History
The song is about a crisis in McCartney's relationship with his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. She was rejecting him by not returning phone calls and ignoring him — for once, he was in a vulnerable position. The more biting tone of the song marks a change away from his earlier, happier love songs. "You Won't See Me" was recorded during the last session for Rubber Soul on the night of November 11, 1965. The deadline for completing the album was up and the band needed to record three songs that evening to wrap up the album. As a result, they cut the song in only two takes. At 3:22, the song was the longest that The Beatles had recorded to that point and marked a trend by Bob Dylan and others at the time to start writing longer songs.
Mal "Organ" Evans (one of The Beatles' roadies throughout their career) is credited on the album sleeve as having played Hammond organ on this track, his contribution consisting solely of an A note quietly held throughout the last part of the song.
"You Won't See Me" was never a part of The Beatles' concert repertoire, but McCartney played the song live during his 2005-2006 concert tour.
Read more about this topic: You Won't See Me
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)