The Beatles
Lady Madonna/The Inner Light

THE REVIEW

"Lady Madonna children at your feet

Wonder how you manage to make ends meet" 

Today's hero is someone who gets to the end of the month with only one salary, someone who conducts research in some university lab without being paid, a hero is someone who raises children, a hero is someone who teaches how to live the right way, always respecting others. "Lady Madonna" is not just a simple rock'n'roll song written by Paul McCartney for a hugely successful single; it is a strong and concrete portrait of a female figure who fights every day for her children, an icon for McCartney, the son of the working class of Liverpool. It is one of the truly engaged songs written by McCartney during his career, with direct messages almost always veiled by an apparently light and enjoyable melody. Soon after, there will be a place on the tracks of "The Beatles" for "Blackbird", a splendid and almost unaware poem about civil rights. Special attention to female figures is a constant in many of Paul's productions. A few years later, he would describe another "Lady Madonna" in "Another Day" and return to the theme with "Daytime Nightime Suffering" in '79. The melody of the song is vaguely inspired by "Bad Penny Blues" from '56, the style is somewhat like Fats Domino (who recorded a cover), the result is a very noticeable contrast between the melody and the lyrics, a curious detachment further emphasized by a line suggested by Lennon, "See how they run", between one verse and another.

The B-side, "The Inner Light", is instead an immersion into Eastern philosophy with George Harrison. It is the first track by the quiet Beatle to appear on a single, and the song is enriched by a musical base recorded entirely in Bombay with Indian musicians during the sessions for the soundtrack signed by Harrison himself for the film "Wonderwall". The lyrics are taken from a chapter of the book "Classic of the Way and Virtue," a philosophical work of Chinese literature from the 3rd century BC, with the first verses being significant of the philosophy embraced by Harrison: "Without going out of my door/I can know all things on earth/Without looking out of my window/I could know the ways of heaven".

"The Inner Light" does not present any collaboration from the other group members and fully fits the atmosphere of Harrison's first solo work, "Wonderwall Music".