Beatles – Cry Baby Cry

The king of Marigold was in the kitchenCooking breakfast for the queenThe queen was in the parlorPlaying piano for the children of the king

One song off the White Album that I found when I was 13 years old. It’s a good reason why I’m happy they kept it as a double album. I wouldn’t have this song and a few more. When the chorus kicks in it sticks in your head. That is the beauty of the White Album…it has something for everyone. Lennon had a way of delivering sometimes dark imagery, forming it around a catchy melody and it worked. It’s just part of the album’s huge tapestry.

The track includes a coda not originally part of the song… a snippet of Paul McCartney singing a few lines known as “Can You Take Me Back?” That was an unfinished song by Paul. This fragment segues into Revolution 9 on the album and adds an eerie, unresolved feeling to the end of the track. They would explore this more on the B side of Abbey Road.

Although the songs differ in style they all have that Beatles touch to them whether it be the hard Helter Skelter, country Rocky Raccoon, or even the fairytale-like Cry Baby Cry. The sessions were not the happiest time for the band (the Esher Demos were though) but they came up with the most eclectic batch of songs they ever produced. The demos they made gave another look at the song.

When John Lennon was killed in 1980 there were three albums I bought that long winter. Double Fantasy, The White Album,  and Abbey Road. I’m back there again in that 1980-81 winter and spring when I hear this album.

The White Album is as diverse as you can get… Pop, Rock, Country, Folk, Reggae, Avant-Gard, Blues, Hard Rock and some 20’s British Music Hall thrown in the mix. It has plenty of songs that you have heard of and many that the masses have not heard as much. John Lennon wrote one of his best songs for this album… Dear Prudence.

The Beatles more than many bands could bend to a style of music and play that style well.

Of all the songs I heard on this album…this is the one where I thought…hmmm… John Lennon was so different in writing songs compared to Paul. I love this example of John’s fairytale. He wrote the song in 1967, inspired by a commercial jingle he heard on Television. The lyrics play on the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence, with lines like Cry baby cry, make your mother sigh evoking a fairy-tale atmosphere.

Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head, described this song as “a charmingly wayward waltz” with “a whimsical, mildly satirical undertone.”

The White Album was released in 1968 and peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Chart, #1 in Canada, #1 in the UK, and #1 about everywhere else

The demo of Cry Baby Cry. You can hear John double his voice. 

Cry Baby Cry

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sigh

The king of Marigold was in the kitchenCooking breakfast for the queenThe queen was in the parlorPlaying piano for the children of the king

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

The king was in the gardenPicking flowers for a friend who came to playThe queen was in the playroomPainting pictures for the children’s holiday

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

The duchess of Kirkcaldy always smilingAnd arriving late for teaThe duke was having problemsWith a message at the local bird and bee

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

At 12 o’clock, a meeting ’round the tableFor a seance in the darkWith voices out of nowherePut on specially by the children for a lark

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cryCry, baby cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

Cry, cry, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

44 thoughts on “Beatles – Cry Baby Cry”

  6. I was in 5th grade when the white album was, and at the time I was obssessed with the Monkees and I’m a believer and Grand Funk Railroad’s Flight of the Phoenix (it was a confusing time for this young man)…but since, yeah, the White Album has been full of easter eggs for me, as has been the huge Beatles catalogue..so now this morning will bring out the vinyl..and really hope that Peter Jackson is still digging through that vault for more surprises to come…

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    1. Oh as soon as I got this album in 1980…it climbed to my number 1 Beatles album. I love the vastness of it.
      Hey I started off on the Monkees as well…it was second generation in 1974 or so when I was 7 but I loved them.

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  8. certainly the ‘White Album’ was eclectic and diverse as you say and having the luxury of a double album facilitated that. I had to listen to this one to even remind myself of what it was. It’s a decent song, but I still think the album would have been better culled to a single one. This one may have made the cut, but if not, there’d always be future compilations of outtakes and b-sides to find it!

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    1. But you are never promised those…especially back then…that wasn’t done hardly. With me and this album…my favorite songs are Sexy Sadie, Dear Prudence, this song, and a few others…it’s not Back in the USSR… so I may have been screwed in that scenario….at least until the 90s came.

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      1. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ are the two standouts off it to me, though I might half guess ‘Revolution’ – the regular version – might be the overall fan favorite

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      2. I have to wonder if they did on the remastered album…I never checked…as far as adding Revoluion the single version.

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  9. The White Album was my favorite Beatles album for many years. I played it so much during a turbulent time in my life that I came to associate it with bad times rather than good. Even today, I’ll listen to Sgt. Pepper’s for the millionth time before I put this one on. “Cry Baby Cry” is fun, but “Dear Prudence” is transcendent.

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      2. Well….forget that! What bugs me Glen is that I had a chance to buy a Butcher Cover in the 80s for a low amount…but I just didn’t have it then…I sure wish I would have.

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  11. That 4th side had some great songs on it: “Honey Pie”, “Revolution 1”, “Savoy Truffle”, “Cry Baby Cry”, and “Good Night.” I always thought “Can You Take Me Back?” was part of “Revolution 9″…

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  12. Like most everyone, I love the White album. To me it is the bridge that connects the roots of rock to the avant garde. It’s not perfect (Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da) but it comes close. To me, Cry Baby, Cry was a bit of an after thought…I always thought it needed souping up. I love the remix. In it, I hear the underpinnings of XTC, The Pixies and Kurt Cobain.

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    1. I’m glad you brought that up. You know Pam…I never liked remixes until the White Album. The original album sounded muddy to me…I still loved it but they had some difficulty with mixing that album…the remixes brought the music up like they were in the next room

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      1. I know what you mean–for the longest time I wasn’t a fan of remixes either which, for a DJ, was quite unusual. But for me, it was more reflexive, a remanent of my classic rock and pop past as well as a teenage aversion to dance music. Ten years into my twenty five year career I finally got over it and on with it.

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  14. That’s awesome when an album or in this case a Beatles record takes you back in time to your point of discovery. These kinds of stories are the best with a personal connection. Great job man

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    1. Thanks Deke…and it came back in 1985 in a fight with my girlfriend at the time…now those songs make me think of that as well…music is a time machine.

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  15. The White Album is almost the anti-Sergeant Pepper’s. No apparent theme or unity. Almost like the old days when an album was a collection of unrelated singles; or a hit with a bunch of filler – except it might be hard to get people to agree which were the hits and which were the filler on this one.

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    1. Yea I like every song except for Wild Honey Pie and sometimes Revolution #9 but it was an experiment and it still intrests me. But I agree with what you said…it was probably influenced by The Band doing their roots music and staying away from studio tricks.

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      2. LOL… oh it’s bad! They have another one on there called Honey Pie which is more like a twenties song…but Wild Honey Pie…whew.

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