It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Michelle” by The Beatles
May 17, 1966
“Michelle” by The Beatles
#1 on the Musica e Dischi singles chart (Italy), April 30 – June 17 & June 25 – July 1, 1966
The uneasy relationship between the Beatles and the Grammy Awards echoes the hard path that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences took to accepting rock music as a whole. Even well into the ’60s, as the rock ‘n’ roll revival had firmly taken hold, the Grammys insisted on its idea of quality pop as music for adults. Nominations were heaped on the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, and Bobby Darin, as well as chipper folk-pop groups and novelty acts lost to time. That the Beatles won Best New Artist in 1965 seems less like the Academy’s endorsement of the band’s quality than a concession to their immense popularity. (After all, there’s nothing the Grammys respects more than record sales.)
Meanwhile, the band racked up seven additional nominations between 1965 and 1966 on top of the Best New Artist win, but the only other award they collected was the relatively minor Best Performance by a Vocal Group for “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1965. That changed in 1967 when John Lennon and Paul McCartney picked up the trophy for Song of the Year, one of the Academy’s top three prizes (along with Record of the Year and Album of the Year). “Michelle” seems a strange choice as the song that won over the Academy; for one, it hadn’t even been released as a single in the US, nor in the band’s native Britain. (However, UK duo David and Jonathan had scored an American hit in 1966 with a cover, and Song of the Year is an award for songwriters, not performers.)
On the other hand, “Michelle” was exactly the sort of sophisticated pop that even the fiercest rock-hater would have difficulty denying. The previously nominated “Yesterday” could have been dismissed as a one-off exception to the Beatles’ relatively rough-hewn, youthful style, but “Michelle” proved the band’s capability at taking on more advanced material. On the surface, “Michelle” is the kind of elegant pop song with a touch of exoticism (the vaguely European, minor-key chord progression; the snatches of French lyrics) that could keep company with recent Grammy winners like “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Volare.” Yet the Beatles give “Michelle” a sly sense of humor (“sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble”) and a detached, relatively minimal sound that stands out from the crop of orchestral, sentimental ballads that the Grammys typically nominated.
It helps too that “Michelle” is not only an inspired left turn from the Beatles, but also a beautiful song in its own right. “Michelle” originated as McCartney mocking the trend for artsy Left Bank culture in the early ’60s, but Lennon encouraged his bandmate to write real lyrics and turn it into an actual song. In the carefully measured verses, the English-speaking narrator tries to overcome his language barrier by precisely enunciating the limited French he knows. Then, in the chorus, no longer able to contain his emotions in stilted language, he pours out a waterfall of “I love you,” regardless of whether Michelle can understand him. It’s a song that’s undeniably romantic, but also cool enough (no strings, no histrionic vocalizations) to avoid getting tarred with the sentimentality brush that “Yesterday” is often painted with.
While the Beatles’ version of “Michelle” was not released as a single in the US or UK, it did end up being one of the band’s biggest hits in continental Europe. Not only did the record do well in Germanic and Scandinavian countries, which routinely embraced Anglo-American rock, but it also crossed over to regions that tended to prefer the sort of Euro-pop ballads that McCartney had originally written “Michelle” to parody. The single topped the charts in Italy, while the Rubber Soul EP (on which “Michelle” was the lead track) soared to #1 in France. Much as the Beatles had earned Grammy success by meeting the Academy on its mature, adult-pop level, they also won over Europe by going continental.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
