Baby, You're a Rich Man

This track touches on money, and on the motifs of social commentary and cultural snapshot. The Beatles had done the same on 'A Hard Day's Night' 3 years earlier. There is anaphora in the writing (chorus lines start 'Baby, you're a rich man'), most common in their 1968 songs. A triple rhyme arrives once, "too/zoo/do".

'Baby, You're a Rich Man' is a psychedelic and pop song, Indian music influences showing through (clavioline shehnai imitation), played at roughly 103 BPM in the key of G major.

Twelve takes were required for an acceptable rhythm track. Lennon played a clavioline on its oboe setting to produce the song's shehnai-like trill, with Mick Jagger, the guest musician, reportedly adding backing vocals. It is one of only six Beatles records cut at Olympic Sound Studios, and the Steinway Grand was played by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Eight Beatles recordings use tape echo in all, this among them. The 15th of the 25 songs they recorded in 1967, this was also the 136th of their career.

Lennon and McCartney wrote it, and Lennon sings lead (Lennon brought the verses, which had been a separate song called 'One of the Beautiful People'). Sitting in as a guest, Mick Jagger on backing vocals, with maracas, vibraphone and clavioline filling it out, and the vibraphone appears on three Beatles records in all, such as 'You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)' and 'Good Night'.

This song was released as the B-side to 'All You Need Is Love' in the UK and US, and it reached #34 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped charts in Australia as a double A-side. The song was also featured in the film Yellow Submarine, from 1968. This song was the 16th of the 24 records the Beatles released in 1967, and the 134th in their whole run.