What You're Doing by The Beatles

Album: Beatles For Sale (1964)

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Songfacts®:

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote this in Atlantic City on a day off from their US tour. It could be about Paul's rocky relationship with the actress Jane Asher.
Beatles producer George Martin played piano on this track.
An early Beatles track, they recorded it in September 1964 at the same sessions as "Every Little Thing" and "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party." >>
Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
McCartney sees this as one of The Beatles' less memorable tracks. "I think it was a little more mine than John's," he explained. "You sometimes start a song and hope the best will arrive by the time you get to the chorus, but sometimes that's all you get, and I suspect this was one of them. Maybe it's a better recording than it is a song; some of them are. Sometimes a good recording would enhance a song."

Comments: 14

Jennifur Sun from RamonaLove the lead guitar part. Wonder if that is a Rick 12 sting?
Zero from Nowhere, Nj@ fallenpictures: In the song "I'll Cry Instead", a Lennon-penned number, he sings, "If I could find a way, I'd get myself locked up today" (or something to that effect), so I don't know how accurate that statement is.
Olivia from Philadelphia, PaI love this song! I love his voice!
Julia from Milton, Pain the cartoon, ringo got kidnapped by some gypsies and forced to marry one of them, so george dresses up like a girl and pretends he's ringo's fiancee. best cartoon EVER
Tom from Los Angeles, CaWell since we all love this song, but nobody's mentioned the singing. I looove Paul's singing on this. When he sings "It's meeeeeeee" and swoops, just gorgeous. For some reason I feel compelled to state that I am a straight man at this point.
Tom from Los Angeles, CaWell since we all love this song, but nobody's mentioned the singing. I looove Paul's singing on this. When he sings "It's meeeeeeee" and swoops, just gorgeous. For some reason I feel compelled to state that I am a straight man at this point.
George from Belleville, NjA classic from the first half of their career.An unsung song with a great melody and cool guitar work by Harrison and awesome drum work by Ringo.Another winner in the Beatles catalog.
K from Nowhere, OnI LOVE the drums at the beginning and end!
Julia from Richland, WaRichy is talking about the band Huey Lewis and The News. Although, I'm not sure what they have to do with The Beatles. Or "What You're Doing" for that matter. (Fallenpictures from Boston: I looked that up for you.)I really like this song. I think it's reminiscent of "You Won't See Me" off of The Beatles' Rubber Soul. =)
Sean from Manchester, United KingdomThis song invents the Byrds.
Forrest from Rochester, MnThis is one of the best guitar intros the Beatles ever did, and for some reason it reminds me of After School Specials. I feel the same way about the intro to the Anthology 2 version of "And Your Bird Can Sing"
Fallenpictures from Boston, MaThanks for the info Steve. One of my favorite Beatle songs. I know Lennon hated 'world without love' because the line 'Please lock me away', he said it sounded like the guy wanted to be in an asylum. As for Richy? No clue as to what/who you're talking about.
Steve from Arnol, MdThis song features George's 12-string electric guitar. You can hear it most clearly in the 5th and 6th measures of the intro. George plays a nice little motif that's reminiscent of "World Without Love," a song Paul wrote that was given to Peter and Gordon.
Richy from Düsseldorf, GermanyThe Group didn´t disbanded. They´re still on tour every year and they had a new, very good album out a couple years ago. I think, they get tired of the business and the rock sound, so they changed the sound to more R´n´B and produces the album without a record contract. The priority is now to play music live. They get out of the stress to write and produce new material and tour with it, they do it the other way: When they got enough new material that worked good on tour, they put it on a new record. The last record was called `Plan B´, I think this says everything.

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