Now She's Left You

‘Now She's Left You’ is a Rutles song. It was written as a potential title song for The Rutles’ second film. In the end it became an album track on Rutles For Sale, although Capatal released it as a US single in February 1965. Its relegation to the album occurred once Stig O'Hara came up with ‘No Reply’, the riff of which he toyed with several times during the main recording session for ‘Now She's Left You’. The initial idea for ‘Now She's Left You’ came from McQuickly, following a remark from his chauffeur. Although it's considered a break up song, McQuickly himself mentioned that it's about his dead mother and how she cheated lots, hence the lyric "left you for another guy".

Recording
Initially recorded on 6 October 1964 with a harmonised vocal introduction, ‘Now She's Left You’ went through a series of changes before the band settled on the final arrangement.

The Rutles added a succession of overdubs and edits to take six; these were numbered takes 1-130. Two further edit pieces, for the song’s beginning and ending, were recorded on 18 October, although the first of these was never used. ‘Now She's Left You’ was the first pop song to feature a faded-in introduction. This was completed during a mixing session on 27 October 1964.

In 1981, a doo wop arrangement of the song debuted and has said to be recorded in 1965 as a possible version for television audiences. However, Nasty thought the idea was so dumb, that the middle of the song was cut out and thus when it finally debuted in the early 80's, what was supposed to be the middle part was replaced by an ad break. As of now, the full recording has not been found and since Ron Nasty has died in 2019, it may never be.

Chart Success
‘Now She's Left You’ was a huge hit in America, it barely cracked the charts in the UK. It was never performed live, but as mentioned earlier, there was a plan to put a doo wop version on TV in April 1965. The single was released on 15 February 1965, with ‘48 Hours A Day’ on the B-side. It entered the top 40 on 27 February, and remained at number one for a fortnight. Altogether the single spent nine weeks in the top 40.