All the Songs
Page 43
Assistant Engineers: John Kurlander, Alan Parsons
Genesis
Paul wrote “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” in 1968 during the recording sessions for the White Album. During the previous two years he had become interested in Alfred Jarry, author of Ubu the King, and his concept of pataphysics, philosophy of the absurd and surrealism. Paul, with amusement, referred to the concept, knowing that few people would understand: “I am the only person who ever put the name of pataphysics into the record charts, c’mon! It was great. I love those surreal little touches.”1 The theme of his song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” was a way to deal with unexpected problems when everything goes well. It is a metaphor related to the plight of the Beatles. Why did he make the hammer silver? He said, “I don’t know why it was silver, it just sounded better than Maxwell’s hammer.”2
Production
The Beatles rehearsed the song in January 1969 at Twickenham Film Studios as part of the Get Back sessions. On July 9, they started the recording session for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” the same day that John returned to the studio after his car accident in Scotland. John did not like the song and dismissed it as “just more of Paul’s granny music.”3 The basic rhythm track was completed after twenty-one takes, with Paul at the piano, George on bass, and Ringo on drums. On July 10, various overdubs to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” were done—George on electric and acoustic guitar, Paul doubling his lead vocals, and George Martin at the Hammond organ. The session was highlighted by an unusual instrument. Paul asked Ringo to emphasize the “Bang! Bang!” in the choruses by hitting a blacksmith’s anvil. Mal Evans rented it from a theatrical agency. According to Geoff Emerick, Mal Evans hit the anvil, as can be seen in the film Let It Be: “Ringo simply didn’t have the strength to lift the hammer, so Mal ended up playing the part, but he didn’t have a drummer’s sense of timing, so it took a while to get a successful take.”4 After thirteen mixes were made, Paul was still dissatisfied. He nicely asked John to help with the backing vocals, but John refused, preferring to stay next to Yoko. Arms crossed, he sat in the back for a while before leaving for home. Tony Clark: “I got involved in the last three weeks of Abbey Road. They kept two studios running and I would be asked to sit in Studio Two or Three—usually Three—just to be there, at the Beatles’ beck and call whenever someone wanted to come in and do an overdub. At this stage of the album I don’t think I saw the four of them together.”5 John: “I believe he really ground George and Ringo into the ground recording it. We spent more money on that song than any of them on the whole album, I think.”6 Paul wanted the bass on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” “to sound like a tuba to make the recording sound old-fashioned.”7 He accomplished this by slurring the notes rather than articulating them. The following day, more guitar and vocal overdubs were added. On August 6, Paul recorded his Moog synthesizer part. This was the first Beatles song where this instrument was used.
Various mixes were made, first on August 14. On August 25, various sound effects were added but not used. The mix of August 14 became final.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
In 1972, Paul’s song “Hi, Hi, Hi” referred again to Jarry and his play Ubu Roi with the word polyhedron, which became polygon (get you ready for my polygon). In the UK, the BBC banned the song because they heard get you ready for my body gun, and took it to be an explicit sexual reference.
Oh! Darling
Lennon-McCartney / 3:27
1969
SONGWRITER
Paul
MUSICIANS
Paul: vocal, piano (?), bass (?)
John: piano (?), bass (?), backing vocal
George: guitar, backing vocal
Ringo: drums
Billy Preston: electric piano
RECORDED
Abbey Road: January 27, 1969
Abbey Road: April 20, 1969 (Studio Three) / April 26, 1969 (Studio Two) / May 1, 1969 (Studio Three) / July 17–18 and 22–23, 1969 (Studio Three) / August 8, 1969 (Studio Three) / August 11, 1969 (Studio Two)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 26
MIXING
Abbey Road: April 20, 1969 (Studio Three) / May 1, 1969 (Studio Three) / August 12, 1969 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producers: George Martin, Chris Thomas
Sound Engineers: Glyn Johns, Jeff Jarratt, Phil McDonald, Geoff Emerick, Tony Clark
Assistant Engineers: John Kurlander, Nick Webb, Alan Parsons
Genesis
In a tribute to the 1950s, Paul wrote a great rock ’n’ roll ballad, demonstrating once again his immense talent as a singer. “Oh! Darling (I’ll Never Do You No Harm),” as a working title, was already rehearsed and recorded during a Get Back session on January 27, 1969, at the Apple studio, under the shadow of the eccentric “Magic Alex.” At that time, “Oh! Darling” was recorded with Paul on vocals and bass, George on guitar, John on second vocal and second guitar, and Ringo on drums, while Billy Preston played electric piano. Also during this recording, John learned that the divorce between Yoko and Anthony Cox, her second husband, had gone through and was to be finalized on February 2, 1969. He announced at the end of the song, as can be heard on Anthology 3, “I just heard that Yoko’s divorce has just gone through. Free at last! I’m free.…” He showed his joy by singing the song!
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Along with the other Beatles, John recorded backing vocals on August 11. This was his last recording session with the group. Afterwards, he was only present in the studio for mixing, but never to record.
The Beatles did not return to Abbey Road Studios until April 20 to record the song properly. Twenty-six takes were needed. It has often been stated that Paul was on bass and John at the piano. But after listening, and especially by analyzing the sound of each instrument, it seems to be the opposite. George without any doubt was on rhythm guitar via a Leslie speaker and Ringo on drums. They sought to create the feel of a live recording. During this first session, Billy Preston played the Hammond organ, replacing the electric piano, but this was definitively erased on April 26.
Paul, who lived just a few blocks from Abbey Road, regularly arrived one hour before the other Beatles to rehearse, warm up, and record his voice. He kept rerecording the song, against the advice of George Martin, who said the best version was already in hand. Paul: “I came into the studios early every day for a week to sing it by myself because at first my voice was too clear. I wanted it to sound as though I’d been performing it onstage all week.”2
I Can Do Better!
In 1980 John confessed to David Sheff for the Playboy interview, “‘Oh! Darling’ was a great one of Paul’s that he didn’t sing too well. I always thought that I could’ve done it better—it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he’s going to sing it. If he’d had any sense, he should have let me sing it. [Laughing]1
The interpretation was difficult. Paul sang the lead vocal with a head tone but failed to get the “scratchy” sound that he wanted. Alan Parsons, an assistant engineer, recalled, “Perhaps my main memory of the Abbey Road sessions is of Paul coming into Studio Three at two o’clock or 2:30 each afternoon, on his own, to do the vocal on ‘Oh Darling.’ … He’d come in, sing it and say ‘No, that’s not it, I’ll try it tomorrow.’ He only tried it once per day, I suppose he wanted to capture a certain rawness which could only be done once before the voice changed. I remember him saying ‘Five years ago I could have done this in a flash,’ referring, I suppose, to the days of ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Kansas City.’”3 John Kurlander also witnessed these overdubs: “I think Paul wanted this ‘first thing in the morning’ quality, or maybe it was ‘last thing at night.’ Whatever it was, he came in early each day, an hour before anybody else, to do this piece, always replacing the previous one until he got the one he liked.”4 His final attempt was recorded on July 23. Paul had enough different takes to combine parts of each into a single good track.
August 8 was memorable: the Beatles were photographed cross
ing Abbey Road by Iain MacMillan. In the afternoon, Paul went alone into Studio Three to record a lead guitar solo and a tambourine part. These recordings were omitted from the final mix. Finally, during the recording session of August 11 backing vocals were overdubbed. The second vocal sung by John on January 27 disappeared in favor of backing vocals (see Anthology 3).
Paul’s vocal performance, contrary to what John said later, was absolutely stunning. Ringo’s drumming was sublime.
Technical Details
Paul, anxious to create a “live” atmosphere did not use a headset for singing in order to get feedback directly from the speakers, as the Beatles had done until 1966.
Octopus’s Garden
Richard Starkey / 2:51
1969
MUSICIANS
Ringo: vocal, drums
George: guitar solo, backing vocal
Paul: bass, piano, backing vocal
John: rhythm guitar
RECORDED
Abbey Road: April 26, 1969 (Studio Two) / April 29, 1969 (Studio Three) / July 17, 1969 (Studio Two) / July 18, 1969 (Studio Three)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 32
MIXING
Abbey Road: July 18, 1969 (Studio Two)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producers: Chris Thomas, the Beatles, George Martin
Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Phil McDonald
Assistant Engineers: Richard Langham, Nick Webb, Alan Parsons
Genesis
On August 22, 1968, Ringo walked out of the sessions for the White Album. He could no longer bear the increasing tensions within the group or Paul’s critical remarks, which made him doubt his abilities as a drummer. Disillusioned, bitter, and exhausted, he took his wife and children on vacation to Sardinia on a yacht lent to him by his friend, the actor Peter Sellers. A story from this vacation is the source of the name of the song. At lunch Ringo was served octopus instead of the fish and chips he expected. He asked the captain what this strange animal (which he had evidently never eaten) was. The captain told him about the habits of the octopus, his custom of accumulating objects and shellfish around his cave like a small garden. Ringo, amused, immediately wrote a song inspired by the story of the octopus’s garden. It was his second composition after the White Album’s “Don’t Pass Me By.”
Upon his return from Sardinia, he offered the song to the group, but it was not used for the White Album. “Octopus’s Garden” was first worked on in January 1969 during the Get Back sessions at Twickenham Film Studios. In the film Let It Be, we see George help Ringo write the bridge of the song at the piano, suggesting he start with a major chord instead of a minor, under the watchful eye of George Martin and John on drums!
In addition to being amusing, the lyrics implicitly evoked the band’s difficulties at the time. Verses such as We would be warm, below the storm and We would be so happy you and me / No one there to tell us what to do may refer unconsciously to Ringo and George and the stress felt at the time just before the band broke up.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Curiously, five stereo mixes and seven mono mixes were made. The reason is still unknown, especially because Abbey Road was the first Beatles record to appear only in stereo. “Octopus’s Garden” was the only song on this album to have a mono version, apparently unreleased to this day.
Production
Ringo, who did not have any lead vocals during the Get Back sessions, took the microphone for one of his own compositions, “Octopus’s Garden.” Geoff Emerick remembers both Paul and George as being in a good mood during the sessions while John was moping around, saying little and contributing next to nothing. More than usual, “They chipped in, putting as much effort into it as if it were one of their own songs.”1
April 26 was the first day devoted to the song. They recorded no fewer than thirty-two takes. Paul was on bass, George on guitar solo—proving once again what a formidable guitarist he had become in the end—John on rhythm guitar and Ringo on drums and simultaneously lead vocal. On Anthology 3, we hear him ironically mocking himself after take 8: “Well, that was superb!” Paul added a piano part played on the slightly out of tune “Mrs. Mills” Steinway piano. Since the structure of the song was simple, the recording was relatively close to the final version at this stage. George Martin was not available. Curiously, the first day is credited to Chris Thomas and also to the Beatles as the producers. The role of each is unclear, especially because the Beatles were at this point able to produce themselves. On April 29, Ringo, dissatisfied, overdubbed his lead vocal again. The song was then put on the shelf until mid-July when it was revived on July 17 for more over-dubs and mixing. Paul and George contributed backing vocals, singing in falsetto; Paul added piano notes, and George played guitar. Ringo blew bubbles into a glass of water, the same technique that had been used for the song “Yellow Submarine.” “That was miced very closely to capture all the little bubbles and sounds,”2 recalled Alan Brown, technical engineer on the session. Finally, the next day, Ringo recorded his final lead vocal and added tomtom beats before each chorus. The mix was made on July 18.
Technical Details
Ringo asked Geoff Emerick if he could make the vocals in the middle section sound as if they were being sung underwater. Emerick came up with a new effect: “After some experimentation I discovered that feeding the vocals into a compressor and triggering it from a pulsing tone (which I derived from George Harrison’s Moog synthesizer) imparted a distinctive wobbly sound, almost like gargling.”3
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
Lennon-McCartney / 7:44
1969
SONGWRITER
John
MUSICIANS
John: vocal, rhythm guitar, lead guitar
Paul: bass, piano, backing vocal
George: rhythm guitar, lead guitar, backing vocal
Ringo: drums, congas
Billy Preston: Hammond organ RT-3
RECORDED
Apple Studios: January 29, 1969
Trident Studios: February 22, 1969
Abbey Road: April 18, 1969 (Studio Two) / April 20, 1969 (Studio Three) / August 8 and 11, 1969 (Studio Two) / August 20, 1969 (Studio Three)
NUMBER OF TAKES: 35
MIXING:
Trident Studios: February 23–24, 1969
Abbey Road: April 18, 1969 (Studio Two) / August 11, 1969 (Studio Two) / August 20, 1969 (Studio Three)
TECHNICAL TEAM
Producers: George Martin, Glyn Johns, Chris Thomas
Sound Engineers: Glyn Johns, Barry Sheffield (Trident), Jeff Jarratt, Geoff Emerick, Chris Thomas
Assistant Engineers: Alan Parsons, John Kurlander
Genesis
“‘I Want You,’ that’s me about Yoko.”1 That’s how John described the song during his last interview with David Sheff in 1980. As simple as that. There are only about a dozen words in the song, no more. This economy is what gives John’s work its effectiveness and authenticity. He bared his soul, without compromise, as he always did.
John wrote the song about his passionate love for Yoko, his inspiration for both the lyrics and the music. “I Want You” was influenced by Mel Tormé’s 1962 song “Comin’ Home, Baby.” John has structured it into two parts: singing and instrumental. The first part is based on a minor blues scale with the voice superimposed on a solo guitar. The second, completely independent from the verses, is based on a harmonic progression played in arpeggios by multitracked guitars for the song’s coda. John increases the tension to express his obsession with Yoko.
Production
On January 29, the eve of their memorable concert on the Apple roof, the Beatles rehearsed “I Want You” (“She’s So Heavy” was only added to the title on August 11). The first serious take was on February 22 at Trident Studios. The Apple studio was an acoustic disaster. “Magic Alex” had not quite worked the miracle that he had promised. The Beatles were forced to take some of the equipment installed at Apple back to Abbey Road and waited for Glyn Johns, chief sound engineer sinc
e the time of Get Back, and Billy Preston, both of whom were in the United States at the time. In the meantime, on February 22 thirty-five takes were recorded at Trident. John provided a great vocal and shared the guitar part with George. Paul delivered an inspired bass part balanced between glissandos, bluesy riffs, and Latino flair. Billy Preston performed a flamboyant organ accompaniment while Ringo kept the rhythm with brio. Note that John performed the main guitar solo, but was not as good as George. The next day, John was not happy with any one take and insisted that three different takes be edited into one: take 9 for John’s vocal at the beginning, take 20 for the middle eight, and take 32 for the rest. The total length of the resulting combination exceeds eight minutes. On February 24, a backup copy of the edited master was made. It was the end of the Trident recording.
FOR BEATLES FANATICS
Just after John’s shout, yeaahhhhh, at 4:32, we can hear a muffled cry from the back of the studio. Some hear it as Turn it down man / Mal; others think it a technician telling John to keep his voice down. According to Mark Lewisohn, however, it is some sort of conversation between the Beatles, recorded on February 22 during the first takes at Trident Studios.
Back at Abbey Road on April 18, John and George overdubbed a long series of guitar parts for the intro and the coda to the song. Jeff Jarratt recalled, “They wanted a massive sound, so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over.”2 The guitar arpeggios were played in unison. Both John and George had their guitars connected to a Fender Twin Reverb with the volume close to the maximum providing a massive sound. But the result of adding layers of guitars was that some of Billy Preston’s Hammond organ parts were drowned out. After more reduction, on April 20 another Hammond organ was added (Paul?) with Ringo playing a set of conga drums.