I've heard many stories about this song, but don't know which might be true.
According to one story, the Beatles were in a car on their way to a show and tried to warm up by singing "Matchbox" in three part harmony. The attempt broke down and morphed into something that didn't sound like Matchbox at all, but Lennon remembered it. Later, when the Beatles were working on "Eight Days a Week," he came up with the riff and then married it to the morphed version of "Matchbox." If you sat down and make a list of the top ten most memorable guitar riffs, Lennon probably wrote at least three of them.
The lyrics are nothing special; just a guy expressing satisfaction about his love life. It was written before Lennon was influenced by Bob Dylan. What makes the song--aside from the riff--is the drumming. The first attempts were to make it sound like Ska music, but Ringo couldn't really do a Ska beat and it came out like a rhumba instead. After the fact, they realized it sounded like "What'd I Say."
Also according to legend, you can hear Paul's sheepdog Martha barking at the very end.
I've heard many stories about this song, but don't know which might be true.
According to one story, the Beatles were in a car on their way to a show and tried to warm up by singing "Matchbox" in three part harmony. The attempt broke down and morphed into something that didn't sound like Matchbox at all, but Lennon remembered it. Later, when the Beatles were working on "Eight Days a Week," he came up with the riff and then married it to the morphed version of "Matchbox." If you sat down and make a list of the top ten most memorable guitar riffs, Lennon probably wrote at least three of them.
The lyrics are nothing special; just a guy expressing satisfaction about his love life. It was written before Lennon was influenced by Bob Dylan. What makes the song--aside from the riff--is the drumming. The first attempts were to make it sound like Ska music, but Ringo couldn't really do a Ska beat and it came out like a rhumba instead. After the fact, they realized it sounded like "What'd I Say."
Also according to legend, you can hear Paul's sheepdog Martha barking at the very end.