All the Songs
Page 29
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Patti Smith did a beautiful remake of this song in 2007 on her album Twelve.
Production
The first recording session took place on March 15. Although the team was doubtful at first, they were rapidly seduced by the charm of George’s song, which still did not have a title. For the first take, George and Neil Aspinall were on tambura, accompanied by musicians of the Asian Music Circle of London, who were playing various Indian instruments. On March 22, a dilruba was added on a tape recorder that was sped up in order to sound deeper at normal speed. Finally, on April 3, an eleven-hour session (!) began at 7:00 P.M. George Martin wrote a score for eight violins and three cellos. After much hard work, George then recorded his vocal. Dim lights, candles, and incense helped set the atmosphere. After guitar and sitar overdubs, George had laughter added to the end of the song to lighten up the meaning of the lyrics. The mono and stereo mixes were completed on April 4. The whole team was enthusiastic. But none of the other Beatles attended the sessions. “Within You Without You” was the last song recorded for Sgt. Pepper.
When I’m Sixty-Four
Lennon-McCartney / 2:37
1967
SONGWRITER
Paul
MUSICIANS
Paul: vocal, bass, piano
John: lead guitar, backing vocal
George: backing vocal
Ringo: drums, chimes
Robert Burns, Henry MacKenzie, Frank Reidy: clarinets
RECORDED
Abbey Road: December 6, 1966 (Studio Two) / December 8, 1966 (Studio One) / December 20–21, 1966 (Studio Two)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 4
MIXING
Abbey Road: December 21, 1966 (Studio Two) / December 29, 1966 (Studio Three) / December 30, 1966 (Studio Two) / April 17, 1967 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producer: George Martin
Sound Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Assistant Engineers: Phil McDonald, Richard Lush
Genesis
Paul wrote “When I’m Sixty-Four” on his father’s piano when he was sixteen. The musical atmosphere of his adolescence was rather eclectic and music halls were a deeply ingrained family tradition. It was not surprising that he always had a penchant for that style, which John called “granny music.” Paul said, “I wrote that tune vaguely thinking it could come in handy in a musical comedy or something.”1 The song developed and John admitted in 1967 that they played it often at the Cavern Club: “We used to do them when the amps broke down, just sing it on the piano.”2 Paul added: “I thought it was a good little tune but it was too vaudevillian, so I had to get some cod lines to take the sting out of it, and put the tongue very firmly in cheek.”3 John, who was never stingy with compliments, admitted to David Sheff, “Paul’s, completely. I would never even dream of writing a song like that. There’s some things I never think about, and that’s one of them.”4 Nevertheless, it had a charm and musical strength that made it indispensable for the album.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Since Paul’s father celebrated turning sixty-four on July 7, 1966, it is possible that the Beatle resurrected the song for that event.
Production
After beginning the December 6 session by recording the Christmas messages for Radio London and Radio Caroline (the two major “pirate” radio stations operating off the coast of Britain that served as an alternative to the stricter BBC stations), the Beatles began working on the second piece of the album. Being familiar with its structure, they managed to record it in two takes, with Paul on piano and on bass, Ringo on drums and brushes, and John on guitar. On December 8, while his colleagues were absent, Paul recorded the lead vocal. Then, on December 20, he joined John and George to overdub the background vocals. As for Ringo, he added Premier Orchestral Chimes (tubular bells), that he also used for “Penny Lane.” Paul wanted a more retro atmosphere and searched with George Martin for an adequate arrangement. They chose clarinets. On December 21, three clarinets, including a bass clarinet, played the score written by Martin. Finally, John added another vocal and Paul a piano part. The final mono mix was carried out on December 30. Because Paul was dissatisfied with the results, he asked Emerick to varispeed the tape in order to raise the whole song by as much as a semitone—a considerable difference. According to Emerick and Martin, Paul may have wanted his vocals to take on a more youthful air, as if he were, say, a sixteen-year-old.5 But Paul related that what he wanted was a less pompous sound.6 The stereo mix was done four months later, on April 17, 1967.
Lovely Rita
Lennon-McCartney / 2:42
1967
SONGWRITER
Paul
MUSICIANS
John: rhythm guitar, backing vocal
Paul: vocal, bass, piano
George: rhythm guitar, backing vocal
Ringo: drums
RECORDED
Abbey Road: February 23–24, 1967 (Studio Two) / March 7 and 21, 1967 (Studio Two)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 11
MIXING
Abbey Road: March 21, 1967 (Studio Two) / April 17, 1967 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producer: George Martin
Sound Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Assistant Engineer: Richard Lush
Genesis
“Lovely Rita” is an example of the type of song that John despised. The context was fabricated, the character was fictitious, and there was no message. He thought these were boring stories about boring people: “I’m not interested in writing about people like that. I like to write about me, because I know me.”1 Paul, who wrote the song, talked about a “meter maid,” in other words, a part-time worker. The sexual innuendo of the word maid amused him and was enough to stimulate his imagination. After the record came out, a lady called Meta Davies stated that she had given a ticket to Paul near St. John’s Wood. Asking her what her first name was, Paul had told her he found it charming enough to write a song about her. Whether this was fact or fiction, “Lovely Rita” was definitely not the best lyric of the album.
Production
Paul wanted a sound like the Beach Boys for this song. On February 23, nine takes were required to record the rhythm track. John and George were on acoustic guitar, Paul on piano, and Ringo on drums. The intro of the piano was longer at this point than in the definitive version. After a first reduction, Paul recorded his bass. Geoff Emerick noted that this was a new habit: he began recording his bass alone, in order to concentrate on his instrument, which produced exceptional bass lines. On February 24, Paul recorded his vocal on a tape recorder that had been slowed down in order to gain almost a semitone at normal speed (just as they’d done for the rhythm track the night before). On March 7, there were a series of overdubs for the coda. All kinds of delirium, yells, amplified breathing, everything was drowned in a very pronounced echo: all four musicians gathered around the same microphone, each one of them holding a comb wrapped in toilet paper (!) in front of their mouths to create unusual effects. On March 21, George struggled with the guitar solo. Emerick suggested replacing him with a piano solo. Much to his surprise, Paul asked Emerick to play the solo, but he was too embarrassed to do it. George Martin ended up playing the piano in a honky-tonk style. Recorded with the tape player running slow, it gained nearly three semitones at normal speed. Emerick also modified the sound by placing sticky editing tape on the guide rollers of the tape recorder, causing the tape to “wobble.” The mono mix (also accelerated) was made on the same day, and the stereo was done on April 17.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Norman Smith, the former sound engineer for the Beatles, now worked as the producer for Pink Floyd. On March 21, while Pink Floyd was recording its first record, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Smith brought the four members of the group to attend the mix of “Lovely Rita.” Nick Mason said, “We sat down, humbly, at the back of the control room while they were working on the mix; then, after some time that we would have gladly extended
, they asked us to leave. Every time the Beatles worked at Abbey Road, the atmosphere of the studios was transformed. You could feel their presence.”2
Good Morning Good Morning
Lennon-McCartney / 2:41
1967
SONGWRITER
John
MUSICIANS
John: vocal
Paul: bass, lead guitar, backing vocal
George: rhythm guitar
Ringo: drums
Barry Cameron, David Glyde, Alan Holmes: saxophones
John Lee, unknown musician: trombones
Tom (unknown last name): French horn
RECORDED
Abbey Road: February 8, 1967 (Studio Two) / February 16, 1967 (Studio Three) / March 13, 28–29, 1967 (Studio Two)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 11
MIXING
Abbey Road: February 16 and 20, 1967 (Studio Three) / March 29, 1967 (Studio Two) / April 6 and 19, 1967 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producer: George Martin
Sound Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Assistant Engineer: Richard Lush
Genesis
Absentmindedly watching television at home, John found the inspiration for this song. “The ‘Good morning, good morning’ was from a Kellogg’s cereal commercial. I always had the TV on very low in the background when I was writing and it came over and then I wrote the song.”1 He found his middle-class lifestyle boring. He used to spend part of his spare time in his house in Weybridge watching the idiot box. His relationship with his wife was going downhill. Paul thought John felt trapped in a box living in suburbia: “I think he was also starting to get alarm bells.”2 The sentence It’s time for tea and Meet the Wife alluded to the BBC sitcom Meet the Wife that John used to watch out of sheer boredom. John never liked this song; he called it “a piece of garbage.”3 It was amusing to notice that after “She Said She Said,” he wrote “Good Morning Good Morning” and later “Cry Baby Cry” for the White Album. Were the double titles from force of habit of doubling himself in the studio? Was it an overdose of ADT?
Production
A demo of the song contains John singing while accompanying himself on his Mellotron with the sound of a string orchestra. The final version was drastically different. The details of the different takes are unclear. In the rhythm track recorded on February 8 (take 8), it seemed that John was singing, Paul was on bass, George was on rhythm guitar, and Ringo was on drums. A first reduction was done on February 16. Practically a month later, on March 13, a section of three saxophones was added, plus two trombones and a French horn. After spending a long time doing overdubs, John thought they sounded too clean. Geoff Emerick was then responsible for altering their sound with lots of compression, delay, equalization, flanging, and ADT. On March 28, there was a new vocal by John and a new reduction of the whole song. Once again, Paul assumed responsibility for the guitar solo that he played on his Fender Esquire. George must have felt increasingly useless.… Finally, John and Paul ended the song with backing vocals. John then had an amusing idea: he decided that he would like to end “Good Morning Good Morning” with a series of animal sound effects. Geoff Emerick recalled, “John said to me during one of the breaks that he wanted to have the sound of animals escaping and that each successive animal should be capable of frightening or devouring its predecessor!”4 Coincidentally, the connection between “Good Morning Good Morning” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (reprise) was the perfect blend of a hen clucking and the first note of George’s guitar solo. Emerick stated that this effect was deliberate, but Martin said later it was purely random. The final stereo mix was completed on April 6, and the mono on April 19.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
The saxophone players who recorded on March 13 were old friends of the Beatles: they were members of Sounds Incorporated, whom the Beatles had known at the Star Club in Hamburg. They had been under contract with Brian Epstein since 1963 and had opened for the Beatles at many of their concerts, including the concert at New York’s Shea Stadium.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
Lennon-McCartney / 1:19
1967
SONGWRITER
Paul
MUSICIANS
John: vocal, rhythm guitar, tambourine (?)
Paul: vocal, bass, organ
George: vocal, lead guitar, tambourine (?)
Ringo: vocal, drums, maracas
RECORDED
Abbey Road: April 1, 1967 (Studio One)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 9
MIXING
Abbey Road: April 1, 1967 (Studio One) / April 20, 1967 (Studio Three)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producer: George Martin
Sound Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Assistant Engineer: Richard Lush
Genesis
It was Neil Aspinall who suggested the idea of a reprise, as Paul was completing the title song: “Why don’t you have Sgt. Pepper as the master of ceremonies of the album? He comes on at the beginning of the show and introduces the band, and at the end he closes it.”1 Some time later, Lennon came up to him and told him, “Nobody likes a smart-arse, Neil.”2 which in Lennon language meant “good idea!” The reprise of “Sgt. Pepper” followed John’s “Good Morning Good Morning,” with its hen call connecting perfectly with the first note of George’s guitar playing. And it introduced “A Day in the Life” for a grandiose finale.
Production
Saturday, April 1 was the day of the last recording session for the album. The Beatles, who realized that the end of these months and months of studio work was approaching, really felt on top of things. Paul was scheduled to leave two days later to join Jane Asher on the other side of the Atlantic. Because Studio Two was booked, only the huge Studio One was available. Geoff Emerick had to deal with reverb problems. He placed the group in a semicircle, so that each member could see the others, and placed large screens around them. They were once again going to play live. Right away you could feel the energy: Paul was on bass and singing lead, John and George both played guitar, and Ringo beat the drums as loudly as he could. The ninth take was best. The four Beatles then sang together and added maracas, tambourines, and an organ part played by Paul. The mono mix was carried out immediately with the addition of various sound effects, and the stereo mix, which was the very last mix of the album, was finalized on April 20. It was 6:00 A.M. It had taken them eleven hours to complete this last session.
A Day In The Life
Lennon-McCartney / 5:04
1967
SONGWRITER
John and Paul
MUSICIANS
John: vocal, rhythm guitar, piano
Paul: vocal, bass, piano
George: congas
Ringo: drums, maracas, piano
George Martin: piano, harmonium
Mal Evans: piano
Erich Gruenberg, Granville Jones, Bill Monro, Jürgen Hess, Hans Geiger, D. Bradley, Lionel Bentley, David McCallum, Donald Weekes, Henry Datyner, Sidney Sax, Ernest Scott: violins
John Underwood, Gwynne Edwards, Bernard Davis, John Meek: violas
Francisco Gabarro, Dennis Vigay, Alan Dalziel, Alex Nifosi: cellos
Cyril MacArther, Gordon Pearce: double bass
John Marson: harp
Roger Lord: oboe
Clifford Seville, David Sandeman: flutes
David Mason, Monty Montgomery, Harold Jackson: trumpets
Raymond Brown, Raymond Premru, T. Moore: trombones
Michael Barnes: tuba
Basil Tschaikov, Jack Brymer: clarinets
N. Fawcett, Alfred Waters: bassoons
Alan Civil, Neil Sanders: French horns
Tristan Fry: percussion
RECORDED
Abbey Road: January 19–20, 1967 (Studio Two) / February 3, 1967 (Studio Two) / February 10, 1967 (Studio One) / February 22, 1967 (Studio Two) / March 1, 1967 (Studio Two)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 7
MIXING
; Abbey Road: January 30, 1967 (Studio Three) / February 13 and 22–23, 1967 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producer: George Martin
Sound Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Assistant Engineers: Phil McDonald, Richard Lush
Genesis
When the Beatles came to the studio to work on John’s new song, it only had a provisional title: “In the Life of.” And when John began singing it, along with his backup vocals, George Martin and Geoff Emerick were amazed: this was obviously a great song!
In order to write it, John had sat down in front of his piano with the Daily Mail of January 7 open before him and had built his text around two news items: the death of the Guinness heir, who had been killed in a car accident, and the repair of four thousand potholes in the streets of Blackburn, in Lancashire. When he went to Paul’s house, the latter was impressed: “He was a bit shy about it,” John said, “because I think he thought it was already a good song.”1 Paul suggested the fiery line I’d love to turn you on, a real provocation for the Establishment with its reference to drugs. John loved it! He also contributed the bridge, which created a wonderful transition between the orchestral part and the final verse. Paul said, “It was a little party piece of mine, although I didn’t have any more written.”2 In 1980, John revealed that he was stuck on a word in the sentence, Now they know how many holes it takes … the Albert Hall. It was Terry Doran (the future CEO of Apple Ltd.) who proposed “to fill.” “A Day in the Life,” which John called a “damn good piece,” was one of the Beatles’ most innovative songs. The BBC, who read into it allusions to illegal substances, banned it from the airwaves.