Money (That's What I Want)

This song touches on money, and on the motifs of hardness and cultural snapshot, most at home in the Beatles' 1964 writing. There is irony in the writing, and the language is built on a limited vocabulary and neutral in tone.

'Money (That's What I Want)' is a rock and roll and R&B piece, written in E major and taken at about 128 BPM. The tune carries call and response, a line thrown out and thrown back (lead vs backing 'That's what I want'), and 1963 is the year the Beatles reached for it most. You will notice the defining riff, piano/bass chromatic figure on E. You can hear singing through the break and yeah vocals. The song runs on a 12-bar blues, which 32 of theirs do, such as 'Little Child' and 'Chains'. Incidentally, the harmony moves E → A → E → A → E → A → E → B7, the same shape 'Good Morning Good Morning' takes as A → D → A → D → A → D → A → E.

The song was put together at EMI Studio 2, basic track cut in seven takes, with George Martin overdubbing the driving piano figure and the band layering handclaps and double-tracked vocals. Lennon brought the Rickenbacker 325, his guitar, 1963 being the year he used it most. They worked with the Ludwig Downbeat, which is on 17 songs from 1963. This was one of four songs started that day, the 19th to the 22nd of their career.

Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford wrote it, and Lennon sings lead. George Martin played piano, as he also did on 'All You Need Is Love' and 'Slow Down'.

The record was never released as a single, arriving instead with With The Beatles, November 22, 1963. It ends the album, and it reached America five months later, on the Capitol album The Beatles' Second Album. This is their 32nd record, and the 30th of the 32 they released in that year.