THE INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS OF LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS AND GETTING BETTER.

Track 3 – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds: “This one’s one of the best songs ever written.”    This 1974 quote from Elton John typifies the allure and mystique that “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” had on the public at large when it was released and for many years thereafter. It deservedly earned its’ place on the greatest hits compilation “The Beatles 1967/1970” and received heavy radio airplay on pop and rock radio stations throughout the world.

However, as time has passed, “Lucy” is a song that has sadly lost some of that allure. Radio stations tend to skip it except on very rare occasions; even Elton’s chart-topping rendition. Listeners pass it off as a ‘period piece, ’ and writers dismiss it as “poorly thought out, succeeding more like a glamorous production than as an integrated song,” as prestigious author Ian MacDonald states in his book “Revolution In The Head.”    Another quote that possibly didn’t help the song’s popularity was in Lennon’s 1980 Playboy interview. “There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me – ‘a girl with kaleidoscope eyes,’ who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn’t met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be ‘Yoko In The Sky With Diamonds.’”

The sorrowful death of Lucy Vodden (O’Donnell), the unintentional inspiration for the song, in 2009 from Lupus then hit the media. The story of Julian Lennon’s recent re-connection with her spurred an emotional response from readers, this resulting in Julian releasing a tribute single after her passing titled “Lucy” which gave 50% of the proceeds to fund Lupus research. This increased interest undoubtedly gave the original Beatles song more credibility, resulting in it coming in at #19 in the 2010 released “The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs” special edition of Rolling Stone magazine. It is hoped that, once again, the collective creative genius of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” has deservedly captured the hearts of the public at large as, in the very least, a historical piece of music that played a large part in sparking the creativity of musicians and songwriters throughout time.

Inside the EMI Studio Two, February 28th, 1967, without the red light on and no tape machines rolling was actually used entirely for rehearsals, documentation shows no known takes being put to tape at all. According to George Martin in the book “Summer Of Love,” this day could well be considered as part of the songwriting process, John composing much of the song “on the hoof.” 

Eight hours of rehearsals, from 7 pm to 3 am the next morning, is practically unheard of today…and even then if you weren’t The Beatles, that is. With “studio time being hardly a cheap commodity,” as explained by Mark Lewisohn in “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” “in the 60’s, with EMI recording The Beatles and owning the studios at Abbey Road, the expense of studio time was merely an internal paper transaction and was not deducted from the Beatles’ royalty payments. No budget restraints were put on the group, nor onto George Martin, no longer an EMI employee.” As George Martin explained: “I can only presume that EMI realized it was onto a good thing.” 

Having the bugs worked out, the group filed back into EMI Studio Two the next day (or, should I say, later that same day), March 1st, 1967, for proper recording of the rhythm track of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.”    The session began once again at 7 pm, the first order of business being recording a piano overdub for the previously mixed “A Day In The Life,” this overdub never being used.

The rhythm track for “Lucy” consisted of Paul playing a Lowery organ, John on acoustic guitar, Ringo on drums, George on maracas and George Martin on piano – Paul and Ringo’s playing being the only elements specifically noticeable in the finished product. In “The Beatles Monthly Book” of June 1967, Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall wrote that the song “starts with McCartney playing Hammond organ using a special organ stop which gives a bell-like overchord effect which makes it sound like a celeste.”    In the book “Beatles Gear,” however, author Andy Babiuk debunks this statement. “Photographic evidence reveals that McCartney, in fact, used a Lowery DSO Heritage Deluxe organ,” Babiuk asserts. “It was the Lowery DSO’s preset voices of harpsichord, vibraharp, guitar and ‘music box’ that provided the magical tones required.” 

John did sing a lead vocal on the verses during these rhythm tracks, although they were merely perfunctory and performed solely for the purpose of guiding the musicians. ‘Take six’ of this rhythm track, with John’s guide vocal, is heard on “Anthology 2” as combined with other elements recorded a little later.

Analyzing John’s vocal performance on this day shows the evolution of delivery and feel his vocals went through as the song took shape in the studio. “Over that very, very simple and beautiful (keyboard) phrase, John sang just one note,”

George Martin explains in the film “The Making Of Sgt. Pepper.”  “He developed it, I mean, he had a way of finding out what he wanted to sing, even as we were recording.”  Mark Lewisohn adds: “  During the early part of the session, he was singing the words ‘Cellophane flowers of yellow and green’ in such a way that each was enunciated slowly, separately and precisely. Paul can be heard to suggest he sing them quicker, in one flowing sentence, to which John replied ‘OK’ and did just that.” 

Engineer Geoff Emerick, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” also comments on this change of vocal delivery: “By this point, the four Beatles were starting to get a little fed up with being stuck in the studio. After all, they’d been there for nearly five months, and it wasn’t the dead of winter anymore…the weather was starting to brighten, so they were probably starting to get itchy feet.” 

"By now, it was evident that John’s personality was changing,” Emerick continues.

“Instead of being opinionated about everything, he was becoming complacent; in fact, he seemed quite content to have someone else do his thinking for him, even when we were working on one of his own songs. By the spring of 1967, he was becoming increasingly disengaged…No doubt Paul was aware of the situation, and he was seizing the opportunity to step in and expand his role within the band. That manifested itself down in the studio as they worked on this song, with John’s lead vocal getting less aggressive and more dreamy with each successive take. That might have been a reflection of what he was smoking behind the screens, but Paul was clearly steering him in that direction, too.” 

The true lead vocals to the song weren’t recorded on this day, but one other element did surface before the day was done. ‘Take seven’ saw George Harrison put down his maracas and instead play a droning tamboura part, this being a large Indian instrument that adds the other-worldly Eastern flavor to the song. “I particularly liked the sounds on it where I managed to superimpose some Indian instruments onto Western music,” Harrison related. “Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t work on a Western song like ‘Lucy,’ which has chord changes and modulations whereas tambouras and sitars stay in the same key forever. I liked the way the drone of the tamboura could be fitted in there.” 

This take being complete and considered the best, the EMI staff took all four filled tracks of the tape and created a reduction mix (‘take eight’) onto one track of another tape, slightly slowing down the recording to 49 cycles per second instead of the normal 50 cycles. This made the recording all set for overdubs on another day. At 2:15 am the following morning, the group and staff filed out to get some rest and ready themselves for the session later that evening.

Once again starting at 7 pm, everyone filed back into EMI Studio Two that evening (March 2nd, 1967) to perform overdubs for the song. Track one of the new master tape contained the rhythm track from the previous day, leaving three open tracks on the four-track tape to fill with overdubs. The first thing tackled was a lead vocal track by John with Paul joining in on unison and sometimes harmony vocals during the choruses. This was taped at 45 cycles per second to make their voices have a slightly higher tone than usual when played back normally. Also, tape echo was added sporadically to create the intended spacey feel for the song.

Onto track three, Martin overdubbed John’s double-tracked lead vocals which only appeared in strategic spots, such as when “girl with kaleidoscope eyes” was heard. Paul simultaneously added more backing vocals during the choruses, this overdub recorded at 48 1/2 cycles per second.

According to the “Beatles Recording Sessions” book, the two remaining elements of the song were overdubbed onto track four of the tape, this being Paul’s artistic bass work and George’s distorted lead guitar. However, since both of these instruments panned to different locations in the stereo mix, they must have been isolated onto different tracks. “There was another thing,” George explains. “During vocals in Indian music they have an instrument called a sarangi, which sounds like the human voice, and the vocalist and sarangi player are more or less in unison with its performance. For ‘Lucy’ I thought of trying that idea, but because I’m not a sarangi player I played it on the guitar. In the middle-eight of the song (‘cellophane flowers…’) you can hear the guitar playing along with John’s voice. I was trying to copy Indian classical music.” 

Geoff Emerick adds more detail to the guitar overdub performed on this day: “  We had decided to route George Harrison’s guitar through a Leslie speaker during the choruses, and because that reminded John of the ‘Dalai Lama’ vocal effect we had used on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ Mal (Evans) was duly dispatched to see if he could find a rope so John could try out his theory and be swung around a microphone. From the wink Mal gave me when he returned some hours later – empty-handed – I suspect that he had spent the evening in the pub instead. He knew how absurd – and potentially dangerous – the request was, and he probably guessed that John would have forgotten all about it by the time he got back, which, of course, is exactly what happened.” 

This final overdub completed the song, although the group was anxious to create a usable mono mix of the song that evening. Eleven attempts at a mono mix were made, mix 11 sounded best, but they apparently weren’t happy with this after some further thought, and none of these mixes saw the light of day. At 3:30 am the following morning, they went home only to return about sixteen hours later.

While spending nearly a total of twenty-four hours of studio time, divided up between three consecutive days, on one song may sound like a lot, it was actually one of the quickest “Sgt. Pepper” recordings. Compared to “A Day In The Life” or “Penny Lane,” for instance, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” was a breeze!

A new crack at creating the mono mix of the song was done that evening, March 3rd, 1967, in the control room of EMI Studio Two with the band present. After recording the brass and lead guitar overdubs for the "Sgt. Pepper” theme song, this starting at 7 pm (as usual) and taking up most of the session this day, the group concentrated on getting the perfect mono mix for the recently recorded “Lucy.”   

Four new mono mixes developed made by George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and 2nd engineer Richard Lush. Presumably, the fourth one deemed as best. Extensive use of ADT had reigned, done with deliberate tape speed manipulation to create the psychedelic effect heard throughout the song, sometimes referred to as "flanging.”  By 2:15 am, the mono mix was complete and they all left for the evening.

The stereo mix was created on April 7th, 1967 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by the same team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Richard Lush. “Just the three of us without a Beatle in sight,” explains Richard Lush about the stereo mixes for the entire “Sgt. Pepper” album.

Five attempts at creating a stereo mix were made on this day, presumably the fifth being the keeper. The rhythm track is panned exclusively into the left channel while the bass guitar and all of the vocals are centered in the mix. All of George’s lead guitar overdub work is panned to the right channel only. This time, however, the ADT was done more sparingly to give a little less psychedelic feel than the mono mix had, which is probably due to The Beatles not being present for this stereo mix.

Interestingly, an additional mono mix was made on November 1st, 1967 in Room 53 of the EMI complex by the same production staff. This special mix was made for inclusion in the “Yellow Submarine” movie then being prepared. Unique features of this mix include lessened ADT and the omission of John’s lead vocals in the first part of the first verse, which was replaced by an actor’s recitation “Picture yourself just a nuclear fission with library cards under mystical skies…ha, ha, ha…Somebody quotes you, you read from a source book, a concept with microscope eyes…ha, ha, ha.”    Luckily for all concerned, this strange mix did not make it into the movie and was never released.

1974 was the next time “Lucy” was taken to a recording studio by a Beatle. John Lennon (under the pseudonym Dr. Winston O'Boogie) joined Elton John at the Caribou Ranch recording studio in Nederland, Colorado to play rhythm guitar and sing backing vocals on Elton’s cover version of the song. The results were a highly successful single released during the height of Elton’s career. A live recording of the song was also done on November 28th, 1974 as John joined the Elton John Band on stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

In 1995, George Martin and Geoff Emerick returned to EMI (now Abbey Road Studios) to create a unique compilation mix of “Lucy” for inclusion on the “Anthology 2” album as mentioned above. “Take six” was used as the bedrock of this mix which featured John’s guide vocals and George Harrison on maracas, the obvious flaw of this take being Ringo’s drum count-in for the final chorus being noticeably too fast. Onto this take engineers added, George’s tamboura playing from “take seven” and the harmony vocals from “take eight,” although Paul’s bass playing is not added which would have completed the sonic picture. Nonetheless, it gives an interesting view of the song in progress.

Sometime in 1998, the original session tapes of “Lucy” were raided once again to produce an updated stereo mix for the “Yellow Submarine Songtrack” album. This mix was put together at Abbey Road Studios by the team of Peter Cobbin, Paul Hicks, Mirek Stiles and Allan Rouse. The elements are somewhat similar to the original 1967 stereo mix except for some interesting surprises. The first master tape used for the rhythm track must have been ‘synced up’ with the second master tape because the drums are centered in the mix while Paul’s Lowery organ part is panned exclusively to the left channel – something not possible using just the second master tape since they were both condensed down to the first track at that point. Another difference is a slight amount of reverb that has been added to the organ part, this being heard in the right channel only. Otherwise, the clarity and vibrancy of this mix sound incredible.

Since George Martin was such a fan of the song, “Lucy” was a shoe-in to be re-worked for the 2006 release “Love,” created especially for the Cirque du Soleil show of the same name. Sometime between 2004 and 2006, George and son Giles Martin created a unique blend of the original recording with elements of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the “Sgt. Pepper” theme song, and “Baby, You’re A Rich Man.”

Track 4 – Getting Better: Despite its’ touches of negativity in the verses, where he recollects the specifics of a not-so-pleasant past, positivity rules in “Getting Better,” something genuinely needed to lift the spirits of the listener within the framework of the “Sgt. Pepper” album.  Positioned between the hallucinogenic “Lucy” and the heady “Fixing A Hole,” the infectious optimism of this song takes us where both “Good Day Sunshine” and “Got To Get You Into My Life” from the previous album point us toward uplift.  Where both of these “Revolver” tracks amount to a Paul solo effort with some minimal input from the others, “Getting Better” comes off as a true group effort from beginning to end.

In the context of an album listening experience, “Getting Better” does much in steering us away from the supposed ‘concept album’ effect that you grasp from the opening two songs.  However, the ‘feel good’ nature of this song, as well as the intricate arrangement and communal effort, make it more than OK that this is just another Beatles album after all.

Inside the EMI Studio Two, March 9th, 1967, with the red light on and the tape machines rolling, was the first day they brought the recently written “Getting Better ditty. The evening session had shown its arrival time slot for 7 pm. It may have been scheduled that way, but their habit as of this time was quite different.  “I remember the session was booked to begin at 7 pm,” remembers engineer Malcolm Addey, the resident Cliff Richard engineer who filled in for Geoff Emerick on this day, “but there was barely a Beatle in sight much before midnight, and we were sitting around waiting.  They eventually straggled in one by one.  Ringo came in around 11 and ordered fish and chips.  The others arrived later, they all hung around and finally started work at about one in the morning.  The ego trip of the big-time artists had started to set in…I know their method of working upset Geoff from time to time.”

In his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” Geoff Emerick explains: “Malcolm Addey – he of the cigar and never-ending chatter – filled in for me that evening…Ken Townsend was recruited to substitute for Richard (Lush).  Ken was really a maintenance engineer, but I suppose George (Martin) just wanted a familiar face around, someone whom the group had at least met before.  I suspected that the four Beatles were annoyed that I wasn’t there – there was no way they wanted a stranger engineering their sessions.”  Graham Kirkby was also recruited that evening as a 2nd engineer, so the usual three-man EMI staff became four on this occasion.

This was the first Beatles session that biographer Hunter Davies was present at, so he reveals in his book how the group learned and arranged the song from the ground up.  “Paul played the new song on the piano, la-la-ing the accompaniment or banging in tune to his words, to give the others an idea of what it sounded like.  Ringo and George said they liked it; so did George Martin…They discussed what the general sound would be like and what sort of instruments to use.  They also chatted about other things.  When they got bored, they went off and played on their own on any instruments lying around.  There was an electronic piano in the corner of the studio, leftover from someone else’s recording session.  Someone doodled on it, and the group decided to use it.”  This turned out to be a Hohner Pianet C electric piano.

Davies continues: “Ringo sat at his drums and played what he thought would be a good drum backing, with Paul singing the song into his ear.  Because of the noise, Paul had to shout in Ringo’s ear as he explained something.  After about two hours of trying out little bits and pieces, they had the elements of a backing…The first stage in the layer-cake system they now use in recording songs was to get the backing recorded on one track…George Martin and two studio technicians, who’d been sitting around just waiting, went up into their soundproof glass-front control room, where they continued to sit around and wait for The Beatles to get themselves organized.”

“Neil and Mal (Evans) got the instruments and microphones arranged in one corner of the studio and the four or them, at last, started to sing and play “It’s Getting Better.”  Ringo looked a bit lost, sitting slightly apart on his own, surrounded by his drums.  The other three had their heads together over one microphone.  They played the song over about ten times.  All that was being recorded, up in the soundproof box, were the instruments, not the voices.  From time to time Paul said, ‘Once more, let’s try it this way,’ or ‘Let’s have less bass,’ or ‘more drums.’ By midnight they had recorded the backing.”

The instrumentation used on this rhythm track apparently consisted of the standard Beatle configuration of times past, namely John and George on guitar, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums.  George Martin was also included on this track, “playing piano, though not via a keyboard but by actually striking the strings,” as Mark Lewisohn explains in his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions.”  Since Hunter Davies made mention of the Hohner Pianet in his recollections of this day, it was undoubtedly recorded on this day as well, as we do hear it predominantly on the finished recording.  No overdubs are said to have been performed on this day, so the Pianet may have been played by George Martin (as suggested by Ian MacDonald in “Revolution In The Head”) during the rhythm track while the piano “striking” may have indeed been overdubbed. Also heard in the finished recording is an actual ‘played’ piano during the second verse, which may also have been performed by Martin sometime on this day, since it’s not mentioned at all in the later recording sessions.  At any rate, George Martin apparently was a very busy keyboardist on “Getting Better.”

All four tracks of the four-track tape were filled with the completed rhythm track after the seventh take of the song was deemed suitable for future overdubs.  The EMI staff then performed a reduction mix, that is, combining all four tracks onto one track of another tape, leaving three empty tracks for further recording elements.  They performed this mix five times until they were satisfied, ‘take 12’ being deemed best.  By 3:30 am the next morning, the first “Getting Better” session was finally over.

After a much needed two days off, engineers Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush were back on the job the next day (that is to say, later that day) for the second session of the song on March 10th in EMI Studio Two.  Emerick relates the details of this days’ work:  “’Glad to have you back, Geoff,’ George Harrison said as soon as he walked in the door.  Malcolm (Addey) had clearly gotten on his nerves.  When we played back the tapes of the previous evening’s work in the control room, Ringo chimed in.  ‘The drums sound a bit naff, don’t you think?’ George Harrison didn’t even wait for an answer.  ‘Little wonder, considering that Malcolm didn’t shut up long enough to get a decent drum sound.’”

“I had to agree with Ringo’s opinion,” Emerick continues, “but I was surprised that he hadn’t said anything to Addey the night before because he usually wasn’t shy about expressing his opinion if he heard something he didn’t like.  Perhaps he just couldn’t get a word in edgewise!  Malcolm had obviously utilized his own setup for recording the drums…I thought the snare sound was especially lacking, and it took a lot of work during the mixing stage to get the track to fit in sonically with the rest of the album.”

“That night,” explains Emerick, “George Harrison was overdubbing his tamboura, which may have been another reason why he was in a good mood and was being unusually friendly toward me.”  This tamboura drone heard exclusively in the third verse, works perfectly to add an evil-sounding backdrop to the lyrics about being “cruel to my woman” and beating her.  This was recorded exclusively onto ‘track four’ of the new tape while Ringo added syncopated open hi-hat accents in the verses, this being recorded onto ‘track two.’ Also overdubbed on this day (track unknown) was “George Martin adding an interesting new texture,” stated Emerick, “by playing selected notes on a Virginal, a miniature harpsichord which he owned and brought in specially for the session.”  Even more keyboard work for George Martin!

Emerick then relates how George Harrison, George Martin, Ringo and John “headed out the door; it had been a tiring session, and it was well past midnight.  But it was a Friday, with a whole weekend ahead to recover, so Paul decided to stay behind with Richard and me, and we dutifully pulled his amp out into the middle of the room for another long marathon of laying down the bass part.  I decided to surreptitiously add just a touch of reverb to the bass that night, using the bathroom as an acoustic echo chamber.  It was an effect that Paul normally didn’t like, but I was looking for a little extra roundness, so I decided to try it.  When he heard the playback, Paul immediately realized what I had done and screwed his face up, but he went along with it for just that one song.”  This bass overdub replaced the bass work Paul performed on the rhythm track the previous day, which undoubtedly was mixed down purposely on the reduction mix the previous day, and was positioned onto ‘track three’ of the new tape.  At 4 am Saturday morning, this second “Getting Better” session was finally over.

After concentrating on other “Sgt. Pepper” songs for the next week-and-a-half, The Beatles returned to “Getting Better” on March 21st, 1967.  Before the recording session began that day, they needed to work out the vocal arrangement.  “John and George assembled at Paul’s house,” Hunter Davies explains.  “Ringo wasn’t there.  They were just going to do the singing track for ‘It’s Getting Better, ’ and he wouldn’t be needed.  Ivan Vaughan, the school friend of John and Paul, was also at Paul’s house.  At seven thirty they all moved round to EMI where George Martin, like a very understanding housemaster, was ready and waiting for them.”

Davies continues his play-by-play of this recording session, which was also in EMI Studio Two.  “A technician played the backing for ‘It’s Getting Better’…It was played over and over again.  George Harrison and Ivan went off to chat in a corner, but Paul and John listened carefully.  Paul instructed the technician which levers to press, telling him what he wanted, how it should be done, which bits he liked best.  George Martin looked on, giving advice where necessary.  John stared into space.”

Mark Lewisohn’s account states:  “At one point in the evening, after repeated listening to the…rhythm track recording of the song, Paul decided that Ringo needed to re-record his drums.  He was duly telephoned at home and summoned to the studio.  (John picked up the telephone: ‘Ringo on toast, please,’ according to Hunter Davies.)  But after Paul and Geoff Emerick had played with a few knobs and switches on the console Paul pronounced the original recording fine, after all, so Ringo was telephoned again and canceled. ‘We never heard how he felt,’ says Davies, ‘but he must have been pretty choked, having got himself ready for work and the long drive in from Surrey only to be told he wasn’t needed.’”

Davies continues: “The studio was made ready to record the soundtrack, the voices.  As it was being set up by Neil (Aspinall), Mal (Evans) brought in tea and orange juice on a tray.  Paul let his tea go cold while he played with an oscillating box he had found in a corner…They were ready at last.  The three of them held their heads round one microphone and sang…In the studio itself, all that could be heard were the unaccompanied, unelectrified voices of The Beatles singing, without any backing.  It all sounded flat and off key.”  In the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” Davies described their voices as “grainy, hoarse and awfully disembodied.  I remember thinking, ‘Why am I such a big fan of theirs, why do I think they’re good singers?  They’re completely out of tune!”

During this time, while Ivan Vaughan was “writing a letter to his mother” and Neil Aspinall was “filling in his diary” that he said “he should have started…about five years ago,” a visitor appeared in the control room to ask George Martin a favor.  This visitor was The Beatles previous engineer Norman Smith.  Hunter Davies relates:   “A man in a purple shirt called Norman arrived; he used to be one of their recording engineers and now had a group of his own, ‘The Pink Floyd.’  Very politely he asked George Martin if his boys could possibly pop in to see The Beatles at work.  George smiled unhelpfully.  Norman said perhaps he should ask John personally, as a favor.  George Martin said no, that wouldn’t work.  If by chance he and his boys popped in about eleven o’clock, he might just be able to see what he could do.”

Geoff Emerick explains in detail an event that occurred shortly thereafter that has gone down in history.  (He presents this event inferring it as happening during the vocal overdubs for “Lovely Rita,” although Davies’ eyewitness account as well as many other evidence points to happening on this day.  His overdubbing and mixing work on “Lovely Rita” performed later on this day may have led to Geoff’s confusion on what day this transpired.)

“That same evening, I was witness to a bizarre scenario that seemed quite funny at the time but could have ended tragically…biographer Hunter Davies was there, sitting unobtrusively in the back with Neil and Mal, quietly observing.  (Sidenote:   Hunter Davies was not present at the “Lovely Rita” background vocal sessions.)  John was dressed outlandishly as usual, in a festive striped blazer, but I thought he seemed unusually quiet when he first arrived.  Soon afterward, he, Paul, and George Harrison were gathered around a microphone singing backing vocals when Lennon suddenly announced that he wasn’t feeling well.  George Martin got on the talkback.  ‘What’s the matter, John?  Is it something you ate?’”

“The others sniggered, but John remained perfectly solemn.  ‘No, it’s not that,’ he replied.  ‘I’m just having trouble focusing.’  Up in the control room, Richard and I exchanged glances.  ‘Uh-huh,’ we thought.  ‘That would be the drugs kicking in.’  But George Martin didn’t seem to have an inkling of what was going on.  ‘Do you want to be driven home?’ he asked.  ‘No,’ Lennon said in a tiny, faraway voice.  ‘Well then, perhaps you’d like to get a little fresh air?’ George suggested helpfully.  ‘Okay,’ came the meek reply.”

Hunter Davies’ account relates an attempt to step outside on the main floor.  “Someone went to open the back door of the studio.  There was the sound of loud banging and cheering on the other side.  The door began to move slightly inward under the strain of a gang of fans who’d somehow managed to get inside the building.”  Another idea was needed.

Emerick continues: “It seemed to take John along time to get up the stairs; he was moving as if he were in slow motion.  When he finally walked through the doorway into the control room, I noticed that he had a strange, glazed look on his face.  Gazing vacantly around the room, Lennon completely ignored the three of us.  He appeared to be searching for something but didn’t seem to know what it was.  Suddenly he threw his head back and began staring intently at the ceiling, awestruck.  With some degree of difficulty, he finally got a few not especially profound words out:  ‘Wow, look at that.’  Our necks cranked upward, but all we saw was…a ceiling.”

“’Come on, John, I know a way up the back stairs,’ George Martin said soothingly, leading the befuddled Beatle out of the room…George Martin returned to the control room, alone…’Where’s John?’ Paul asked…George Martin turned on the talkback mic.  ‘I left him up on the roof, looking at the stars.’ ‘Ah, you mean like Vince Hill?’ Paul joked.  Vince Hill was a schmaltzy singer who was currently topping the charts with a sappy version of the song ‘Edelweiss’ (from ‘The Sound Of Music’), which Paul and George Harrison immediately began singing boisterously.”

“A second or two later, it dawned on them: John was tripping on LSD, and George Martin has left him up on the roof alone!  As if they were actors in an old-fashioned silent movie, the two Beatles executed a perfectly timed double take and then bolted up the stairs together, full speed, in a frantic dash to retrieve their compatriot.  They knew all too well that the rooftop had only a narrow parapet and that, in his lysergically altered state, John could easily step over the edge and plummet thirty feet to the pavement below.”

“Mal (Evans) and Neil followed closely behind, and a few tense minutes later, everyone reappeared in the control room…thankfully with a bewildered Lennon in tow, still in one piece.  Nobody castigated George Martin for his poor decision, born, to be fair, out of naiveté, but arrangements were quickly made for John to be driven home and the session ended soon afterward.”

John himself explained the account in an interview in 1970.  “I thought I was taking some uppers and I was not in the state of handling it.  I took it, and I suddenly got so scared on the microphone.  I said, ‘What is it? I feel ill.’  I thought I felt ill and I thought I was going cracked.  I said I must go and get some air.  They all took me upstairs on the roof, and George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me that I must have taken some acid.  I said, ‘Well, I can’t go on.  You’ll have to do it, and I’ll just stay and watch.’  I got very nervous just watching them all, and I kept saying, ‘Is this all right?’  They had all been very kind, and they said, ‘Yes, it’s all right.’  I said, ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’  They carried on making the record.”

George Martin remembers: “I was so innocent that I actually took John up to the roof when he was having an LSD trip, not knowing what it was. If I’d known it was LSD, the roof would have been the last place I would have taken him…Of course, I couldn’t take him out the front because there were 500 screaming kids who’d have torn him apart.  So, the only place I could take him to get fresh air was the roof.  It was a wonderful starry night, and John went to the edge, which was a parapet about eighteen inches high, and looked up at the stars and said, ‘Aren’t they fantastic?’  Of course, to him, I suppose they would have been especially fantastic.  At the time, they just looked like stars to me.”

As the session was winding down, the semi-scheduled appearance of Norman Smith and “Pink Floyd” transpired, who happened to be recording their first album “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” in another EMI Studio that evening.  “Sadly, he and his protégés were given a very cool reception by Paul and George Harrison,” Geoff Emerick explains.  “Uninvited visitors were simply not made welcome, even if they included a former workmate.  After a few minutes of awkward chat (described by Davies as “half-hearted hellos”), Norman headed out the door.  It was the last time he popped in on any Beatles session that I was present at.  Clearly, as far as they were concerned, that was a chapter that was over.”

What John 'stayed and watched' after the LSD event concerned recording the piano solo for "Lovely Rita.”  At that point, at around midnight, the session was over as far as The Beatles were concerned.  “Paul…went home with (John) and turned on as well, to keep him company,” states George Martin in his book “All You Need Is Ears,” continuing:  “Paul’s thoughtfulness in going home with John was typical of one of the best sides of his character.”  Meanwhile, after the mono mix of “Lovely Rita” was made, the session concluded at 2:45 am the next morning, the doors of EMI Studios finally closing for the day.

Two days later, on March 23rd, 1967, the final overdub session for “Getting Better” occurred.  The session was scheduled to begin at 7 pm in EMI Studio Two, this time with not only Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush absent but even George Martin had a prior commitment.  Peter Vince stood in, acting as both producer and engineer while Ken Scott sat in as 2nd engineer.  Given the unusual circumstances with John during the previous attempt at vocals, this session saw them totally re-record the vocals and then double-track them, adding handclaps along the way.  (I guess Hunter Davies’ assessment of them sounding “completely out of tune” was valid after all.)

Peter made a further tape reduction to clear up space for more overdubs, Ringo’s conga drums being one of them which first come in on the third verse of the song.  It appears that a further guitar overdub was performed as well, this being the staccato ‘chopping’ guitar that is panned to the right channel in the stereo mix.  Its player is not known, although, given Paul’s specific interest in the arrangement of this piece, it’s probably him.  Three mono mixes of the song were made, no doubt with the input of the group, the third being deemed ‘best.’ The session ended at 3:45 am the next morning.

The stereo mix of the song was created on April 17th, 1967 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by the usual team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Richard Lush.  Only one attempt at this stereo mix was needed to get it right.  The original rhythm track, the tamboura, and the open hi-hat hits are panned to the left channel while all the vocals are centered in the mix.  The piano, conga drums and the ‘chopping’ guitar are all panned to the right channel.

Sometime between April 1st and May 18th of 2002, Paul and his band had a live recording of the song done which was released in America on the album “Back In The U.S.” and internationally on the album “Back In The World.”   

Be sure to join me tomorrow for a thorough account in creating ‘Fixing A Hole,’ and ‘She’s Leaving Home.’

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