Choirs, wives, and recurring collaborators: Every Beatles song to feature a female vocalist
From day one, The Beatles redefined what it meant to be a world-famous pop band. Each member brought their own unique contributions and drew in their own specific subset of fans, all culminating in what collectively became known as Beatlemania. This wasn’t your usual fanbase—this was next-level loyalty among music lovers who prized the band on deeply personal levels.
The band themselves also became incredibly tight-knit, finding solace in the lighthearted, playful moments amid the chaos. For a long while, all they had was each other, which wasn’t all that hard to believe, considering that anything from the bustle of the outside world came with a big unknown attached to it.
However, this aura and mindset also extended to their music. Often, Paul McCartney and John Lennon would work together in the studio on a set of lyrics for a song, or on other occasions, specific members with musical ideas or lyrical inspirations would come up with the words and put them to the rest of the group.
Despite some collaborations along the way, most of the creative process centred around only the Fab Four. This also stemmed from the members’ pride in their music—they often wanted their creations to remain as close to the original versions as possible, taking direction from their fellow band members, however, best facilitated the track.
Therefore, any unnecessary inclusion or collaborations were shunned from the get-go, especially if they were women. As McCartney bluntly put it in 1970: “I would never have female voices on a Beatles record.” He was, of course, talking about this in the context of one of their tunes, ‘The Long And Winding Road’, which was reportedly spruced up without his knowledge by the inclusion of “harps, horns, an orchestra and women’s choir”.
McCartney was so frustrated with the decision that he even sent a strongly worded letter to Allen Klein at Apple Corps, demanding a handful of changes and warning them never to do it again without consulting him first. However, this wasn’t the only time a female voice was included on one of the band’s songs, as Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, and Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen, had actually featured on one of their tracks for The White Album a couple of years earlier.
Although McCartney likely wasn’t all that excited about their inclusion on ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill’, he didn’t voice his concerns at the time, as not only did they make it onto the record, but their contributions marked the first and only time anyone outside of the band provided lead vocals on one of their songs. Another wife duet occurred on their song ‘Birthday’ with Ono and Pattie Boyd, but considering McCartney penned it, he likely didn’t mind making another exception.
McCartney’s wife, Linda, would even show up for overdubs on ‘Let It Be’. At the same time, Harrison’s wife would also appear in a handful of recordings alongside ‘Birthday’, including ‘All You Need Is Love’ with Marianne Faithfull and Jane Asher, and again with Faithfull on ‘Yellow Submarine’. Many of the rest included vocal enhancement from several groups and choirs, as was the case for the ethereal “na na na” section during ‘Hey Jude’, in which the band enlisted over 30 classical musicians for the emotionally intense extended outro.
Others included The Mike Sammes Singers on ‘I Am The Walrus’ and ‘Goodnight’, alongside a unique entry with ‘Across the Universe’, which boasted different groups and names depending on the version. Despite McCartney’s declaration, therefore, it seems there were exceptions on more than one occasion, and every time, the choice to include female vocal contributions added an emotional depth to the track that the Fab Four otherwise wouldn’t have achieved on their own.
The Beatles songs that include female vocalists:
- ‘Birthday’
- ‘All You Need Is Love’
- ‘Hey Jude’
- ‘I Am The Walrus’
- ‘Across The Universe’
- ‘Yellow Submarine’
- ‘Let It Be’
- ‘Goodnight’
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