Play Along: Guitar, Piano, Vocals
1. Speed 50%
2. Speed 75%
3. Speed 100%
Drive My Car Lyrics
1. Verse
[D7] Asked a girl what she [G] wanted to be.
[D7] She said baby [G] can’t you see?
[D7] I wanna be famous a [G] star of the screen.
[Dmsus/A] But you can do something in between.
2. Chorus
[Bm] Baby you can drive my [G7] car.
[Bm] Yes I’m gonna be a [G7] star.
[Bm] Baby you can drive my [E7] car, and
[Am] maybe I’ll [D] love [G] you [A].
3. Verse
[D7] I told the girl that my [G] prospects were good.
[D7] She said baby it’s [G] understood.
[D7] Working for peanuts is [G] all very fine.
[Dmsus/A] But I can show you a better time.
4. Chorus
Beep, beep, mm beep, beep yeah.
5. Verse (instrumental)
6. Chorus
7. Verse
[D7] I told the girl I could [G] start right away.
[D7] And she said listen baby I got [G] something to say. [D7] I got no car and it’s [G] breaking my heart. [Dmsus/A] But I found a driver and that’s a start.
8. Chorus
9. Outro
[A] Beep, beep, mm beep, beep [D] yeah.
[G] [A] Beep, beep, mm beep, beep [D] yeah. [G]
Drive My Car Chords
1. D Dominant [D7]
2. G Major [G]
3. D Minor Suspended Over A [Dmsus/A]
4. B Minor [Bm]
5. G Dominant [G7]
6. E Dominant [E7]
7. A Minor [Am]
8. D Major [D]
9. A Major [A]
Song
“Drive My Car” is about a guy who meets an aspiring actress who tells him “baby, you can drive my car.” She then continues on saying “I can show you a better time.” After he finally decides to accept the job as her chauffeur, she tells him “I have no car and it’s breaking my heart, but I found a driver and that a start.”
Drive My Car Significance
The innuendos in “Drive My Car” become pretty clear once you understand American Blues Artists had already used chauffeurs and cars as an incognito way to refer to illicit affairs. However, there is nothing to indicate “Drive My Car” isn’t just a song about a guy, a girl, and a car – so, it’s still a radio-friendly Beatles song.
Inspiration
Paul McCartney said, “To me it (‘Drive My Car’) was L.A. chicks, ‘You can be my chauffeur’, and it also meant, ‘You can be my lover.” McCartney later explained “Drive My Car” was an old blues expression for sex. For example, “Memphis Minnie” had a song named “Me and My Chauffeur” with the following lyrics: Won’t you be my chauffeur / I wants him to drive me / I wants him to drive me downtown / Yes he drives so easy / I can’t turn him down. So in the end, American Blues Music ended up creeping into “The Beatles” writing session and saving the day. McCartney said, “It wrote itself then. I find that very often, once you get the good idea, things write themselves.”
Writing
“Drive My Car” by “The Beatles” was a equal collaboration by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon wrote most of the lyrics and McCartney came up with the melody. McCartney said, “This is one of the songs where John and I came nearest to having a dry session.” When McCartney entered the writing session at Lennon’s house “The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which is always fatal.” McCartney recalled, “We struggled for hours, I think we struggled to long. Then we had a break and suddenly it came: can drive my car. What is it? What’s he doing? Is he offering a job as a chauffeur, or what? And then it became much more ambiguous, which we liked, instead of golden rings, which was bit goofy. Golden rings became beep, beep, yeah. We both came up with that. Suddenly we were in L.A.: cars, chauffeurs, open-top Cadillacs, and it was a whole other thing.”
Drive My Car Recording
“Drive My Car” by “The Beatles” was recorded in Abbey Road Studio #2 on Oct 13, 1965. “The Beatles” entered the studio around 7pm and did not leave until after midnight. “The Beatles” recorded four takes that night with final take being the only complete run through which became the master track. John Lennon and Paul McCartney both sang lead vocals. Paul McCartney then added piano on a separate track. George Harrison played lead guitar and added backing vocals. Ringo Starr played the drums and cowbell.
George Harrison said this about “Drive My Car”, “What Paul would do, if he had written a song, he’d learn all the parts… and then come in the studio and say, ‘Do this.’ He’d never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But, on ‘Drive My Car’, I just played the line, which is really like a lick off ‘Respect’, you know, the Otis Redding version — and I played that line on the guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that. We played the lead part later on top of it.”
Release
“Drive My Car” became the first track on the UK release of the album titled “Rubber Soul”. The title of the album comes for a derogatory term Paul McCartney overheard black musicians using about Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones – “Plastic Soul” – which means anything processed and fake. However, Capitol Records deemed “Drive My Car” too hard rock for American audiences and left it off “Rubber Soul” released in the United States. “Drive My Car” was later released in June 1966 in the United States on the album titled “Yesterday and Today”.
Covers
“Drive My Car” by “The Beatles” has been recorded and released by over 50 professional musicians ranging from “Paul McCartney” to “Bobby McFerrin”.