THE INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS OF BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE AND WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU.

Track 7 – Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite: It’s really quite telling how John quickly dismissed the whole “Sgt. Pepper” album – even as early as late 1967.  “When you get down to it, it was nothing more than an album called ‘Sgt. Pepper’ with the tracks stuck together.  It was a beautiful idea then, but it doesn’t mean a thing now.”  Regarding the elaborate production, he asserted back then: “I actively dislike bits of them which didn’t come out right…Some of the sound in ‘Mr. Kite’ isn’t right.”

While Lennon’s more earthy or personal tracks, such as “I’m So Tired” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” are listed as his favorites, the playful and humorous side of his compositional style didn’t seem to mean too much to him in the long run.  Changing the poster’s reference to the “Celebrated Horse Zanthus” into “of course, Henry, the horse, dances the Waltz,” for instance, is pure Lennon tomfoolery.  The in-jokes and picturesque imagery of such a lyric do much to tantalize the listener, but apparently not much for John.

It’s no wonder that “Mr. Kite” shows up in most tribute productions about The Beatles, including the musical “Across The Universe,” Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” and even the critically panned 1978 film “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (with Maurice Gibb and George Burns singing lead, nonetheless).  The original recording of "Kite," being a spectacular piece of fantasy from the “Sgt. Pepper” album, is, without question, one of the outstanding highlights in most people’s minds.  John may have been quick to dismiss it, but most would beg to differ.

Inside Abbey Road with the red light on and tape machines rolling, this “pure watercolor” began to take shape on February 17th, 1967 in EMI Studio Two, session documentation indicating the session beginning at 7 pm.  After some rehearsal and experimentation with the arrangement, the first of seven takes of the rhythm track recorded on this day show that the circus-like feel of the song was already in place.

“In terms of asking me for particular interpretations, John was the least articulate,” George Martin remembers.  “He would deal in moods, he would deal in colors, almost, and he would never be specific about what instruments or what line I had.  I would do that myself…John was more likely to say (in the case of ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!): ‘It’s a fairground sequence.  I want to be in that circus atmosphere…’  So, it was up to me to provide that.”

The “circus atmosphere” was evident in the rhythm track especially by how Ringo played his drums, providing the drum roll to introduce each verse as well as splashing his open hi-hats on the two-and-four beats of each measure.  The other instrumentation on these rhythm tracks was Paul on bass, George Martin on harmonium, and George Harrison on maracas while John worked at perfecting his lead vocals.  (Note:  Paul related to Rolling Stone magazine in 2013 his recollections of adding the bass part as an overdub after the rhythm track was recorded, but listening to the original takes of the song, as witnessed on “Anthology 2,” reveals otherwise.)

Take one began with John becoming slightly irritated at engineer Geoff Emerick as can be heard on the 1996 release “Anthology 2” and explained in Geoff’s book “Here, There And Everywhere”: “John Lennon always had a precise title for each of his songs, and woe betold any of us who didn’t get it correct.  I learned that the hard way one night when I slated a take in a hurry and mistakenly shortened the title to ‘For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite.’  John immediately corrected me in an irritated tone of voice: ‘No, that’s “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite.”’”

‘Take one’ broke down just after the first measure because Paul slowly counted down the song as a straight 4/4 beat instead of a swing beat.  When it was quickly apparent that this wasn’t what they intended, Paul then demonstrated the correct feel on his bass to clue Ringo in on what was needed for the song.  ‘Take two’ had the correct tempo and feel, but broke down in the third measure of the first verse when John finished his first lyric line.  He slurred the words “Mr. Kite, there will be a show tonight” instead of leaving a small gap between the phrases, which spurred Paul to instruct John on how he should sing it.  “Let’s try and sort of see it as a big, get it in…and all the little breaks that are left for you to sing to,” Paul insists, he then quickly demonstrating to John how he envisioned the lyrics to be sung.

‘Take three’ apparently made it through to the end, John reduced to ‘dum-dumming’ the lyrics by this point as a guide vocal with the intention of overdubbing the proper lead vocals later.  By ‘take seven,’ they had their act together pretty well.  The tape was rolling while they were goofing around on their instruments, which prompted George Martin from behind the harmonium to exclaim, “OK, men, let’s go. The light’s on.”  After a countdown from Paul, this complete take was the ‘keeper.’  Onto this, John overdubbed his lead vocals as also heard on “Anthology 2,” this being recorded at 49 cycles per second instead of the normal 50 so his voice would sound slightly higher when played back.

Concerning the rhythm track recorded on this day, Geoff Emerick has a vivid recollection: “It did take quite a few tries to nail it down, though, which caused problems for George (Martin), because the harmonium required pedaling to get air through its bellows, kind of like riding a bicycle.  After playing it non-stop for hours on end, he finally collapsed in exhaustion, sprawled out on the floor like a snow angel – a sight that gave us all great amusement.”

At the end of this take, the tape continued rolling to hear John talking to George Martin about what overdubs he envisioned for the song.  “Well, we’ll have the Massed Alberts on by then, won’t we? ” John was heard to say.  The “Massed Alberts” were a British music/comedy group of the 50’s and 60’s that had at one point been produced by George Martin.  George’s patronizing response, according to Geoff Emerick, was “’Oh, honestly!’…That was his stock expression of disapproval whenever he thought someone was talking nonsense.”  Whether John was serious or just being facetious is not known.  What is known is that the “Massed Alberts” never made it onto “Mr. Kite!”

This instruction from John has been detailed by George Martin many times.  “He’d make whooshing noises and try to describe what only he could hear in his head, saying he wanted a song ‘to sound like an orange.’…John had said that he wanted to ‘smell the sawdust on the floor,’ wanted to taste the atmosphere of the circus.”

Geoff Emerick remembers this conversation in even greater detail: “John, as usual, was full of creative ideas but was having trouble expressing them in practical terms.  ‘What I want…is some kind of swirly music, you know?’  George Martin didn’t know.  Lennon persisted.  ‘I want the sound of a fairground around my voice; I want to be able to smell the sawdust and the animals.  I want to feel like I’m at the circus with Mr. Kite and the Hendersons and all that.’…his request didn’t seem all that outlandish, but he wasn’t exactly giving us specific directions in how to achieve his vision, either.”

Putting this instruction aside for the moment, the EMI staff made two attempts at creating a reduction mix of the song to free up tracks on the four-track machine for more overdubs, wiping out John’s lead vocal overdub in the process.  The second reduction mix was deemed the best, which now became ‘take nine.’  John then took another go at recording the lead vocals onto ‘take nine,’ this being the vocals you hear on the finished product.  The double-tracking of John’s vocals, as well as Paul and George’s harmony vocals at the end of each verse, were probably recorded at this time as well, although studio documentation fails to mention it.  A rough mono mix was then made of the song as it was thus far, studio documentation indicating that Paul, not John, took it home with him.

According to Geoff Emerick, the conversation between John and George Martin apparently continued in the control room before the session ended early the following morning.  George Martin told John, “’What we need is a calliope.’  ‘A what?’  ‘Steam whistles, played by a keyboard…you know, one of those tooty things’” Geoff Emerick recalls: “I was starting to get an idea.  ‘How about if we try what we did on ‘Yellow Submarine?’ I suggested.  ‘You know, cutting up some tapes of sound effects to try to create an atmosphere?’  By this point, Lennon had lost interest and was heading out of the control room in search of some new stimulation.  ‘Yeah, fine, whatever you think.’  George Martin turned to me.  ‘I think you may be on to something there, Geoff.’”  This apparently ended the session at 3 am with George Martin considering various alternatives to make John’s vision a reality.

Having the weekend off, the next session took place Monday, February 20th, George Martin had time to look at his options. “I thought that it might be possible to get hold of a steam organ and actually use that,” George Martin recalled.  “But, that was a bit of a wild idea and too cumbersome, and it would have taken much too long for it to be done.” Geoff Emerick remembers: “Despite their enormous size, a few phone calls were actually placed to see if one was available for hire – to no avail.”  Mark Lewisohn’s book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” relates: “Only automatic models were available, played by punched cards. There were no hand operated models around.  The fairground sound would have to be created inside Abbey Road using other equipment.”

The recording staff of George Martin, Geoff Emerick and 2nd engineer Richard Lush assembled in EMI Studio Three on February 20th, 1967, at the usual starting time of 7 pm to work out this dilemma. “We were in Studio Three that night because our usual haunt – Studio Two – was in use by another artist,” Geoff Emerick explains. “George Martin must have block-booked them in for just a month or two; it had never taken any longer to do a Beatles album, and he wouldn’t have had any way of knowing beforehand that much greater amounts of time would be spent of ‘Pepper.’ As a result, the group’s gear wasn’t in the studio with them; it was still being stored in Studio Two, where we would be returning for most of the rest of the album.”

Meanwhile, in the control room, George Martin planned his strategy: “I knew we needed a backwash, a general mush of sound, like if you go to a fairground, shut your eyes and listen: rifle shots, hurdy-gurdy noises, people shouting and – way in the distance – just a tremendous chaotic sound.”

George Martin then seriously considered Geoff’s previous suggestion of using cut-up sound effect tapes to get the job done. In his book “All You Need Is Ears,” George Martin gives the details (however, suggesting it was his initial idea and forgetting they had done it before the previous year for “Yellow Submarine”). “I got together a lot of recordings of old Victorian steam organs – the type you hear playing on carousels at county fairs – playing all the traditional tunes, Sousa marches and so on. But I clearly couldn’t use even a snatch of any of them that would be identifiable; so I dubbed a few of the records on to tape, gave it to the engineer (Geoff Emerick) and told him, ‘I’ll take half a minute of that one, a minute and a half of that one, a minute of that one,’ and so on.”

“‘Then what do I do with them?’ he asked. ‘You cut that tape up into sections about a foot long.’  ‘What?!!!’ ‘Cut it up into little parcels about a foot long, and don’t be too careful about the cuts.’ Clearly thinking I had lost my senses, he did it, leaving me with a bunch of foot long pieces of tape – about sixty in all.  ‘Now what?’ ‘Fling them up in the air.’ Believing by now, I suppose, that the world had gone completely insane, he did as asked.  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘pick them up in whatever order they come and stick them all back together again.’ The poor chap couldn’t contain himself. ‘What did you do that for?!!!’ You’ll see,’ I said.”

“After he had laboriously stuck them all together again, we played the tape, and I said: ‘That piece there’s a bit too much like the original.  Turn it round the other way, backward.’  We went on like that until the tape was a whole amalgam of carousel noises, but meaningless in musical terms because it was composed of fragments of tunes connected in a series of fractions of a second.  It was an unreal hotch-potch of sound, arrived at without rhyme or reason; but when it was added as a background ‘wash’…it did give an overall impression of being in a circus.”

However, while this was being done in the control room, things were getting a little tense out on the studio floor. “Because they couldn’t play and jam,” Geoff Emerick remembers regarding the group’s instruments being secured in another studio, “the four Beatles were getting impatient with how long it was taking us to assemble the sounds. They were out in the studio area amusing themselves as best they could, but they kept popping into the control room, saying ‘Aren’t you lot done yet?’ At one point John came in, and he was actually quite aggravated, but Paul calmed him down, saying, ‘Look, it’s a process, and it just takes a certain amount of time. You have to expect that.’”

The “process” was completed on this day, nineteen pieces of tape being edited together to comprise “some thirty seconds of background sound,” as Geoff described it.  “It really worked well,” George Martin proudly related. “And of course, John was delighted with the result.”  This compiled sound effects tape was not superimposed onto the master tape on this day, however, this waiting until more overdubbing was done to the song first.  After a preliminary mono mix of the song “Good Morning Good Morning” was created, the session was over, being already 2:15 am the following day.

With many other “Sgt. Pepper” tracks taking precedence, “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” took a backseat until March 28th, 1967.  The group entered EMI Studio Two at 7 pm (or thereabouts) and spent most of the day doing extensive work on “Good Morning Good Morning.”  Eventually, by approximately 3 am the following morning, attention was paid to “Mr. Kite!” by adding a series of overdubs.

“We always loved ‘The Morton Fraser Harmonica Gang’ when we were kids” remembers Paul in the documentary “The Making Of Sgt. Pepper.”  “It was a little TV thing…but it was those giant big bass (harmonicas), and John used to play harmonica, so we always liked that. But, when I heard them on ‘Pet Sounds’ – there’s a lot of bass harmonica, (Brian Wilson) uses that.  It’s the instruments he uses and the way he places them against each other.  It’s very cleverly done.  It’s a really clever album.  So, we were inspired by it, you know, and nicked a few ideas.”

Andy Babiuk’s book “Beatles Gear” states that “the group happened upon a pair of Hohner bass harmonicas to accentuate the chord changes” of the song, this being the first overdub performed on this day.  As to who played the harmonicas on this overdub, a picture exists of this day showing George Harrison playing one of the huge bass harmonicas while John plays his normal size Hohner instrument.  Add to this George Martin’s quote that “The Beatles’ road managers Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall played mouth organs” and the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” adding Ringo into the mix, this undoubtedly made for an interesting and possibly humorous overdub session.

Two more overdubs were performed on this day, one being an “oom-pah-style organ played by John,” as described by Geoff Emerick.  Interestingly, the second overdub consisted of Paul playing an electric guitar solo, as reported on by Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall in a magazine piece for the June 1967 issue of “The Beatles Monthly Book.”  A picture from this day is included in this piece showing Paul playing his newly acquired Fender Esquire electric guitar.  This guitar solo is evidenced in the second half of the first instrumental section of the song.  By 4:45 am, the session ended with yet more extensive work to be done to “Mr. Kite!” 

The next recording session for the song occurred the following day (actually later that same day), March 29th, 1967 in EMI Studio Two, again scheduled to begin at 7 pm.  After some final work on “Good Morning Good Morning,” the elaborate sound effect montage created for “Mr. Kite!” was superimposed onto both the waltz instrumental section and the close of the song, it being predominantly heard during the ending.  The work on this song began approximately at 8 pm on this day.

George Martin explains a further overdub performed on this day: “When we came to the middle section of the song, where ‘Henry the Horse dances the waltz’…John said he wanted the music to ‘swirl up and around,’ to give it a circus atmosphere.  As usual, having written a great song, he said to me, ‘Do what you can with it,’ and walked away, leaving me to it…John and I did our thing on two electric organs, a Wurlitzer and a Hammond.  John was to play the basic tune, and around it, I was to play the swirly noises – chromatic runs based on it.”

“Unfortunately, my digital capacities on an organ fall short of spectacular, and I found that I couldn’t achieve the speed I wanted for these runs.  So I told John:  ‘What we’ll do is to slow the whole thing down by a half.  You play the tune twice as slow and an octave down, and I’ll do my runs as fast as I can, but an octave down as well.  Then, when we double the tape speed, it’ll come out all nice and smooth and very swirly.’  Of course, we could always have got a professional organist in to do it, but our attitude was ‘Why the hell!  Why should we let someone else in on our fun?’  Besides, we were doing it all off the top of our heads:  to bring someone else in would have meant delay and a lot of tedious explanation.”  So, George Martin pulled off his half-speed trick once again as he had done on 1965’s “In My Life.”

By around midnight or so, the focus was put onto a new song, which was eventually titled “With A Little Help From My Friends,” which took the session to 5:45 the following morning.  The finishing touches for “Mr. Kite!” were still to come.

March 31st, 1967 was the final recording session that included “Mr. Kite!” although it is possible that The Beatles were not present for this session at all.  This was, in fact, a session intended for creating mono mixes for the album, this beginning at 7 pm in the control room of EMI Studio Two with the production team of Martin, Emerick, and Lush.  After the mono mix of “With A Little Help From My Friends” was complete at around 8:30 pm or so, George Martin made his way onto the studio floor to add a couple more overdubs to “Mr. Kite!”

It looks as though the focus was on the final seconds of the song.  Geoff Emerick describes these overdubs with these words: “Later on, ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!’ was embellished with…chromatic organ runs and a glockenspiel – both recorded at half speed.”  A glockenspiel is a xylophone-like percussion instrument usually constructed with high pitched metal plates.  George Martin apparently played this complicated organ run at half speed and then played the same run on the glockenspiel on top of it as another overdub to compliment the conclusion of the song.  Since it is not documented anywhere, he undoubtedly performed the pounding piano chords that introduce the final verse as an overdub on this day as well.

This being accomplished, it was time to construct the mono mix of the song.  Seven attempts were made, the fourth attempt being deemed ‘best’ and ready for inclusion on the mono edition of the album.  This mono mix is noteworthy for more presence being given to the sound effects in the waltz instrumental section of the song.

The stereo mix was made on April 7th, 1967, in the control room of EMI Studio Two by the same production staff.  Eight attempts were made for this mix, presumably the final eighth mix being the best.  The original rhythm track is panned to the left channel while all of the vocals are panned to the right.  George Martin’s melodic organ riffs are panned to the right channel as well, while the harmonicas are centered in the mix.  The sound effect montage is more subdued during the waltz instrumental section and is heard primarily in the left channel at that time, but this montage spans the stereo landscape in the conclusion of the song to create a tantalizing experience when listening with headphones.

Sometime between 2004 and 2006, George Martin and son Giles Martin returned to EMI (Abbey Road) Studios to create special mixes of many Beatles tracks for the Cirque du Soleil show “Love.”  “Mr. Kite!” got special treatment on this day, a new mix being created with less of a stereo separation than the original (all vocals centered) but with many surprises.  Horse sound effects from “Good Morning Good Morning” are heard during the “Henry the horse” waltz section, laughing from the end of “Within You Without You” is heard during the line “a splendid time is guaranteed for all,” and then the conclusion of the song merges the heavy winding ending of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” with some blood-curdling screams by Paul from “Helter Skelter,” all enclosed in heavy reverb and then ending suddenly with nothing but the wind blowing.  It sounds as if George Martin may have finally given in to some pot smoking of his own!

Track 8 – Within You Without You: Thrust upon the world at large in 1967, Indian music and philosophy as introduced by George Harrison through “Within You Without You” appeared as just another element of the emerging drug culture.  The sound of sitars, dilrubas and tablas, along with lyrics about seeing "beyond yourself," “you’re really only very small” and “we’re all one,” appeared as just something else to ‘get high’ to.  Beatle authors who have bought into this opinion view this song as “dated,” “directionless” and ‘hasn’t worn well’ through the years.

What these writers, and possible many Beatles fans, fail to realize is that this genre of music is genuine, traditional, and sacred all at the same time.  Ravi Shankar, whose popularity increased dramatically from this time forward, was aghast to see dope smoking attendants at his performances in the states.  And we also need to understand that, while the lyrics spoke to the “tune in, turn on, drop out” generation in a particular anti-establishment way, this was purely unintentional.  “It’s nothing to do with pills,” George insisted at the time.  He sincerely wanted us to learn about his new-found spiritual truths.  “We are spirits that are encased in bodies,” George stated in an interview as late as 1997, still daring to try to get these spiritual beliefs through to his fans.  “People forget that and think they’re just this body, but we’re actually spirits in bodies.”

The Beatles were always forthcoming in admitting when a particular song was influenced by drugs in some way.  It appears obvious that this wasn’t one of them!

Inside Abbey Road with the red light on and tape machines running, March 15th, 1967 was the first recording session to focus attention on the recently written “Within You Without You,” although, as usual, George hadn’t decided on the song’s title as of this day, the tape box identifying the track as “Untitled.”  Engineer Geoff Emerick, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” relates the experience of getting acquainted with the song:  “After the debacle of ‘Only A Northern Song,’ nobody was really expecting too much of George Harrison, and, quite frankly, when he came in at around this time and previewed ‘Within You Without You’ for us, nobody was overwhelmed.  Personally, I thought it was just tedious.  Of course, just hearing him run it down on acoustic guitar gave very little idea of the beautiful song that it was to turn into once all the overdubs were completed, but at the time it caused a lot of eye-rolling among the other Beatles and George Martin.”

The session, scheduled as usual to begin at 7 pm, took place in EMI Studio Two and was attended by some special guests.  “He brought in friends from the Indian Music Association to play some special instruments,” George Martin explains in his book “All You Need Is Ears.”  Mark Lewisohn’s book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” describes these musicians as “from the Asian Music Circle in Fitzalan Road, Finchley, north London.”  “There are some Indian musicians who worked on ‘Sgt. Pepper’ who still haven’t been paid simply because George doesn’t know their names,” George Martin stated in an interview shortly after the release of the album.

Since George Harrison was “a detached, reluctant participant” during the recording of the album, as Geoff Emerick described him, “George Martin must have known that he felt that way, which would explain why he was prepared to put so much time and effort into recording the song.  My theory was that, while Harrison may well have felt trapped by the group’s fame and notoriety, he didn’t want to let the side down, either.  That’s why there was such a sense of relief among everyone when the track turned out so well.”

Geoff Emerick continues: “Studio Two had a hardwood floor, so in order to dampen the sound, I normally put down carpeting underneath Ringo’s drums and in the area where Beatles vocals were recorded.  But this time Richard and I got out a bunch of throw rugs and spread them all over the floor for the musicians to sit on, all in an effort to make them more comfortable and make the studio a bit more homey.  Mind you, the Abbey Road rugs were completely moth-eaten and dilapidated…but it was the thought that counted.”

“All four Beatles were there when the basic track was recorded, along with famed illustrator Peter Blake, who was there to talk about the ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album cover.  He mostly huddled with Paul and John while George was busy instructing the musicians as to the parts he wanted them to play.  Ringo, as usual, was lost in a game of chess off in a corner with Neil (Aspinall).”

Regarding the atmosphere in the studio during the above-mentioned rehearsals for “Within You Without You,” Peter Blake recalls: “George was there with some Indian musicians, and they had a carpet on the floor, and there was incense burning.  George was very sweet – he’s always been very kind and sweet – and he got up and welcomed us in and offered us tea.  We just sat and watched for a couple of hours.  It was a fascinating, historical time.”  Emerick concurs: “It was very calm and peaceful in the studio that evening.  Harrison was surrounded by his new friends, the Indian Musicians, and he was gracious and welcoming when Peter Blake arrived; for perhaps the first time during the ‘Pepper’ session, I could see that George was completely relaxed.”

As to Paul and John’s activities during these rehearsals, Emerick continues: “Paul was somewhat interested in the goings-on and in how the various instruments were played – eventually he even bought a sitar himself – but John seemed quite bored, wandering around the studio aimlessly, not knowing what to contribute.”  “George has done a great Indian one,” Paul stated in an interview in 1967.  “We came along one night, and he had about 400 Indian fellas playing there, and it was a great swinging evening, as they say.”

Once the arrangement was worked out, and all the instrumentalists were warmed up, it was time to start the tapes rolling.  “Eventually the recording commenced,” Emerick relates.  “It was decided to first lay down a drone, with three of four musicians playing one note continuously; even Neil Aspinall was recruited to assist Harrison in playing tamboura.  As the other instruments began to be layered on top of the drone, the structure of the song started to make a little more sense.  I quite liked the sound of the tabla, and, as I had done on George’s ‘Revolver’ track ‘Love You To,’ I once again decided to close-mic them and add signal processing to make things a bit more exciting sonically.”  In the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” Emerick states: “Everyone was amazed when they first heard a tabla recorded that closely, with the texture and the lovely low resonances.”  The other Indian instruments recorded on this day were swordmandel, which is a multi-stringed board zither, and dilruba, described by Emerick as “a bowed instrument similar to a sitar, but smaller.”

In using the above-mentioned Ravi Shankar composition as inspiration, the recording was done in three sections:  the first comprising the first two verses and the refrain, the second being the elaborate 5/4 instrumental section of the song, and the third being the return to the original tempo and comprising the final verse and refrain.  These were made “in three edit-sections which he then pieced together,” according to the book “Revolution In The Head.”  The book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” indicates the song “lasting 6:25” at this point, this meaning that since the finished product was 5:03, editing had to be done during the mixing stage.

“Because the song was unusually long,” Emerick continues, “there were quite a few glances between John and Paul when the rhythm track was being recorded, and I could tell that they were a bit dubious.  ‘Yes, it’s all very nice,’ I could imagine they were thinking, ‘and it’s all very well played, but it isn’t Beatles, is it?’…I guess they went along with it for the sake of band unity.”

“We all knew George liked Indian music,” stated George Martin in the film “The Making Of Sgt. Pepper.”  “There was a kind of toleration if you like, but it was a welcome one because we actually liked the sounds.  The joss sticks were even OK – they covered the smell of pot.”

The instruments recorded on this day filled up tracks one, two and four of the four-track tape.  By 1:30 am the following morning, the session was complete, the unnamed Indian musicians went home, and the rugs were rolled up for the night.

A week later, on March 22nd, 1967, work continued on “Within You Without You” in EMI Studio Two, this session also earmarked to begin at 7 pm.  “A refreshed, rejuvenated George Harrison came back to the studio and oversaw the overdubbing of a couple of additional dilruba parts,” says Emerick about this day’s work.

“I was introduced to the dilruba,” George Martin recalls, “an Indian violin, in playing which a lot of sliding techniques are used.”  These dilrubas were played by another unnamed musician, undoubtedly overdubbing himself (or herself), the result being the sliding melody lines heard throughout the song.  The tape speed was increased to 52 1/2 cycles per second so that it would sound slowed down when played back at the proper speed.

“The other three Beatles were present at the session,” Emerick remembers, “but boredom set in quickly, so arrangements were made to have them listen to other works in progress in another control room.  Deep in concentration, George barely even noticed that the others had departed; he may have even welcomed them leaving him to work on his own.”  This listening session is described in the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” in this way:  “In the control room of Studio One, between 11 pm and 12:30 am, tape operator Graham Kirkby oversaw a playback of the LP songs completed to date for any Beatle interested in listening.”

The dilrubas recorded on this day went onto track three of the four-track tape and, since the tape was now full, a reduction mix was made which turned ‘take one’ into ‘take two.’  After this had been accomplished, a demo mono mix was made in order for an acetate recording to be available to hear what’s been done so far on the song.  By 2:15 am the following morning, the session was complete.

One final recording session was needed to bring “Within You Without You” to completion, this extensive session happening on April 3rd, 1967 in EMI Studio One beginning at 7 pm.  Studio One was chosen because of it being larger and more suitable for orchestral recordings, this being the major ingredient being recorded on this day.  This session is also noteworthy because, apart from the “Inner Groove” that was quickly recorded for the run-out groove of the British album, this was the final recording session for the entire “Sgt. Pepper” album.  George Harrison may have been the only Beatle present on this day “with Paul somewhere over the Atlantic, winging his way to America” as Geoff Emerick put it, but it was a landmark day nonetheless.  “As was becoming a habit,” Emerick continues, “it was a marathon session, running until dawn the next day, but the results were nothing short of magical.”

However, much preparatory work was needed from George Martin before this session.  “What was difficult,” explains Martin, “was writing a score for the cellos and violins that the English players would be able to play like the Indians.  The dilruba player, for example, was doing all kinds of swoops and so I actually had to score that for strings and instruct the players to follow.”  Concerning the “sliding techniques” of the previously recorded Indian instruments, Martin explains: “This meant that in scoring for that track I had to make the string players play very much like Indian musicians, bending the notes, and with slurs between one note and the next.”  The book “Revolution In The Head” explains: “A less than enthusiastic Martin did his best to catch the idiom, carefully marking in the microtonal slides his London Symphony Orchestra players were required to imitate.”

Geoff Emerick explains the events of the day:  “George Martin was conducting the same top-flight orchestral players that worked on most of the rest of ‘Pepper,’ but despite their expertise, the musicians took a long time to get it right; I clearly remember the look of deep concentration on their faces as they struggled to master the complex score.  It was painstaking, and it certainly was a challenge to the musicians, many of whom seemed to be getting a bit frustrated as the session wore on.”

“The problem was that we were trying to create a blend of East meets West – conventional orchestral instruments playing over nonconventional Indian instruments.  There were no real bar lines in the Eastern music, just a lot of sustained tones, most of which were playing in between the twelve notes used in Western music.  That was a really hard session for George Martin – by the end of the night, he was absolutely knackered.  Thankfully he had the help of George Harrison, who acted as a bridge between the Indian tonalities and rhythms, which he understood quite well, and the Western sensibilities of George Martin and the classical musicians.  I was never more impressed with both Georges than I was on that very special, almost spiritual night.”

While the recording of seasoned string players working off of a detailed score usually gets it nearly perfect from their first try (see “She’s Leaving Home” as a prime example), many attempts needed to be made this time around.  The book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” states: “Each take of the strings overdub went directly onto track three of the four-track tape, automatically wiping the previous attempt, and this procedure went on until all were satisfied that it could not be improved any further.”  The session musicians were then dismissed for the evening at approximately 11 pm; leader Erich Gruenberg received eleven pounds while the remainder of the players received the Musicians’ Union session rate of nine pounds.

Geoff Emerick now describes the events of the rest of the session.  “After the string overdubs were completed and the musicians had departed, we moved into Studio Two, where George Harrison began tuning his sitar, sitting cross-legged on a throw rug we had put down for him.  He only had to overdub three of four licks in the instrumental section, but some of the drop-ins were tricky, and it took hours to do.  None of us ever really appreciated how difficult the sitar was to play.  Despite the fact that George was quite accomplished, it did always seem to take a lot of time to get his parts recorded whenever he picked the instrument up.”

As was his want, George chose to fill in the empty spaces between the melody lines played by the dilruba in this section of the song.  (See “I’m Looking Through You” and, “She Said She Said” for other examples of George ‘filling in the gaps’ of the melody lines.)  Upon listening, there is actually eight sitar fills George added to the instrumental section on this day as well as other vamping and mimicking of the dilruba melody line.  Interestingly, it appears that they attempted to double-track these fills, the first one being double-tracked while the others remain single tracked, undoubtedly realizing the difficulty they were having in getting this done and how much time they were taking.

With the sitar work complete, they quickly went to the next task at hand.  “Finally, with the lights down low and candles and incense burning,” Emerick continues, “George tackled the lead vocal, and he did a great job.  Mind you; he does sound quite sleepy on it…hardly surprising since he’d been up all night working on the track!  Fortunately, that lethargic quality seemed to perfectly complement the mood of the song.”  It wasn’t only his lack of sleep that created the vocal feel needed for the song.  The same finesse that the string musicians used had to also be perfected by George.  As George Martin explains, he had to sing “the same tune as the dilruba in exactly the same way; the same kind of swoops that the dilruba does.”  He worked at perfecting this art, recording each attempt directly onto track four of the tape, also wiping away any previous attempt in the process.

Although it remains to be found on the finished product, “The Beatles Recording Sessions” indicates that George also recorded “a dash of acoustic guitar…just here and there” before the evening was complete, all of George’s overdubs being preserved on track four of the master tape.  With all of this accomplished, the production staff of Martin, Emerick and 2nd engineer Richard Lush took the time to try their hand at creating a mono mix, making three attempts at mixing ‘part one’ of the song and two tries at ‘part two and three’ with the intention of editing them together later.  “The sun was rising as we staggered out of the studio the next morning,” remembers Geoff Emerick, “but I felt completely satisfied, proud of our accomplishment.”

Later that day, April 4th, 1967, the same team of Martin, Emerick, and Lush convened back into the control room of EMI Studio Two at 7 pm to create both the mono and stereo mixes of “Within You Without You” that appeared on the released versions of the album.  They made six more attempts at ‘part one’ of the song (remix 6 through 11) and only one try at ‘parts two and three’ (remix 12) and then edited them together (remix 10 and 12) to get the final mono mix.

However, per George Harrison’s request, they added a small bit of laughter at the end of the song as it faded out.  “The laugh at the very end of the track was George Harrison,” George Martin explains.  “He just thought it would be a good idea to put on it...I think he just wanted to relieve the tedium a bit.  George was slightly embarrassed and defensive about his work. I was always conscious of that."  The production staff superimposed a bit of recorded laughter as they were editing the two sections of the mono mix together.  According to “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” this laughter came “courtesy of the Abbey Road sound effects collection, ‘Volume 6: Applause and Laughter.’”  However, George Martin’s book “Summer Of Love” explains this snippet as The Beatles laughing after an unknown take during the “Sgt. Pepper” sessions.  In either case, the laughter comes in quite abruptly and loudly in the final seconds of the mono mix.

The stereo mix was then tackled, three mixes of ‘part one’ (remixes 1 through 3) and two mixes of ‘parts two and three’ (remixes 4 and 5), mixes 3 and 5 were joined together to form the finished stereo mix.  During the editing of these two mixes, they once again superimposed some laughter, taking a similar but noticeably different section of laughter than what they used for the mono mix.  The initial tamboura drone, the tabla and the introductory swordwandel is heard in the left channel of the stereo mix, while the dilrubas are strictly in the right channel.  The vocals, sitar and second swordmandel appearance are centered in the mix while the acoustic guitar is apparently buried somewhere deep in the mix.  The ending laughter is a little more subtle and is only heard in the right channel of the stereo mix.

While George Martin described “Within You Without You” in 1979 as “a rather dreary song,” he changed his opinion as the years passed.  "I actually think 'Within You Without You' would have benefitted a bit by being shorter, but it was a very interesting song," Martin later said.  "I find it more interesting now than I did then."  This new opinion is also obvious by his choice to include a new mix of the recording on the 1996 compilation “Anthology 2.”  He was undoubtedly proud of the hard work he put into the string score and the performance he and George Harrison got out of the violinists and cellists.  “From then on,” Geoff Emerick explains, “many of George Martin’s orchestrations began exhibiting that same kind of Indian feel, with string sections doing slight pitch-bending.  It actually put a stamp on his arrangements and gave them a unique sound.”  The unique and vibrant mix of the song on “Anthology 2” has all of the elements of the released version, minus George’s lead vocals and the ending laughter.

Even more thrilling to hear was the new mix created by George Martin and his son Giles Martin for the Cirque du Soliel production and subsequent album “Love.”  They worked hard to combine the rhythmic elements of “Tomorrow Never Knows” with George’s vocals of “Within You Without You” to create what many view as the crowning jewel of the album.  This mix, created sometime between 2004 and 2006, had to be constructed to fit the sometimes-changing time signatures of the original, this being done by strategic editing and blending of elements of both songs.  The second verse takes away the rhythms of “Tomorrow Never Knows” to reveal more of the tablas and dilrubas of “Within You Without You,” while the backward vocal lines of “Rain” are even thrown in at the close of the track.  Very inventive indeed!

Be sure to join me tomorrow for a thorough account in creating ‘When I’M Sixty-Four’ and ‘Lovely Rita.’

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