PART II. The Beatles


Chapter 1. Timing, Teamwork, Genius

The Albums (contents same as the original U.K. LPs), as issued on CD:

The Singles, B-Sides, etc. collected on two CDs:

Alternate studio versions, out-takes, demos, etc. collected on three double-CD
compilations:


Down the Rabbit-Hole

The Beatles could never have foreseen their dominance of the 1960s charts or mindscape. For one, they had spent much of 1961 and early 1962 in the basement clubs of Hamburg, Germany and the teen havens of Liverpool, two self-absorbed scenes disconnected from the mainstream of global affairs. Honing their writing and performing crafts, the group simply followed new manager Brian Epstein’s lead. Six months after signing with Epstein they were at Abbey Road Studios recording “Love Me Do” for EMI’s Parlophone label. Ever-modest Paul McCartney recalls that in the beginning the group wrote and rehearsed anytime and anywhere they could.

Paul Speaks: (in Mark Lewisohn’s book, The Beatles Recording Sessions (1988, Harmony Books, N.Y., N.Y.):

“John and I wrote “She Loves You” in a hotel room. Here I am taking an afternoon off, and we’re sitting there writing! We just loved it so much. It wasn’t work.” [There were no pretentions of high art.] “We wrote for our market. We were 18 or 19, talking to girls who were 17. We were quite conscious of that, so a lot of our songs - “Thank You, Girl,” “From Me To You,” “She Loves You,” “I’ll Get You”... were directly addressed to the fans.” [After several albums of this catchy but formulaic material, Paul admits,] “we were obviously in a rut.”

Recording also came naturally and went quickly at first. Except for two singles and their B-sides, the remaining ten songs for their first album, “Please Please Me,” were recorded in a single thirteen hour session (including food breaks!) on February 11, 1963. Over the next three weeks producer George Martin, an EMI staffer, wrote and played several keyboard overdubs, edited the best takes together and assembled the finished song sequence. Yet all of the group’s basic rhythm tracks, solos and vocals went down in that one miraculous session, many in just one or two takes.

The most amazing performance of all, “Twist and Shout,” featuring John Lennon’s famous gut-wrenching vocal, was done all at once in a single take as the last song of the evening. They knew the song would blow out John’s voice - as it had a thousand times on stage! This was the moment when George Martin realized that the group was an extraordinary find. The next morning, playing “Twist and Shout” for other EMI staffers, he marvelled “I don’t know how they do it. The longer they record, the better they get.”

The group spent only eight days in the studio recording the singles, B-sides and ten more album cuts for their second album, “With The Beatles,” released in the U.K. in November of 1963. EMI policy was very strict about session times and lengths, no matter who the artist. Morning sessions ran from 10AM to 1 PM sharp, afternoons from 2:30 to 5:30, and evenings from 7 to 10PM. All recordings must be well-planned and rehearsed, and were efficiently-executed by engineers in white coats, producers in proper business attire. The Beatles also donned tie and jacket - after all, recording was work, not play!

This kind of rigor was appropriate for most “legit” EMI projects, especially those where groups of union players and singers were brought in to add orchestral or choral backing. Every minute of union overtime was extremely expensive. Surprisingly, The Beatles seemed not to mind such structure and formality. They were dedicated, energetic and extremely grateful for the professional guidance and contributions of George Martin and Norman Smith, their original engineer. All in all, they could hardly have been better business partners for EMI.

And so it continued for two years. Each new song, be it single or album cut, was recorded like clockwork in one or two sessions. Since the group seemed to enjoy the frantic pace and pressure, Brian Epstein guaranteed Parlophone four new singles and two new albums a year, but wait... In the U.K. singles were never included in albums, and each album contained fourteen songs rather than the ten to twelve on most American albums. Adding it all up, Brian had guaranteed to deliver thirty-six finished master tapes a year! Talk about pressure.

The Door to Wonderland

While I am not a believer in fate, the events of early February, 1964 pose very convincing arguments in its favor. The U.K. had gone ga-ga with Beatlemania during the second half of 1963 as four singles and the Beatles’ first album topped the charts. Yet Capitol Records, EMI’s U.S. affiliate, repeatedly passed on the early singles (some said, at the request of another Capitol artist, the Beach Boys!).

It would have been sheer stupidity for Capitol to pass again after “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” hit No. 1 in the U.K. Yet Epstein wanted more than a simple release, so he forced Capitol’s hand by booking a U.S. tour and several major TV appearances for February. Capitol finally issued “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in early January, backed up by a substantial promotion budget to hail the group’s impending arrival.

On February 1 “I Want To Hold Your Hand” reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Two days later the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it “gold,” i.e. it had sold 1 million copies. On the 7th the Beatles arrived at Kennedy Airport as thousands of teens surged onto the tarmact. The event topped TV and print headlines nationwide, and created a wild buzz of anticipation for the group’s upcoming appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, then the biggest variety show on American TV.

Seventy million viewers tuned in on Sunday, February 9 to see a studio audience of teenagers hysterical and screaming with joy as four cute Brits delivered their hormonal pop songs and took deep formal bows. America was transfixed and mesmerized. Tens of thousands of youthful lives changed direction that night, mine among them. High school graduation was approaching and I was headed for academic stardom. Yet on that night whatever plans I harbored for a professional career in science crumbled as I secretly devoted myself to making rock ‘n roll.

Behind the scenes, being a Beatle was hard work indeed. The group’s frantic 1964 and 1965 schedule included starring in and recording soundtracks for two feature films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help, endless TV appearances and continuous worldwide tours that fed the flames of Beatlemania. Nevertheless, the group delivered on Epstein’s 36-masters-a-year commitment through mid 1966, but not without severe physical and emotional burnout.


“Rubber Soul” became the Beatles’ first big break with the earlier pop-rock-R&B sound. Recording for the album began rather late, on October 12, 1965, with all parties committed to a pre-Christmas release as usual. However, a few of the songs required more thought and experimentation, and promised greater artistic impact than any of the group’s earlier material. “Drive My Car” and “Run For Your Life,” which would ultimately open and close the album, went to tape quite easily, but John’s newly-penned “Norwegian Wood” required, in Paul’s words, “much head-scratching, rehearsing and overdubbing.”

This was also the group’s first foray into non-rock instrumentation, with George Harrison playing double-tracked sitar and Ringo several hand percussions, but no regular drums. John and Paul added lead and background vocals to the first session’s tapes and pronounced the song complete. The next day they shelved it - perhaps a heavier-sounding remake would work better. Later, after repeated attempts to reshape the song in rehearsal, another sesssion produced three different versions, one with heavy sitar but no drums or bass (too cryptic, and definitely not very Norwegian), a second with two acoustic guitars and Paul’s bass, but no sitar, and a third (the final), with a lighter sitar part added to the acoustic version.

The group’s gamble again paid off, as it would with “Nowhere Man,” which pushed the limits of studio procedure with extreme electronic processing of the vocals and unbelievably bright guitars, and with “I’m Looking Through You,” which they promptly finished and mixed, then just as promptly rejected. Two more complete remakes were required to install the “Why, tell me why” sections and get the combination of bouncy feel and heavy acoustic sound that makes the final version so biting and unique. The original “complete” versions of “Norwegian Wood” and “I’m Looking Through You,” both quite listenable, are now contained on bands 14 and 15 of disc 1 of “The Beatles Anthology,” Vol. 2.

Lyrically, this trio of songs represents yet another break with the past. Let’s look at them point blank: first, a catchy ditty about an unconsummated one night stand where the angry suitor burns the seductress’ house down in revenge... That’ll sit well with the parents of teens! Next, a searing confession of personal and, by extension, societal worthlessness and inadequacy. Pass the cyanide, please. Finally, a biting accusation that the singer’s girlfriend is a manipulative chameleon without an ounce of sincerity or love in her heart. Defamation, anyone?

Looking deeper, most of “Rubber Soul” is lyrically just as bleak. “You Won’t See Me” and “Think for Yourself” are ‘end-of-romance’ tales of lovers frustrated by unacceptable feminine behavior. “Girl” warns that ‘she may look beautiful, but you’ll only get burnt.’ Finally, “Run For Your Life” delivers repeated, unvarnished death threats to a potentially unfaithful girlfriend! “I Wanna Wring Your Neck”?

While cheery Beatle melodies diverted our attention from the negativity of most of these, “Run For Your Life” pushed the envelope too far. Many U.S. radio stations refused to play it, and Capitol Records received requests from parents groups to excise the song from future pressings. The very idea - a pop song about a psycho determined to murder his girl! This on the heels of that gruesome meat-strewn, blood-stained cover for their previous U.S. album, “Yesterday... and Today.”

What had become of the simple joy and devotion of “Eight Days a Week,” and “Words of Love”? Life was spinning out of control for John, whose marriage to Cynthia had grown cold as drugs began to take hold of him. Paul’s relationship with Jane Ascher was in a hiatus, and George was by this time fully engrossed in mystical pursuits. Then there was the emptiness of success. All that money, the mansions in Weybridge or wherever, lives of abject luxury, with women throwing themselves at each Beatle in dizzying profusion.

Perhaps the final cut of “Beatles For Sale” had been prophetic - Carl Perkins’ snide self-portrait of bloated vanity (e.g. Elvis in his gaudy, overstuffed last years), “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby.” Conversely, if this song represented part of the problem, perhaps “Yesterday” was the group’s first cry for help:


By mid- 1965 the Beatles openly despised playing the characters that Brian Epstein had so carefully defined and promoted, and which the public now expected. As one collaborator later recalled, “The Beatles hated being the Beatles.” The only glue holding them together, individually and as a group, was their art.

The Mad Tea Party Begins - Reinventing the Recording Studio

As the studio seduced the Beatles with its promise of experimentation and greater artistic control and expression, so did the pleasures and emotional release of marijuana and later LSD. There were whole new worlds to investigate and render in music. Meanwhile, audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were searching for leaders with whom to turn on and tune in. Dylan, the Byrds, yet-unreleased but nationally-known acid-rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were already on the vanguard. In fact, Bob Dylan had turned the Beatles on to pot when he visited their New York hotel suite in August, 1964. They began smoking the giggly weed regularly without delay.

John Speaks Frankly:

Long before this, however, John made it perfectly clear in a Melody Maker interview (March 24, 1964) that their music and private lives were separate entities, and that he had no right to advise others on their own behavior:

RC: Do you think you have any responsibility to your fans in your personal behavior? Do young fans look up to you and act on things you say?

John: (long pause) No. I can’t be noble for the sake of it. The answer’s No. I don’t believe we have any responsibility, frankly, and it takes a bit of saying. It’s insulting the intelligence of a lot of young people to say we have.

We used to get requests from people, asking us if we’d go to a meeting and tell loads of people they shouldn’t drink. What do they take us for? We’d get laughed at if we said the youth of Britain shouldn’t drink. It’d be bloody impertinent. I haven’t the right to interfere with anybody else’s life. Do you think that just because a Beatle said: ‘Don’t go beating up people,’ the crime figures would go down? They wouldn’t, and it’s a cheek to expect us to do it. So I’d feel a right nit saying: ‘Thou Shalt Not Drink.’”

Few outside the studio realized the Beatles were using and recording under the influence of drugs by the end of 1964, although many collaborators later noted that one or all were stoned at sessions for “Help.” A few reports of off-the-wall behavior while filming made their way into the press, but the ‘60s were not like the ‘90s. So long as hits kept coming, the media were forgiving of the excesses of artists and other public figures. In early 1965, when someone slipped LSD into John’ and George’s coffee at a party, the days of mop-top innocence were over forever.

The recording of “Revolver” brought several situations to a head. The first song attempted, John’s “Tomorrow Never Knows,” shattered every song-writing and recording convention the group had established since “Love Me Do.” After completing “Rubber Soul,” George Harrison had bought and learned to play several other Indian instruments, John had begun studying all kinds of mystic literature and esoteric philosophy, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to Edgar Cayce’s and Timothy Leary’s works. Even Paul, in many ways the Beatle most commited to satisfying their youthful audience, was ready to step off the edge into the unknown.

What emerged in the first session on April 6, 1966, tentatively dubbed “Mark I” by Ringo, was later described by Mark Lewisohn as “a heavy metal recording of enormous proportions, with thundering echo and booming, quivering, ocean-bed vibrations. Peeking out from [this] squall was John Lennon’s voice, supremely eerie, as if it were broadcast from the cheapest transistor radio, delivering the most bizarre Beatles lyric yet.”

It was 20-year-old Geoff Emerick’s first session as engineer with the group, and both he and George Martin were hard-pressed to manifest the sounds John requested as the arrangement, basic tracks and overdubs emerged. According to all accounts, it was more like an exorcism than a Beatles session! No one knew what to make of the results, which can now be heard on band 17 of disc 1 of “The Beatles Anthology,” Vol. 2. If not quite as enormously proportioned as Lewisohn describes, it is nonetheless challenging to understand “Mark I” in any ordinary rock context.

George Martin’s mandate as an EMI “company-man” was to bring in hits. He certainly knew that the group was taking drugs, and could easily have said that this or that off-center song was not so good. Out of respect for his expertise, the group might have shelved more than a few of its most inventive recordings. Yet Martin always encouraged each Beatle to push his limits, and he generally found something positive even in their wildest experiments. Later, when it ultimately fell to him to make these visions work on tape, Martin never complained or cracked under the stress. He obviously realized that there was more at stake than just another pop hit.


Both “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” were intended for inclusion in “Sgt. Pepper,” but the group caved in to heavy label pressure for a Spring single. After all, it had been eight months since the last Beatles release of any kind. Reluctantly, they delivered their latest gems to EMI and, after taking an extended vacation, began the new album again. That John pushed hard to make “Strawberry Fields” the A Side shows how far he was now separated from rock and commercial reality.

The key to the album’s unity and perhaps it’s artistic success came to Paul while returning from an African safari in November of 1966. The group had quit touring partially because it was impossible to reproduce songs from “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” live, but moreover because they hated playing the characters that were defined in their earlier work. They were no longer teenagers, and they were tired of screaming fans and the tours that Brian Epstein forced them to undertake. It all seemed a lie, and each wished they could bury the past.

Paul Speaks - The Pepper Concept: (as explained to Barry Miles for Paul’s 1997 biography, Many Years From Now (1997, Owl Books, N.Y.)

“Suddenly on the plane I got this idea. Let’s not be ourselves [for the next album]. Let’s develop alter egos so we’re not having to project an image we already know. It would be much more free [if we] actually took on the personas of this different band. We can run this philosophy through the whole album... it won’t be us making all that sound, it won’t be The Beatles. It’ll be this other band, so we can lose our identity in it.” Later, when he presented the idea to the group, they liked it immediately. With this the concept-album was born. And with Paul’s concept firmly planted, almost every song for the album, from “Strawberry Fields” through “She’s Leaving Home,” “A Day In The Life” and the title cut, pictured a loss or rejection of identity.

Seven hundred-plus hours of recording and mixing later, “Sgt. Pepper” was ready for release on June 1, 1967. All through the process, George Martin later recalled, the group said, “There’s no such word as can’t.” It simply wasn’t in their vocabulary. They tried ANY idea that would improve the record again and again until they realized the desired musical or technical goal. The resulting product is almost universally regarded as the greatest single rock album of all time, one I consider perhaps the greatest recording in any musical genre. Can you name other candidates?

Perspiration, Inspiration, Karma, Luck

Good looks, mop-top hairdos and quick-witted humor aside, what in fact elevated The Beatles’ work above that of their contemporaries? Obviously, Lennon and McCartney had unique gifts for writing memorable melodies and lyrics, and for delivering them with electrifying energy and finesse. Furthermore, the range of their material (after their first UK albums, “Please Please Me” and “With the Beatles,” and the early singles) is astounding, from intimate ballads like “If I Fell” or “Yesterday” to almost heavy metal rockers such as “Helter Skelter” and “Revolution 9” that would be considered avant garde if released today. Momentary forays into British beer hall songs, Indian ragas and tape-based electronic music or musique concrete complete the portrait of a group anxious to try, and determined to conquer, every musical medium.

Then too, John and Paul’s ability to change voices to fit the character of each song is truly phenomenal. As actors they were on a par with the best. Consider the sharp contrast between Paul’s lead vocals on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Oh! Darling,” which appear one after another on “Abbey Road.” Similarly, the sounds of instruments in the group’s rhythm tracks varied wildly from one song to the next. Beginning with “Rubber Soul,” each new album both delighted and infuriated myself and the members of my own rock group. As ever, the music itself was charismatic, and we were hooked. Yet every new Beatles release redefined the rules of rock just as we were getting comfortable with their previous paradigm.



Part II. The Beatles


“You Won’t See Me,” from “Rubber Soul”
Key Signature: A Tempo: 116 bpm

Paul’s free-ranging bass line never rests. During the verses he climbs up and down the notes of each chord in a nervous, quasi-hypnotic phrase. Reflecting the song’s story line, Paul’s part has one foot out the door. If anger and frustration are the central points of this ‘spent relationship’ song, George’s harsh, staccato guitar chords on beats two and four of each measure convey this directly, turning each snare drum hit into a sonic dagger. Without hearing a word, we know the singer’s fists and teeth are clenched, an explosion waiting to happen. The arrangement paints the entire scene for the music video of the confrontation.

A single Hammond organ note - the tonic - sounds straight through the last verse and chorus and the fade, creating unrelenting tension. It is so loud we hardly notice it. Even Mark Lewisohn missed it completely when compiling his book on The Beatles’ sessions, thinking the log entry about an organ overdub a mistake. Yet there it is, bigger than life, like a sonic migraine or Chinese water torture. Once again, the entire record was completed in under three hours, including vocals.

“Girl,” from “Rubber Soul”
Key Signature: C minor / E-flat Tempo: 94 bpm

“Girl” is a one act comedy, with musical references to a variety of ethnic musical motifs, from the tight Germanic two-step of the verses to the fully Greek arrangement and feel of the solo. The latter, perfectly straight-faced in its formality, calls up pseudo-serious images of a ritualized wedding dance. John’s snide vocal, intentionally overacted and rife with mock-naivete, is capped by the song’s signature, absurd, lascivious breathing after each repeat of the title. Taken as a piece, “Girl” portrays a foppish lover swooning in the cheap perfume of feigned emotion. The effect is magnified by George’s breezy strumming and the unexcited feel of the rhythm section: the band couldn’t care less about John’s impassioned tale.

Ever jokesters and masters of word play, John and Paul sang “tit tit tit tit,” rather than the oft-used “dit dit dit...” in the staccato, three part background vocals of the bridge. The difference it slight, but John confessed that they had a good laugh injecting naughty gestures wherever they could get away with it. A month earlier they had slipped “She’s a prick teaser” into the second verse of “Day Tripper.” In context the line sounds like “big teaser” until one listens very closely. Similarly, the title of “Drive My Car” derives from an old blues euphemism for sex. George’s whining, catlike solo paints a slippery picture of the all-talk, no action L.A. chicks John and Paul pictured while writing the lyric.


“Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite,” from “Sgt. Pepper”
Key Signature: C minor Tempo: 114 bpm

The psychedelic ambience of “Mr. Kite” is largely the result of a collision of two completely different audio spaces: the rhythm section and vocals are relatively dry of reverb, the instrument turnarounds and caliope/carnival ‘solo’ and coda very wet. At every transition from dry to wet and back again, one’s skull feels like it’s being opened for airing, then closed for privacy. Finally, not knowing which space is real, we just give up and let it all wash over us, exactly as Alice accepted each new Wonderland absurdity at face value.

In “dry-world,” John’s voice is thickly doubled with ADT and pushed way over to the right. The alternating kick and hi hat are heavily compressed and have a funny “thpp - tssss, thpp - tsss” sound during the verses that suggests heavy breathing. (Try to mimic it, breathing in on “thpp” and out on “tsss.” To get the proper “thpp,” stick your tongue way out, then suck in hard, letting your lips smack shut as the tongue is drawn back in. Be careful not to hyperventilate when you repeat this at tempo!) Droll, two-note oom-pah organ and harmonium chords are the only only instrumental sound, except for Paul’s lumpy, tuba-like bass sound. No guitars, no piano, nothing.

The glittering “wet-world” solo evokes images of Fantasyland, thanks to George Martin’s unique abilty to shred caliope, organ and other carnival recordings and reassemble them into a shattered, cubistic ‘solo’ fit for a child’s mind. The result, presented in stereo with miasmic, three-dimensional reverb, is all the weirder in contrast to the stiff, archaic two-step that continues in the rhythm section, still dry as a bone.

Moreover, the solo reverb is heavily pre-delayed, meaning that there is a gap of perhaps one or two tenths of a second between each note and its reverb. The pre-delay was created by a tape delay patched in ahead of the reverb’s input - these days a digital delay would be used instead). Such a ‘hole’ between any sound and its reverb increases the apparent size of the resulting space, as though the sound were bouncing back from a distant wall.

Several false starts and incomplete takes, along with bits of John/Paul banter between takes, are contained on disc 2, band 8 of The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 2. Band 9 presents a clearer 1996 remix of the finished “Mr. Kite” four track master. While every sound is noticably clearer in the new mix, it somehow lacks the strange and archaic ambience of the original.


“Blackbird,” from the “White Album”
Key Signature: G Tempo: 96 bpm

Another musical gem by Paul, written while up at his farm in Scotland, then recorded and mixed in a single six hour evening session while John was working on “Revolution 9” in the adjacent studio. The lyric is also one of Paul’s best. Like that of “Hey Jude” and other McCartney gems, it embodies the theme of empowerment. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly,” “Take a sad song and make it better...” Paul was indeed a raving optimist at heart, and still is.

Arrangement-wise, the delicacy and fluidity of Paul’s finger-picked acoustic guitars contrast with the insistent beat of the only percussion sound in the record, a metronome! This continuous ‘tic-toc’ also reinforces the importance of time as a subtle driving force in the lyric. Note how the metronome fades out for Paul’s broad retard preceding the final verse, and then comes right back in. Perfection.

Take 4 of Blackbird is presented on disc 1, band 14 of “The Beatles Anthology,” Vol. 3. It’s a fine take, except for some studio noise. Nevertheless, Paul plowed on, finally declaring a victory in Take 32.

“Rocky Raccoon,” from the “White Album”
Key Signature: C Tempo: 78 bpm

Paul’s half-sung, semi-improvised opening monologue is a unique specimen of Beatles story-telling. With his broad ‘Old-West’ accent, Paul’s characterization is worthy of the finest acting talent in Hollywood. It’s just that good. George Martin’s vari-speeded, ADT’d ‘player piano’ solo perfectly recreates the bar-room flavor of a scene from “Gunsmoke,” “Maverick” or any 1950s Western TV show or feature film. Feelwise, Martin’s solo also recreates much the same ambience as his chop-shop caliope solo for “Mr. Kite,” whose lyrics came straight off an 1843 English circus poster. Same time, different place!

While you’re listening, check out Paul’s Roaring ‘20s-style vocal on “Honey Pie.” He really did his homework before each characterization. Here, over a bed of tuba-like bass, ukelele-style guitar and fluttering, four-part, “barber shop” clarinets, Paul captures every nuance of the casual, half-falsetto, highly-vibrato’d tenor stylings of the period.

Disc 1, band 21 of “The Beatles Anthology,” Vol. 3 contains an early take of “Rocky Raccoon,” where the story line and lyric of the song were still in progress.



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