“When you’re drown­ing,” John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, “you don’t say, ‘I would be incred­i­bly pleased if some­one would have the fore­sight to notice me drown­ing and come and help me.’  You just scream.”

“Don’t Let Me Down” is Lennon’s anguished scream to his lover, Yoko Ono. When he and the Bea­t­les record­ed the song dur­ing the Let It Be ses­sions in late Jan­u­ary of 1969, Lennon asked Ringo Starr to hit the cym­bal very hard at the begin­ning, to “give me the courage to come scream­ing in.”

The Bea­t­les were in the process of break­ing apart when Lennon wrote the song. It was a dark time in my ways, and he was becom­ing more and more depen­dent upon Ono for per­son­al and cre­ative sup­port. As Paul McCart­ney told writer Bar­ry Miles in Many Years From Now:

It was a very tense peri­od: John was with Yoko and had esca­lat­ed to hero­in and all the accom­pa­ny­ing para­noias and he was putting him­self out on a limb. I think that as much as it excit­ed and amused him, at the same time it secret­ly ter­ri­fied him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a gen­uine plea, ‘Don’t let me down, please, what­ev­er you do. I’m out on this limb, I know I’m doing all this stuff, just don’t let me down.’ It was say­ing to Yoko, ‘I’m real­ly step­ping out of line on this one. I’m real­ly let­ting my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a gen­uine cry for help.

You can get a strong sense of Lennon’s anguish and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty when you lis­ten to the iso­lat­ed vocal track above. And for the full arrange­ment, includ­ing Star­r’s cym­bal-crash near the begin­ning and Bil­ly Pre­ston’s bril­liant elec­tric piano play­ing, see below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

Kurt Cobain’s Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track From ‘Smells Like Teen Spir­it,’ 1991

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig Filmed in Jan­u­ary 1969

In this video we hear and see the evo­lu­tion of Elton John’s voice and his often out­landish stage pres­ence as he sings his break­through hit, “Your Song,” through his long career.

John wrote the love song with lyri­cist  Bernie Taupin. He once said of their long-time col­lab­o­ra­tion, “I’m just a pur­vey­or of Bernie’s feel­ings, Bernie’s thoughts.” “Your Song” was includ­ed on John’s 1970 sec­ond album, Elton John, and was released as the B‑side to the gospel-influ­enced “Take Me to the Pilot.” Disc jock­eys pre­ferred “Your Song,” so it was switched to the A‑side. The song even­tu­al­ly rose to num­ber eight on the Bill­board Hot 100 and num­ber 7 on the UK Sin­gles Chart.

In addi­tion to record sales, the well-craft­ed song also earned John and Taupin the respect of their peers. “I remem­ber hear­ing Elton John’s ‘Your Song,’ ” said John Lennon in his 1975 Rolling Stone inter­view, “heard it in Amer­i­ca, and I remem­ber think­ing, ‘Great, that’s the first new thing that’s hap­pened since we (The Bea­t­les) hap­pened.’ It was a step for­ward.”

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Next week — August 27th, to be pre­cise — Colum­bia Records will release Bob Dylan’s The Boot­leg Series, Vol. 10 — Anoth­er Self Por­trait (1969–1971), a col­lec­tion of 35 tracks (unre­leased record­ings, demos and alter­nate takes) that were larg­ley record­ed dur­ing stu­dio ses­sions for the 1970 albums Self Por­trait and New Morn­ing. If you’re look­ing for a lit­tle pre­view, then head over to NPR’s First Lis­ten site where 15 tracks are stream­ing for free … for a lim­it­ed time. Titles include “Time Pass­es Slow­ly #1”, which fea­tures Dylan play­ing with George Har­ri­son; a ver­sion of “If Not for You” per­formed solo with only vio­lin accom­pa­ni­ment; and a live ver­sion of “High­way 61 Revis­it­ed” record­ed by Dylan, backed by The Band, at the Isle of Wight con­cert in 1969.

Also stream­ing this week on NPR’s site is Neko Case’s new album The Worse Things Get, The Hard­er I Fight, plus Sly And The Fam­i­ly Stone’s High­lights From ‘High­er!’

Enjoy the free lis­tens while they last.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan and Van Mor­ri­son Sing Togeth­er in Athens, on His­toric Hill Over­look­ing the Acrop­o­lis

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

“Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” by Queen is one of the most auda­cious pop songs ever made. Part bal­lad, part opera, part heavy met­al orgasm, the song has six dis­tinct sec­tions and took over a month to record.  At just under six min­utes, “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” was con­sid­ered too long for pop radio. “The record com­pa­ny, in their infi­nite igno­rance, of course imme­di­ate­ly sug­gest­ed that we cut it down,” said Queen drum­mer Roger Tay­lor, who stood by his band­mates and refused to let the song be cut. “It real­ly was hit or miss. It was either going to be mas­sive or it was going to be noth­ing.”

“Bohemi­an Rhap­sody,” of course, went on to become one of the most pop­u­lar songs in music his­to­ry. It spent nine weeks at num­ber one in the UK fol­low­ing its release in the fall of 1975, and went back to num­ber one after the death of singer Fred­die Mer­cury in 1991. In Amer­i­ca the song peaked at num­ber nine in 1976 and re-entered the charts at num­ber two in 1992, when it was fea­tured in the movie Wayne’s World. Last year, an ITV poll in Great Britain list­ed “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” as “The Nation’s Favorite Num­ber One” song in 60 years of music.

Above, in the 3‑part mini doc­u­men­tary Inside the Rhap­sody, Queen takes you inside the mak­ing of the song. And, along the way, gui­tarist Bri­an May goes back to the mix­ing board to explain the com­plex­i­ty of lay­ers that went into real­iz­ing Mer­cury’s vision for the song. The orig­i­nal 24-track ana­logue record­ing sys­tem was far too lim­it­ed, so the band used the ping-pong tech­nique to “bounce” lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of over­dubs into the mix. May explains how the oper­at­ic vocal lay­ers were inspired by the “cas­cad­ing strings” effect made famous by Annun­zio Pao­lo Man­to­vani, a tech­nique May first tried out in 1974 with the gui­tar solo on “Killer Queen.”

For more on the mak­ing of “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody,” please see our post, “Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury’s Won­drous Piano and Vocal Tracks for ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’ (1975).” And for a reminder of how it all came togeth­er, here’s the offi­cial video:

Inside the Rhap­sody has been added to our col­lec­tion, 285 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Fred­die Mer­cury at Live Aid

Queen Doc­u­men­tary Pays Trib­ute to the Rock Band That Con­quered the World

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981