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| FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17 2000 |
| Hello, Goodbye |
| STEVE TURNER |
| Alistair Taylor, who worked for Brian
Epstein, remembered once asking Paul how he wrote his songs, and
Paul taking him into his dining room to give a demonstration on a
hand carved harmonium. He told Taylor to shout out the opposite of
whatever he sang as he struck the keys. And so it went - black and
white, yes and no, stop and go, hello and goodbye.
"I've no memory at all of the tune," Taylor later recounted. "You have to remember that melodies are as common around the Beatles as bugs in May. Some grow into bright butterflies and others shrivel and die. I wonder whether Paul really made up that song as he went along or whether it was running through his head already. Anyway, shortly afterwards, he arrived at the office with a demo tape of the latest single — Hello, Goodbye." The last part of the record, where the Beatles repeat the line "Hela, hey, aloha" came about spontaneously in the studio. ("Aloha" is an affectionate form of Hawaiian greeting.) If Hello, Goodbye was nothing more than a word game set to music, in the mystical climate of 1967, Paul was expected to offer a deeper interpretation. In an interview with Disc, he gallantly tried to produce an explanation: "The answer to everything is simple. It's a song about everything and nothing. If you have black you have to have white. That's the amazing thing about life." Hello, Goodbye was released as a single in November 1967 and topped the charts in both Britain and America. The final "aloha" chorus was used in the Magical Mystery Tour film. |