Editing Beatles for Sale (section)

==Songwriting and musical styles==
Although prolific, the [[Lennon–McCartney|songwriting partnership]] of Lennon and [[Paul McCartney]] was unable to keep up with the demand for new material.{{sfn|Lewisohn|2005|p=48}}{{sfn|Everett|2001|p=253}} To make up for the shortfall in output, the Beatles resorted to including several cover versions on the album.{{sfn|Everett|2001|p=270}} This had been their approach for their first two albums – ''[[Please Please Me]]'' and ''[[With the Beatles]]'' – but had been abandoned for ''[[A Hard Day's Night (album)|A Hard Day's Night]]''.{{sfn|Hertsgaard|1996|pp=56, 101–02}} McCartney said of the combination on ''Beatles for Sale'': "Basically it was our stage show, with some new [original] songs."{{refn|group=nb|[[George Harrison]], the band's lead guitarist, had contributed one song to ''With the Beatles'', "[[Don't Bother Me]]",{{sfn|Unterberger|2006|p=95}} but no other composition of his appeared on a Beatles album until ''[[Help!]]'' in August 1965.{{sfn|Miles|2001|pp=203–04}} Commenting on this gap, Martin implied that Harrison's confidence was affected by his bandmates' indifference towards "[[You Know What to Do]]",{{sfn|Unterberger|2006|p=96}} a Harrison composition that the group demoed in June 1964 along with Lennon's "[[No Reply (song)|No Reply]]".{{sfn|Everett|2001|p=248}}{{sfn|Winn|2008|p=186}}}}

The album features eight Lennon–McCartney compositions.{{sfn|Womack|2014|p=110}} In addition, the pair wrote both sides of the non-album single, "[[I Feel Fine]]" backed with "[[She's a Woman]]",{{sfn|Hertsgaard|1996|pp=101, 103}} which accompanied the LP's release.{{sfn|Everett|2001|p=252}} At this stage in their partnership, Lennon and McCartney rarely wrote together as before, but each would often contribute key parts to songs for which the other was the primary author.{{sfn|Norman|1996|p=257}} Nevertheless, Lennon's level of contribution to ''Beatles for Sale'' outweighed McCartney's,{{sfn|Riley|2002|p=119}}{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=181}} a situation that, as on ''A Hard Day's Night'', author [[Ian MacDonald]] attributes to McCartney's commitment being temporarily sidetracked by his relationship with English actress [[Jane Asher]].{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=155}}{{refn|group=nb|Lennon referred to McCartney's distractedness in an interview for [[Radio Luxembourg]] in late December 1964, saying, "Sometimes I do much more work than Paul, but we won't mention that, will we?"{{sfn|Winn|2008|p=289}}}}

At the time, Lennon said of the album: "You could call our new one a Beatles [[country and western]] LP."{{sfn|Gould|2007|p=255}} Music critic [[Tim Riley (music critic)|Tim Riley]] views the album as a "country excursion",{{sfn|Riley|2002|p=118}} while MacDonald describes it as being "dominated by the [country-and-western] idiom".{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=129}} The impetus for this new direction came partly from the band's exposure to US country radio stations while on tour;<ref name="Quantick/BBC">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/c2rj/|first=David|last=Quantick|title=The Beatles ''Beatles for Sale'' Review|publisher=[[BBC Music]]|year=2010|access-date=11 April 2017|archive-date=26 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170526084542/http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/c2rj/|url-status=live}}</ref> in addition, it was a genre that [[Ringo Starr]] had long championed.{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=179}} Lennon's "[[I'm a Loser]]" was the first Beatles song to directly reflect Dylan's influence.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1996|p=168}} Author Jonathan Gould highlights the influence of [[blues]] and country-derived [[rockabilly]] on the album's original compositions and in the inclusion of songs by [[Carl Perkins]] and [[Buddy Holly]]. He also comments that Dylan's acoustic folk sound was a style that the Beatles tended to identify as country music.{{sfn|Gould|2007|p=258}}

McCartney later said that ''Beatles for Sale'' inaugurated a more mature phase for the band, whereby: "We got more and more free to get into ourselves. Our student selves rather than 'we must please the girls and make money' …"{{sfn|The Beatles|2000|p=160}} According to author [[Peter Doggett]], this period coincided with Lennon and McCartney being feted by London society, from which the pair found inspiration among a network of non-mainstream writers, poets, comedians, film-makers and other arts-related individuals. Doggett says that their social milieu in 1964 represented "new territory for pop" and a challenge to British class delineation as the Beatles introduced an "arty middle-class" sensibility to pop music.{{sfn|Doggett|2015|p=327}}