If you had the 45 single record of We Can Work It Out by The Beatles in your teenage collection, then you owned an unusual “double A-sided” record from Capitol Records that also featured another current hit – Day Tripper – on the flip side. Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, the song was recorded during the Rubber Soul Sessions and released in December 1965, the same day as the Rubber Soul album.

This song was later released on the album Yesterday and Today in June 1966 along with others that we have photographed for our Song Stories Collection – Day Tripper, Yesterday and Act Naturally.

How It Was Written & Recorded

This song was another great collaboration between McCartney and Lennon.

I had the idea, the title, had a couple of verses and the basic idea for it, then 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. – Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

Recorded over two days in sessions amounting to 11 hours – The Beatles’ longest time spent completing a song to that date – We Can Work It Out bore the distinctive hallmarks of both its songwriters.

While the recording session’s length was notable, this song is more well known for so perfectly showcasing each of its songwriters’ unique talents for creating memorable lyrics – McCartney’s upbeat verses and chorus and Lennon’s more pessimistic “Life is very short” passage.

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.’ – John Lennon, 1980, All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Its Place In Music History

While We Can Work It Out never became a standard of The Beatles’ live concert setlist, the band did give us a gift by making 3 promotional films of the song in November 1965. These early music videos were filmed at Twickenham Film Studios in London.

The Beatles had actually planned for Day Tripper to be their last single of 1965, so We Can Work It Out was destined to not be released until the next year. In discussions about its release, there was a disagreement among band members and their manager Brian Epstein over which of the two songs would be the more commercial. This conflict resulted in a compromise and the rare release of a “double A-sided” 45 single with We Can Work It Out and Day Tripper sharing the A-side billing. Fans were the winners in this case!

After its release, We Can Work It Out actually was the more commonly requested by record buyers. This would push it to be more favored by radio stations and propelled it up the charts in the UK and the US. 

It entered the UK’s charts at number one only five days after its release, where it remained for five weeks and sold over a million copies.

The We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper double-sided 45 single also topped the charts in the US, and became The Beatles’ fastest-selling single since Can’t Buy Me Love.  It has been said that this was the beginning of McCartney’s writing taking a lead over Lennon’s, although one could also argue that they were both prominent until the band split in 1970.

Read More

We’re so excited to be sharing stories about the songs whose records have been photographed for our Song Stories photo collection. Watch for more to come!

The authors of these two books are the sources for the quotes for this article. I’m sure they would be grateful if you would check out their books. I am also grateful to have found such great source material here.

These words apply to today’s world, don’t they? Don’t forget them. And go cue up this song on Spotify!

“Life is very short, and there’s no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend.” – McCartney, Lennon

[Photo of The Beatles, Kennedy Airport 1964, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Beatles_in_America.JPG]