Steve's Beatles Page - Songs - Don't Pass Me By

Don't Pass Me By

Starkey

Lyrics:
I listen for your foot steps
Coming up the drive
Listen for you foot steps
But they don't arrive
Waiting for you knock, dear
on my old front door
I don't hear it
Does it mean you don't love me anymore

I hear the clock a ticking
on the mantel shelf
See the hands a moving
But I'm by myself
I wonder where you are tonight
And why I'm by myself
I don't see you
Does it mean you don't love me anymore

Don't pass me by
don't make me cry
don't make me blue
'Cause you know darling I love only you
You'll never know it hurt me so
How I hate to see you go
Don't pass my by
Don't make me cry

I'm sorry that I doubted you
I was so unfair
You were in a car crash
And you lost you hair
You said that you would be late
About and hour or two
I said that's all right
I'm waiting here just waiting to hear from you

Don't pass me by
don't make me cry
don't make me blue
'Cause you know darling I love only you
You'll never know it hurt me so
How I hate to see you go
Don't pass my by
Don't make me cry

One two three four
five six seven eight
Wu
Don't pass me by
don't make me cry
don't make me blue
'Cause you know darling I love only you
You'll never know it hurt me so
How I hate to see you go
Don't pass my by
Don't make me cry

Availability:
Anthology 3 (CD)
The Beatles (The White Album) (CD)
The Beatles (UK)
The Beatles (The White Album) (US)

Lead Singer: Ringo

Recording: 6/5/68, 6/6/68, 7/12/68, 7/22/68
Mixing: 6/6/68, 7/12/68, 10/11/68
Length: 3:45
Take: 7

What Goes On? Anomalies

0:07
Right channel, someone shouts something

1:48
Most strangely, an alarm bell goes off in the middle of "unfair" (Left)

2:39-2:48
Someone (likely Ringo) sings out the beats from one to eight, and then shouts "ooop". At the same time John says (Right channel) "Give it some more!" (Level ? More of the song ?)

2:50
(Left channel) Someone shouts something

2:54-3:23 * NEW *
The structure of the last chorus is slightly different to the others. Max Mismetti notes that at least part of this is because of a mistake (anomaly!)

On Anthology 2, I found the answer! Apparently, Ringo recorded the basic track and forgot the order of events on the end, or he made a mistake on the basic track and wasn't feeling like recording it all over again. So he sang normally as if the mistake hadn't happened, but on Anthology we can hear the piano better. The song chords are C, F and G. The mistake can be seen 'cause the piano has its chord change delayed 1/4 of bar (between brackets is where it was supposed to be):

C(correct)
Don't pass me by, don't make me cry don't make me blue
              (F)   F
Cause you know darling I love only you
             (C)      C
You'll never know it hurts me so

How I hate to see you go...
        G (corrected!)
Don't pass me by

That's why he sings differently "know it hurts me so" and makes a lot of noise with his drums. It's to disguise that F chord that is still on. You can hear on the White Album too, but on the Anthology 2 is better.

3:24-3:50 * NEW *
Lots of fiddle harmonics. Also in other places in the song. "No one uses fiddle harmonics" apparently. I can hear why. Ugh.

Note: I did not write or compile these anomalies. Please don't email me with new anomalies and please read the WGO Info page.

Notes: