I've Got a Feeling

For other songs, see I Got a Feeling (disambiguation).

"I've Got a Feeling"
Song

"I've Got a Feeling" is a song by the Beatles, from the 1970 album Let It Be. It is one of the songs on the album from the Beatles' rooftop concert. It is a combination of two unfinished songs: Paul McCartney's "I've Got a Feeling", and John Lennon's "Everybody Had a Hard Year".

Composition

McCartney's song was written for his girlfriend Linda Eastman, whom he soon married, telling her that she was the girl he had always been looking for.

Lennon's song was a litany where every line started with the word "everybody". The song had been recorded twice before by Lennon, prior to the Let It Be sessions. The first occurred in early December 1968 at Lennon's Kenwood estate on a portable cassette tape. For this, the lyric was "Everyone had a hard year" instead of the later "Everybody". Later in December 1968, with the lyric changed to "everybody," Lennon was filmed performing the song in the back garden of Kenwood. This footage was used in the Yoko Ono art film Rape: Film No. 6, which was broadcast on Austrian National Television on 31 March 1969.

While McCartney's song was very optimistic, Lennon had actually endured a hard year (annus horribilis)—he divorced his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, his girlfriend Yoko Ono had a miscarriage, he was battling a heroin addiction, he was arrested for drug possession, he was estranged from his son Julian and he had grown deeply unhappy in the Beatles.

In the film Let It Be, Lennon jokingly claimed he had written "Everybody Had a Hard Year" the night before.

Personnel

• Paul McCartney – bass, lead vocals
• John Lennon – rhythm guitar, co-lead vocals
• George Harrison – lead guitar
• Ringo Starr – drums
• Billy Preston – electric piano

Personnel per Ian MacDonald

External links

• Alan W. Pollack's Notes on "I've Got a Feeling"
• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics