On May 29th, 1968, The Beatles met at George's “Kinfauns” bungalow
in Esher, Surrey, the second of two consecutive days, to record demos for the
“White Album.” The example for “Honey
Pie,” recorded on this second day, consists of Paul on acoustic guitar and lead
vocals, overdubbing himself on another acoustic guitar as well as various
background vocal effects. Other elements
on this demo include tambourine and percussive thumping (undoubtedly the back
of an acoustic guitar) as well as other extraneous voices that can easily show
attributed to the other three Beatles that were present on this day.
There are various lyric and arrangement differences on this demo,
the most noticeable being the omission of the introductory section (“she was a
working girl”) of the song. Verse one as
we know it (“making me crazy”) never appears in the demo, the first verse here
being what we know as the second verse (“position is tragic”). The official
third verse is the second verse on the demo (“driving me frantic”) which is
followed by the first bridge although he didn't quite have the lyrics nailed
down yet (singing “la, da, da, da, dee, dee” at the end). Next, Paul sings the “driving me frantic”
verse and goes directly into a solo section, singing the melody line as “da,
da, da.,” etc. This is followed by the
second bridge which is ultimately the same as the released version but with the
minor lyrical change “blew her boat away to sea” instead of “across the
sea.” Then Paul repeats the “position is
tragic” verse, followed by two solo verses sung with various overdubbed Paul
vocals before it concludes suddenly.
Interestingly, the version of this demo that appears on “Anthology 3”
edits out the middle solo, second bridge, and third verse.
The Beatles entered London's Trident Studios on October 1st, 1968,
for what became a week's worth of recording sessions at this facility. Trident Studios were used by the group
earlier in these sessions (such as with the recording of the song “Hey Jude”)
primarily to take advantage of their eight-track recording capabilities,
something EMI had yet to institute.
However, by this point, The Beatles did have access to eight-track
recording at EMI so this week's work was either for a “change of scenery,” as
Mark Lewisohn's book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” suggest, or because this
week was already fully booked at EMI. In
any event, they started this week off by recording the rhythm track for Paul's
“Honey Pie” on this day, the session beginning at 4 pm.
Two reels of tape were filled with rehearsals for the song, although
the finished rhythm track on this day was deemed “take one.” This rhythm track consisted of Paul on piano,
George on bass, John on electric guitar and Ringo on drums. The solo section of the song begins with a
quick lead guitar passage played by John, something that George greatly
admired. “Sounded like Django Reinhardt or something,” George related in
1987. “It was one of them where you
close your eyes and just happen to hit all the right notes...sounded like a
little jazz solo.”
Once this was complete, George Martin, along with engineer Barry
Sheffield, made a rough mono mix for himself so that he could write a score for
brass and woodwinds for a future recording session. At 3:30 am the following morning, the session
was over with work to be resumed later that day.
This day was October 2nd, 1968, also at Trident Studios and
starting at 4 pm. It may very well be
that Paul was the only Beatle in attendance on this day, the only
accomplishments to “Honey Pie” being his lead vocal as well as lead guitar in
the introductory passage of the song.
This session was complete also at 3:30 am the following morning,
indicating that either Paul was late on this day or there was a good amount of
unproductive goofing around during the session.
The Beatles decided to start work on George Harrison's composition
“Savoy Truffle” for the next session on October 3rd but resumed work on “Honey
Pie” on October 4th at Trident Studios, this session also beginning at 4
pm. A good portion of this session was
taken up working on yet another new Paul track, namely “Martha My Dear,” Paul
beginning the session with this song. At
6 pm, however, attention turned to “Honey Pie” as seven-session musicians
entered the studio to record the brass and woodwind arrangement that George
Martin had recently prepared. By 9 pm this was complete, these musicians
leaving to allow for fourteen other session musicians to enter for recording
brass and strings for “Martha My Dear.”
Sometime after midnight, Paul turned his attention back to “Honey
Pie.” “We put a sound on my voice to
make it sound like a scratchy old record,” Paul explained in his book “Many
Years From Now.” The book “The Beatles
Recording Sessions” explains this “quaint touch: the vocal line 'now she's hit the big time!'
which was heavily limited, chopping off the signals at both ends of the
frequency range, and superimposed with the sound of a scratchy old phonograph,
to make the end product like a vocal from a very early and worn 78 rpm record.” While this sounds like a very inventive idea,
a Michael Nesmith track entitled “Magnolia Simms,” from the album “The Birds
The Bees And The Monkees,” utilized this same trick throughout the entire song,
even including a simulated record-skipping effect. This April 1968 released album predated this
Beatles session by over five months, possibly influencing Paul or George Martin
to experiment with the same thing.
At any rate, “Honey Pie” was completed at this session, which
finally ended at 4:30 am the following morning.
Both the mono and stereo mix of the song was done later that evening,
October 5th, 1968, at Trident Studios by George Martin and engineer Barry Sheffield.
After overdubs for “Savoy Truffle” and “Martha My Dear” were recorded with only
one attempt needed for both the mono and stereo mixes of “Honey Pie.” John's lead guitar break in the solo section
of the song is heard more fully on the mono mix, while the stereo mix fades it
down noticeably after the first four measures.
A tape copy of both the mono and stereo mixes of the song occurred on
October 7th, 1968 in the control room of EMI Studio Two, undoubtedly to create
uniform sounding mixes for use on the finished album, the majority of which
took place at EMI Studios.
The structure of “Honey Pie” is quite similar to a large
percentage of the early Beatles catalog, following a basic 'verse/ verse/
bridge/ verse' format (“Please Please Me” defines a prime example). This foundation is built upon, however, with
a separate introduction that is not heard elsewhere in the song, this being
reminiscent of early 20th-century songwriting (such as with “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”). The Beatles used this approach themselves
before this time, such as with “Do You Want To Know A Secret” and “Here, There
And Everywhere.” The final structure for
“Honey Pie” then becomes 'intro/ verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse/ verse (instrumental)/
verse (instrumental)/ bridge/ verse/ verse (instrumental)' (or abbcbbbcbb).
While the introduction enters purposely labored for dramatic
effect, it can still be parsed out to be twelve measures in length. It consists entirely of Paul, him playing
piano from the rhythm track with overdubs of lead vocals and lead guitar
flourishes. Measures five and six
incorporate the above mentioned scratchy record effect along with Paul's flat
vocal (“now she's hit the big time”) to simulate an old 78 rpm platter on a
Victrola. Easy evidence of the vocals
being overdubbed and not performed during the piano playing surfaces in
measures nine and ten during the lines “and if she could only hear me,” which
are noticeably off in timing. Paul's
quiet guitar passages drift in the open spaces between vocal lines in measures
two, four, six, eight and twelve, the final one incorporating an anticipatory
segue into the first verse that follows.
The final measure of the introduction concludes with a descending piano
line that takes us perfectly into the body of the song.
The first verse then appears which, like all the verses that
follow, is eight measures in length. The
full instrumentation of the rhythm track comes in immediately, consisting of
piano, guitar, bass and drums played by all four Beatles, as well as Paul's
overdubbed single-tracked lead vocals.
Ringo appears to be playing lightly with brushes throughout the song
while George thumps with staccato bass notes and John strums electric guitar
appropriately for the nostalgic feel of the song. George Martin's clarinet and
saxophone score enters in the seventh and eighth measures. This verse goes directly into the second
verse which has the exact same instrumentation but with the clarinets and
saxophones playing throughout all of the measures, ending with a descending
line juxtaposed nicely with the chord pattern that moves us into the bridge.
The bridge is also eight measures long and consists of the same
instrumentation as the second verse. A
straight 4/4 swing beat is heard here throughout the first seven measures as in
the previous verses, the only deviation to this being the eighth measure of
this bridge which has all instruments perform a three-note accent followed by
two slight taps by Ringo on a closed hi-hat.
This is followed by the third verse which is nearly the same
instrumentally as the second verse, Paul segueing vocally into the following
instrumental verse with the words “Honey pie, come back to me.”
Two instrumental verses come next, the initial focus here being
John's lead guitar from the rhythm track, although all of the other
instrumental elements are present here as well.
The clarinets and saxophones take a backseat in the arrangement for the
first verse, playing only background chords to allow for John's guitar
solo. However, Lennon's solo is
primarily heard only in the first four measures (as well as the fifth through
seventh in the mono mix), propelling Paul to pick up the slack a little in the
seventh and eighth measure, singing “I like that, aah, ooh, aah” in a gruff
whispered Jimmy Durante-like voice. Also
noteworthy here are the third and fourth measures which both contain two
accented beats performed by the instrumentalists, Ringo doing a cymbal grab on
every beat followed by two light taps on the closed hi-hats after each
pair. These accented beats also occur in
the eighth measure but without the cymbal grabs.
The second instrumental verse is similar but shows the clarinets
and saxophones taking more of a lead role since the guitar solo is limited only
to the third and fourth measure this time.
Paul also delivers the added element of ad-lib vocals with the
lines: “I like this kind of hot kind of
music, hot kind of music, play it to me, play it to me, Hollywood blues.” The accents of the third and fourth measure
are still present here as in the preceding verse, but the ending accents in the
eighth measure are omitted, replaced instead by an impressive harmonized
ascending and then descending clarinet score.
The second bridge is then heard which is similar to the first in
most respects. John puts in
double-guitar chops at the beginning of the first three measures here, however,
for some reason, and then the fourth measure features yet another impressive
harmonized clarinet riff. The three-note
accent in the eighth measure is this time accompanied by Paul as he vocally
adds “tee, tee, tee” into the fray.
We then are treated to a repeat of the first verse lyrically but
with all of the elements of the other verses.
The seventh and eighth measures begin some more ad-lib vocalizing from
Paul which continues through the final instrumental verse which comes
next. This instrumental verse is
essentially identical to the other instrumental verses heard earlier except for
the clarinets and saxophones playing the verse melody line virtually throughout. The two sets of accented beats in the third
and fourth measures do not feature the cymbal grabs as they had before,
however, while the third set in the eighth measure pushes us into one final
beat that suddenly ends the song.
Although tensions were high within the group at this point, and
John and George, in particular, weren't keen on doing songs like these, they
all cooperated nicely and put in a suitable performance. Paul, of course, was game to make the song as
authentic as possible and, with George Martin's help providing the score, the
definitive 1920's pastiche achieved authenticity.
Stop by my blog next week and discover the intricate details
showcased upon “SAVOY TRUFFLE.”
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Very informative and interesting.
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