1965 The Beatles: Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out

As a music fan born some years after this single was released, I count myself fortunate in having some inkling as to what it must have been like as a music buyer in this sixties period we now find ourselves. In a glorious few years straddling the mid to late eighties, personally favoured acts like The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, New Order etc all hit a purple patch whereby they invariably seemed to be releasing new material on a weekly basis with their respective labels happy to promote the product. There was nothing precious about anything they were doing, no three year gaps between albums that were then strip mined white for singles; if they had a song then it was released as a single, if they had three or four then it was an E.P. and when they had an album, one was duly released. It all seems another world now. Maybe it was.

Similarly, 'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out' were the first publicly released results from The Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' sessions, though neither track appeared on that album, a move that resulted from the type of confidence born from talent to burn and the knowledge that 'giving away' two songs on one single would in no way diminish the quality of the album to come. On first listen, 'Day Tripper' plays out almost impenetrably in its obtuseness, but substitute that 'she's a big teaser' with Lennon's original (but unbroadcastable) 'she's a prick teaser' then some of the scales fall away. In the space of two years, The Beatles had moved from the coyness of wanting to hold someone's hand to essaying a good time girl who not only forgoes relationships for a series of one night stands, but is also shameless in her promiscuity. Had The Beatles changed or was it just a reflection of the changing times?

Probably a bit of both I think - to be fair, I've always heard 'Day Tripper' as a bridge between the screamdadelica of the band's Merseysound days and the more mature period to come, and as such it would have been a square peg in the round hole of 'Rubber Soul' in any case. Harrison's plucked guitar riff holds hands with 'Ticket To Ride' in a walk to a more controlled future not dependant on the screaming hordes, but those 'it took me soooooooo long's are pure 'she loves you' harmony bludgeon - 'Day Tripper' is a transitional single and the last time The Beatles would bow down at the altar of commerciality.

'We Can Work It Out' is the more sedate of the pairing, with McCartney's laid back questioning riding an understated lower key rhythm as he tries to reason a troubled relationship back onto an even keel. Though Beatles songs had been credited to Lennon/McCartney from early days, it's no secret that they were rarely collaborations of equal input and 'We Can Work It Out' is the first clear example of the split in their contributions with McCartney's conciliatory lightness standing in stark contrast with Lennon's frustrated darkness as he butts in with a very blunt reminder "Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting" that may be a cliché but is no less true because of it.

It's this friction that made The Beatles the success that they were, a healthy competition where each songwriter competed with and cancelled out the weakness in the other while at the same time complimenting each other's strengths. 'We Can Work It Out' is a song that could have appeared on 'Rubber Soul' with no problem at all and it marks a point zero for me, the moment where The Beatles became more than just another band and started to influence and define the culture around them instead of following in its wake.