Paperback Writer, Auntie Susan and Chiswick House
The parallel history of an underrated Beatles song
Dear Sir or Madam, what’s your favourite Beatles song?
You might choose I Want To Hold Your Hand, Hey Jude, In My Life, Let It Be or A Day In The Life. Perhaps you’d go for Something, Come Together or Yesterday.
I doubt you’d choose Paperback Writer. I’m not going to claim it’s my favourite either, or that this article is based on a novel by a man called Lear. But, Paperback Writer, together with its B-side Rain, is possibly their most significant single for many wider reasons than just the music.
You just need to know the parallel history.
1966 and all that
The song’s parallel history, previously known only to me, begins in June 1966. My then 16-year-old Auntie Susan gave me the Paperback Writer/Rain single, just after it was released. Not that she liked being called Auntie at 16.
I’d been a Beatles fanatic for the previous 3 years. Every time my parents took me to see my grandparents and Susan-don’t-call-me-auntie, she’d play her Beatles records for me on one of those little record players that stacked the singles on a metal spine.
Susan (don’t say Auntie) also had piles of teen music magazines, and she’d give me the ones with Beatles articles to read. I think every teen magazine in the ’60s had Beatles articles, now I think about it. I’m certain I learnt to read so well thanks entirely to these Beatles articles, although my expanded vocabulary included words that my school teachers considered less than useful — groovy, far out (man), dig it, poptatic, hip, square and Fab (Four).
I didn’t think to ask Susan why she gave me Paperback Writer/Rain because having the latest Beatles record swamped all my thoughts. Looking back, I believe she didn’t care for the ‘new’, harder and psychedelic sound of the supernaturally gifted and musically maturing Fab Four. This was something she shared with many younger fans at the time. Not me. I loved their new direction, even if I wasn’t sure why back then.
2025 and all that
Sadly, I no longer have that Paperbackwriter/Rain single. I don’t know why, because I have every other record I owned as a kid, including the other Beatles records Susan (don’t say Auntie) gave me.
I’ve always viewed Paperback Writer and Rain as brother songs; they go together like a mini album of two tracks. They announced The Fabs’ new direction, one that had been foreshadowed in songs such as I Feel Fine, Day Tripper and Drive My Car.
Paperback Writer is the catchier and more foot-tapping of the siblings, so the obvious choice for the A side. However, Rain is more interesting and creative musically, and I’ll be writing more (on Rain) in a week or two, otherwise, this article would become a thousand pages. Give or take a few.
Listen to the Giles Martin remasters on the Revolver bonus disk, and you’ll hear that these two songs sound fresh and contemporary. 59 years ago, Paperback Writer and Rain were highly innovative and very different to anything that had gone before.
A riff on a cheap guitar
By the time I was 15, British guitarist Bert Weedon had taught me how to play open and barre chords. Not personally, unfortunately, but like most aspiring British guitarists of the time, including Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards and Brian May, with Weedon’s book, Play In A Day.
I decided I knew enough after Book 1. I’m guessing Clapton et al went on to study the entire series. Nonetheless, I was soon up and running with Beatles riffs based around the basic chords and the major & minor scales Bert had taught me, annoying my brother who shared the bedroom.
I learnt songs in those days by watching the guitarists on TV or, more often, by placing the needle on the approximate spot on the record, listening to a section, and then repeating.
I’d learnt to play the riff to Paperback Writer by spotting that John Lennon was miming the riff using a G7 barre shape in the promotional video. I had to be lucky to catch it on TV in the early seventies; YouTube was still some way off. I then worked it out by ear around the finger shape and position I’d seen Lennon form.
The riff was a tad confusing at first, having only ‘studied’ Book 1 of Bert’s guitar series. The song’s riff had a flattened 7th note of the G scale, meaning it was a half tone or one fret down. I called it the Beatles' Bluesy scale at the time, although I now know it’s called the Mixolydian scale, and it gives the song that bluesy/jazzy feel. I'm guessing that was covered in Book 2.
There’s other stuff in there too, like a vague Indian drone feel and Beach Boys Barbara Ann-like harmonies (another disc Susan gave me), so it’s far more complex than the rocky two-chord structure appears at first listen. The Beatles were mixing genres like no one had done before and inventing a new one: The Beatles’ genre.
The oddities in Paperback Writer
When learning to play Paperback Writer by repeatedly listening to the record, I often got sidetracked by finding interesting things in the recordings that weren’t obvious when listening superficially.
First off, I noticed the Beatles were singing Frère Jacques behind the verse lyrics. When you look at the promotional video, you can clearly see George mouthing Frère Jacques at 1.29 behind Paul.
At 1.20, someone comes in late on the Frère Jacques harmony, and just before that, George or maybe John clears their throat, ready for the closing, high harmonies. These kinds of things, which are filtered out nowadays, make the earlier analogue records like Paperback Writer so much more fascinating, real and human.
I also noticed what sounds like a typewriter sound in the background at various stages throughout the song. I’m not sure if it’s Ringo tapping on the edge of the snare drum or a cymbal (probably) or someone tapping on a real typewriter, but it’s not obvious unless you’re listening intently as I did. It’s more obvious on the fade out.
It’s a really cool effect if it was meant to be a typewriter sound. Of course, it may just be a drum/cymbal timing thing and a coincidence, which is why it’s mixed down. It’s not mentioned in anything I’ve ever read on The Beatles, and I’ve read a lot and not just teen magazines.
I’m possibly looking for an effect that isn’t there. Or not. Who knows? I like the idea it’s a typewriter sound, and I’m sticking with that.
Despite the promotional video showing John playing the riff for Paperback Writer, and George playing it in the live shows on YouTube, Paul played the riff on the studio recording, according to The Beatles Bible.
And while we’re on Paul, did you notice his chipped front tooth and the swollen scar on his top lip in the promotional video? This was the result of a motorbike accident he’d suffered a few months before they shot the video.
My not-clinging wife does understand
The long-suffering Mrs M knew something was up when I said I wanted to visit Chiswick for the day. She replied that it had to have something to do with The Beatles, although she didn’t know what.
I told her that Chiswick is a cool area, the High Street has loads of great shops, cafés and restaurants, and there’s an impressive 350-year-old stately home called Chiswick House we could look around.
She wasn’t distracted by my diversion, so I had to confess. Chiswick House was where the Fabs filmed the music videos for Paperback Writer and Rain. I received a slow nod with her eyes to the heavens. She doesn’t mind really. Besides, I told her, when the sun shines, we can slip into the shade and drink our lemonade.
The Paperback Writer photo shoot
May 14th 2025, became the final stage in my parallel history of Paperback Writer & Rain.
This no longer 9-year-old had the original record, went on the have various remasters on compilations, learnt the guitar riff on a cheap guitar and stood outside Abbey Road (then called EMI Studios and covered in an earlier article) where the song was recorded. May 14th was the day to stand in the hallowed footsteps of the Beatles, where they shot the promotional video.
The video for Paperback Writer was filmed in the gardens of Chiswick House in West London.
Here’s a screenshot of the clapperboard from the recordings of Paperback Writer and Rain that confirms where the promotional videos were shot, even though the person who wrote Chiswick House on the board misspelt it, Chiswich House.
Chiswick House and the surrounding 65-acre Gardens were developed in the 1720s when the small village of Chiswick was deep in the countryside and far from London. It didn’t have the 6-lane A4 motorway running past the front gates, that’s for sure; probably just a rutted wagon track.
Chiswick House and gardens were designed to be a kind of re-creation of ancient Rome for some mega-wealthy lord of the manor.
The main house is not in the video, but the statues where we see the boys miming to the song are in the back garden on the other side of the house in the photo above.
The bridge over Bollo Brook that runs through the Gardens isn’t in the video either, but it looks nice. I think the video director missed a trick by not putting this bridge in, although they would have had to fly Mrs M over from Buenos Aires in 1966 to complete the shots. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t do it.
The neo-Roman temple isn’t in the video either, and I would have thought it would have been a great backdrop too. The video makers thought otherwise. What do you think?
After shots of the Beatles over the intro to the song in the promotional video, we see the first recognisable image from the Chiswick House back garden — the head of a statue. It’s 0.08 seconds in.
We then get a quick shot of the boys in the conservatory, which is also seen later, before we get to the most iconic images from the promotional video of them playing by the statues in the garden.
And then around the 25-second mark, we see the second and longer shots of The Beatles in the conservatory in Chiswick House Gardens.
I spoke to the Chiswick House gardeners because the conservatory was locked and we couldn’t get in. They told me the building was unsafe, and indeed, when we went back, we saw the roof was collapsing and held up by several poles.
The gardeners also said that there are several photos on the walls inside of the Beatles from their time there 59 years ago, but that part was closed off to the public, too.
They said there are ideas to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Paperback Writer and Rain video shoot next year, so I’m hoping the roof gets fixed by then so I can go.
In the meantime, I had to take photos from the outside through a window where the band mimed the song in the conservatory.
Although the Beatles mimed playing the guitars, Ringo didn’t bother bringing his drums, so he sat around in various positions for the video. The next shot is of the circular mosaic in the conservatory that we first see clearly around 0.35 in the video.
From the 1.06 mark, we see the boys sitting outside the conservatory. I did all these photo shots from memory and therefore tend to get them a little off. This next one was the most off as I forgot they were sitting on a bench, but I was in the right area.
Mrs M. did suggest I sit on the bench, but I said no. When we got back, I played the video to capture the screenshots and could see they were indeed sitting on the bench just as Mrs M had suggested. It’s to the right of my left wrist. How did she know? She’d never seen the video.
Spooky, but I should probably listen to her next time. Or watch the video and take the screenshots before I visit.
And lastly, the video scrolls through each Beatle outside the conservatory and at 1.16, we catch Lennon looking pensive. Unlike me.
The parallel history of a classic
I don’t need a job, and my son doesn’t read the Daily Mail, but otherwise, I have a lot of parallel history with Paperback Writer.
Visiting the location where The Beatles filmed the historic video, which was the first deliberate promotional music video for a song that showcased a major shift in popular music, was the final piece of this elaborate historical musical jigsaw for me.
The pieces included receiving the 45, learning the riff on guitar, analysing the record and the video, visiting the recording studio (in a separate article) and now, visiting the location where the iconic video was filmed. I just wish I still had the original single my aunt had given me.
My remastered copies of Paperback Writer sound better sonically, but it’s not the same. I’m sure you know what I mean; I like to hear those coughs and minor errors.
References used include: The Lyrics by Paul McCartney, The Beatles Bible, Revolution In The Head by Ian MacDonald and Many Years From Now by Barry Miles.
Mrs. M is a Santa
Fantastic piece as always.