"Lady Madonna" By The Beatles Video Showcase

"Lady Madonna" is a song by The Beatles, written mostly by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

In March 1968 it was released as a single, backed by "The Inner Light". The song was recorded at Abbey Road Studios during sessions on 3 February and 6 February 1968 before the Beatles left for India.

This single was the last release by the band on Parlophone in the UK and Capitol Records in the U.S. All subsequent releases, starting with "Hey Jude" in August of 1968, were released on their own label Apple Records, under EMI distribution, until the late 1970s, when Capitol and Parlophone re-released old material.

The song and in particular the intro are similar to Humphrey Lyttelton's "Bad Penny Blues" from 1956.

John Lennon helped write the lyrics. The line "see how they run" was included after his suggestion (and was a theme that had been used in the previous year's "I Am the Walrus").

The piano playing on this song was inspired by 1950s rock/blues piano-player, Fats Domino. McCartney recalled in 1994, "'Lady Madonna' was me sitting down at the piano trying to write a bluesy boogie-woogie thing ... It reminded me of Fats Domino for some reason, so I started singing a Fats Domino impression. It took my voice to a very odd place."

Domino himself would cover the song later in 1968, and it would become his most recent U.S. Hot 100 hit (peaking at exactly #100). The saxophone solo was played by British jazz musician and club owner Ronnie Scott. The mix used in the single had much of Scott's saxophone removed, but the versions on Anthology 2 and Love feature a more prominent use of Ronnie's solo, at the end of the song.

In a recent BBC documentary, Timewatch, McCartney explained the decision behind this saying that at the time, Scott had not been impressed that his music had been hidden behind other instruments, so McCartney had decided to fix it with the most recent mix.

A variation of this song can be heard on McCartney's Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road DVD (PBS Great Performances). McCartney calls it "An Old Lady in New Clothes".

Read the Wikipedia article about Lady Madonna...

Photo author: erglantz from flickr.com