The 1966 Beatles album Revolver is loaded with incredible songs. One of the most underrated tracks on the album would definitely be “She Said She Said”. It was one of many songs credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. However, the song was actually only written by Lennon with some help from George Harrison. McCartney didn’t really have much to do with it, according to the man himself in Barry Miles’ biography called Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. Paul McCartney even said that “She Said She Said” is one the rare instances in which he didn’t play on a Beatles song.
So, what happened? According to McCartney, it started with some creative differences he had with the band shortly before they recorded it. He did participate in the first takes for the song, but McCartney did not contribute to the final recording at all.
Why Didn’t Paul McCartney Play On “She Said She Said”?
Paul McCartney has always been known as the perfectionist of The Beatles. So when the band opted to experiment with more psychedelic elements around the mid-1960s, there was quite a bit of head-butting. McCartney pitched an arrangement for “She Said She Said”, which was ultimately ignored. That didn’t sit well with McCartney.
“John [Lennon] brought it in pretty much finished,” McCartney said in his biography. “I’m not sure, but I think it was one of the only Beatle records I never played on. I think we’d had a barney or something, and I said, ‘Oh, f**k you!’ and they said, ‘Well, we’ll do it.’ I think George played bass.”
Harrison did indeed play a Burns bass for various Revolver sessions. However, there’s no confirmation that he played bass on “She Said She Said”. Some music historians believe that McCartney taped a bass track before storming out of the studio.
The argument led to McCartney walking out of the studio as the remaining members of the band recorded “She Said She Said”. It was the last track to be recorded for Revolver and closed out the session on a sour note.
Still, the Revolver period is widely believed to be the most cooperative the band had been when it came to each of The Beatles’ members working together creatively. But one can’t deny that there was a serious shift in energy between Lennon and McCartney at the time. Some believe it was marked by Lennon’s use of LSD and McCartney’s refusal to try it. Who knows what really happened?
