They could easily have said the same about “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which had dominated the Beatles’ return to the studio since November. During the December 21 session, Lennon recorded his lead vocal yet again while also superimposing another piano track. It was sometime during this period—with only a few days before Martin and the bandmates briefly closed up shop for the holidays—that Lennon dropped a veritable bomb on the producer and his production team. Apparently, he had been listening to the acetates in heavy rotation, and a eureka moment had occurred. As George later wrote, “John could not make up his mind which of our performances he preferred. He had long since dismissed the original statement of the song on take 7, and was now torn between the slow, contemplative version and the frantic, percussive powerhouse cello and brass arrangement of take 20.” From his position at the mixing desk, Emerick watched the conversation as it unfolded. As he looked on, John announced, “I’ve decided that I still prefer the beginning of the original version.” The Beatles’ engineer could hardly believe what he was hearing: “My jaw dropped. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see George Martin blinking slowly. I could almost detect his blood pressure rising.” And that’s when John said it, turning to George and remarking, “I like them both. Why don’t we join them together? You could start with take 7 and move to take 20 halfway through to get the grandstand finish.” Years later, Martin would remember his response with an unusual clarity, not to mention the mocking tone with which he delivered it. “Brilliant!” he retorted. “There are only two things wrong with that: the takes are in completely different keys, a whole tone apart, and they have wildly different tempos. Other than that, there should be no problem!” For his part, Lennon was hardly put off in the slightest. As George later recalled, “John smiled at my sarcasm like a grownup placating a child.” And then he stared up at the Beatles’ producer with a twinkle in his eye: “Well, George, I’m sure you can fix it, can’t you?”22
And so it was that on the evening of Thursday, December 22, Martin, Emerick, and McDonald conducted an editing session in Studio 2 in an effort, impossible as it may have seemed at the time, to meet the extraordinary challenge inherent in Lennon’s demands. “Every time I go on about the primitive state of recording technology in the mid-sixties,” George later wrote, “I feel like Baron von Richthofen describing the Fokker Triplane to a group of Concorde pilots. But it must be said that nothing on the technology front existed, at EMI’s Abbey Road studios anyways, that could help us out of this fix.” Martin and his team definitely had their work cut out for them: “There was no way those two performances could be matched,” Martin lamented. But then he realized “that because take 20, the frenetic take, was faster—much faster—I could try slowing the tape right down. This would not only bring down the tempo, it would lower the pitch. Would it work? A whole tone was one hell of a drop—almost 12 percent—but it had to be worth trying.” With little genuine hope of actually making Lennon’s dream a reality, Martin turned to Ken Townsend, the ingenious father of ADT, to see what might be possible:
We called up our magnificent band of backroom boys, who wheeled in a Diplodocus-sized washing machine lookalike: the “frequency changer.” This valve-powered monster—a lash-up devised by Ken Townsend, our Chief Engineer, and his merry men—took the main electricity supply, and bent the alternating current up and down on either side of the normal 50 cycles per second. Don’t ask me how they did it, I haven’t a clue. What I can tell you is that it used to get very hot, and would explode in a shower of sparks if you stretched it too far. But it was all we had. We hooked it up. We were looking for a point in the song where there was a sound change, which would help us disguise the edit of the century.
To their great relief, Martin and his team managed to expose the one moment in “Strawberry Fields Forever” that might just do it.23
And there it was. “We found it precisely one minute in,” George later observed, the surprise and relief still evident in his voice even decades later. But when it came to effecting the actual edit itself, Geoff realized that “there was still one last hurdle to overcome. I found that I couldn’t cut the tape at a normal 45-degree angle because the sound just kind of jumped—I was, after all, joining together two totally different performances. As a result, I had to make the cut at a very shallow angle so that it was more like a crossfade than a splice.” With the edit having been completed, the team turned their attention to the coda, including the “cranberry sauce” bit that the Beatles had recorded outside of Martin and Emerick’s earshot back on December 8. Not wanting to lose the magnificent cacophony that the bandmates had created during that zany evening, George instructed Geoff to fade out “Strawberry Fields Forever” before it all went berserk, the moment when the structure collapses in on itself and falls to pieces. The producer was equally intent on preserving the waning instances of orchestration that they had captured back on December 15. “The obvious answer,” Martin later wrote, “would have been to fade out the take before the beat goes haywire. But that would have meant discarding one of my favorite bits, which included some great trumpet and guitar playing, as well as the magical random Mellotronic note-waterfall John had come up with. It was a section brimming with energy, and I was determined to keep it.” But in the end, George did just that: he asked Geoff to begin the fade-out at the last possible moment, and in so doing, he managed to preserve the unique moments of orchestration, sizzling musicianship, and impromptu zaniness. But just as suddenly, George instructed Geoff to abruptly reverse the fade-out and usher “Strawberry Fields Forever” back from the dead. It was George’s sonic head-fake: just when listeners believe that the song is over, it comes roaring back to life again, “bringing back our glorious finale,” “one final exotic touch of color” before the whole thing fades into oblivion once more. With the edit complete and the coda alive and well in all its madcap splendor, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was, for the first time, relatively complete. With the edited piece now in place, George had seen to it that John’s seemingly impossible wish had been granted. And as for that miraculous edit itself, Golden Ears had done it again.24
In production circles, of course, the proof is in the playback. And for John, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was an unqualified success. Indeed, he was ecstatic with the result, having finally heard his vision captured on tape, for the most part, as it had evolved over the past month. George had performed precisely as the Beatle had expected, so John wasn’t really all that surprised at how it had materialized so effectively. “With the grace of God, and a bit of luck, we did it,” Martin later observed. They were able to effect the join between the two versions by gradually increasing the speed of take seven in order to create the illusion of a seamless transition. In fact, most listeners find themselves unable to distinguish the moment where the join occurs. For Martin, this bit of studio trickery never ceased to amaze him in terms of capturing the illusion. “That’s funny,” he later remarked. “I can hear it every time. It sticks out like a sore thumb to me.” The most curious students of the Beatles will find themselves wanting to listen carefully to this moment in the song—some sixty seconds in, right after John sings “let me take you down”—to hear the magic moment that forever joined the two sections. “But seek it out at your peril,” Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn cautions, “if you hear it once you might never hear the song the same way again.”25
For George, John’s satisfaction made the glaring edit piece worth it. And while the producer had felt that the magic inherent in “Strawberry Fields Forever” had been fully realized on November 24, the final product was something to behold. “We were all very proud of our new baby,” he later wrote. “For my money, it was the most original and inventive track to date in pop music.” To date, that is. In any event, it was becoming increasingly clear to Martin and his team that the Revolver-era Beatles were already morphing into something new and different in these rapidly unfolding post-touring days. The freedom to do what they liked in the studio—and f
or as long as they wanted—was liberating their collective creative instincts. And not merely for the bandmates, who were relieved to no longer be contending with the often unchecked, unexpected rigors of life on the road. That very same sense of freedom had transformed George and Geoff’s approach to their sessions: at this point, they could allow an idea to unfold and flower at its pace, as opposed to rushing from one session to another to satisfy the demands of EMI or, worse yet, to cram in as many recording dates as possible in the face of a looming tour schedule. As he was wont to do, George compared their latest studio practices to the act of painting—particularly in terms of the ways in which artists very deliberately bring their work alive through layers of time, effort, and creative fusion. As George later observed:
The way we worked, the creative process we always went through, reminds me of a film I once saw of Picasso at work, painting on a ground-glass screen. A camera photographed his brushwork from behind the screen, so that the paint appeared as if by magic. Using time-lapse photography you could see first his original construction, then complete change as he applied the next layer of paint, then the whole thing revitalized again as he added here, took away there. It reached a point where you thought, “That’s wonderful, for heaven’s sake stop!” But he didn’t, he went on, and on. Eventually, he laid down his brush, satisfied. Or was he? I wondered how many of his paintings he would have wanted to do again. It was a fascinating film of a great artist, of a brilliant creative mind at work. And I have often thought how similar his method of painting was to our way of recording. We, too, would add and subtract, overlaying and underscoring within the limitations of our primitive four-track tape.26
For George, the comparison between sound recording and making fine art had been festering for nearly as long as he had been in the record business. Way back in 1952, when he was still Oscar Preuss’s assistant A&R man, he had recorded “Mock Mozart,” a three-minute mini-opera, with actor Peter Ustinov overdubbing a four-part vocal ensemble. George had felt like it was “pretty adventurous” at the time, recognizing that the music marketplace may not have been ready for his brand of sound journeys. But if nothing else, “Strawberry Fields Forever” had confirmed George’s long-held belief that the recording studio was capable of being a wondrous magic workshop and that producers such as himself were only just beginning to scratch the surface of its capabilities.27
As it happened, George wouldn’t have to wait very long to see if this evolving method of painting “sound pictures” would be the Beatles’ prevailing creative methodology. With “Strawberry Fields Forever” mostly in a state of completion—and “When I’m Sixty-Four” not lagging very far behind—the bandmates were ready to try out new compositions. Up next was a relatively new confection from McCartney titled “Penny Lane,” an ebullient tune about “blue suburban skies” and a pretty nurse “selling poppies from a tray.” George and the Beatles reconvened after the holidays on Thursday, December 29. With Emerick and McDonald in tow, Martin created mono and stereo remixes of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” as well as mono mixes for “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Meanwhile, an overnight session would be devoted to working out the signature piano foundation for “Penny Lane,” which remained untitled at this juncture in spite of the fact that a year earlier McCartney had informed a journalist that he wanted to compose a song called “Penny Lane” because he liked the poetic cadence of the title. A bus roundabout located a few miles to the west of the Strawberry Field Salvation Army home of John’s childhood haunts, Penny Lane and its attendant memories had clearly inspired Paul to compose a rejoinder to John’s song about the place where “nothing is real.”
For the past few years, Lennon and McCartney had discussed the concept of writing a quasi-musical about their salad days in Liverpool. As John told Rave magazine in February 1964, “Paul and I want to write a stage musical. That’s a must. Maybe about Liverpool.” In December 1965, Paul commented to Flip magazine, “I like some of the things the Animals try to do, like the song Eric Burdon wrote about places in Newcastle on the flip of one of their hits. I still want to write a song about the places in Liverpool where I was brought up. Places like the Docker’s Umbrella which is a long tunnel through which the dockers go to work on Merseyside, and Penny Lane near my old home.” In another light, McCartney’s composition of “Penny Lane” on the heels of Lennon’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” typified a new phase in their collaboration, which had been brewing since Lennon moved out to Weybridge. For his part, George was acutely aware of the ways in which the songwriters’ partnership had evolved. But to his mind, the intensity of their collaboration had slowly but surely become integral to the bandmates’—and his own—collective success:
John Lennon and Paul McCartney in particular were extremely good friends; they loved one another, really. They shared a spirit of adventure, and a modest little childhood ambition: they were going to go out and conquer the world. You could, though, almost touch the rivalry between them, it was so intense and so real, despite the overriding warmth. No sooner would John come up with an outstanding song evoking, say, his own early childhood, like “Strawberry Fields Forever,” than Paul answered him straight back with a winner in the same vein: “Penny Lane.” It was typical of the way they worked as a songwriting duo. Creative rivalry kept them climbing their individual ladders—and kept the Beatles on top.
Indeed, as their songwriting practices developed during this period, the Lennon-McCartney partnership might more accurately be understood as a competition. Many of their songs were now written separately, rather than together in the same physical space, before their debut to George and the bandmates. And as time passed, the rites of competition would become increasingly fierce.28
From that very first evening, “Penny Lane” was accorded the same patience and care that “Strawberry Fields Forever” had enjoyed across the past month. For his latest composition, Paul had a very strong sense of what he wanted to hear on the finished recording, telling George, “I want a very clean recording.” He would later recall that during that period “I was into clean sounds—maybe a Beach Boys influence at that point.” With the tape rolling, Paul began working out the basic rhythm track for “Penny Lane,” which was dominated by an assortment of keyboard parts. After selecting take six as the best, Martin and the Beatles—McCartney, for the most part—began superimposing additional instrumentation. For track one, Paul performed the basic piano rhythm that characterizes the song, with track two featuring a second piano part that Paul appended to the conclusion of each of the song’s verses. Track three offered yet another piano part, along with Starr on tambourine. To afford the piano with a different feel, Emerick fed the signal through a Vox guitar amp and then sweetened the result with added reverb. Track four was composed of a host of sound effects—with many of them treated to varispeed—including additional percussion, two-tone harmonium whistles, and elongated cymbal stylings. As Emerick later recalled, the slow evolution of “Penny Lane” proved to be trying at times for the other Beatles. “For days, the others sat at the back of the studio watching Paul layer keyboard after keyboard, working completely on his own,” the engineer later wrote. “As always, his sense of timing was absolutely superb: the main piano part that everything was built on was rock solid despite the fact that there were no electronic metronomes to lay down click tracks in those days.” But the real issue at this point—in addition to the others’ sense of boredom settling in—involved the problematics of four-track recording. With McCartney creating one layer of piano and sound effects after another, Martin and Emerick were forced to carry out numerous tape reductions, which meant that the vagaries of generational tape loss were not only a risk but an increasing reality.29
On the evening of December 30, George and the Beatles—one Beatle, for the most part—returned to “Penny Lane,” for which Geoff promptly conducted a tape reduction in order to provide much-needed recording space for the additional overdubs that Paul had in mind. But first, McCartney suggested t
hat they return to “When I’m Sixty-Four.” During the eight-hour session in Studio 2, Paul began the workday by suggesting that George and his production team scuttle the December 29 remix and start over. In particular, Paul wanted George to raise his vocal by a semitone to afford it with a more youthful feel. After Emerick’s tape reduction, the current version of “When I’m Sixty-Four” was deemed as take seven. Wiping out the existing track four, Martin recorded a new vocal performance from McCartney, with backing vocals from Lennon: “We originally recorded him in the key of C major; but when it came to mixing, Paul wanted to sound younger,” George later wrote. “Could he be a teenager again? So we racked up his vocal to D flat by speeding the tape up. His vocal sounded thinner and higher: not quite a seven-stone weakling, but nearly.” By the time that work concluded in the wee hours of New Year’s Eve, additional overdubs to track three included Starr on chimes, as well as vocal harmonies from McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon. The only thing left to do was to ring in the new year, but not without acknowledging how magnificent 1966 had been for George and the Beatles, the Jesus Christ tour notwithstanding. They hadn’t merely grown artistically—they had progressed at a paradigm-shifting rate. After Revolver, Rubber Soul seemed like a distant memory. And “Strawberry Fields Forever” promised to render its memory dimmer still.30
10
Carnivals of Light
* * *
WHEN MARTIN AND HIS STEADY PRODUCTION TEAM of Geoff Emerick and Phil McDonald reconvened on Monday, January 2, 1967, they conducted an afternoon session in the Studio 2 control room in order to create new mono remixes for “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.” By this point, there hadn’t been any new Beatles product since the “Yellow Submarine” backed with “Eleanor Rigby” single, save for their recent UK compilation. Released just in time for the holiday shopping rush, A Collection of Beatles Oldies would mark the final time that EMI would release an album under the Beatles’ name without the band’s permission. As it was, the long-player registered a paltry number-seven showing on the UK album charts. Perhaps the inclusion of “Bad Boy” had made a difference, shielding George and the bandmates from an even less impressive result. As Beatles records went, barely cracking the top ten made for a mediocre outcome, especially since their previous seven album releases had ruled over the charts—and often for several consecutive weeks at a time. In spite of the self-isolation and substance abuse that had plagued his existence over the past several months, Brian Epstein had succeeded in negotiating a nine-year contract extension with EMI, ensuring that the Beatles would be able to call the shots with the record conglomerate regarding their creative future until 1976. Signed on January 27, 1967, and negotiated between Epstein and Len Wood—Martin’s old nemesis during his waning years in EMI’s employ—the new contract’s terms also dictated that the bandmates would control both the contents and the presentation of their albums. For his part, Wood was discouraged at times by how long it took to negotiate the terms with the Beatles’ manager. “You could never pin him down and he always had to go back to the boys to get their agreement on the things we discussed,” Wood later remarked. “It all took so long that the new contract did not begin until January 1967, so technically the Beatles were out of contract for over six months from June 1966.” For the Beatles—and George, for as long as he remained their producer—the contract called for seventy sides, composed of both 45 rpm singles and long-players. But the payoff was very lucrative indeed, with the contract stipulating that the Beatles would receive 10 percent of their records’ retail price, the highest royalty rate—at that time, at least—ever afforded to a recording artist. As for EMI’s subsidiary Capitol, it spelled the end of the repackagings and compilations that had been released under the Beatles’ name in the United States. For Martin, the new contract suggested that the bandmates would be a going concern for many more years to come. And if he were really fortunate, his services on their behalf would continue unabated, mitigating the sizeable risk that he and his partners had assumed with AIR nearly sixteen months earlier.1
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