Talk:For You Blue

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Producer?
The article doesn't say who produced this song, and I don't have a reference book handy. If it was George Martin please add the article to Category:Songs produced by George Martin. --kingboyk 16:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It was produced by Phil Spector. In fact, Let It Be is the only Beatles album not produced by George Martin, so it would not need to be included in that category. 204.115.253.51 20:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

US #1?
Is this song a US #1? I know "winding road" is a #1, but on the billboard page, they are listed together. On the Beatles Discography page, it does not have a #1 ranking. Diego 16:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it was released as a double-A side. Bubba73 (Who's attacking me now?), 02:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Naked version?
Does anyone know what changes, if any, were made by Paul & co. to this song while re-mixing/reproducing the "Let It Be... Naked" album? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.36.84.114 (talk) 05:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ringo's drums were pushed up in the mix; I think that's about it.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 11:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Spoken words
"Go, Johnny, go!" Harrison is not referring to the song Johnny B. Goode, he's commenting on Lennon's awesome slide-guitar playing. "There go the twelve-bar blues" - it's quite clear what his words are; he's alluding to the fact the song uses a prototypical 12-bar blues riff. "Bop, bopcat, bop" - "bopcat" is an aficionado of beebop, a blend of jazz and blues; he's not singing about bobcats.

I don't think some random person's opinion (cribbed from the "Songfacts" website) on which song this sounds like deserves inclusion or qualifies as a reference.Nickrz (talk) 20:32, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

shotgun bullet casing
The term "shotgun bullet casing" is nonsensical. Shotguns do not fire bullets. A shotgun round is called a "shell" and the portion that remains in the shotgun after the round is fired is called a "hull". The phrase "a shotgun bullet casing" should be replaced with something like "the hull of a spent shotgun round". It seems unlikely that a standard plastic hull would be suitable for use as a bottleneck when playing a steel guitar, so one might suspect that the device used by John Lennon was the hull of a (somewhat unusual) solid brass shell. Mrpaulin (talk) 08:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The source says "shotgun shell", so I'll change the article to use that phrase. GoingBatty (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Compare Let It Be version with Let It Be...Naked
Could someone write a section describing the difference between the Let It Be version and the version reinstating George Harrison's acoustic guitar on Let It Be...Naked?  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 23:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The difference is in the balances and the EQ. Same song. What could be said?  R ad io pa th y  •talk•  23:39, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

So in other words, the album version has a spoken passage and no acoustic guitar while the naked version is more balanced with an acoustic guitar but without the spoken passage at the beginning?  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 00:46, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The "Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI movement" remark was tacked on out of context by Phil Spector. The acoustic guitar is apparent in the Spector version, just not as loud or bright.  R ad io pa th y  •talk•  17:05, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Um...okay :) But the naked version is clearly better in my book as the music sounds cleaned up, re-mastered, more balanced and less tacky.  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 23:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The acoustic guitar track used in the album version is different from the original one used in the naked version. It says so here.  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 08:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Shotgun shell?
There are sources that variously say Lennon was using a cigarette lighter, lipstick tube or shotgun shell as a slide during this recording. I think a shotgun shell is the least likely to be true and is probably based on someone's interpretation of photos or film from the recording session. Shotgun shells have been used as slides but that would be a solid brass shell and based on photos I have seen, the slide, if it's a shotgun shell, looks like a shell with a brass head and a cardboard or plastic hull. A spent cardboard or plastic shell would be useless as a slide and if he was using live ammunition he'd be up for a Darwin award. Unless a definitive source can be found, perhaps the type of slide should be omitted. I think Lennon had said once it was a cigarette lighter but I'll have to do some searching for that. Piriczki (talk) 15:21, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, it would be good to list those other possible slides (lighter, lipstick) if you've got sources, and then leave it up to the reader perhaps. I'll take a look in Sulpy & Schweighardt, Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle … I seem to remember reading how tapes from Twickenham capture a discussion with Mal Evans about the choice of slide. That'll only account for when they were rehearsing the track, I realise – so not what Lennon might have used on the official recording at Apple. JG66 (talk) 23:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So far not coming up with much. A book All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release says "some thought it was a shotgun shell, others a lighter" and goes on to say it was probably the slide that came with the guitar. I found a newspaper article from 2003 that says it was a lighter. Most of the references for a shotgun shell are fairly recent internet-era stories. Piriczki (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've not found anything in Sulpy & Schweighardt after all. I think that mention in Guesdon & Margotin's All the Songs will do fine, in fact – it sums up the possibilities (which is all we can do, seeing as the shotgun-shell idea has gained some traction). Also, unlike all the other sources I've come across, those authors actually notice there's some bass on the track, so that's good too.
 * You wouldn't happen to have seen anything we can use as a source for the piano (paper between the strings), no? I've read somewhere that it's only the keyboard's higher octaves that were dampened, which is correct to my ears – can't find it now, though. JG66 (talk) 03:46, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Are there any reliable sources that say Elmore James favored a shotgun shell as a slide? I can't find any evidence of this other than where it is mentioned in reference to this song. Possibly just an embellishment in this Beatles myth? Piriczki (talk) 13:55, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'll look into it … I admit I'm drawn to any possible link between James and the song, simply because of the attention that "Elmore James got nothin' …" line gets. But I agree we should aim to be authoritative. If nothing [else] comes to light about James having used a shotgun shell for a slide – which is looking likely, from the more credible sources I've checked so far – we just treat that detail as a claim (attributed to one of the Beatles sources) and avoid stating it as fact. JG66 (talk) 03:36, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

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Bass Guitar?
From listening to the various versions of For You Blue, I'm quite convinced (as many sources are), that there is no bass guitar on this song. There is a low walking riff at the end of each verse that could be mistaken for a bass guitar, but it could easily be either Lennon or Harrison's guitar--the album already has at least 2 other tracks that have a guitar playing the bass part.

But more importantly, every version of this song (there are now more to listen to due to the release of the Let It Be expanded edition) has the same walking riff at the end of the verse. So if McCartney played that part, we'd have to accept that McCartney overdubbed a brief bass part on each take, as as obviously, he couldn't have played piano and bass live at the same time. And that seems extremely unlikely, given that the material was intended to be live in the studio and that presumably they wouldn't have bothered overdubbing on multiple takes anyway--even with normal Beatles albums, the practice was to select the best takes and overdub onto that. I don't have the physical version of the expanded edition, but I suspect that the liner notes list no bass guitar any of the several versions and mixes of the song included.

Also, the entire idea that there was a bass guitar on the track seems to stem from one interview Harrison did in Creem Magazine, as follows:

Did you play bass on "For You Blue," too?

I don’t even remember that song. No, wait a minute—"For You Blue" was Paul, Paul was on that. Unless you’re talking about the live version which nobody’s heard, but that’s Willie Weeks.

So, he gets asked if he plays bass on the song, he can't even remember the song, and then he states that 'Paul was on that.' I think that the whole idea that there is a bass on the track at all came from the interviewer, and Harrison assumed that if there was a bass, it must have been Paul. This is, by the way, the same George Harrison who thought it was Paul playing bass on Golden Slumbers until George Martin reminded him that it was tracked live with Harrison on bass and Paul on piano.

Anyway, unless the Expanded Edition lists it, I think we should consider removing the bass guitar credit for this song--we can keep the mention Harrison crediting McCartney with a bass part in the the interview in the notes.Mabewa (talk) 10:19, 18 October 2021 (UTC)