No One I Think Is in My Tree

While I'd generally think it would be McCartney who horsewhipped the Beatles through dozens, sometimes over a hundred takes of each of their songs, the reason you're holding that iPhone now is partly due to John Lennon inspiring Steve Jobs:

John Lennon‘s creativity and work ethic didn’t just help ensure the Beatles‘ music was legendary, it also inspired Apple’s recently deceased co-founder Steve Jobs to strive for perfection within his company, according to an authorized biography of the visionary by Walter Isaacson.

A bootleg of the classic Beatles’ song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ especially one part where Lennon stops the band from playing and makes them return to the beginning to revise a chord, fascinated Jobs, according to the biography, as reported by Showbiz 411.

“It’s a complex song, and it’s fascinating to watch the creative process as they went back and forth and finally created it over a few months. Lennon was always my favorite Beatle,” Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying before he addressed the chord change the two heard. “Did you hear that little detour they took? It didn’t work, so they went back and started from where they were…Yet they just didn’t stop. They were such perfectionists they kept it going and going.”

The care with which Lennon and the other Beatles crafted their songs “Made a big impression on me when I was in my thirties….They kept sending it back to make it closer to perfect,” Jobs said.

I will say that Jobs may have had a tenuous hold on what a "take" was.  By the time they were doing Strawberry Fields Forever, the "takes" would begin almost as immediately as John or Paul would show the band the song for them to start working on; it's not as if they nailed down the arrangement for the song and THEN started "officially recording" 150 takes; the song would be tirelessly put through many, many changes before "the" arrangement would be landed upon, all while being recorded (tho most were immediately erased, unfortunately.)  That's not to say after that point they weren't insane perfectionists while doing a few dozen takes after that, but I don't think The Beatles themselves would think of that as being "fascinating," or even unusual.

It's official: I'm smarter than Steve Jobs.  Well, now, anyways. (Too iSoon?)