“There’s A Place”: John Lennon, Songwriter

“‘There’s a Place’ was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing.

It says the usual Lennon things: ‘In my mind there’s no sorrow…’ It’s all in your mind.”

-John Lennon to David Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 

“There’s A Place” – the very first song recorded during the 11 February 1963 Please Please Me EMI session – was exceptional for its day (and for ours). As Wilfrid Mellers later pointed out in Twilight of the Gods, it was the first Beatles song about self-reliance. It established songwriter John Lennon’s recurring theme of “finding comfort in his thoughts, dreams, and memories…[dealing] with life’s sorrow by retreating into the safety of his inner thoughts…”, a significant theme Lennon would repeat in “later songs such as ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ ‘Girl,’ ‘In My Life,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.” No “moon, June, croon, spoon” song, “There’s a Place” introduces a more sophisticated scenario.

McCartney supplied the inspiration for this song: the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim tune “Somewhere,” a song that Paul had heard in West Side Story. And, of course, it took the brilliant work of Paul, George, and Ringo to bring this very personal song, “penned by John,” to life. Under the auspices of Producer George Martin, Engineer Norman Smith, and Second Engineer Richard Langham, “There’s A Place” was recorded in 13 takes.

It required 10 takes to achieve a satisfactory backing track (takes 3, 5, and 7 being incomplete). Take 10 was deemed “best” – with John on his 1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri Electric guitar, Paul on his 1961 Hofner 550/1 bass, George on his 1957 Gretsch G6128 Duo Jet, and Ringo on his 1060 Premier 58 Mahogany Duroplastic drum kit. John sang the melody line lead vocal, in the tradition of The Beatles (permitting a composer to sing lead on his own song). Paul accompanied and at times harmonized with high harmony. Paul did not sing important solo lines such as “when I’m alone,” “only you,” “In my mind, there’s no sorrow,” and “There’ll be no sad tomorrows.” Harrison also supplied harmony. One of the superimpositions performed in Takes 11-13 was the addition of John’s wailing, poignant harmonica.

In Twilight of the Gods, Mellers praises “There’s A Place” for its “curiously austere, resolutely diatonic” delivery, “virtually without modulation.” Mellers finds this straightforward choice of musical notes ideal for a song about the potent strength to be found in self-reliance. Mellers points out that Lennon’s salvation from “feeling low, feeling blue” is discovered “in his own mind, which is ultimately inviolable.” By revisiting the powerful and lingering memories of the woman he loves, there is no time or place where John is truly alone. She is with him always. “This is the first song,” Mellers concludes, “in which we realise that John might be an ‘oral’ poet.” However, Mellers notes that the 22-year-old composer still had “a long way to travel.”

Similarly, musician, composer, and author Anthony Robustelli in I Want to Tell You finds much to admire in “There’s a Place.” He calls it “Lennon’s first soul-searcher” and notes that the introspective ballad “predates the Beach Boys’ ‘In My Room’ by a number of months and Lennon’s own ‘I’m a Loser’ by a year and a half.” Robustelli says that the poignant lyrics of “There’s A Place” are “pure Lennon,” and the unique device of having John alone sing the words, “When I’m alone” (“after 13 bars of harmony vocal”) is an effective technique that makes the song personal and “more heartfelt.”

In Songs We Were Singing, Dr. Kit O’Toole extolls the song’s lyrics, pointing out that they “confound the listener’s expectations.” Traditionally, she explains, happiness in love ballads could only exist when the two lovers were actually together. However, in “There’s A Place,” the couple is reunited not in a “physical place, [but in] the person’s mind. Here, being alone is not a negative situation, but rather an opportunity to think.” Indeed, she goes on, “the bridge emphasizes that…sadness does not exist in [the narrator’s] mental space. In other words, do not feel sorry for this character – just leave him alone with his thoughts, and he will never feel lonely.” O’Toole notes that John establishes a leitmotif here, a nod to the rich inner resource of time alone.  “Lennon,” she says, “[will] return to this theme repeatedly, celebrating the value of contemplation…in later tracks like ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ and ‘Watching the Wheels,’ among many others.”

Though admittedly a very early creation, “There’s A Place” holds much to respect and anticipate. In The Ballad of John and Yoko, Christgau and Picarella compare John’s song to the Beach Boys’ ballad “In My Room”: “Lennon has better places to go but his room, and better ways to get there than Brian Wilson…” They note that “the singer’s ability to transcend the isolation he dreads…by retreating dreamlike” makes the song appealing to all who struggle with loss and pain. “…this early song,” they point out, “typifies [Lennon’s] urge to say a great deal (though not everything) within the conventions of the rock and roll love song…”

Similarly, Walter Everett in The Beatles as Musicians, The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul, applauds “There’s A Place” as “primarily composed by Lennon,” who was inspired by R&B and blues. However, Everett comments, “Lennon does not have the blues; he has retreated to his mind, and…once there, happy memories of his beloved…let him forget whatever it was that brought him ‘low’ in the first place.” Everett notes that the song is exceptional in that “both the lyrics and their tonal world express an unusual mix of happiness and melancholia.”

John Lennon wrote “There’s a Place” when he was only 22 years old. (Some sources suggest earlier.) And, though the song might be musically immature, the lyrics and the theme of the work speak to the tremendous potential of the young songwriter. It also introduces the listener to a theme of seeking inner peace and inner fulfillment that John will revisit again and again in songs such as “I’m So Tired,” “Nowhere Man,” “I’m a Loser,” “I’ll Cry Instead,” “(You’ve Got To) Hide Your Love Away,” “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party,” “I’m Losing You,” and so many others. As Tim Riley points out in Tell Me Why, “[This] song is about the peace he seeks within himself, not…any outside experience.”

“Tell Me Why” appears on the Please Please Me LP as the record’s penultimate number and is followed by the unforgettable potboiler, “Twist and Shout.”

-Jude Southerland Kessler

Photo: Getty Images