Paul McCartney on Brian Jones (1969): “I Liked Brian…”

By Marcelo Sonaglioni on February 28, 2025

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Rolling Stones Quotes: Paul McCartney on Brian Jones (1969)

“I liked Brian. We asked him to one of our sessions and to our surprise he brought along a sax. He turned up in this big Afghan coat at Abbey Road. We said, ‘We’ve got a little track here’, and he played sax. It was a crazy record, You Know My Name, Look Up the Number. It’s a funny sax solo, exactly what we wanted, a ropey sax, kind of shaky, Brian was very good like that.”

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More about Brian Jones on the Beatles’ You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

The song is a quirky, music hall comedy track, possibly the silliest in The Beatles’ catalog. Lennon came up with the idea and title after flipping through a phone book.

Paul McCartney once told Beatles’ recording expert Mark Lewisohn, “People are only just discovering ‘You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)’—probably my favorite Beatles track!” The song also features a sax solo by none other than Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones.

The track takes listeners through a few different sections, each one poking fun at the styles of various contemporaries, including Mick Jagger and Trini Lopez. The “lounge” section even has a cheeky nod to Dennis O’Dell, the associate producer of the A Hard Day’s Night movie. In the middle of the song, Lennon introduces McCartney as “Dennis O’Bell”—a play on the name of the producer Lennon had worked with on A Hard Day’s Night and How I Won the War. This sparked a wave of fan confusion, with people calling O’Dell’s home saying, “We have your name and now we’ve got your number,” and even showing up to visit him, hoping for a chance to live with him!

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