The Beatles have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. According to the RIAA, they are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful "Hot 100" artists. As of 2013, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, the Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the best artist of all-time.
This is the eleventh in a series of 20 caches to celebrate the Beatles' twenty U.S. number-one singles.
"We Can Work It Out" is a song by the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was released as a "double A-sided" single with "Day Tripper", the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release. Both songs were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions.
The song is an example of Lennon–McCartney collaboration at a depth that happened only rarely after they wrote the hit singles of 1963. This song, "A Day in the Life", "Baby, You're a Rich Man" and "I've Got a Feeling", are among the notable exceptions.
McCartney wrote the words and music to the verses and the chorus, with lyrics that "might have been personal", probably a reference to his relationship with Jane Asher. McCartney then took the song to Lennon:
"I took it to John to finish it off, and we wrote the middle together. Which is nice: 'Life is very short. There's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.' Then it was George Harrison's idea to put the middle into waltz time, like a German waltz. That came on the session, it was one of the cases of the arrangement being done on the session."
With its intimations of mortality, Lennon's contribution to the twelve-bar bridge contrasts typically with what Lennon saw as McCartney's cajoling optimism, a contrast also seen in other collaborations by the pair, such as "Getting Better" and "I've Got a Feeling".
Lennon told Playboy in 1980:
"In 'We Can Work It Out', Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, 'We can work it out / We can work it out'—real optimistic, y'know, and me, impatient: 'Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.'"[7]
Based on those comments, some critics overemphasised McCartney's optimism, neglecting the toughness in passages written by McCartney, such as "Do I have to keep on talking until I can't go on?". Lennon's middle shifts focus from McCartney's concrete reality to a philosophical perspective in B minor, illustrating this with the waltz-time section suggested by George Harrison that leads back to the verse, possibly meant to suggest tiresome struggle.
Music critic Ian MacDonald, said: "[Lennon's] passages are so suited to his Salvation Army harmonium that it's hard to imagine them not being composed on it. The swell-pedal crescendos he adds to the verses are, on the other hand, textural washes added in the studio, the first of their kind on a Beatles record and signposts to the enriched sound-palette of Revolver."
"We Can Work It Out"
Try to see it my way,
Do I have to keep on talking till I can't go on?
While you see it your way,
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone
We can work it out,
We can work it out
Think of what you're saying
You can get it wrong and still you think that it's alright
Think of what I'm saying,
We can work it out and get it straight, or say good night
We can work it out,
We can work it out
Life is very short, and there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought that it's a crime,
So I will ask you once again
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long
We can work it out,
We can work it out
Life is very short, and there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought that it's a crime,
So I will ask you once again
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long
We can work it out,
We can work it out
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Congratulations to zzbob for FTF!