BIRTHDAY AND ITS INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS.

The only recording session needed to complete the song "Birthday" took place on September 18th, 1968, in EMI Studio Two beginning at 5 pm.  After Paul designed the song's riff on piano and the other Beatles arrived, it was time to work out the song's structure and record the backing track before they would adjourn to Paul's house to watch the movie "The Girl Can't Help It."

At approximately 6 pm, the first of 20 recorded takes of the rhythm track started, which consisted of Paul on lead guitar (Epiphone Casino) playing the guitar riff in the lower octave, John on lead guitar (Epiphone Casino) playing the guitar riff in the higher octave to thicken the sound, George on bass guitar (Fender VI) also playing this iconic guitar riff and Ringo, of course, on drums.  The 20th take deemed the best, featuring Paul shouting a countdown from one to eight off-mike during the drum break after the second verse, this being needed to count out eight measures until the other instruments were to come back in.  At around 8:30, after they were all satisfied with this rhythm track, all in attendance, producer Chris Thomas and George's wife Pattie included, went around to Paul's house just in time for the start of the movie.

After the movie was over, they all filed back into EMI Studio Two for more work on “Birthday,” having been inspired by the film to create the best “rocker” they could muster.  The rhythm track spun on a four-track machine so, to add overdubs, a tape copy needed to appear to transfer the rhythm track to their eight-track machine to help open up more tracks. Two attempts occurred, the second (“take 22”) used for the overdubbing.

The overdubs included Paul's “Long Tall Sally”-like lead vocal, John's lead, and backing vocal, and handclaps by John, Paul, George, Ringo, Yoko Ono, Pattie Harrison and Mal Evans.  Two backing vocalists particularly heard on the recording is Yoko and Pattie singing “Birthday” three times by themselves during each of the two bridges in the song.  Also overdubbed was, according to Mal Evans review in the 1968 edition of "The Beatles Monthly," "George playing tambourine with a gloved hand to avoid getting more blisters."

There is one other overdub that is quite unique and explained differently by different sources.  Bruce Spizer's book “The Beatles On Apple Records” describes it as “Paul's piano through a Leslie speaker.”  John Lennon described it in his Playboy interview as “one interesting sound...We put the piano through a guitar amplifier and put the tremolo in, which may have been the first time that happened.”  Ian MacDonald's book “Revolution In The Head” described it as a “heavily filtered and flanged piano.”  Mal Evans described it at the time in the “The Beatles Monthly” magazine as a “curious sound, a carefully prepared upright piano played by Paul – 'prepared' to give it a very special sound with reverberation, wow-wow and technical things like that.”  Andy Babiuk's book “Beatles Gear,” said that it “was more likely produced by the three settings of the MRB (mid-range boost) control fitted to some Vox amplifiers of the period.”  No matter how accomplished, it can be heard especially during the instrumental section (after the first bridge) and as the final chord rings out during the song's conclusion.

By 4:30 the following morning, this fun song was complete and, between 4:30 and 5 am, the mono mix was created in the control room of EMI Studio Two by Chris Thomas and engineers Ken Scott and Mike Sheady.  After this single attempt at the mono mix finalized, everyone had by then filed out of the studio, tackling a very productive day indeed!

The stereo mix stalled until October 14th, 1968, created by the returning producer George Martin along with Ken Scott and John Smith in the control room of EMI Studio Two, only one attempt needed to accomplish.  The solitary noticeable difference between the two lays toward the end of the song when Paul screams out “daaaaance” just before the final verse.  On the stereo mix, it is heard twice, possibly because of a faulty edit, but in the mono version, one of them is covered over by other elements of the recording.

On June 30th, 1990, a live recording of “Birthday” by Paul and his band took place at Knebworth Park in Stevenage, England, this version included on his live album “Tripping The Live Fantastic.”

The structure of "Birthday" gives the impression of being a standard 12-bar blues at first glance.  However, as Paul explained above, they decided haphazardly to proceed in different directions as they were putting the song together in the studio.  Paul's statement, "We said, 'We'll go to there for a few bars, then we'll do this for a few bars,'" becomes very apparent when the structure is examined.  It parses out to 'verse (instrumental)/ verse/ pre-bridge/ bridge/ verse (instrumental)/ segue/ bridge/ verse' (or aabcadca).

The proceedings kick off with a quick left-handed drum roll from Ringo not unlike what he performed as the introduction to “She Loves You” five years earlier.  From here we enter into the first verse which is strictly instrumental, this verse being twelve measures in length. The elements consist of the rhythm track, which is Paul on lead guitar playing the lower octave riff, George mimicking him on bass (which we also hear during the open spaces in-between the riffs) and Ringo's exuberant drums.  John's lead guitar is also present, him playing the higher octave version of the riff simultaneous to what Paul was playing.

The second verse then follows which is also twelve measures in length, the only difference between the first and the second being the addition of Paul and John's harmony lead vocals, Paul's higher Little Richard impersonation being more prominent.

Then the song goes into what we'll call a “pre-bridge,” which separates into two parts of eight measures each, totaling 16 measures in full.  The first eight measures consist entirely of Ringo on pounding drums, George on tambourine and Paul shouting out a count of the first eight measures off microphone (and no, these utterances are not masked clues about his supposed death).

The second eight measures of this section sound especially powerful, possibly the heaviest The Beatles have ever expressed in their career!  Both Paul and John play power chords on electric guitars with Ringo on drums and George on bass, while George's tambourine is still banging away and the hand-clapping group is going at it in full force on eighth-note beats.  After a fast snare drum fill from Ringo at the end of the tenth measure, John is the first vocal heard in the eleventh measure (“Yes, we're going to a party, party”) while Paul and George chime in on harmony in their successive turns, reprising the “aah” harmony format they so successfully performed on “Twist And Shout” five-and-a-half years earlier.  With the tension rising to an all-time high in the fifteenth and sixteenth measures, Ringo accents the snare beats on sixteenth notes which transcend into a snare drum roll at the end of the final measure.

The bridge of the song arrives next and lasts ten measures long.  With a cymbal crash from Ringo, the excitement lulls only slightly, the absence of the tambourine and hand-clapping taking the energy level down by only a notch or two.  Paul's lead guitar ascends and descends repeatedly throughout the first eight measures until it rises to a crescendo in the ninth measure, followed by three bending guitar chords high on his guitar neck.  While John plays a staccato rhythm guitar pattern, George keeps up his bass guitar work, and Ringo keeps the energy going on the drums (playing another snare drum fill in the final measure), Yoko and Pattie (and I suspect, Paul and John in falsetto) sing “Birthday” in measures one, three and five. Paul and John harmonize lead vocals once again to fill in the gap whenever the girls aren't singing, begging them to “dance” and to “take a cha-cha-cha-chance.”  Paul then voices his enthusiasm with a long-winded exclamation of “Daaaaaaaaance, yeah” which transcend the final three measures of the bridge.

Next comes another instrumental verse, identical to the first instrumental verse but with a couple of additional elements. These additions are heard in every even-numbered measure, one being Paul's highly altered piano playing and the other being George's rapid-fire tambourine playing.  Interestingly, neither of these elements are present in the odd-numbered measures – only in the even-numbered measures.

Then comes what we'll call a “segue,” a four-measure instrumental section that connects the instrumental verse with a repeat of the bridge that follows.  While the song comes to a virtual halt, both Paul and John play a particular guitar passage on their electric guitars, Paul the lower octave and John the higher octave.  George also plays the identical riff on bass guitar, all three Beatles playing the same guitar riff at the same time.  Ringo comes in with a snare beat and cymbal crash in measure two (along with a quick tambourine shake from George) and then repeats the same drum beats in measure four with one additional snare drum beat to take us into the following bridge.

This second bridge is nearly identical to its first occurrence, the only differences being a fast-paced snare drum fill from Ringo in the fourth measure, a “woooh” from Paul in the seventh measure, and a seemingly faulty edit of Paul's “Daaaaaaaaaance” scream on the downbeat of the ninth measure.

The final verse is next heard, which is in effect a combination of the third instrumental verse (with the unique piano overdub) and the second verse (with Paul and John's harmonized vocals).  The group hand-claps appear here again as well, although at a slower tempo this time around, while George's rapid-fire tambourine plays straight through the entire verse.  This verse is actually fourteen measures this time, two more measures being added to bring the song to a suitable conclusion. An anticipated downbeat is accentuated by most of the instrumental elements in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth measures, this last downbeat being the final beat of the song which allows the cymbal crash and final chord to ring out. The most notable element during the fade-out is the highly effected piano chord which adds a distinctive touch to this elaborate piece of high-energy rock 'n' roll.

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