look around round round

I never know what to answer when people ask me what my favorite Beatles song is. I seem to rotate through several favorites, depending on my mood. Lately, with all the rain and gloom, I was ecstatic when the sun finally came out and “Dear Prudence” happened to play on my itunes. In fact, I was so happy that I decided to write a short tribute to the song (along with some interesting trivia, woo).

First of all, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I am AMAZED that there are still Beatles lyrics I don’t know. I honestly and truly believed I could sing every word to every song, but alas, I looked up the lyrics to “Dear Prudence” and found a line in the third verse that was new to me:

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes
Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies
The wind is low, the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence, won’t you open up your eyes?

Look around round round
Look around round round
Oh look around

Dear Prudence, let me see you smile
Dear Prudence, like a little child
The clouds will be a daisy chain
So let me see you smile again
Dear Prudence, won’t you let me see you smile?

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play

“The clouds will be a daisy chain”?!?! How have I never heard that before?? What great imagery! Haha, maybe it seems insignificant but it’s a really big deal to me, as I’ve been loving to this song for 10 years and apparently never even knew all the lyrics. Same thing happened with “Baby You’re A Rich Man”, which contains the following verse:

How does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
Tuned to a natural E
Happy to be that way.
Now that you’ve found another key
What are you going to play?

I guess this is a prime example of my terrible habit of passive listening. I know I’ve heard these songs hundreds of times and still never paid attention to all the words. It’s also proof that the Beatles still never fail to amaze me. :)

Also interesting to note: For a while during the White Album sessions, Ringo got fed up and left the band temporarily, so Paul actually played drums on this song. Along the same lines as the lyrics stuff, I never realized how cool the drum part was until I tried to play it on Beatles Rock Band. About 3 minutes in it gets pretty rockin’. Go Paul!