Track 13 – A Day In The Life: A song with such flagrant differences to anything The Beatles (or anyone else for that matter) had ever released before was due to make an impact, whether with criticism or praise. Upon first release, it received both.
The phrase “I’d love to turn you on” definitely caught the
attention of the BBC, who was quick to ban the song for encouraging drug use. Another
lyric, “found my way upstairs and had a smoke…and I went into a dream,” was
viewed with equal suspicion, not to mention the “orgasm of sound” heard twice
in the recording which was said to simulate a drug rush. “We have listened to
this song over and over again,” a spokesman for the BBC stated, “and we have
decided that it appears to go just a little too far, and could encourage a
permissive attitude to drug-taking.”
“Banning doesn’t help,” Paul stated on the May 19th, 1967 dinner
party to launch the “Sgt. Pepper” album at Brian Epstein’s London home. “It
just draws attention to a subject when, all the time, their aim is to force
attention away from it. Banning never
did any good…If they wanted to, they would have found plenty of double meanings
in our early stuff. How about, ‘I’ll Keep You Satisfied’ or ‘Please Please
Me’? Everything has a double meaning if
you look for it long enough…Still, I don’t care if they ban it because there
are plenty of other tracks they’ll play.”
Other tracks did get attention given to them by the BBC as well,
“With A Little Help From My Friends” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” being
earmarked as encouraging drug use. Because of this, these tracks, including “A
Day In The Life,” went as far as being excluded from the released album in
South Asia, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
On the other hand, praise for the song has done nothing but
flourish as time has progressed. “The best ever collaborative effort between
Lennon and McCartney” (John Robertson), “(The song) redefines everything that
came before” (Tim Riley), “The sound of The Beatles on a historic roll” (Jann
S. Wenner) are among the countless accolades given to “A Day In The Life” by
writers and critics around the world. Being named both the 28th greatest song
of all time and the #1 Beatles song of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine says
it all.
‘Pushing the envelope’ as they knew they were, everyone in The
Beatles camp had their misgivings about the songs’ release. Paul was captured
on tape during the orchestral overdub (as heard on “Anthology 2”) explaining to
someone, “The worst thing about doing this, that we’re doing something like this,
is they’ll think of it. At first, people said a bit suspicious…you know, ‘Come
on, what are you up to?’” George Martin also had concern, thinking they “were
being a bit pretentious, a bit clever-clever.”
This apprehension was put to rest when Martin played the song to
Capitol Records president Alan Livingston. “I played him ‘A Day In The Life,”
George Martin explains. “It knocked him sideways. He was completely
flabbergasted by it. He was in no way
perturbed by any aspect of the song, by its relatively bizarre lyrics or its
avant-garde production – only speechless with admiration. I knew then we were
home and dry. I suppose I had been worried that we might be leaving our public
behind, getting a bit too fast in front. If Alan Livingston liked it, though…”
And the rest is history!
Session One: Two days after that issue of the “Daily Mail” came
out, The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two around 7:30 pm to begin the song that
was titled, for this day only, “In The Life Of…”
Engineer Geoff Emerick, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,”
explains in intricate detail the humble beginnings of this monumental song: “One
mid-January evening, the four Beatles rolled up, a little bit stoned, as had
become usual, but with a tinge of excitement. They had a new song they’d been
working on…and they were anxious to play it for George Martin and me. They had
gotten in the habit of meeting at Paul’s house in nearby St. John’s Wood before
sessions, where they’d have a cup of tea, perhaps a puff of a joint, and John
and Paul would finish up any songs that were still in progress. Once a song was
complete, the four of them would start routining it right there and then,
working out parts, learning the chords and time changes, all before they got to
the studio. They would then get in their respective cars and be driven over to
Abbey Road – although it was walking distance, they couldn’t take a stroll
because of all the fans – which explained why they always showed up together
despite living considerable distances from one another.”
“The song…was in a similar vein to “Strawberry Fields Forever” –
light and dreamy – but it was somehow even more compelling. I was in awe; I distinctly remember thinking,
‘Christ, John’s topped himself!’ As Lennon sang softly, strumming his acoustic
guitar, Paul accompanied him on piano. A lot of thought must have gone into the
piano part because it was providing a perfect counterpoint to John’s vocal and
guitar playing. Ringo joined on bongos, while George Harrison, who seemed to
have been given nothing specific to do, idly shook a pair of maracas.”
“The song, as played during that first run-through, consisted
simply of a short introduction, three verses, and two perfunctory choruses. The
only lyric in the chorus was a rather daring ‘I’d love to turn you on’ – six
provocative words that would result in the song being banned by the BBC. Obviously
more was needed to flesh it out…There was a great deal of discussion about what
to do, but no real resolution. Paul thought
he might have something that would fit, but for the moment everyone was keen to
start recording, so it was decided simply to leave twenty-four empty bars in
the middle as a kind of placeholder. This in itself was unique in Beatles
recording: the song was clearly
unfinished, but it was so good nonetheless that it was decided to plow ahead
and get it down on tape and then finish it later. In essence, the composition
was going to be structured during the recording stage. Without any conscious
forethought, we were in the process of creating not just a song, but a musical
work of art.”
Concerning the recording process used for recording the song at
this point, Mark Lewisohn’s book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” notes: “Take
one of ‘A Day In The Life’ used just two of the four available tracks: a basic rhythm (bongos, maracas, piano and
guitar) on track one and a heavily echoed Lennon vocal on track four.”
With John on acoustic guitar and Paul on piano, a change needed to
be made regarding the other percussion instruments. “After the first
run-through with Harrison on maracas,” remembers Geoff Emerick, “George Martin
turned to me in the control room and said, ‘He’s not very steady, is he? I think I’ll have him switch with Ringo,’ and
I concurred. Ringo was a much better timekeeper, and George Harrison’s
concentration used to wander too much to keep a steady tempo for three or four
minutes straight. I mixed the little bit of noodling Harrison ended up doing on
the bongos so far in the background that it was nearly inaudible.”
Regarding the empty twenty-four bars separating the distinct
sections of the song, George Martin, in his book “All You Need Is Ears,”
recalls: “When we recorded the original track it was just Paul banging away on
the same piano note, bar after bar, for twenty-four bars. We agreed that it was
a question of ‘This space to be filled later.’ In order to keep time, we got
Mal Evans to count each bar, and on the record, you can still hear his voice as
he stood by the piano counting: ‘One – two – three – four…’ For a joke, Mal set
an alarm clock to go off at the end of twenty-four bars, and you can hear that
too. We left it in because we couldn’t get it off!”
Geoff Emerick explains further: “Mal Evans was dispatched to stand
by the piano and count off the twenty-four bars in the middle so that each
Beatle could focus on his playing and not have to think about it. Though Mal’s
voice was fed into the headphones, it was not meant to be recorded, but he got
more and more excited as the count progressed, raising his voice louder and
louder. As a result, it began feeding through on to the other mics, so some of
it even survived onto the final mix. There also happened to be a windup alarm
clock set on top of the piano – Lennon had brought it in as a gag one day,
saying that it would come in handy for waking up Ringo when he was needed for
an overdub. In a fit of silliness, Mal
decided to set it off at the start of the 24th bar; that, too, made it onto the
finished recording…for no reason other than that I couldn’t get rid of it.”
As the tape began rolling for the first take, however, we can hear
John instructing the production staff by saying: “Not the mike on the piano
quite low, just, just keep it in my maracas, you know. You know those old pianos!” “Normally it was
Paul who did the count-in at the start of a song,” Emerick states, “even if it
were a Lennon or Harrison composition, simply because he had the best sense of
what would be the optimum tempo. Occasionally,
however, John would count in his own songs.
Whenever he did, he would substitute nonsense words: the standard ‘one, two, three, four’ just
wasn’t good enough for him. On this
particular cold January evening – close enough to the holidays that the
Christmas trees in most homes were still up – he opted to use the phrase
‘sugarplum fairy, sugarplum fairy’ instead, which gave us all a chuckle up in
the control room.” Some sources say this phrase referred to drug suppliers of
that time but never verified with any certainty.
Paul’s middle section to the song (“Woke up, fell out of bed…”)
was already in place from the first take on this day. However, as Mark Lewisohn
points out, “there was no Paul McCartney vocal yet, merely instruments at the
point where his contribution would later be placed, but then John’s vocal
returned, leading into another Mal Evans one to 24-count and then a single
piano – building, building, building, building, stop. Breathtaking stuff
indeed.”
George Martin explains in the film “The Making Of Sgt. Pepper”
about the initial vocal John put down on take one: “John was singing while he
was playing his acoustic guitar…Even in this early take, he has a voice which
sends shivers down the spine.”
“Once he started singing, we were all stunned into silence,”
Emerick continues, “the raw emotion in his voice made the hairs on the back of
my neck stand up. Once the sparse
backing track was deemed satisfactory (take four), Lennon did take after take
of the lead vocal, each heavily laden with tape echo, each more amazing than
the one before. His vocal performance that night was an absolute tour de force,
and it was all George Martin, Phil (McDonald), and I could talk about long
after the session ended.”
Regarding these vocal overdubs, Mark Lewisohn notes: “With take
four John began a series of vocal overdubs onto the two vacant tracks so that
by the evening’s end the four-track tape included three separate Lennon vocals,
all with heavy echo.” Engineer Geoff Emerick interjects: “There was so much
echo on ‘A Day In The Life.’ We’d send a
feed from John’s vocal mike into a mono tape machine and then tape the output –
because they had separate record and replay heads – and then feed that back in
again. Then we’d turn up the record
level until it started to feedback on itself and give a twittery sort of vocal
sound. John was hearing that echo in his cans (headphones) as he was singing. It
wasn’t put on after. He used his own
echo as a rhythmic feel for many of the songs he sang, phrasing his voice
around the echo in his cans.”
The session ended at 2:30 am the following morning and, although
all four tracks of the master tape were filled, it was obvious that much more
work would be required to get it to a finished state. What wasn’t obvious,
however, was what actually would be required to get it to that state.
Session Two: The Beatles
filed into EMI Studio Two once again later that evening, January 20th, for more
work on the song. “The next night’s session began with an intensive review of
what had been laid down on tape,” Emerick states. “Our job was to decide which
of John’s lead vocals was the ‘keeper.’ We didn’t have to use the entire performance,
though necessarily. Because we had the luxury of working in four-track, I could
copy over (“bounce”) the best lines from each take into one track – a process
known as ‘comping.’ This is a recording technique that is still very much in
use today…All we were really listening for when we were comping John’s vocal
was phrasing and inflection; he never had trouble hitting the notes spot
on. Lennon sat behind the mixing console
with George Martin and me, picking out the bits he liked. Paul was up in the
control room, too, expressing his opinions, but George Harrison and Ringo
stayed down in the studio; they just weren’t involved to that extent.”
Three attempts at tape reductions were made, numbered 5 through 7,
although “take six” was the one decided to be the best. Being brought over to a
new four-track tape, this opened up tracks for more overdubs, two of which were
Paul’s bass guitar and Ringo’s drums, both recorded on this day. A relatively
standard recording technique was used on the drums at this stage, while Ringo
put in an inventive performance with emphasis on putting in extensive drum
fills focused around the snare drum. Paul also put in an interesting bass
guitar overdub, a unique feature being a mimic of John’s warbly vocal
performance for the words “turn…you…on” as the bass proceeds into the 24 bar
countdowns of the song. And then, a very
psychedelic “freak-out” bass part at the end which he undoubtedly figured would
be faded out. Also, overdubbed on this day was a bit more piano from Paul on
the introduction, just before John began singing, which added a little swell of
volume before the vocals came in.
Interestingly, George Harrison took to adding an electric rhythm
guitar part to the song as an overdub on this day which, when listening to the
existing tape, is especially discernible as the first verse concludes, but
apparently didn't make it to the released version. John also overdubbed himself
double-tracking his vocals in two strategic places: the phrases “I’d love to turn you on” as well
as the quick falsetto words that precede these passages. One other overdub that
occurred on this day concerned the middle section of the song. Paul took to
recording a guide vocal here for the first time, although it wasn’t meant to be
the finished version; just a guide to show how it would work with the song. Emerick
states: “In what could only be described
as pure serendipity, it happened, to begin with, the lyric ‘woke up, fell out
of bed…’ which, incredibly, perfectly fit the alarm clock ringing. If ever there was an omen that this was to be
a very special song in the Beatles canon, this was it.”
This guide vocal was perfected two weeks later, Paul’s new vocal
wiping out this guide vocal in the process. This preliminary version, however,
was still preserved on tape and has been made available on the 1996 release
“Anthology 2,” even with the expletive “Oh, sh*t” at the end after he
mistakenly sang “everybody spoke, and I went into a dream.”
As for this second session for the song, it ended at 12:10 am the
following morning. The Beatles then took a ten-day break from recording during
which they filmed promotional clips for their soon-to-be-released “Strawberry
Fields Forever / Penny Lane” single.
For demo purposes only, the first mono mix of the song as it stood
so far was made on January 30th, 1967 in the control room of EMI Studio Three
by George Martin, Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush. The Beatles were not in
attendance, nor did they need to be. While this mix is an interesting listen,
it was only created to allow the group to hear what was done and to help them
decide what was further needed to complete the song.
Session Three: Work resumed on “A Day In the Life” on February
3rd, 1967 in EMI Studio Two, the session indicated to have begun at 7 pm. The
first overdub to be tackled on this day appears to have been replacing Paul’s
guide vocal with the real thing, complete with heavy breathing from John after
the words "I noticed I was late." “He and I had a long discussion
about that,” Geoff Emerick explains, “which led to another sonic
innovation. He explained that he wanted
his voice to sound all muzzy as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep and
hadn’t yet gotten his bearings because that was what the lyric was trying to
convey. My way of achieving that was to deliberately remove a lot of the treble
from his voice and heavily compress it to make him sound muffled. When the song
goes into the next section, the dreamy section that John sings, the full
fidelity is restored.”
Editing in this vocal was quite tricky for Richard Lush, who had
only just recently been recruited to work on Beatles sessions. Emerick continues: “Paul’s vocal…was being
dropped into the same track that contained John’s lead vocal, and there was a
very tight drop-out point between the two – between Paul’s singing ‘…and I went
into a dream’ and John’s ‘ahhh’ that starts the next section. Richard was quite paranoid about it – with
good reason – and I remember him asking me to get on the talkback mic to
explain the situation to Paul and ask him not to deviate from the phrasing that
he had used on the guide vocal.”
“I was really impressed when Richard did that – I thought it
showed great maturity to be proactive that way. John’s vocal, after all, had
such great emotion, and it also had tape echo on it. The thought of having to
do it again and re-create the atmosphere was daunting…not to mention what John’s
reaction would have been! Someone’s head would have been bitten off, and it most
likely would have been mine. But Paul, ever professional, did heed the warning,
and he made certain to end the last word distinctly in order to give Richard
sufficient time to drop out before John’s vocal came back in. Listening
carefully, you can actually hear Paul slightly rush the vocal; he even adds a
little ‘ah’ to the end of the word ‘dream,’ giving it a very clipped ending.”
The above quote indicates that John’s dreamy “aaah” vocal of the
song must also have been recorded on this day, but prior to Paul’s lead vocal
section. This can confidently be said since the last day they worked on the
song was on January 20th, this resulting in the “take six” mono mix of January
30th, which did not contain John’s vocals in that section.
Speaking of the mono mix of January 20th, listening to it
obviously persuaded the group that both the bass and drums could be improved. Paul
re-recorded his entire bass part on this day, dropping the warbly playing and
the “freak-out” section at the end as his first bass attempt had. As for the
drums, in his book “Many Years From Now,” Paul recounts: “We persuaded Ringo to
play tom-toms. It’s sensational. He
normally didn’t like to play lead drums, as it were, but we coached him through
it. We said, ‘Come on, you’re fantastic, this will be really beautiful,’ and
indeed it was.” Phil Collins remarks, “The drum fills on ‘Day In The Life’ are
very, very complex things. You know, you could take a great drummer from today
and say, ‘I want it like that,’ and they really wouldn’t know what to do.”
Geoff Emerick gives an interesting account of this drum overdub: “Paul
suggested that Ringo not just do his normal turn but really cut loose on the
track, and I could see that the drummer was quite reticent. ‘Come on, Paul, you
know how much I hate flashy drumming,’ he complained, but with John and Paul
coaching and egging him on, he did an overdub that was nothing short of
spectacular, featuring a whole series of quirky tom-tom fills.”
"Because John and Paul felt so strongly that the drums be
featured in this song. I decided to
experiment sonically as well. We were looking for a thicker, more tonal
quality, so I suggested that Ringo tune his toms really low, making the skins
really slack, and I also added a lot of low end at the mixing console. That
made them sound almost like timpani, but I still felt there was more I could do
to make his playing stand out. During the making of ‘Revolver,’ I had removed
the front skin from Ringo’s bass drum, and everyone was pleased with the
resultant sound, so I decided to extend that principle and take off the bottom
heads from the tom-toms as well, miking them from underneath. We had no boom stands
that could extend underneath the floor tom, so I simply wrapped the mic in a
towel and placed it in a glass jug on the floor. For the icing on the cake, I
decided to overly limit the drum premix, which made the cymbals sound
huge. It took a lot of work and effort,
but that’s one drum sound I was extremely proud of, and Ringo, who was always
meticulous about his sounds, loved it, too.”
It was on this day, no doubt after the overdubs were complete,
that a monumental decision was being made.
George Martin explains: “The
question was, how were we going to fill those twenty-four bars of emptiness? After
all, it was pretty boring! So, I asked John for his ideas. As always, it was a
matter of my trying to get inside his mind, discover what pictures he wanted to
paint, and then try to realize them for him…John said, ‘I want it to be like a
musical orgasm…What I’d like to hear is a tremendous build-up, from nothing up
to something absolutely like the end of the world. I’d like it to be from extreme quietness to
extreme loudness, not only in volume but also for the sound to expand as
well. I’d like to use a symphony
orchestra for it. Tell you what, George, you book a symphony orchestra, and
we’ll get them in a studio and tell them what to do.’”
Paul goes on record to say that he had a big part in the “musical
orgasm” idea: “I sat John down and suggested it to him, and he liked it a lot.
I said, ‘Look, all these composers are doing really weird avant-garde things
and what I’d like to do here is give the orchestra some really strange
instructions. We could tell them to sit there and be quiet, but that’s been
done, or we could have our own ideas based on this school of thought. This is
what’s going on now; this is what the movement’s about.’ So, this is what we
did.”
George Martin continues: “’Come on, John,’ I said, ‘there’s no way
you can get a symphony orchestra sitting around and say to them, “Look fellers,
this is what you’re going to do.” Because you won’t get them to do what you
want them to do. You’ve got to write
something down for them.’ ‘Why?’ asked John, with his typically wide-eyed
approach to such matters. ‘Because they’re all playing different instruments,
and unless you’ve got time to go round each of them individually and see
exactly what they do, it just won’t work.’”
Geoff Emerick adds to the story: “George Martin liked the idea,
but, mindful of the cost, was adamant that there was no way he could justify
charging EMI for a full ninety-piece orchestra just to play twenty-four bars of
music. It was Ringo, of all people, who came up with the solution. ‘Well, then,’ he joked, ‘let’s just hire half
an orchestra and have them play it twice.’
Everyone did a double take, stunned by the simplicity – or was it
simple-mindedness? – of the suggestion.
‘You know, Ring, that’s not a bad idea,’ Paul said. ‘But still, boys,
think of the cost…’ George Martin stammered.
Lennon put an end to the discussion, ‘Right, Henry,’ he said, his voice
carrying the tone of an emperor issuing a decree. ‘Enough chitchat, let’s do it.’”
With the ball thrown into George Martin’s court, the recording
session was complete for the day at 1:15 am the following morning. With the
weekend off, George Martin undoubtedly began his plan to carry out John’s
wishes.
Session Four: A week went
by since the decision to use an orchestra was decided. While George Martin was busy with recording
sessions for two new Beatles songs during the week, namely “Good Morning Good
Morning” and “Fixing A Hole,” he was also working out all of the details in
preparation for the orchestra session, which was arranged for February 10th,
1967. The cavernous EMI Studio One was booked this time since it was almost
always used for classical recordings and could accommodate symphony orchestras.
Although it was John’s request to have them improvise, George knew
that wouldn’t fly with session musicians of this caliber. Therefore, he knew he
had to put something together for them, which he did sometime within the
previous week. “He did explain what he wanted sufficiently for me to be able to
write a score,” George Martin explains. “For the ‘…turn you onnnnnnn…’ bit, I
used cellos and violas. I had them
playing those two notes that echo John’s voice. However, instead of fingering
their instruments, which would produce crisp notes, I got them to slide their
fingers up and down the frets, building in intensity until the start of the
orchestral climax.”
“That climax was something else again. What I did there was to
write, at the beginning of the twenty-four bars, the lowest possible note for
each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I
wrote the highest note each instrument could reach that was near a chord of E
major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with
reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during
each bar…I marked the music ‘pianissimo’ at the beginning and ‘fortissimo’ at
the end. Everyone was to start as
quietly as possible, almost inaudibly, and end in a (metaphorically) lung-bursting
tumult.”
There was one more section that needed a score written out for,
Paul apparently having had a part in this.
He explains: “We wrote out the music for the part where the orchestra
had proper chords to do: after ‘somebody
spoke and I went into a dream…’ big pure chords come in.”
Additional preparation was needed and arranged for proceeding the
day’s session. “We all felt a sense of occasion since it was the largest
orchestra we ever used on a Beatles recording,” George Martin continues. “So, I
wasn’t all that surprised when Paul rang up and said, ‘Look, do you mind coming
in evening dress?’ ‘Why? What’s the idea?’
‘We thought we’d have fun. We’ve never had a big orchestra before, so we
thought we’d have fun on the night. So
will you come in evening dress? And I’d
like all the orchestra to come in evening dress, too.’ ‘Well, that may cost a bit extra, but we’ll
do it,’ I said. ‘What are you going to wear?’ ‘Oh, our usual freak-outs’ – by
which he meant their gaudy hippie clothes, floral coats and all.”
Barry Miles, friend, and co-author of Paul’s “Many Years From Now”
book describes the scene in the studio that day, February 10th, 1967, starting
at 8 pm. “The studio was filled with
balloons, and flower children in tattered lace and faded velvet tripped around
the room blowing rainbow bubbles. Three
Rolling Stones – Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger – accompanied by
Marianne Faithfull paraded in King’s Road psychedelic finery, with flowing
scarves, crushed velvet and satin trousers and multicolored boots. Donovan, the
cosmic troubadour, Graham Nash, the only psychedelic member of The Hollies, the
Monkee Mike Nesmith, Patti Harrison (George’s wife) and dozens of other friends
milled around the edge of the room. The
four Dutch designers known as The Fool arrived dressed as characters from the
Tarot, carrying tambourines and bells, while the mighty Abbey Road air
conditioners worked hard to control the rich fragrance of joss sticks and
marijuana.” Interestingly, the tambourine playing of Marijke Koger of The Fool
was caught on tape during this session and actually appears on the released
recording.
During the recording sessions of the previous week, discussions
ensued between John, Paul and the engineering staff as to what would transpire
on this orchestral session. During these
discussions, John came up with an idea intended to get the orchestra musicians
to cooperate. Geoff Emerick relates the
details about one of these conversations: “John seemed lost in thought for a
moment, and then brightened up. ‘Well, if we put them in silly party hats and
rubber noses, maybe then they’ll understand what it is we want. That will
loosen up those tight-asses!’ I thought
it was a brilliant idea. The idea was to get them into the spirit of things, to
create a party atmosphere, a sense of camaraderie. John was not seeking to
necessarily embarrass them or make them look silly – he was actually trying to
tear down the barrier that had existed between classical and pop musicians for
years…To gales of laughter from the others, Lennon began reeling off a list of
what he wanted Mal to purchase at the novelty store: silly hats, rubber noses, clown wigs, bald
head pates, gorilla paws…and lots of clip-on nipples.”
“As everyone began tuning up, Mal started circulating among the
musicians, handing out party favors. ‘Here you go, mate, have one of these,’ he
would say amiably in his working-class Liverpool accent, rubber nose or fake
boob in hand…Most of them ended up donning hats, gorilla paws, and the like,
though I suspect they probably would have been a little more resistant if it
wasn’t for the fact that Mal was six foot four and weighed well over two
hundred pounds.”
George Martin remembers: “After one of the rehearsals I went into
the control room to consult Geoff Emerick.
When I went back into the studio, the sight was unbelievable. The orchestra leader, David McCallum, who
used to be the leader of the Royal Philharmonic, was sitting there in a bright
red false nose. He looked up at me through paper glasses. Erich Gruenberg, now
a soloist and once leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was playing happily
away, his left hand perfectly normal on the strings of his violin, but his bow held
in a giant gorilla’s paw. Every member of the orchestra had a funny hat on
above the evening dress, and the total effect was completely weird.”
Personal attention needed to be made to each musician, something
Paul personally helped George Martin to do. “So we had to go round and talk to
them all,” Paul explained, “seeing them all separate: ‘Wot’s all this,
Paul? What exactly d’you…’ ‘In your own speed…’ ‘What do you mean, anyway I want?’ ‘Yeah.’
The trumpets got the idea rather easily. ‘You can do it all in one spurt
if you like. But you can’t go back. You’ve got to end at your top note, or have
done your top note.’…All the strings went together like sheep; all looked at
each other to see who was going up…Trumpets had no such reservations
whatsoever; trumpets are notoriously the guys who go to the pub because you
need to wet your whistle, you need plenty of spittle. So, they were very free.”
“The musicians also had instructions to slide as gracefully as
possible between one note and the next,” remembers George Martin. “In the case of the stringed instruments,
that was a matter of sliding their fingers up the strings. With keyed instruments, like clarinet and
oboe, they obviously had to move their fingers from key to key as they went up,
but they were asked to ‘lip’ the changes as much as possible too… And in
addition to this extraordinary piece of musical gymnastics, I told them that
they were to disobey the most fundamental rule of the orchestra. They were not to listen to their neighbors. A well-schooled orchestra plays, ideally,
like one man, following the leader. I
emphasized that this was exactly what they must not do. I told them, ‘I want
everyone to be individual. It’s every man for himself. Don’t listen to the fellow next to you. If he’s a third away from you, and you think
he’s going to fast, let him go. Just do
your own slide up, your own way.’ Needless to say, they were amazed. They had
certainly never been told that before.”
George Martin began to get quite frustrated explaining what was
needed from the musicians. “’Do what??
What the bloody hell…?’” was heard by Geoff Emerick as he eavesdropped
on a conversation between Martin and Erich Gruenberg, which resulted in the
reassurance “’Just trust me. Please.
Just Trust Me’” as balloons kept popping in the background.
Actually, recording the performance was a big challenge as
well. “Three of the four tracks of the
multitrack master were already filled with overdubs, and I knew we’d be having
the orchestra play at least twice all the way through, so the one remaining
track clearly wouldn’t be sufficient. One option was doing a mono premix, but
that meant taking the recording down another generation, and we’d already done
several reductions, so I really didn’t want to do that. Another option was to
utilize a second four-track machine for recording the orchestra, using the original
tape for playback only. That would give us four additional tracks to record on,
but the problem there was synchronization; we needed to find a way to lock the
two machines together so that they ran at exactly the same speed – something
that had never been done before, at least not at EMI.”
In the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” engineer Ken
Townsend relates: “George Martin came up
to me that morning and said to me, ‘Oh Ken, I’ve got a poser for you. I want to run two four-track tape machines
together this evening. I know it’s never
been done before, can you do it?’ So, I went away and came up with a method
whereby we fed a 50 cycle tone from the track of one machine then raised its
voltage to drive the capstan motor of the second, thus running the two in
sync. Like all these things, the ideas
either work first time or not at all.
This one worked first time. At the session, we ran the Beatles’ rhythm
track on one machine, put an orchestral track on the second machine, ran it
back did it again, and again, and again until we had four orchestra
recordings.”
Geoff Emerick continues: “Finally a rehearsal was called – or so
the musicians thought. We had made a decision beforehand that we would roll
tape for every attempt at playing the twenty-four-bar climb, whether it was a
proper take or just a rehearsal. This
was partially because of the technical challenges – we knew that the two
machines would not run in sync every time we attempted it, so we wanted to
maximize our chances – and partially because we were doing something naughty. Ever
conscious of cost, George Martin had warned Richard and me not to let the
musicians know we would be recording them multiple times on separate tracks
because doing so would result in massive extra charges. Instead, we were under strict instructions to
make them think that each time around we were wiping the previous take and
recording over it. But, of course, we
weren’t; over the remaining two and a half hours of the session, we actually
recorded them playing that passage eight separate times, on two clean sections
of four-track tape.”
Friend Pete Shotton, who was also in attendance on the day,
recounts another element of the session: “The twist was added during the taping
of the cosmic crescendo on ‘A Day In The Life,’ for which Paul has assumed,
with obvious relish, the role of conductor.”
Paul remembers: “I felt initially embarrassed facing that sea of
sessioners. So, I decided to treat them like human beings and not professional
musicians. I tried to give myself to
them.”
Geoff Emerick gives some more detail: “As the evening wore on,
Paul decided to have a go at conducting, too, and despite his inexperience, he
did quite a good job. They took slightly
different approaches: George imparted a little more instruction than Paul did,
giving the musicians little signposts along the way, while Paul urged them to
play more free-form. The combination and contrast between the two different
styles made for an interesting sonic experience when we finally listened back
to the tracks – well after the musicians had packed up and left for the night.”
As for the activities of the other Beatles, Geoff adds: “Through
all the hubbub, a mellowed-out John was just wandering around in a daze. He, Paul, and George Martin popped into the
control room to hear the first playback or two; other than that; they spent the
entire evening in the studio along with George Harrison, Ringo, and their guests.”
And finally, the orchestral overdub was complete. “As George
Martin put down his baton and said, ‘Thank you, gentlemen, that’s a wrap,’
everyone in the entire studio – orchestra members, Beatles, and Beatles friends
alike – broke into spontaneous applause. It was a hell of a moment, and the
perfect ending to a remarkable session.”
At this point, however, the song ended with the orchestra reaching
the high E major chord. Paul had another
idea brewing in his head on this day. “Paul asked the other Beatles and their
guests to stick around,” Geoff remembers, “and try out an idea he had just
gotten for an ending, something he wanted to overdub on after the final
orchestral climax. Everyone was weary –
the studio was starting to smell suspiciously of pot, and there was lots of
wine floating around – but they were keen to have a go. Paul’s concept was to have everyone hum the
same note in unison; it was the kind of avant-garde thinking he was doing a lot
of in those days. It was absurd, really
– the biggest gathering of pop stars in the world, gathered around a
microphone, humming, with Paul conducting the choir…It was a fun way to cap off
a fine party.”
Mark Lewisohn got a listen of these humming takes in the making of
his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions.”
He writes: “The Beatles and various friends (at least one female voice
is evident) gathered around the studio microphone and attempted to record the
song’s coda…which at this stage was going to be a long ‘hummmmmmm.’ ‘Eight beats, remember’ says Paul, leading
them into the first take of this edit piece.
This and two others (numbered eight to ten) dissolved, understandably,
into laughter. But take 11 was good so
onto this the ensemble recorded three overdubs, filling the four-track
tape. It was undoubtedly a fine idea,
and it was to remain the best solution to ending the song until the famous
piano chord was recorded.”
In a sequence that was cut from the “Anthology” documentary,
George Martin explains the “hum” overdub a little differently: “We still needed
a finisher, though, and it had to be something that wasn’t orchestral – we had
already done that. And this was one of
those bright ideas that just didn’t work.
We thought of all the ideas of Buddhist monks chanting. We thought it’d be a great idea to have
everybody messed in the studio doing “Ommmm,” hanging onto it, and multiply it
many times. And the result was –
pathetic!” Upon hearing this, we can’t
help but notice the similarity this had to what The Moody Blues performed the
following year in their song “Om” from the album “In Search Of The Lost Chord.”
As the time neared 1 am the following morning, everyone present
was understandably curious as to how the day’s recording came out. Geoff relates: “Everyone crowded into the
tiny control room for one last playback, the overflow of guests spilling out
into the corridor, listening through the open door. Everyone, without exception, was totally and
utterly blown away by what they were hearing; Ron Richards kept shaking his
head, telling anyone who would listen, ‘That’s it, I think I’ll give up and
retire now.’”
After the weekend off, the group reassembled in EMI Studio Two the
following Monday, February 13th, 1967, to start work on what was to be George
Harrison’s contribution to the “Sgt. Pepper” album, namely “Only A Northern
Song” (which, of course, didn’t make the cut).
Before this began, however, they couldn’t help but try their hand at
creating a mono mix for “A Day In The Life,” no doubt with the “hummmmmm”
ending. Four attempts were made (indicated as remixes 2 through 5) by the
engineering staff of Martin, Emerick, and Lush with input from The Beatles
undoubtedly, although these mono mixes have never seen the light of day.
Session Five: By February
22nd, 1967, it was decided that the “hummmmmm” ending wasn’t quite good enough
to end the song, thereby ending the album.
“The inspiration for what was finally used once again came from Paul,”
Geoff relates, “with eager assent from John:
a huge piano chord that would last ‘forever’…or at least as long as I
could figure out how to get the sound to sustain…tape hiss and vinyl surface
noise would obliterate any low-level signal all too soon. It seemed clear to me
that the solution lay in keeping the sound at maximum volume for as long as
possible, and I had two weapons that could accomplish this: a compressor, cranked up full, and the very
faders themselves on the mixing console.
Logically, if I set the gain of each input to maximum but started with
the fader at its lowest point, I could then slowly raise the faders as the sound
died away, thus compensating for the loss in volume: in effect, I could counteract the chord
getting softer, at least to some degree.”
Before the group arrived, they arranged for as many pianos as
possible to be moved from within the different EMI studios to Studio Two, this
session due to begin at the usual 7 pm. “Two Steinway grand pianos, another
Steinway upright that was purposely kept a bit out of tune for a ‘honky-tonk’
effect, and a blond-wood spinet” were used on the session according to Geoff
Emerick, as well as a harmonium which was “screened off in the back of the
studio because of the acoustic noise its bellows generated.” George Harrison was not present for this
overdub, so Mal Evans was recruited to fill in for him as they all would work
at hitting an E major chord on their respective pianos simultaneously.
“To get as strong an attack as possible, everyone decided to play
standing up instead of sitting down,” Geoff continues. “John, Mal, and George
Martin each stood behind a different piano, while Ringo and Paul shared the
out-of-tune Steinway upright; I presume they did double duty because Paul had
to coach his drummer on which notes to play.
Because there were four hands slamming out the chord instead of two,
that ended up being the dominant instrument on the recording. John was really out of it that night, so Paul
repeatedly counted everyone in.”
Mark Lewisohn relates what he heard on the session tapes: “Paul:
‘Have you got your loud pedal down, Mal?’
Mal: ‘Which one’s that?’ Paul: ‘The
right hand one, far right. It keeps the
echo going.’ John: ‘Keep it down the
whole time.’ Paul: ‘Right. On four then.
One, two, three…’” Lewisohn then
states: “It took nine takes to perfect because the four players were rarely
able to hit the keys at precisely the same time. Take seven was a good attempt, lasting longer
than any other at 59 seconds. But it was
take nine which was considered ‘best’ so it was overdubbed three more times,
with George Martin compounding the sound further on a harmonium until all four
tracks of the tape were full. The
resultant wall of sound, which lasted for 53 1/2 seconds (it was faded a little
early on the record), was the perfect ending.”
George Martin: “By the end the attenuation was enormous. You could have heard a pin drop.” Maybe not a pin, but Geoff relates something
else being heard. “On one of the
overdubs, Ringo shifted position very slightly at the very end, causing his
shoe to squeak…Paul shot him a crossed, stern sideways glance, and from the
look on his face, I could tell that Ringo was mortified. If you listen quite closely to the song just
as the sound is fading away, you can hear it clearly, especially on the CD
version, where there is no surface noise to mask it.” Regarding the CD, something else is revealed
as brought out by Geoff: “Actually the sound could have gone on a bit longer,
but in those days the speakers weren’t able to reproduce it. So, we thought there wasn’t any more sound,
but there was – the compact disc proves it.”
With George Harrison finally showing up (resulting in John’s
sarcastic remark, “Nice of you to turn up, George. You only missed the most important overdub
we’ve ever done!”), everyone put their heads together to create the actual mono
mix of “A Day In The Life.” The usual
engineering staff of Martin, Emerick, and Lush were used, as well as chief of
maintenance Ken Townsend to work at syncing up the two four-track machines for
the orchestral overdub.
Syncing up the machines was problematic, however. “With all four Beatles present and looking
over our shoulders, it wasn’t working a lot of the time,” Geoff recalls. “Often, by the time we got to the orchestral
bit, they would drift noticeably out of time with one another. Everyone dealt with the problem in good
humor, though – even the normally impatient John, so stoned was he that
night. In the end, we were all actually
laying down bets as to whether the machines were going to stay in sync or not;
we’d be thrilled on the few occasions when it worked perfectly.”
“I had to take things to the extreme during the mix, riding the
faders so as to build the sound to an incredible climax. To enhance things further still, I lowered
the volume level of the orchestra at the very beginning of the passage, thus
making the mix much more dynamic than the original performance was. No one sitting in that control room with us
could believe how much bigger I was able to make everything sound by doing
that, and everyone was extremely happy with the result.”
Four attempts were made in creating the mono mix; these numbered 6
through 9 with the last try being deemed the best. Onto this, they edited in the final piano
chord they just created and then the mono mix was complete and ready for the
mono version of the album. After this,
they tried their hand at creating the stereo mix as well, nine attempts being
made. Apparently, they decided to leave
this to another day because the technical aspects of the stereo mix needed to
be just right. Instead, they took to
recording a 22-minute drum track (entitled “Anything”) which comprised drums,
congas, and tambourine. Nobody knows
what this was for and it was never used for anything. By 3:45 the following morning, the session
was finally over.
Later that day, February 23rd, 1967, they all filed into the
control room on EMI Studio Two again to take another shot at creating the
stereo mix of “A Day In The Life.” The
same engineering staff, with The Beatles no doubt over their shoulders once
again, began around 7 pm and tried three more times to get it right, these
attempts numbered 10 through 12. Take 12
was the ‘keeper’ and onto this was edited the final piano chord from the
following day. With this complete and
ready for the stereo version of the album, the group began recording yet
another album track, “Lovely Rita.”
With the spirit of experimentation running very high, the audio
landscape on the stereo mix is quite adventurous. In the beginning, the original rhythm track
is mostly in the left channel while the overdubbed bass and drums are in the
right channel. John’s lead vocals start
out predominantly in the right channel and are gradually panned to the left
channel in time for the first “I’d love to turn you on” segment. Both orchestra swells are heard in both
channels, but with different takes panned to each side throughout. Paul’s lead vocal part is heard entirely on
the left channel as is the beginning of John’s “ahhh” vocal part that follows,
this moving to the left channel and then back to the right before it’s
over. Then, for the final verse, the
rhythm track is panned to the right channel as John’s vocals are panned to the
left. The final piano chord has
different tracks panned to each channel, the left channel containing George
Martin’s harmonium and the right channel featuring Ringo’s squeaky shoe. All in all, this is quite the listen with headphones!
Session Six: Surprisingly,
a week later, on March 1st, 1967, Paul wanted to add one final element to the
song. “Paul decided that he wanted a
different color on the ending,” Geoff explains, “and overdubbed yet another
piano, although it was ultimately deemed extraneous and was never used…The song
had already been mixed to everyone’s satisfaction…but that didn’t mean that one
of us couldn’t still come up with an idea to try to improve it.” This was the first thing recorded on this
day, quickly followed by the first takes of yet another new song “Lucy In The
Sky With Diamonds.” By 2:15 am the
following morning, this session was complete.
There were two occasions on the album where two songs needed to be
crossfaded, meaning that the ending of one song needed to overlap the beginning
of the next. The crowd noise at the end
of “Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)” needed to be heard on top of the opening acoustic
guitar chords of “A Day In The Life,” so on April 6th, 1967, this was done by
using three tape machines. The same
engineering team constructed the mono version of this crossfade in the control
room of EMI Studio Two on this day. The
next day, April 7th, 1967, the stereo version of this crossfade was made, also
by the same engineering team in the control room of EMI Studio Two. Both versions were then ready for release.
Sometime in 1995, George Martin and Geoff Emerick constructed an
entirely new mix of the song for inclusion on the “Anthology 2” album mentioned
above. They put together studio chat
from ‘take 1” with the actual “take two” of the rhythm track, interrupted by
the overdubbed “take six” with the guide vocal from Paul and unheard bass and
drums. All of this was presented in mono
until they added the orchestra “orgasm” at the end, which was a new mix into
stereo. In the end, they added another
bit of chatting from Paul caught on tape during the orchestral overdub on
February 10th, 1967.
Also, constructed during the same time-frame, George Martin and
Geoff Emerick created what they felt was a suitable ending to the Anthology
series; namely, the final piano chord of “A Day In The Life” played backward
joined by it being played forward. This
was tacked onto the end of “The End,” which was the final song used on the
compilation album “Anthology 3.”
Sometime between 2004 and 2006, George Martin and his son Giles
Martin reassembled in Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI) to create an entirely
new version of “A Day In The Life” specifically for the Cirque du Soleil
production of “Love.” Wanting to leave
this masterpiece as it was, they restrained themselves from adding elements of
other Beatles songs as they had done for most of the other songs prepared for
this project, only adding John’s “sugarplum fairy” count-in from ‘take
one.’ Otherwise, this new stereo mix is
a definite improvement on the original 1967 mix, with more vibrant vocals and
instrumentation from beginning to end.
They also took pains to take out Paul’s “one” as accidentally left in
during the alarm clock sound. Also
during these sessions, they thought to include one of the orchestra swells of
“A Day In The Life” to both the beginning and ending of the newly created mix
of “Get Back,” which is featured on the resulting “Love” album.
Then, in 2015, Giles and engineer Sam Okell were commissioned to
create yet another stereo mix of "A Day In The Life" to be used with
the Beatles film of the song in the DVD and Blu-ray box set entitled
"Beatles 1+." Created at Abbey
Road Studios, this new mix is arguably the best yet, working with the best
technological advancements of the time, creating a vibrant display of all
elements in the recording. It's
unfortunate that it can only be heard while watching the Beatles film of the
song on the "Beatles 1+" box set.
One further recording of the song was made between July 17th and
21st, 2009, this being a live rendition of the song as a medley with “Give
Peace A Chance” by Paul and his band at Citi Field in New York City. This recording appeared on Paul’s album “Good
Evening New York City.”
And that’s how the extensive process helped the Beatles create one
of the most well-known harmonious albums of all time come to fruition.
Join me next Saturday for another fun and informative essay that
will sure to bring interest.
Please feel free to leave any comments or corrections and share these articles plus the blog's website with your friends, especially Beatles’ fans. You and they might also enjoy knowing more about my Love Songs CD and my novel, BEATLEMANIAC. Just click on the My Shop tab near the top of this page for details.
Please feel free to leave any comments or corrections and share these articles plus the blog's website with your friends, especially Beatles’ fans. You and they might also enjoy knowing more about my Love Songs CD and my novel, BEATLEMANIAC. Just click on the My Shop tab near the top of this page for details.
