The earliest recording of anything considered as "Come Together" occurred on June 2nd, 1969, as a demo that John recorded at the request of Timothy Leary for his California gubernatorial campaign for 1970. This recording played on alternative radio stations in California in 1969 and in no way resembles the finished song as we know it, while John himself demonstrated vocally during a 1970 interview.
John first introduced “Come Together” into EMI Studio Three on July 21st, 1969 as a contribution for “Abbey Road.” The session began at 2:30 pm, “Come Together” being the first new song John brought in for The Beatles to record since April's “The Ballad Of John And Yoko.” In fact, Mark Lewisohn notes, in his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” that John “had kept a low profile during recent Beatles recording sessions,” even passing on opportunities to contribute to the sessions at all.
But on this day, he was up and raring to go. “John was in a pretty good mood that day,” Geoff Emerick relates in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” this being Geoff's first official day back in EMI Studios after being asked by Paul to help engineer the group's last album. He continues: “He seemed to come to life when we were working on one of his own songs, rather than one of Paul's or George's. True, all three of them exhibited a lack of patience if it wasn't their song – there was always a definite drop-off in interest whenever any one of them was working on another Beatle's composition – but John was consistently the most flagrant offender.”
Upon entering the session on this day, according to Geoff Emerick, John exclaimed, “Okay, lads, I'm ready. Time to let yer hair down and do some rock 'n' roll.” Geoff continues: “It was nearly three weeks into July, and two weeks after the prodigal son had returned to the studio when we finally heard those words from a fully recovered John Lennon.” What Geoff was referring to was a car accident that John had three weeks earlier, on July 1st, during a holiday in Golspie, north Scotland, with Yoko, her daughter, Kyoko and his son Julian. With John driving, their car “careered into the ditch by the side of the road...at the tongue area of Sutherland,” according to a news report. John ended up in the hospital and received seventeen stitches while Yoko, being pregnant, was being monitored more closely.
“'Come Together' was one of the last ones to be recorded,” stated George Harrison back in 1969. “John was in an accident, so he was off for a period of time. Then when we got back, which was only a week or so before we finished the album, we did this one. I think he wrote it only a month or so ago, so it's very new. It's sort of a twelve-bar type of tune.”
“He was about to run The Beatles through a new song,” Emerick continues, “the second of his to be recorded for 'Abbey Road' (they'd done some work on 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' before the summer sessions had commenced) – and we all waited with bated breath to see what he'd come up with. 'Come Together' may not have been a masterpiece, but it was a catchy hooky tune, and even though it clearly owed a lot to Chuck Berry, its abstract, somewhat risqué lyric had that distinctive Lennon stamp. The first time he played it for us, chugging away on his acoustic guitar, it was a lot faster than the final version that made it to the album.”
John himself explained in 1969: “'Come Together' changed at a session. We said, 'Let's slow it down. Let's do this to it, let's do that to it,' and it ends up; however it comes out. I just said, 'Look, I've got no arrangement for you, but you know how I want it.' I think that's partly because we've played together a long time. So I said, 'Give me something funky,' and set up a beat, maybe, and they all just join in.”
Paul explained it somewhat differently in his book “Many Years From Now.” “He originally brought it over as a very perky little song, and I pointed out to him that it was very similar to Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me.' John acknowledged it was rather close to it so I said, 'Well, anything you can do to get away from that.' I suggested that we tried it swampy – 'swampy' was the word I used – so we did, we took it right down. I laid that bass line down which very much makes the mood. It's actually a bass line that people now use very often in rap records. If it's not a sample, they use that riff. But that was my contribution to that.” Geoff Emerick concurs. “It was Paul who suggested it be done at a slower tempo, with a 'swampy' kind of sound, and Lennon went along with it uncomplainingly; he always took well to constructive criticism.”
Even though John's head was back in the game on this day, the session wasn't as focused as one would think. “Despite Lennon's improved frame of mind,” Emerick continues, “there were clearly still underlying tensions and old wounds that hadn't healed. The band kept breaking into long, pointless jam sessions, as they had done frequently during the 'White Album' sessions, and I could see that John was treating Paul in an off-hand manner.”
Nonetheless, throughout rehearsals and jam sessions, John led The Beatles through eight 'takes' of “Come Together” on this day, recorded on a four-track machine. Author Mark Lewisohn, who had the privilege of hearing all of these takes in preparation for his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” writes: “Take one was a magnificent version, marked by a supreme Lennon vocal free of the massive tape echo which was applied later. Freed too from the restrictions of a guitar, John was able to sing while simultaneously clapping his hands (again, later applied with tape echo) immediately after each time he sang the line 'Shoot me!' There was only one guitar on the tape at this stage, and that was George's, Paul played bass, and Ringo played drums. John tapped a tambourine part-way through, too. It was a memorable recording.” Ringo's drums were covered with towels to dampen the sound.
Take one, as described above, can be heard in its entirety on the 1996 released “Anthology 3” album. John's very energetic vocal stands out, all of the lyrics being in place right from the first take, the exception entered when he flubbed the lyrics in the final verse, which prompted Ringo to go into a triplet beat for the final refrain, knowing this take went sour.
Regarding the above mentioned vocal effect, John explained the following in a 1969 interview: “It's me going “Shooo...(clapping hands twice) on tape echo...It's not compressed; it's just, I was sort of going (demonstrates again) through me hands like that.” Geoff Emerick explains further. “On the finished record you can really only hear the word 'shoot.' The bass guitar note falls where the 'me' is.”
While Mark Lewisohn's “Recording Sessions” book stipulates 'take six' as being the keeper, he corrects himself in the liner notes for “Anthology 3” by saying it was instead 'take eight' that was deemed best. The Beatles session ended at 9:30 pm, although the engineering staff took the four-track tape over to the control room of Studio Two to make a tape copy of 'take eight' onto an eight-track machine for further recording, this copy becoming 'take nine.” This only took a half hour to accomplish; everyone involved vacating the building by 10 pm.
The next day, July 22nd, 1969, after Paul attempted a lead vocal for the previously recorded “Oh! Darling,” The Beatles took to adding overdubs onto the newly copied eight-track tape recorded rhythm track of “Come Together” in EMI Studio Three, the session beginning sometime after 2:30 pm. When the original four-track tape was copied over onto eight-track, they must have isolated John's lead vocal onto its own track so as to be re-recorded later, which is one of the things done on this day.
Other overdubs to the song on this session were electric piano, rhythm guitar, and maracas, the latter undoubtedly performed by Ringo. “Paul came up with the electric piano lick,” Emerick relates, “that pretty well defines 'Come Together.' John even made a point of playing the piano line, once he'd looked over Paul's shoulder and learned the part. That would have never happened in the old days: both men knew that Paul was the better piano player, and he normally would be manning the keyboards even if they were recording a Lennon song...Finally, in some frustration, (Paul) blurted out, 'What do you want me to do on this track, John?' John's reply was a diffident 'Don't worry; I'll do the overdubs on this.'” With this said, it appears that the rhythm guitar part overdubbed on this day was John as well.
Emerick continues: “Paul looked a bit hurt, then angry. For a moment I thought there was going to be an explosion. Instead, he contained himself, shrugged his shoulders, and simply walked out of the studio – one of the few times he ever left a session early. Paul had to have felt humiliated, but rather than having a fight or an argument about it; he chose to just get up and leave, without any dramatics. The next day, he returned, and nothing further was ever said about it.” As it was, this session ended at 9:30 pm with yet more work to be done on the song.
“Come Together” was touched on again the following day, July 23rd, 1969, The Beatles entering EMI Studio Three sometime after 2:30 pm. After yet another attempt by Paul at nailing down a lead vocal for “Oh! Darling,” more vocal overdub work was added to “Come Together,” possibly John double-tracking parts of the lead vocal. The group then began work on “The End,” which took up most of the session on this day, ending at 11:30 pm.
July 25th, 1969, was the next day that attention reshifted to “Come Together,” a 12-hour session beginning at 2:30 pm in EMI Studio Two. After the group performed overdubs for the “Sun King / Mean Mr. Mustard” section of the “Abbey Road” medley, the “Recording Sessions” book indicates that “vocal harmonies” were recorded for “Come Together” on this day. But who provided the harmonies?
“John not only sang the lead but also did all the backing vocals on 'Come Together' by himself,” Geoff Emerick states. “He didn't ask either, Paul or George, to join in, and neither of them volunteered. Harrison didn't seem to care one way or the other, but I could see that it was getting to Paul.”
In a 1970 interview with the “Evening Standard,” Paul appears to concur with Geoff Emerick. “I would love The Beatles to be on top of their form and to be as productive as they were. But things have changed. They're all individuals. Even on 'Abbey Road' we don't do harmonies like we used to. I think it's sad. On 'Come Together' I would have liked to sing harmony with John and I think he would have liked me to but I was too embarrassed to ask him, and I don't work to the best of my abilities in that situation.”
All that said, when listening to the isolated backing vocal track as recorded on this day, made available through the Beatles edition of the game “Rock Band,” the voice you hear is unmistakably Paul's. It could be that what both Geoff Emerick and Paul were referring to was how it was very commonplace for John and Paul to perform their harmony vocal parts simultaneously, even as late as on “Hey Bulldog” which there is video footage of from the previous year. But this apparently was not the case in recording "Come Together," Paul's harmonies being added as an overdub later. In any event, the proof is in the released recording.
According to Paul's book "Many Years From Now," Barry Miles relates that, during the recording of "Come Together," "Paul recorded a lot of heavy breathing on the end, but it was buried so deep in the mix as to be inaudible." It was probably during Paul's harmony vocal overdub on this day that this heavy recorded breathing took place as well.
After Paul provided this vocal work for “Come Together” on this day, the group began work on the “Polythene Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” section of the “Abbey Road” medley, the session then ending at 2:30 am the following morning.
More work on "Come Together" commenced on July 29th, 1969, in EMI Studio Three, the session stipulated to have begun at the usual 2:30 pm. The first order of business on this day was to add some harmonized lead guitar work in the instrumental section of the song, both parts presumably played by George because of the similarity of the melody lines used in the song's conclusion, which is known to have been played by George. With this accomplished, more attention was given to the “Sun King / Mean Mr. Mustard” medley section before they ended the session at 10:45 pm.
The finishing touches to “Come Together” finalized on July 30th, 1969, in EMI Studio Three, the session beginning at 3:30 pm. George's ending lead guitar passages occurred on this day, this followed by extensive work onto what became the side-two medley of “Abbey Road.” This session ended at 10:30 pm, which immediately morphed into a stereo mixing and editing session in the control room of EMI Studio Two, which finally concluded at 2:30 am the following morning.
The Beatles were all very happy with the finished product. "Great record," Paul stated in the "Beatles Anthology" book. "It's one of the nicest sounds we've got, actually," George said in 1969, adding, "Nice drumming from Ringo. And it's sort of up-tempo. I suppose you'd call it a rocker. Rocker-beat-a-boogie." John was especially happy with how it came out, as he expressed in his 1980 Playboy interview: "It's a funky record. It's one of my favorite Beatle tracks or one of my favorite Lennon tracks, I'd say. It's funky, it's bluesy, and I'm singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I'd buy it!"
The stereo mix for “Come Together” reworked on August 7th, 1969, in the control room of EMI Studio Two, by George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and John Kurlander. It took three-and-a-half hours to create this stereo mix; ten attempts took place. In the end, they decided that the very first attempt at this mix was the best, no mono mix arose since mono albums had phased out of existence by 1969.
On August 30th, 1972, a live recorded rendition of “Come Together” by John Lennon and the band Elephant's Memory during a performance at New York City's Madison Square Garden. This interesting version of the song, played in E minor instead of D minor like the Beatles recording, was afterward included on the album “Live In New York City,” released February 10th, 1986.
Then, sometime in 1996, George Martin and Geoff Emerick returned to the original “take one” of the song as The Beatles recorded on July 21st, 1969 to create a mix for the compilation album “Anthology 3.”
George Martin then returned to the finished master tape sometime between 2004 and 2006 and, along with his son Giles Martin, created a new mix of the song for inclusion in the Cirque du Soleil show and album “Love.” This track, titled “Come Together/Dear Prudence,” comprises a vibrant new stereo mix of “Come Together” with elements of both “Dear Prudence” and “Cry Baby Cry” at the end of the track, which makes for interesting listening.
Giles Martin then returned once again to the master tapes of the song, along with engineer Sam Okell, in Abbey Road Studios sometime in 2015 to create a new stereo mix for inclusion on the newly remixed “Beatles 1” compilation album.
Song Structure and Style
The format chosen for "Come Together" consists of the following: 'riff/ verse/ riff/ verse/ refrain/ riff/ verse/ refrain/ riff/ verse (instrumental)/ verse/ refrain/ riff/ conclusion' (or ababcabcabbcad). John keeps to a steady 4/4-time signature throughout the entire song, something unusual for him in these later Beatle years, this being an indication that Paul and the others had more than the usual influence on a Lennon composition this time around.
The distinctive eight measure riff begins with John's word “shoot” sung through clapped hands and treated to tape echo, this appearing directly on the downbeat of the first measure as well as the third, fifth and seventh. This section of the song is actually a four-times repeated two-measure musical piece from the three instruments played on the rhythm track, these being Paul's deep bass line, George's electric guitar passage and Ringo's drums. As for the drums, Ringo accents the first two quarter-beats with kick drum and cymbal, followed by four beats on slightly closed hi-hats played in triplet form, and then the second measure is filled with triplet beats on his toms, heard as thuds because of the towels that cover these drums. All of these bass-heavy elements create a very “swampy” effect indeed!
The first verse appears next, which is sixteen measures long as all of the verses of the song are. The same three rhythm track instruments are the only ones heard throughout this verse, George plodding through electric rhythm guitar chords, his instrument adjusted to have a suitable bassy tone, Paul on bass continuing the riff he invented for the opening section of the song, and Ringo keeping strictly to the kick drum and toms while not straying from the quarter-beats. This continues for the first twelve measures, adjusting accordingly for the chord change at measure nine. Then, on measure thirteen, the guitar and bass drop out entirely while Ringo crashes a cymbal and plays a simple pattern on kick drum alone. All the while, John's distinctive single-tracked lead vocal cuts through like a razor, tape-echo to the fore. Directly following John's final words “do what he please,” we hear a faint voice that seems to say “yeah,” possibly Paul's voice bled over from the rhythm track, and then a guitar neck squeak as George places his left hand in position for the second riff that directly follows this.
The second riff and verse that follows are identical in instrumentation and playing from those previous with one exception. Paul has now overdubbed harmony vocals in the verse on the lines “toe jam football,” “monkey finger” and “Coca-Cola.” As a side note, The Beatles didn't think twice about using the brand-name “Coca-Cola” in the lyrics of a hit song, unlike The Kinks the following year who altered the lyrics to their international hit “Lola” from “Coca-Cola” to “cherry cola” for the single version to avoid any problems.
The first refrain then follows which is four measures long, as the rest of them are. John's vocals are now double-tracked while Paul adds harmony on the lyric “come together,” this line mostly preceding the downbeat of the refrain. Ringo now plays half beats, hitting the snare for the first time in the song on the third beat of the first three measures, Paul's booming bass guitar notes making the snare drum spring rattle because of both the drums and bass being recorded at the same time during the rhythm track, the snare microphone possibly being turned up in the mix at this point.
An overdubbed rhythm guitar, added on top of George's guitar from the rhythm track, gives the refrain a heavier edge than the rest of the song so far, making it stand out more prominently. Everything cuts out on the downbeat of the fourth measure, creating a trademark “Beatles break” that they have been incorporating into their arrangements as far back as their first-ever EMI recording session with “Love Me Do.” After John's isolated double-tracked line “over me,” the group goes into yet another eight-measure riff, the only noticeable difference from the previous riffs being Paul altering his bass pattern in the final measure.
This is followed by another verse and refrain, both of which are instrumentally and arrangement-wise a virtual repeat of the second verse and refrain that we just heard. The only noticeable difference is that John's final phrase in the refrain, “over me,” is single-tracked this time instead of double-tracked. This is then followed by another riff section which is only four measures in length this time and ends quite differently. As a transition to the instrumental section that follows, Ringo puts in a drum fill, and John shouts “Right!”
Next comes a simple but stellar twenty-measure instrumental verse which somewhat mimics the structure of the previous verses as well as the riff section at the end. Ringo plays a straightforward 4/4 rock beat while, for the first time in the song, riding on a cymbal throughout, also adding in drum fills in measures eight, twelve and sixteen. Two rhythm guitars appear here, one from the rhythm track and one overdubbed, while Paul thumps away on bass and John plays electric piano. Paul's heavy breaths accentuate the two- and four-beats of each of the first eight measures while John vocalizes “come” in the eighth measure as well.
As the chord changes for the ninth measure, the electric piano condenses to simple chords played sporadically while two simple harmonized lead guitar overdubs bring us through the next eight measures. Also evident here, is John repeating the word “come” at a lower volume in measures nine, twelve, fourteen and sixteen. Then, as the last harmonized guitar phrase fades away in measure seventeen, the drums disappear to reveal doodling by rhythm guitar, electric piano, and bass for measures seventeen through twenty. The last sound to be deciphered appears to be the up-and-down squeaking of a guitar neck, undoubtedly one of the harmonized guitar overdubs that just finished playing, finding an ending note on the downbeat of the final verse that follows.
This final verse is another virtual repeat instrumentally from the previous two, John deciding to double-track his final line this time around, the lyric being “got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see.” He continues the double-tracked vocals throughout the identical refrain that follows, one last riff section coming directly afterward. This eight-measure riff section is unique in that it features a volume-swelled guitar overdub that occurs in the latter half of each of the four-times repeated phrases that make up this section. Ringo puts in another drum fill in the eighth measure while John exclaims “Ahhh!” to usher in the song's concluding section.
A forty-seven-measure conclusion then appears, three guitars, electric piano, bass and drums bringing the song home while John vocalizes the song's title and the word “yeah” repeatedly for effect. George plays subtle but effective lead guitar lines throughout, alternating the same melodic phrase repeatedly while bending the final note of each phrase in imitation of many of the great blues guitarists he's come to know. Ringo rides on the cymbal and puts in various drum fills as he had done in the instrumental verse while Paul bounces around on bass and John vamps on electric piano. And so, a masterfully mature Beatles song fades off into the sunset.
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