Doctor Robert

"Doctor Robert"
Cover of the Northern Songs sheet music (licensed to Sonora Musikförlag)
Song by the Beatles from the album Revolver
Published	Northern Songs
Released	5 August 1966
Recorded	17 and 19 April 1966 EMI Studios, London
Genre	Psychedelic rock, power pop
Length	2:15
Label	Parlophone
Writer(s)	Lennon–McCartney
Producer(s)	George Martin

"Doctor Robert" is a song by the Beatles released on the album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday and Today in the United States. The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded in seven takes on 17 April 1966 with vocals overdubbed 19 April.

The song is written in the key of A major, though the key center is B, thereby making it in the Mixolydian mode. The musical arrangement has staggered layering, with backing vocals starting in the second verse, the lead guitar just before the bridge while the bridge itself has added harmonium and extra vocals mixed. John's lead is automatically double tracked with each of the two slightly-out-of-phase tracks split onto separate stereo channels; creating a surrealistic effect supporting the lyric about drug use. An interesting feature is the suitably "blissful" modulation (on "well, well well you're feeling fine") to the key of B on the bridge via an F♯⁷ pivot chord (VI⁷ in the old key of A and V⁷ in the new key of B). The extended jam that lasts 43 seconds at the end was recorded, but it was removed and replaced with a fade-out. However, John says: "OK Herb", at the very last second of the song.

Multiple theories, some contradictory, have circulated about the identity of the real "Doctor Robert" and to what drugs he peddled.

In a 1967 interview, Paul McCartney described the meaning of the song as: "There's some fellow in New York, and in the States we'd hear people say: 'You can get everything off him; any pills you want.' It was a big racket, but a joke too about this fellow who cured everyone of everything with all these pills and tranquilizers, injections for this and that; he just kept New York high. That's what Dr. Robert is all about, just a pill doctor who sees you all right." In the 1997 biography Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, author Barry Miles identified "Dr. Robert" as Dr. Robert Freymann, a New York doctor known for dispensing vitamin B-12 shots laced with amphetamines to wealthy clientele.