DESCRIPTION:
The Beatles - Michelle (Copyright 1965 EMI Records)

"Michelle" is a love ballad by the Beatles, mainly written by Paul McCartney, with the middle eight co-written with John Lennon. It is featured on their Rubber Soul album, released in December 1965. The song is unique among The Beatles' other recordings in that its lyrics are partially in French. "Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967, and has become one of the most famous Beatles songs in France.

McCartney decided to remain with the French feel of his song and asked Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. "It was because I'd always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I can't speak French properly so that's why I needed help in sorting out the actual words", McCartney said.

Vaughan came up with "Michelle, ma belle", and a few days later McCartney asked for a translation of "these are words that go together well" — sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble. When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the "I love you" bridge. Lennon was inspired by a song he heard the previous evening, Nina Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You", which used the same phrase but with the emphasis on the last word, "I love you".

Each version of this song has a different length. The UK mono is 2:33 but the stereo version is 2:40 due to an extra guitar solo. The US mono was the longest of all, at 2:43, until the Rock Band version was released; it runs 2:50.

The song initially was composed by McCartney in C, but was played in F on Rubber Soul (with a capo on the fifth fret). The verse opens with an F major chord ("Michelle"- melody note C) then the second chord (on "ma-belle"- melody note D♭) is a B♭m7 (on the original demo in C, the second chord is a F7#9). McCartney called this second chord a "great ham-fisted jazz chord" that was taught to them by Jim Gretty who worked at Hessey's music shop in Whitechapel, central Liverpool and which George Harrison uses (as a G♭7#9) (see Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord) as the penultimate chord of his solo on "Till There Was You". After the E♭6 (of "these are words"-) there follows an ascent involving different inversions of the D dim chord. These progress from A♭dim on "go"- melody note F, bass note D; to B(C♭)dim on "to"- melody note A♭, bass note D; to Ddim on "ge..."- melody note B(C♭) bass note B; to Bdim on ...'ther..."- melody note A♭ bass note B, till the dominant (V) chord (C major) is reached on "well"- melody note G bass note C.

"Michelle" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967. The song's win over standard fare "Born Free", "The Impossible Dream", "Somewhere My Love" and "Strangers in the Night" was seen as something of a triumph for The Beatles, who had in 1966 been nominated, but were unsuccessful, in nine categories. In 1999, BMI named "Michelle" as the 42nd most performed song of the 20th century.

"Michelle" was performed by McCartney throughout his 1993 world tour. He has rarely performed the song since, but did include it in a 2009 performance in Washington, DC, in honour of Michelle Obama, the American First Lady, and he would play it on most (if not all) of his performances in France or other French-speaking countries.

On 2 June 2010, after being awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House, McCartney performed the song for Michelle Obama, who sang along from her seat. McCartney quipped, "I could be the first guy ever to be punched out by a president." President Obama's wife reportedly later told others that she could never have imagined, after growing up an African-American girl on the South side of Chicago, that someday a Beatle would sing "Michelle" to her as First Lady of the United States.

In other news, I have added the lyrics to this song so you can sing along, or learn the song! This is how I learned my first Beatles song! Enjoy!