The Beatles sang a really nice song called "Michelle" - I was wondering if she was a real person.?

Answer 1

"Michelle" has its origins in the popularity of French Left Bank culture during McCartney's Liverpool days. McCartney had gone to a party of art students where a student with a goatee and a striped T-shirt was singing a French song. He soon wrote a farcical imitation to entertain his friends that involved French-sounding groaning instead of real words. The song remained a party piece until 1965, when Lennon suggested he rework it into a proper song for inclusion on Rubber Soul.

McCartney decided to remain with the French feel of his song and asked Jan Vaughan, the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan, who was also a French teacher, to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it. "It was because I'd always thought that the song sounded French that I stuck with it. I can't speak French properly so that's why I needed help in sorting out the actual words," McCartney said.[citation needed]

Vaughan came up with "Michelle, ma belle," and a few days later he asked for a translation of "these are words that go together well" — "sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble". When McCartney played the song for Lennon, Lennon suggested the "I love you" bridge. The previous evening, Lennon had attended a cabaret show by Nina Simone; her rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" featured the plaintive wail "I love YOU." Lennon suggested using the phrase in a different way, and he and Paul then wrote the song's bridge.