“We Can Work It Out” by The Beatles

"We Can Work It Out" was cut during the Beatles' Rubber Soul sessions and put out in 1965 as half of a double A-side with "Day Tripper", later landing on the American album Yesterday and Today. It's one of the rare later songs where John Lennon and Paul McCartney truly wrote together, eyeball to eyeball the way they had in the early days, with George Harrison chipping in.

McCartney sings lead and plays bass, Lennon pumps a harmonium alongside his acoustic guitar, Harrison shakes the tambourine and Ringo Starr keeps it tidy, with George Martin producing and Norman Smith at the desk. That wheezing harmonium gives a pop single the air of a parlor argument. It topped the charts in Britain, America, Australia, Canada and Ireland, became Britain's Christmas number one, and took an Ivor Novello Award as the top-selling A-side of its year.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.