2009). "Paul McCartney dedicates Beatles' classic 'Michelle' to first lady Michelle Obama". politico.com. Retrieved 9 April 2010. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harry, Bill (2000). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated. London: Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-7535-0481-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Madinger, Chip; Easter, Mark (2000). Eight Arms To Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium. Chesterfield, MO: 44.1 Productions. ISBN 0-615-11724-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miles, Barry (1997). Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Pete Doherty meets Paul McCartney". The Guardian. 14 October 2007.
• Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Turner, Steve (2010). A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song. New York: Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-084409-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Unterberger, Richie (2007). "Biography of David and Jonathan". Allmusic. Retrieved 4 October 2007. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Alan W. Pollack's Notes on "Michelle"
• CoverTogether: Michelle
• Template:MetroLyrics song