Magical Mystery Tours

by Tony Bramwell

  Perhaps it was the world’s press taking them too seriously and asking silly questions about the deeper meaning of their songs and about where the words came from that changed them from being simple songwriters. Songwriting became a “creative art” and was reinvented as being difficult. But even Franz Schubert—whom a serious critic compared their work to—used to “knock them out” at the rate of three, four, five a day. For John and Paul, songs were suddenly something that were “crafted” and then taken off to Abbey Road like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle for George Martin to work his alchemy on. It all became serious and expensive. Time was also taken seriously. Time was counted and valued by accountants and rationed.

  Part of the problem was EMI itself. Whenever a new piece of studio equipment was invented or came on the market, EMI had an irritating habit of ensuring that after delivery, it was immediately taken away from Abbey Road to their laboratories “somewhere in the country” to be thoroughly inspected by white-coated boffins. They spent ages stripping it down, poking about in its innards, until with no more secrets left to reveal, it would be put back together with a few adjustments and new specifications. Only when an EMI stamp of approval was finally awarded would it be returned to Abbey Road, by which time all the other studios were already using the latest equipment. For instance, Trident Studios would get the new eight-track machines and use them. Abbey Road would get one too and it would be treated like the Enigma decoding machine that they cracked at Bletchley and driven off in an olive-green camouflaged truck with an armed guard to be returned—sometimes months later—like a new rocket installation, under conditions of great secrecy. Perhaps it was because of EMI’s Thorn-Marconi connection. Marconi made missiles and guidance systems and most of their boffins were beavering away on hush-hush projects for top-secret government contracts. It seems far-fetched, but perhaps recording equipment from Germany or the United States was so cutting-edge that there were areas where Marconi could borrow or adapt for guided-missile or radar-listening systems.

  Trident and Olympic studios were funky and groovy and easy to be creative at. But Abbey Road was run like the army, with signing in and out, 9:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. office hours and a sort of regime that wasn’t far short of “Ten-hut! Stand by your guitar you ’orrible little musician, you.” The result was that Abbey Road was always behind. The other studios had long gone sixteen-track when Abbey Road was still waiting for the return of the camouflaged truck.

  Ultimately, when it was realized how much money they were earning for EMI, the Beatles got permission to record only when they really wanted to. Then they became a law unto themselves. It was now a matter of handing them the keys and telling them to get on with it.

  It’s true that when the Beatles first went into Abbey Road, they were nervous and shy, eager to please and stood almost at attention while performing. Sessions were quickly got out of the way and they escaped, as if from being lined up in the headmaster’s study. Even long after they came to realize their own power, they still treated George Martin and his wife, Judy, with extreme reverence, as if they were royalty. They cowed to the record executives and were, in many respects, extremely polite, almost humble. This wasn’t so much because they were provincials who had come down from Liverpool, but because in those days most people did tend to be in awe of authority figures, as Elvis was, even when he was the most successful pop star in the world.

  We saw George Martin as Q in the James Bond films. You could imagine him saying, “Don’t fiddle with those knobs, Double-O-Lennon, you’ll blow us all to smithereens, there’s a good chap.” By that time, of course, John’s head was so full of controlled substances that George would probably have been right. John was about to blow our minds, if not blow us up.

  In the early days, I loved going into Abbey Road, no matter who was working there, whether it was Yehudi Menuhin, Cliff Richard, the Hollies or the English National Opera Company, because it was exciting. When I walked into a control room, something was always going on, tracks were being recorded, people were incredibly motivated and urgent. Then studios became a place of joints and takeaways and the energy and the fun went out of the windows with the fragrant smoke.

  Just a few years earlier, Paul and John’s degree of originality in Liverpool had consisted of wearing leathers and thrashing about with guitars. When they first got into concepts and ideas and video and films, they tiptoed a little, feeling their way cautiously. The Beatles did their first three albums more or less “live.” This was not laying down track by track, say drums and bass first and then adding stuff. It was more like a count of 1-2-3-4 and they all started playing. That was how it used to be done, sometimes with a bit of ADT—automatic double tracking—on the vocals, to make it interesting.

  Their first album took just twelve hours to record. “Hey Jude” was the first time the Beatles used eight tracks. It was done virtually simultaneously, “live” as before, but then the big buildup was overlaid and overlaid. It was like, “Let’s use all eight tracks, eh?” Like wow! It was so fresh and exciting. They couldn’t wait to get into the studio and put down their ideas. Even a concept as complex as Sgt. Pepper would be recorded on two four-track machines.

  Their new power meant that they could pretty well do anything they wanted, but at a cost. Things changed. The passion went. Given the run of Abbey Road, they seemed to forget that a studio was there to record, not to write in. By November 1966, when they went in to record the first tracks on Sgt. Pepper, they were totally unprepared. Hardly anything was written, and far less rehearsed. But with the Beatles runaway success, they got—as George Martin often bemoaned—“Whatever the hell they want.”

  My time was still split between working at NEMS during the day, doing what was needed—which usually consisted of Brian asking me to take care of things for him, or sending me on special missions, such as organizing shows at the Saville or going around with Cilla. In the evenings, I would go to clubs. In between, I would hang out with the Beatles, so during this time, I came to see on a regular basis how the four of them would be slumped in a corner at Abbey Road, with cups of coffee and bits of paper and cigarettes and joints, not doing a thing. George Martin and the new engineer, Geoff Emerick (who had replaced Norman Smith), would be sitting in the control room, or the canteen, bored out of their minds. Occasionally, John or Paul would say, “When is Mal going to get the bloody take-away?” George might ask, “Has John written anything today?” Or Paul might say to John, “Have you heard any new guitar sounds?”

  This kind of minutiae would go on for days and days. Nothing of importance being said at all. Then, suddenly, “Fixing a Hole” would be transported from Paul’s psychedelic den with the chrome fireplace at Cavendish Avenue and put together fast, recorded in a matter of hours. Then it would be more days of nothing. Into the boredom, Paul would say, “John’s got this thing about some guy called Mr. Kite! Yeah, he’s got a poster of, like, Mr. Kite’s circus coming to town and he’s gonna turn it into a song.” A few more days would pass and then Paul would remember the idle images he’d had the night before as he dropped off to sleep, a nice little song for Ringo: “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

  Recording sessions jerked on for weeks on end of nothingness and boredom, all interspersed, of course, with flashes of brilliance. It was a far cry from the days when the Beatles went in with a well-rehearsed and polished song and their original engineer, Norman Smith, recorded it for them in a single take, and then they did one more just for kicks, just to be on the safe side.

  Abbey Road was EMI’s own studio and they could do as they pleased with it. The paperwork was done, studio time was charged and somehow the books were balanced. Although it was a bit regimented, it worked. The Beatles didn’t record anywhere else at the time, so they had no idea what stupendous sums they were spending in this way. Anyone with real intent still could go into a studio and make a record for about thirty-five pounds in those days, but the Beatles’ new recording method—and it was serendipitous—became the
industry standard for doing that kind of big album. Musicians suddenly waited for the muse, the right vibes, man. Sgt. Pepper’s lonely Hearts Club Band moved the whole recording process into sitting in the creative area.

  But despite this, Sgt. Pepper, the record album that started all the indulgences, was pure genius. It even changed the way people behaved and dressed. It changed the look of artwork, album covers and attitudes. Paul had thought it all up on a long flight back from Kenya, where he had been on holiday, staying at the Treetops Hotel during November 1966—the bush hotel where Princess Elizabeth was staying in 1952 when she heard that her father, the king, had died.

  Paul thought that if the Beatles became Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band instead of the Beatles, or even instead of John, Paul, George and Ringo, they would be free to do almost anything. They would be their alter egos, he said, different people. They would no longer have to do the cute little pop songs that they’d outgrown, along with the mohair suits, moptops and being good lads. Treetops had been a psychedelic experience. He said he “wanted to fly,” creatively speaking.

  Brian hadn’t the faintest idea what Paul was talking about, what these alter egos were about, or what Sgt. Pepper was about. He only really understood making straightforward pop records and doing gigs, and he added these new worries to his already long list, the things that kept him awake and eventually drove him almost mad.

  We were going to do a video for every one of the tracks on Sgt. Pepper. The idea was to get in a different director for each of them, so each one would have a different look, but with a linking theme. Quite a few were scripted, ready to be made, but Brian wasn’t very happy about it. He said it would create an administrative nightmare for him.

  “How will ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ be achieved?” he asked, with a worried frown.

  I knew what he was saying. They were taking acid like it was going out of fashion. John was eating tab after tab, week after week, before the album and after, though they never took acid while they were actually recording. But Brian was concerned with how legal the images would be because “Eucy” was scripted in an acid daze. He saw no point in making something that would end up banned. In addition, the musicians’ union and the TV unions wouldn’t leave anybody alone to do anything on an independent level. The cost of union camera crews and actors and overtime for little films made of every track on the album would have been huge. Overall it would end up bigger and more expensive than a movie. You needed a whole office bureaucracy in those days to deal with the paperwork involved, with the legalities and union aspects of a production. There were no faxes, no e-mails; only telephones and the Royal Mail, or a delivery boy. Everything had to be agreed, written back and forth in triplicate, the old-fashioned way with carbon paper, then signed, sealed and delivered. What had seemed a great idea in the Scotch last night became the Normandy landings the next day in the office.

  Brian complained to me that this new venture created an enormous amount of work, and ultimately, the videos got shelved. Even the iconic Sgt. Pepper album sleeve, shot by Michael Cooper and with art direction by Peter Blake and Robert Fraser, was outrageously expensive. The final costs came to a staggering £2,867, a hundred times more than most album covers (you could have bought a couple of Jaguar cars for that sum). It burst EMI’s “sleeves” budget—but John insisted that art was beyond price. He cracked, “If you can’t stand the art, get out of the kitschen.” Something that seemed a simple idea for Paul turned into a nightmare for Brian. I can’t stress enough how ill it made him feel.

  “All those people’s faces on it,” Brian said. “What’s the point? Who are they all?” Also going on at that time was the renegotiation of the Beatles’ EMI contract, which dragged on and was giving Brian additional sleepless nights.

  Interestingly, Sgt. Pepper was put together almost accidentally in no particular sequence, but worked perfectly. It was brilliant. Yet, at a later stage, when the song order was rearranged to fit one of the new consumer-tape formats in the U.S., it didn’t work. Strangely and inexplicably, it became a jumble. Make of that what you will.

  Many people had talked about that kind of concept album but very few were capable of writing and performing such a feat. Perhaps Brian Wilson or Pete Townshend could. The songs were not so much linked by a continuing story, like a classical opera, or rock opera like Tommy, more by a feel. To bring it off they had the perfect partner in George Martin, a true genius of an arranger, and more importantly, an absolute anchor of organization and knowledge.

  I saw firsthand that when your mind is flying at fifty ideas a minute, it is crucial to have someone around who not only can say, but will say, “Sure, we’ll do this, then we’ll do that, then we’ll try so and so. Right! Let’s get on with it.”

  By that time George Martin was on much more of a trust-like wavelength with them, and as they came to Sgt. Pepper he knew for sure that they were more than just singers and musicians. He’d come to respect their flair, and was happy to run with their musical indulgences rather than to merely indulge them. He was delighted to, in fact. He always enjoyed himself during some of the more creative sessions. At that time he was undoubtedly that fifth Beatle the press was always looking for, although Paul and John said he wasn’t. Out of love and respect for his memory, the only “fifth Beatle” they would ever countenance was Stuart Sutcliffe.

  Being there at a lot of the sessions is something I’ll never forget, but my memories are tempered by the fact that naturally nobody had a clue how culturally important, how iconic, Sgt. Pepper would become. I clearly remember the filming of one of the final sessions for one of the tracks, “A Day in the Life,” when Mr. McCartney had arranged with Mr. Martin for a full orchestra, or as Paul described it, “a set of penguins” to play nothing while he, Mr. McCartney, conducted.

  When I say play nothing, I mean no scored music. Paul wanted each instrument to play its own ascending scale in meter, leading up to a grand crescendo. Obviously it worked because you can hear it on the album. Before we filmed we handed out loaded 16mm cameras to invited guests including, among others, Mick and Marianne, and Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. They were shown what to press and told to film whatever they wanted. The BBC then banned the subsequent video. Not because of the content of the footage, but because the song itself had drug references.

  Some time after banning the “A Day in the Life” video, the BBC telephoned me and said that they were planning an extravaganza of their own. It was to be the first worldwide satellite transmission linkup, and they were pompously calling it Our World. The 125-minute program would link live continents, bringing “man face-to-face with mankind.” Would the Fabs consider writing and performing a new song to mark the event?

  Still smarting from having their/our druggie video rejected, the lads said no initially, then reconsidered. They said that they would do it if they could do it like a party. Instantly suspicious, the BBC set up “a meet,” and I was sent over to explain. I took with me the video for “A Day in the Life,” which of course, as I suspected, they hadn’t seen. And, as I knew they would, they loved it. We had a few drinks and played it continuously while we sang along. When we finally got down to business I produced a tape with two new songs on it and told them to choose which one they wanted for the forthcoming satellite transmission. The two songs were “Your Mother Should Know,” and “All You Need Is Love.”

  In the fullness of time an official letter arrived from Broadcasting House. It informed us that they had chosen “All You Need Is Love,” and furthermore, would agree to “a party atmosphere.”

  The lads went off to work on a backing track because they were going to sing along live on the night in the studio. It was probably the world’s first live karaoke session. George Harrison was the one who finally cynically asked, “Hey? Who’s gonna come to this party atmosphere, then? We’ve got less than two days!”

  We all looked at each other. The solution was obvious. I got up and found Keith Moon quite easily at the Spea
keasy. I didn’t report back so fast though. After all, why ruin a good trawl around the clubs with an early goal? Keith was absolutely stonkers, throwing peanuts everywhere, and for once not dressed up as Queen Victoria or Hitler.

  Tongue in cheek, I suggested he go home and get some rest. I told him about the BBC satellite linkup thing and said to him, “You’ve got an official rave-up tomorrow. The whole world will be there and we need you to be in top form.”

  He wasn’t having any of it. He came close to me and slurred as Robert Newton had once done, after he’d turned up on a film set the worse for wear, “Don’t chide me, dear boy, don’t chide me.” But Keith was in a much more confident mood. “Dear boy, I shall be there, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just keep going.”

  “The session will be live,” I reminded him.

  “Satellites? I know all about satellites. Worldwide linkups? A mere bagatelle,” he said, grandly.

  I left. It was exhausting work, but I persevered. I trawled the Cromwellian, the Bag, the Scotch of St. James and found Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful, and friends. Mick said he’d come, no hassle, but he was a bit put out that the BBC hadn’t asked the Stones. At the time they were doing their new album, His Satanic Majesty’s Request, and he said you couldn’t buy that kind of publicity.

  He’d conveniently forgotten that his drug trial was coming up in two days and the case had been headlines for ages. There had been rallies in support of them, and numerous articles written. I said, “You’re a bit persona non grata with the Establishment right now, Mick.”

  He grinned and drawled, “Yeah, you’re right. Fuck ’em, there goes the knighthood.” He didn’t appear at all worried. Satanic Majesty’s even had Mick saying in it, “Where’s that joint?”

  Eventually a reasonably sized party atmosphere was rounded up. Moon was early. Mick arrived wearing a beautiful silk coat with psychedelic eyes painted on it. Eppy came, looking very happy. He wore a black velvet suit but for once hadn’t put a tie on. It made him look fresh-faced and far younger. I took many photographs that day and those of Brian with the Beatles are the last ones ever taken of them together.