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Nancy Sinatra in 1966 \u00a9 ABC Photo Archives\/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\nUnlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n
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The 1960s was a time of great riff rivalry. Roy Orbison, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks had hits with songs driven by killer guitar riffs. The Beatles competed with each other. Three days after recording Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cPaperback Writer\u201d, the Fab Four went back into the studio on October 16 1965 to record John Lennon\u2019s \u201cDay Tripper\u201d, which has one of the catchiest and most covered riffs of all time.<\/p>\n
Starting in E and moving to A for the second verse line, the riff lies easily under a guitarist\u2019s hands, the notes twisting and unwinding over two bars with hardly a note repeated (hence its unusual tunefulness). The Beatles\u2019 arrangement squeezes maximum drama from the song, with Ringo Starr\u2019s explosive drum fills and a thrillingly shaken tambourine ramping up the excitement.<\/p>\n
The verse and chorus are servants to the riff, draping its robust skeleton with jokey, innuendo-laden lines that betray the influence of Bob Dylan, who went electric a few months earlier. The song disses a person who is a \u201cday tripper\u201d, a \u201cone-way driver\u201d, and, with knowing rudeness, a \u201cbig teaser\u201d. But unlike, say, Dylan\u2019s moody recordings of \u201cShe Belongs to Me\u201d, or \u201cPositively 4th Street\u201d, the backing track actively contests the misanthropic words: \u201cDay Tripper\u201d is a headlong, driving rocker that anglicises the urgent whoop of 1960s Stax and Motown. Ringo lifts the chorus with a four-on-the-snare groove similar to that in the Four Tops\u2019 \u201cI Can\u2019t Help Myself\u201d, a riff-laden hit in the summer of 1965. Like Orbison\u2019s riffy hit \u201cOh, Pretty Woman\u201d (1964), the Beatles\u2019 track has a momentum that never flags.<\/p>\n
The song was released in December 1965 as a double A-side along with \u201cWe Can Work It Out\u201d \u2014 an interesting title, given that Lennon and McCartney couldn\u2019t agree which song they should release next. <\/p>\n
Nancy Sinatra in 1966 \u00a9 ABC Photo Archives\/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Cover versions came thick and fast. Nancy Sinatra was first out of the blocks with a brassy version that reversed genders, repeating some of the tricks \u2014\u00a0for example,\u00a0a slippery descending bass break \u2014 that arranger Billy Strange and producer Lee Hazlewood had used on Sinatra\u2019s \u201cThese Boots Are Made for Walkin\u2019\u201d. Also in 1966, on Complete & Unbelievable \u2014 The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul, the great singer took The Beatles\u2019 vocal lines for a soulful walk. Mae West committed to tape one of the worst ever massacres of a Beatles song on the execrable Way Out West.<\/p>\n
The genius of the \u201cDay Tripper\u201d riff is that it sounds good on almost any instrument: on sax and double bass for clever German duo Tok Tok Tok; barked out on brass for Geno Washington; and on piano for Sergio Mendes, who makes it sound like a Latin instrumental classic, with its hint of a Afro-Cuban montuno. Cuban percussionist and bandleader Mongo Santamar\u00eda cut at least two instrumental Latin versions. Yellow Magic Orchestra, one of many electronic acts championed by Rusty Egan, the \u201csonic architect\u201d of the Blitz club (currently celebrated at London\u2019s Design Museum), demonstrated how trippy the riff sounded on synthesisers (1979). Hamburg\u2019s Punkles gave \u201cDay Tripper\u201d a convincing retrofit on Pistol, their album of punkified Beatles covers.<\/p>\n
Also in Hamburg, musician and Beatles tour guide Stefanie Hempel, an authority on the group\u2019s history, told me that \u201c1965 was the great Beatles \u2018riff\u2019 year, with \u2018I Feel Fine\u2019, \u2018Ticket to Ride\u2019, etc, showing that they can also be the best \u2018hard\u2019 rock band if they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
She points out the influence of Dylan on The Beatles at that time: \u201cLeave the path of kitschy love songs, write in riddles, double meanings. Write about \u2018emancipated\u2019 women and put them down at the same time. They were always like sponges, soaking up everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some \u201cDay Tripper\u201d cover versions downplay the melodious riff. Jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis keeps it low in the mix on his groovy version (1966). James Taylor, on his album Flag (1979), teased listeners by hardly playing it at all, riding out the song with a stomping cocktail of percussion, sawing strings and falsetto vocals: Prince meets Talking Heads.<\/p>\n
For sheer originality, it\u2019s hard to beat Jos\u00e9 Feliciano\u2019s passionate version of \u201cDay Tripper\u201d. Recorded live at the London Palladium in 1969, with flamenco-style acoustic guitar, double bass and percussion, it reaches an intensity that transforms the detached, satirical mood of the original into something ecstatic.<\/p>\n
This article has been amended to reflect the fact that The Beatles went into the studio three days after recording \u2018Drive My Car\u2019, not as previously stated \u2018Paperback Writer\u2019<\/p>\n
Let us know your memories of \u2018Day Tripper\u2019 in the comments section below<\/p>\n