DESCRIPTION:
'Nowhere Man' - John Lennon, 1966. Arranged and performed by Daniel Mantey - Music All Sorts; 3 penny-whistles, 2 folk guitars, bass guitar, bass viol, & organ.

Honestly this had not been one of my favorite Beatles songs, perhaps because I always associated it with that goofy character in that goofy film (the Nowhere Man in 'Yellow Submarine'), but once I got working on the song, quickly fell in love with it. From the start, I was not going to even try and sing this one, but didn't yet have my wooden penny-whistle (it was on order, and due soon) so laid down all the backing tracks first.

Goodness, Paul wrote a fabulous and VERY tricky bass guitar part! That was my second go at playing bass guitar, so was a lot of sore finger tips, and hours of work, but managed(?). For John's rhythm guitar part, and George's solo guitar part I used a copy of the Jumbo guitar they both owned and played. John might have used this one on this song? George did his solo on electric, but sounds great on a folk guitar.

I put an organ behind the whole ensemble, and wrote an 'in nomine' cantus-firmus style bass viol part to weave through everything (you will need to look those up!) And once the penny-whistle arrived (from Chris Abell!) it was a fair bit of practice, but got exactly what I wanted. The folksy, breathy sound of the olive-wood whistle so perfectly captures the essence of loneliness and nowhere-ness that John was (auto-biographically?) expressing.

After the two movies were done, and Beatles tours more organized, John and Paul no longer wrote so much as a pair (as they had, in Paul's home, on the road, in hotels, in planes and buses...). John gave up after a very long, unproductive solo writing-session at his home, and when he crashed in bed, feeling he had gotten 'nowhere,' and was indeed a 'nowhere man' and the whole song just happened in his head! John.

From my CD of covers of some of John's Beatles songs.