| "Hello, Goodbye" | ||||||||||||||||||
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 Cover artwork for the single, as used in the US |
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| Single by The Beatles | ||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "I Am the Walrus" | |||||||||||||||||
| Released | 24 November 1967 | |||||||||||||||||
| Format | 7" | |||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | 2 October – 2 November 1967 Abbey Road |
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| Genre | Pop rock | |||||||||||||||||
| Length | 3:27 | |||||||||||||||||
| Label | Parlophone | |||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Lennon/McCartney | |||||||||||||||||
| Producer | George Martin | |||||||||||||||||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA)[1] | |||||||||||||||||
| The Beatles singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||||
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"Hello, Goodbye" is a song written by Lennon/McCartney and first recorded by the English rock band The Beatles. The song was released as a single in November 1967, and topped the charts in both the United States and Britain.[2]
Contents |
Though the songwriting credit is Lennon/McCartney, it was written only by Paul McCartney.[3]
Alistair Taylor, who worked for the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, had asked McCartney how he wrote his songs, and McCartney took him into his dining room to give him a demonstration on his harmonium. He asked Taylor to shout the opposite of whatever he sang as he played the instrument—black and white, yes and no, stop and go, hello and goodbye. Taylor later said, "I wonder whether Paul really made up that song as he went along or whether it was running through his head already."[3]
Under the working title "Hello Hello", the Beatles recorded the backing track on 2 October 1967, and added vocals and a guitar overdub on the 19th. After further overdubs of bass guitar and viola, recording was completed on the 2nd November, and mixing on the 6th.[4]
The song features a coda which came spontaneously in the studio. Of this, McCartney said "I remember the end bit where there's the pause and it goes 'Heba, heba hello'. We had those words and we had this whole thing recorded but it didn't sound quite right, and I remember asking Geoff Emerick if we could really whack up the echo on the tom-toms. And we put this echo full up on the tom-toms and it just came alive."[4]
"Hello, Goodbye" was released as a single on 24 November 1967. In the US, the song was also included on the Magical Mystery Tour album released three days later, but the song was not made available in the UK on an album (or in stereo) until the release of the 1973 compilation album 1967–1970.
With the release of the song, McCartney gave an explanation of its meaning in an interview with Disc: "The answer to everything is simple. It's a song about everything and nothing. If you have black you have to have white. That's the amazing thing about life."[3]
Three promotional films were made for the song; directed by McCartney, they were filmed on the 10th November at the Saville Theatre in London. The films were not aired by the BBC due to the Musicians Union's strict rules on miming; with no such restriction in the US, one of the films was screened on The Ed Sullivan Show on the 26th November.[5]
In the US, Capitol Records omitted the comma in the song’s title in the packaging of the single (as did some of EMI’s partners in other countries), and also the Magical Mystery Tour LP (which was subsequently adopted for the CD release of this album).
"Hello, Goodbye" topped the charts in both the United States and Britain where it spent seven weeks at number one, and was the Christmas number one for 1967.[2]
The song’s coda plays over the end titles of the Beatles’ 1967 Magical Mystery Tour film.
Air Canada in 1993 used a cover version in their ad campaign, while in 2006 another cover version of the song was used to advertise Telstra's Next G mobile phone network, and in 2008, American retailer Target featured various renditions of the song as part of its "Hello Good Buy" campaign.
The song is used as leader for a Dutch television program (the program is called also Hello, Goodbye) from the NCRV, where people are interviewed at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands who are waiting for family or friends to come home after a long period (Hello) or who have come to say goodbye to family or friends who will leave for a long time.
It is a playable song in The Beatles: Rock Band.
The song was used in a commercial to welcome David Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy.
The song has also been covered by Jump5 and the Jonas Brothers.
| Preceded by "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single 30 December 1967 (three weeks) |
Succeeded by "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" by John Fred and His Playboy Band |
| Preceded by "Let the Heartaches Begin" by Long John Baldry |
UK number one single 6 December 1967 (seven weeks) |
Succeeded by "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" by Georgie Fame |
| Preceded by "Green Green Grass of Home" by Tom Jones |
UK Christmas Number One single 1967 |
Succeeded by "Lily The Pink" by The Scaffold |
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