Come Together

"Come Together" is a song by the British rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney.

The song has been covered by several other artists, including Ike & Tina Turner, Aerosmith, Eurythmics, Joe Cocker and Michael Jackson.

In early 1969, John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, held nonviolent protests against the Vietnam War, dubbed the Bed-ins for Peace.

The author Peter Doggett wrote that "each phrase [passes] too quickly to be understood at first hearing, the sound as important as the meaning".

[11] When Lennon presented the composition to his bandmates, his songwriting partner Paul McCartney noticed its similarity to "You Can't Catch Me" and recommended they slow it in tempo to reduce the resemblance.

[9] The band biographer Jonathan Gould suggested that the song has only a single "pariah-like protagonist" and Lennon was "painting another sardonic self-portrait".

[12] In a December 1987 interview by Selina Scott on the television show West 57th Street, George Harrison stated that he wrote two lines of the song.

George Martin produced the session, assisted by the balance engineers Geoff Emerick and Phil McDonald.

[15][note 1] The song was Lennon's first new composition for the band in three months, after he and McCartney recorded "The Ballad of John and Yoko" on 14 April.

[14][17] The line-up consisted of Lennon singing lead vocal, McCartney on bass, George Harrison on rhythm guitar and Ringo Starr on drums.

[21][30] Done on EMI's new solid state mixing console, the EMI TG12345, Emerick later suggested that the console's "softer and rounder" sonic texture influenced the band's performances, with "the rhythm tracks ... coming back off tape a little less forcefully", the overdubs were subsequently "performed with less attitude".

Tony Barrow, reviewing Abbey Road for the Liverpool Echo, referred to "Come Together" as "magnificently funky" and highlighted "its intriguing lyrics".

[39] A reviewer for the Western Daily Press named "Come Together" as one of the album's best tracks,[40] and Jack Batten of The Toronto Star noted the song's "eminently hummable little melodic riff".

[48] In late 1969, "Come Together" was the subject of a copyright infringement claim brought against Lennon by Big Seven Music, the publisher of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me".

[50] The case was settled out of court in 1973, with Levy's lawyers agreeing that Lennon would compensate by recording three Big Seven songs for his next album.

A month after the original version by the Beatles was released, Ike & Tina Turner began performing their rendition of "Come Together," most notably at Madison Square Garden in November 1969.

[88] Due to the public response to their live performances, Minit Records rushed the release of a studio version.

[96] This version of the song appears on the concert album Live in New York City,[97] recorded on 30 August 1972 and released in 1986.

[98] Released as a single in July 1978, Aerosmith's version was an immediate success, reaching number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100,[99] following on the heels of a string of Top 40 hits for the band in the mid-1970s.

An official music video was released and the single entered the Hard Rock Charts at number 11, then in 2017 resurfaced to land at position No.

American musician Gary Clark Jr. and Dutch composer Junkie XL released a cover version of "Come Together" as the first single from the soundtrack of the 2017 superhero film Justice League on 8 September.

[101][102] A music video featuring Gary Clark Jr. on guitar and vocals interspersed with cuts of footage from the film was released on 27 October.

[104][105] Weekly charts McCartney recorded an updated version of "Come Together" with Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller for the 1995 charity album Help, under the name the Smokin' Mojo Filters (derived from a line in the song).

Arctic Monkeys covered the song for the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, it was released on the album Isles of Wonder and reached No.

[114][115] [Drum and Bass] producer Urbandawn released a cover version with The Bootleg Beatles Tyson Kelly.

Having made the bootleg for Hospitality On The Beach 2019, he mentions "we tried to clear the sample but that was too difficult", so he re-recorded his own cover, later released through Hospital Records[116] Foo Fighters, Liam Gallagher and Aerosmith's Joe Perry covered "Come Together" at the CalJam Festival in San Bernardino, California in 2017.

Timothy Leary (centre) with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (centre left and centre right) during the Montreal Bed-in for Peace , 1 June 1969
A Fender Rhodes electric piano, similar to the one McCartney plays on the recording