On September 8th, 1967, The Beatles entered EMI Studio Three at approximately 7 pm to record “Aerial Tour Instrumental,” the working title of “Flying” (which was sometimes misspelled ‘Ariel Tour Instrumental’ on some of the documentation). Six takes of a basic rhythm track took shape. They consisted of Paul on bass, George on guitar with a prominent tremolo effect, John on organ and Ringo on drums.
In his book “Here, There And
Everywhere,” engineer Geoff Emerick describes this day’s events: “I wrapped up
my pre-vacation Beatles work with one last long session, during which they
recorded the instrumental song entitled ‘Flying.’ It was really nothing more than a twelve-bar
blues born out of one of their late-night jams.” By saying this, Geoff insinuates that the
song may have been inspired by one of their unproductive jam/recording sessions
the group sometimes made the engineering staff sit through during this period,
such as the one that occurred on May 9th, 1967. Although his recollections of
this session are quite interesting and even humorous, there is no real evidence
to suggest a direct link between the session and the result of “Flying.” It may have been wishful thinking on his part
to assume that those “seven hours in a stoned haze” resulted in something
useful.
As for the September 8th
session, ‘Take six’ won as the rhythm track. Interestingly, this take was
followed immediately by thirty seconds of a fast-paced traditional Jazz-style
recording featuring saxophone reportedly recorded directly from one of the
tapes within John's Mellotron (as was done the following year with the guitar
introduction to "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill"). This was
all recorded onto track one of the four-track tape. The other three tracks of
the tape were then filled with doodling on the Mellotron, one per track,
recorded backward. Since this extended the song to 9:36, they had to have fast
forwarded the tape over seven minutes and then took to recording these random
Mellotron sounds until the rhythm track appeared on track one. A very
interesting adventure in the ‘avant-garde’ craze of the times!
The engineering team then
took to making a tape reduction to open up more tracks for overdubs, two
attempts being made, ‘take 8’ now considered the best. Onto this, John
overdubbed playing the melodic Mellotron part in the second verse, this part
being written by Paul as stated above. “It’s played on the Mellotron, on a
trombone setting,” Paul recounts in “Many Years From Now.”
Also overdubbed on this day
were the “vocals” as heard in the third verse, which really only amount to
“la-la-la-la-la” in imitation of John’s Mellotron part in the second verse.
“Ringo’s voice was the most prominent one on the chanting,” Geoff Emerick
explains, “and that was done deliberately because Paul wanted a different kind
of vocal texture, one that wasn’t so obviously ‘Beatlish.’”
According to Geoff Emerick,
George also overdubbed the pretty guitar parts heard throughout the song on
this day. “George Harrison’s guitar had a distinctive sound, too, because I
used a DI (direct injection) box instead of miking his amp. The end result was
a mellow, jazzy tone that we felt perfectly complemented the tasty part he was
playing.”
The overall consensus
apparently was that the song was complete on this day. Geoff Emerick explains,
“I simply lifted out a few minutes of the best bits, they added a number of
overdubs, and the song was complete. From the outset it was always meant to be
just incidental music for the film, so nobody wanted to spend a lot of time on
it.” This being the case, four mono
mixes were made of ‘take 8’ at the end of this session by producer George
Martin, Geoff Emerick, and 2nd engineer, then they ended the session at 2:45 am
the following morning.
The song must have still been
considered finished as of September 28th, 1967, since a tape copy of the fourth
mono mix was made at an early recording session on this day to give to the film
producer of their “Magical Mystery Tour” movie then in progress. Later that
day, however, during the second recording session of this day, more overdubs
were recorded that deemed the previous mono mix unusable. This session began at
the usual 7 pm (or thereabouts) and began with mono mixing and editing of the
song “I Am The Walrus,” attention then went to “Aerial Tour Instrumental” (as
it was still referred to) at about 9 pm.
More overdubs were considered
as needed to bring the song to its finished state. John added another Mellotron
part, George added another guitar piece, and Ringo added maracas. The backwards
organ sounds were then viewed as not enough for the final seven minutes of the
song, so John and Ringo added even more to the ‘avant-garde’ landscape by
adding various tape loops (backwards and forwards) as well as percussion
sounds, which extended the song even further to 11:52. Among the tape loops
were orchestral recordings, harmonized flutes, and what sounds like a guitar
strum looped over and over. Although this practice was used to good effect as a
backdrop of sound in 1966’s “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the results of this session
are more of a precursor to 1968’s “Revolution 9.” Five takes of these tape loops and effects
were taped on this day, the fifth obviously being deemed the best.
With this complete, the
engineering team of George Martin, Ken Scott and Richard Lush worked at getting
the perfect mono mix of “Aerial Tour Instrumental.” They made two attempts at this mono mix,
numbered 5 and 6, the sixth mix being considered the best. Undoubtedly with The
Beatles gone for the day, a decision was made to edit out most of the tape
loops and effects John and Ringo had worked so hard on that day in order to
reduce the song from its very lengthy condition to a more palatable 2:14 for
record release. In the process, they also edited out the 30 seconds of jazz
music at the end of their rhythm track recording. They did leave in about 52
seconds of the backwards Mellotron overdubs from September 8th, these
overlapping the last four measures of The Beatles’ rhythm track. However, some
of the discarded backward Mellotron sounds did find a place in the “Magical
Mystery Tour” film in strategic places. This ended the session on this day at
about 3 am the following morning.
The stereo mix of the song
was made on November 7th, 1967 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by George
Martin, Ken Scott, and 2nd engineer Peter Mew. Now finally entitled “Flying,”
the song only needed one attempt at a stereo mix from the same ‘take 8,” this then
needing editing to bring the song down to 2:16 (which was two seconds longer
than the mono mix resulting in a little more backwards Mellotron sounds at the
end). The jazz recording was also taken out during this editing process. The
stereo landscape has the original rhythm track and the scant remaining
backwards tapes from John and Ringo at the end of the song in the left channel
while the added guitar passages from George, John’s Mellotron and Ringo’s
maracas are in the right channel. The chanting “la-la-la”s are panned mostly in
the right channel while the backward Mellotron sounds are dispersed between
both channels. Unlike the mono mix, these backward Mellotron sounds aren't
audible on the stereo mix until the rhythm track comes to an end.
The bulk of this
full-Beatles-credited composition (listed alphabetically on the British release
as “Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, Starkey”) consists mainly of a twelve-bar
blues pattern repeated three times. Therefore, the structure comprises a
‘verse/ verse/ verse’ (or aaa) format for the first 90 seconds, followed by 45
seconds of overdubbed backward Mellotron effects of no fixed musical structure.
The first verse begins
directly on the downbeat with bass, drums and tremolo-laden electric guitar
from the rhythm track for the first five measures. Ringo plays a simple
plodding 4/4 beat while Paul bounces around a little on the bass to accentuate
George’s simple rhythm guitar playing. The sixth measure reveals a George
Harrison overdubbed guitar passage which extends throughout the seventh measure
and then disappears for the eighth measure. A new melodic guitar passage then
appears in the ninth measure to extend to the end of the verse while Ringo ends
the verse with a slight anticipatory snare drum accent to segue the song into
the second verse that follows.
Two new elements appear on
top of the existing instrumentation for the second verse, these both being
played by John. The organ he played on the rhythm track comes in for the first
time on the downbeat, as does his overdubbed melody line as played on
Mellotron. This continues throughout the rest of this verse with the final
addition being an identical repeat of George’s guitar overdubbed passage as
heard in the first verse during the ninth through twelfth measures, this final
measure including a subtle but appropriate drum fill from Ringo.
The third verse includes all
of the same instrumentation as the previous one except for the Mellotron, which
is now gone for the remainder of the 12-bar blues section of the song. In its
absence is a four-man Beatle chorus (with Ringo in first chair) singing in
unison the same melody line the Mellotron played in the second verse. Ringo
thinks to include a simple drum fill in both the sixth and ninth measures this
time around while the singers switch to harmony “aaah”s in the ninth through
twelfth measures. In the ninth measure, we begin to hear the ending of the
backwards recorded Mellotron noodling for the first time (I say
"ending" because they were recorded backwards…remember?), which is
much more discernible on the mono mix. Apart from the backward Mellotron
swirling that comprises the rest of the song and then fades away, we hear a bit
of what sounds like the only evidence of John and Ringo’s backward overdubs in
the background from 1:44 to 1:52 of the finished recording.
Paul, being the catalyst of
this song, plays impressive bass guitar, sings in the ‘Beatle chorus’ and
possibly swirls away on the Mellotron haphazardly for seven minutes or so. John
undoubtedly also contributed to the backward Mellotron overdub as well as
playing both organ and Mellotron in the twelve-bar blues section of the song,
not to mention a hearty vocal contribution. George put in some very nice guitar
passages that add some elegant touches to the song as well as sung in the
chorus, while Ringo’s drums and maracas positioned phenomenal balance to the
tempo. Let us not forget Ringo’s lead vocals as well!
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