Cry Baby Cry by The Beatles Song Info
"Cry Baby Cry" is a song by The Beatles from their 1968 album The Beatles, also known as The White Album. "Cry Baby Cry" is the final song on the album featuring the group's instrumental presence. It is about an old nursery rhyme that John Lennon remembered from his youth. The song is followed by a brief segment, written by Paul McCartney often referred to as "Can You Take Me Back". When asked about "Cry Baby Cry" in 1980, Lennon replied, "Not me. A piece of rubbish." The "Not me" part is either a mistake in Lennon's memory, an error in the transcription of the interviewer's audio tape of the interview, or Lennon sarcastically disowning the song. Paul McCartney said, "Cry Baby Cry was another of John's songs from India,"although demos of the song indicate it was written in late 1967. The original lyrics were "Cry baby cry, make your mother buy." Lennon describes to biographer Hunter Davies how he got the words from an advertisement. The "Duchess of Kirkcaldy" mentioned in the song was a creation of Lennon's, possibly inspired by the Beatles' gig in the town of the same name in 1963.[citation needed] George Martin plays harmonium on this track (introduced after the first statement of "make your mother sigh"). This was the same harmonium Lennon used on "We Can Work It Out" and that Martin had previously used on "The Word". This was the song the Beatles were working on when engineer Geoff Emerick quit, though his departure was precipitated by Lennon and McCartney's obsessions over the recordings of "Revolution" and "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da", respectively, and the overall tensions of the White Album sessions.
