Our cover of the song in which the She of She Loves You grows up and Leaves Home, the ultimate generation gap song by the band whose music defined that time.
For a band that with their upbeat update of fifties rock n roll ("roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news") basically composed the soundtrack of the generation gap ("anything that you want... we can do" "there's a place where I can go...and it's my mind" "money can't buy me love" "it's getting better all the time" and see track 1) they could also be surprisingly un-partisan and generous about it. Compare this song with the Who's proto-punk "My Generation" for instance. I would contend, however, that their very ability to transcend the conflict and empathise achingly with both sides in songs like this was why they largely won the argument for their own side. (Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" follows this lead in this a few years later.) It would have been a cheap trick to sing a hippy credo like "Love is the one thing that money can't buy"( A band that embraced Lennon's brilliant angry young man cover of "Money" and McCartney's manna-querying "Did you think that money was heaven sent?" weren't going to fall or expect us to for that. It's not that the mortified parents in this song don't love their daughter (or more accurately the 'baby' they remember. They just don't know who she is.
We precede the song with an extract from my (work in progress) Beatles novel "All About The Girl":
June 18, 1967. Absent Father’s Day: because real men didn’t have their own day then. President Johnson may have proclaimed a Day honouring fathers in America that President Nixon would make law and a permanent national holiday in 1972 but in Swinging London the Pepper-hot BBC Beatles, currently rehearsing All You Need Is Love for the world’s first live satellite broadcast, were voicing the daughters and sons beyond their command. She’s Leaving Home and, essentially, I’m Leaving with her. She sheds our Parents a musical Note about living alone for so many years which leaves Wicked Stepmother Mary nose-cold and dry-eyed on the top of the world and Absent Dad, when he finally gets home, feeling even more sorry for himself than usual.
In a minimalist, open-heart grief-lyric (taut heart-strings tuned on those understated short stories Paperback Writer and Eleanor Rigby) Mother Mary picks up the letter that’s lying there; is standing alone at the top of the stair, before she, and the held musical Note, and the audience hanging on it, break... down… and cry to her husband, 'DADDY, OUR BABY'S GONE!'
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins
F#m7/B B9
Silently closing her bedroom door
F#m7/B B9
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching a handkerchief
F#m7/B B9
Quietly turning the backdoor key
F#m7/B B9
Stepping outside she is free
[Chorus]
E
She (We gave her most of our lives.)
E
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives.)
E Bm6
Home (We gave her everything money could ^ ^ ^
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
buy
[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown,
F#m7/B B9
Picks up the letter that's lying there.
F#m7/B B9
Standing alone at the top of the stairs,
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone!"
F#m7/B B9
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
F#m7/B B9
How could she do this to me?
[Chorus]
E
She (We never thought of ourselves.)
E
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves.)
E Bm6
Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get ^ ^ ^
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
by
[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
F#m7/B B9
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
F#m7/B B9
Meeting a man from the motor trade
[Chorus]
E
She (What did we do that was wrong?)
E
Is having (We didn't know it was wrong.)
E Bm6
Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
Something inside that was always denied for so many years
buy
CODA
C#m7 F# A E
She's leaving home (bye bye)
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins
F#m7/B B9
Silently closing her bedroom door
F#m7/B B9
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching a handkerchief
F#m7/B B9
Quietly turning the backdoor key
F#m7/B B9
Stepping outside she is free
[Chorus]
E
She (We gave her most of our lives.)
E
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives.)
E Bm6
Home (We gave her everything money could ^ ^ ^
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
buy
[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown,
F#m7/B B9
Picks up the letter that's lying there.
F#m7/B B9
Standing alone at the top of the stairs,
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone!"
F#m7/B B9
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
F#m7/B B9
How could she do this to me?
[Chorus]
E
She (We never thought of ourselves.)
E
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves.)
E Bm6
Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get ^ ^ ^
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
by
[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
F#m7/B B9
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
F#m7/B B9
Meeting a man from the motor trade
[Chorus]
E
She (What did we do that was wrong?)
E
Is having (We didn't know it was wrong.)
E Bm6
Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
Something inside that was always denied for so many years
buy
CODA
C#m7 F# A E
She's leaving home (bye bye)
credits
from It Was 60 Years Ago Today (LP), released February 4, 2023
