When talking about popular music it is hard not to get round to the Beatles at some point. But which track to highllight? The single, Hello Goodbye recorded at the end of 1967 is as good as any to focus on. It has plenty to commend it - a great commercial tune, interesting vocal harmonies and a nice (improvised) 45 second coda after the briefest caesura. Lennon is said to have considered the McCartney song inconsequential, calling it "three minutes of contradictions and meaningless juxtapositions." Perhaps the real problem was that it knocked his I Am The Walrus on to the B-side. The single was commercially successful all over the world and spent seven weeks at the top of the UK chart. Partly because it came after the advent of BBC Radio 1, it is said to be the most played Beatles record on radio. McCartney later said that the lyrics take duality as their theme. It is claimed that the song was started off by McCartney sitting down at home at a harmonium with Alistair Taylor, who had been an assistant to the then recently deceased Brian Epstein. McCartney got Taylor to sing the opposite of whatever he sang. He was later eager to point out that he sang all the more positive words but he does sing no as well as go. The Beatles produced three promotional films for the song, one of which was shown on The Ed Sullivan Show in America.
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