UMG and Apple Corps have released a fascinating titbit from the upcoming Rubber Soul reissue.
It’s an early version of Day Tripper, but without the famous riff that provides the song with its spine. Instead, the a two-minute piece features Lennon and McCartney working on the song at Lennon’s home in Weybridge, Surrey.
This version is slower than the finished track we all know. At several points the two Beatles can be heard cracking up and laughing, Lennon gets the words of the chorus wrong - ‘one way driver, yeah’ - but their harmonising is already spot on and the fun that they had in each other’s company in moments like these is evident even on this short excerpt.
In a sense, the song was written to order. Parlophone needed a new single for the end of the year and in the UK the custom in 1965 was that singles and albums were kept entirely separate. So, on a spare day between the sessions that had already started for Rubber Soul, the two songwriting partners set to work. In the end, McCartney came up with an equally strong track in the form of We Can Work It Out a few weeks later and both songs were released as the Beatles' first double A-side single in December.
Day Tripper (Songwriting Work Tape) is one of a number of unreleased home demos and takes that are included on the upcoming release. Apple Corps have already shared Michelle Take 1 but for the moment are holding back the big selling point of the reissue – a John Lennon demo called Little Girl, which up until recently Beatles scholars had no idea even existed, let alone was in any kind of releasable form.
The Rubber Soul Special Editon comes out on 2 October and is available in a variety of formats to fit your budget and the fervency of your fandom. This version of Day Tripper will be included only on the Deluxe and the Super Deluxe editions, which you can already pre-order.
