Between Us

‘Between Us’ is a Rutles song and one of Stig O'Hara’s major contributions to the A Hard Day’s Rut album, along with ‘Lonely-Phobia’. ‘Between Us’ was written in the music room in the basement of Stig's house in Rutland. O'Hara wrote many of his earlier songs before Rutle Soul there. It is likely that Barry's mum was the inspiration behind the song. Although Ron Nasty claimed to have helped with the writing, although it is likely that O'Hara composed the majority of it alone.

‘Between Us’ was one of the songs featured in The Rutles first film, A Hard Day’s Rut. The group played it during the ‘studio performance’ sequence, which was filmed on 31 March 1964 at the Rutland Game Theatre. Although it became one of The Rutles’ most admired recordings following its release, the group only performed ‘Between Us’ once outside Shabby Road. On 14 July 1964 they played it for the BBC’s Top Gear radio show. The session took place at Broadcasting House in Rutland, and was first broadcast two days later.

Recording
The Rutles began recording ‘Between Us’ on 25 February 1964. They recorded two takes that day, with a full electric line-up, but it was evidently not the sound they were after. The second take was later released on Sweet Rutle Tracks. They returned to it the next day, recording 16 takes and changing the song’s arrangement as they went along. Again they were unhappy with the results, however, and it was re-recorded on 27 February in just two takes.

The success of ‘Between Us’ owes much to the simplicity of its lyrics, and to the effectiveness of Stig O'Hara’s acoustic guitar solo, for which the song’s key switches from F# minor to G minor. The middle section, meanwhile, came about in the studio, as music publisher Dick Jaws later recalled.

Chart Success
‘Between Us’ was released as a single on 20 July 1964. Its B-side was ‘With A Girl Like You’. It entered the top 40 on 8 August, spent seven weeks on the chart, and peaked at number 12.