Since "crunch time" hit the fan big time in getting their fourth British album released before the end of 1964, The Beatles agreed to a marathon recording session at EMI Studio Two on Sunday, October 18th in-between their hectic touring schedule. This nine-hour session ran from 2:30 to 11:30 pm, which resulted in no less than eight finished songs. The first hour was taken up recording edit pieces to the previously recorded "Eight Days A Week." Then came some quick rehearsals for the next thing on their agenda, which was recording their version of the Little Richard medley of "Kansas City" and "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey."
In a 2018 interview he gave on a Marc Maron podcast, Paul explains his love of singing Little Richard-style and the rehearsals of this day: "The little screamy voice, that's something I just loved. I loved his records, you know, and I wanted to do that. So that gave me a, sort of, feature thing within The Beatles, 'cause John couldn't do that. And I remember him saying to me, 'How do you do that, how do you do that?' I said, 'I don't know. I feel like it just comes out of the top of my head.' And he was like, 'Oh, wow!' And then we had a session once where we were, the early days, and I'm about to do 'Kansas City,' so I'm on the mic...and I'm going 'Ka...Kansas City, cough...,' and I'm not making it, I'm not getting it at all. So John comes down and he says, 'Remember, it comes out of the top of your head!' I said, okay, "KANSAS CITY...' And that's the take you hear."
Geoff Emerick, the 2nd engineer on this day, relates in his book "Here, There and Everywhere" his recollections of this session: "Everyone's attention then turned to the first full song of the day, a cover medley of "Kansas City" and "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey." From the way Paul was singing - nearly ripping his vocal cords apart - I was surprised that they had decided to do this song first, but after years of performing onstage, his voice was strong and could take the abuse. Notably, all the other Beatles - even Ringo, who hardly ever sang backing vocals - joined in on the chorus, doing the "hey hey hey" answering part. This medley was an established part of their live show at that point, and they really cut loose on it, playing with a confidence and a sheer, innocent joy that was positively infectious. I knew from that minute onward that it was going to be a great session. It was simply incredible to hear that much energy coming from the group so early in the day...They were locked in, right from the start, and that track is the definitive proof of what a great live band The Beatles were when they were in their prime."
All four Beatles played this live, including all vocals, in two complete takes. The first take was determined to be the better one, therefore a couple overdubs were recorded onto this take. George Martin added a piano part throughout the song, although it ended up being quite low in the mix. The Beatles then added handclaps to the closing measures of the song, beginning with the "bye-bye, baby, bye-bye" section. The whole song was probably completed within a half hour, from approximately 3:30 to 4:00 pm.
Both the mono and stereo mixes of the song were done on October 26th, 1964 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Tony Clark. A decision was made at this stage to fade out the song just before The Beatles performed their usual trademark ending. The mono mix fades out slightly earlier than the stereo mix.
On January 26th, 1969, The Beatles hit upon the song once more during the recording of the "Get Back / Let It Be" sessions at Apple Studios. This time they opted for the Wilbert Harrison instead of the Little Richard version, even singing about the "crazy little women." After a couple verses, they immediately made it into a medley with two other Little Richard songs, "Miss Ann" and "Lawdy Miss Clawdy."
Paul McCartney took it to the recording studio himself on July 20th, 1987 for his Russian album entitled "CHOBa B CCCP." This version combines both the Wilbert Harrison version ("crazy little women") and the Little Richard version ("hey-hey-hey-hey").
A recording of Paul and his band playing "Kansas City" live was made on May 31st, 1993 in Kansas City. This recording was then included on his live album "Paul Is Live," which was released later that year.
Although some sources claim that this medley was among the many songs The Beatles recorded with Tony Sheridan in Hamburg in 1961 or 1962, listening to the existing recording suggest otherwise. The saxophone and organ arrangement, along with the guitar work that is very uncharacteristic of either George or John, is evidence that a different backing band was utilized for this rendition.
Song Structure and Style
Here we finally have, in its purest form, a Beatles song in a straight 12-bar blues pattern without any deviances whatsoever. Apart from a four-measure introduction, every section consists of twelve measures and follows a natural blues chord progression. Since these are actually two songs melded together, the "Kansas City" part consists of three verses, the last of the three taking the form of a guitar solo. The "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" part consists of four straight verses, the last one fading out during the ninth measure. Together it simply becomes 'verse/ verse/ verse (solo)/ verse/ verse/ verse/ verse' (or aaaaaaa). What's simpler than that?
Although the song pattern, lyrics and even the key come directly from the 1959 Little Richard rendition, The Beatles do deviate from his arrangement in many places as we will see. The staccato four-measure introduction comes straight off of the Richard arrangement, but when the blues 'groove' begins with the first verse, Paul sings Richard's second verse first, which ends with the line "it's a long, long time since my baby's been gone." The Beatles also include a transitional chord in the twelfth measure that Richard didn't include, which works well to introduce the next verse.
The second verse is, therefore, Richard's first verse, which includes the nonsense lyrics "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine." Then, instead of going directly into the "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" section of the song as Richard does, The Beatles feel that the solo section works better here. George Harrison performs an inventive ad-libbed guitar solo over the same verse chord pattern. One reason that this first take was used instead of the second was because George's solo was less inspired and fell apart toward the end, leading Paul to throw in some off-the-cuff vocal embellishments to try to cover it up. This wasn't needed the first time around, since the solo worked perfectly.
The twelfth measure of the solo consists of the trademark 'Beatles break' (which also happened to be on the Little Richard version), which allows for Paul's introduction of the "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" section of the song. The band kicks in for the fourth verse with John, George and Ringo answering Paul's yelps in unison just as The Chimes did on the Richard recording. While Richard put the instrumental (saxophone) section in-between two verses of "hey-hey-hey-hey," The Beatles put both of them together for good effect.
This is then followed by the sixth and seventh verse which focus on the lyrics "bye-bye, baby, bye," which come from Richard's "Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey" as well as his original version of "Kansas City" that was recorded in 1955. The Beatles really 'bring it home' by adding harmonized answer vocals from John and George that are absent from the original Richard recording. And with the appearance of handclaps and piano accents for the remainder of the song, it fades with the general feeling that we've just experienced The Beatles at their best!
The Beatles had the incredible experience of being, by manager Brian Epstein's doing, the support act of Little Richard at a couple local British shows in October of 1962, not to mention during their Hamburg stay in November of that year. McCartney took advantage of this opportunity by not only meeting his hero but having Richard teach him the secret of his scream. The evidence of this is heard, and felt, on this recording of "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" Coupling this with his walking blues bass lines, Paul is without a doubt the showcase player on this cover song.
George Harrison, as mentioned above, shows his guitar prowess by concocting a more-than-suitable ad-libbed guitar solo, as well as displaying his usual rhythm guitar flare throughout. George and John both play backing vocalist with spot-on accuracy with the nasal overtones of Lennon's voice dominating the "bye-bye" portion of the recording. Lennon's Rickenbacker rhythm work, coupled with Ringo's driving swing beat, propels the song convincingly. And they all clapped well too.
Also worthy of mention is George Martin's piano work, which shows his ability to transcend his classical upbringing to 'rock with the best of them.' His fast-moving chorded triplets add a fullness to the proceedings, even though their appearance is more subtle than dominant in the mix.
If one is to pay attention to the lyrics, we'll see that Little Richard's adaptation of the original Leiber and Stoller song changes the story from "going to Kansas City" to get some of the "crazy way of loving" for themselves (or "crazy little women") to getting his "baby back home." Richard says that it's been "a long, long time since my baby's been gone" and he asks her, "what's been wrong with you?" This is a far cry from the original sentiment of the song, which was to be "standing on the corner...with his Kansas City baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine." But with Richard lyrics that include counting from one to nine, I guess we're really not supposed to be paying attention to lyrics anyway.
Next Song – Eight Days A Week:
The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two on October 6th, 1964, the fifth session for their British album "Beatles For Sale," at 3:00 pm. Their only order of business this day was to record their recently written composition "Eight Days A Week." The only problem was that they were very unsure about the arrangement they would use. They took the seven-hour recording session on that day (with one 15-minute break) to experiment with the arrangement as they went along, something they would do with increasing regularity as their career progressed.
It took the first six takes to come up with a suitable introduction for the song. "Take one" started off with just John on acoustic guitar, "take two" comprised John and Paul performing harmonized "oohs" before the guitar came in, "take three" (as heard on "Anthology 1") combines both these ideas simultaneously and "take four" shows both John and Paul singing one note on the same pitch as the acoustic guitar changes chords. "Take five," as also heard on "Anthology 1," not only has them keeping the same pitch at the beginning but also at the end of the song.
"Take six" ended up being the keeper, which ditched the "oohs" in the introduction altogether. They instead began the song instrumentally with George Harrison's electric guitar in the forefront, although it came across a little ragged. The close of the song was also somewhat abrupt, but they went with it for the time being. Takes seven through thirteen concentrated on multiple overdubs, such as double-tracking John's lead vocals and adding the distinctive handclaps heard throughout the song. At 6:45 pm, the session was complete, but more thought ensued about the song's arrangement within the next twelve days.
An interesting side-note concerning this session was that John could be heard practicing the beginnings of a new song he was writing called "I Feel Fine," which wasn't officially brought into the studio until a later recording session held on October 18th. While The Beatles felt that "Eight Days A Week" would undoubtedly be the next single, this would all change when they heard the final version of "I Feel Fine" a couple of weeks later.
On October 18th, a marathon recording session was scheduled to knock out a bunch of songs for the soon-to-be-released album. "The first order of business," as explained by 2nd engineer Geoff Emerick in his book "Here, There And Everywhere," "was to do some repair work on...'Eight Days A Week.' As everyone settled in chairs and gathered around the console, I threaded up Norman (Smith)'s rough mix and the playback commenced...As we listened intently, everyone's head was nodding in time, Ringo exuberantly tapping out the beat on his knees. As the last note died out, we all excitedly agreed that the high-energy performance captured on tape was a definite "keeper." The only problems were with the ragged beginning and overly abrupt ending, and an intense discussion ensued about how to best fix them."
"Paul announced that he and John had come up with an idea for an alternate beginning," Emerick continues, "doing an a cappella (unaccompanied) vocal, and George Martin, who had learned by now never to dismiss any of their ideas out of hand, said, 'Fine, let's have a go.' With that, they trundled off down to the studio...Norman had to spend some time matching sounds so that the edits would be undetectable...Paul, John and George Harrison gathered around a single (microphone) and began singing 'oohs' in unison (take 14). It was interesting, but was quickly deemed too weak of a beginning for a song that was so dynamic."
"Rather than waste more time," continues Emerick, "George Martin decided to move things along by having The Beatles work on the (conclusion) instead. The idea they had worked out for that part was much more powerful, with Lennon and Harrison stabbing out ringing chords on their guitars, accompanied by Paul tapping out a staccato bass line on his trusty Hofner (take 15). The problem of what to do about the ragged intro still remained, however, and as they were pondering what to do about it, Norman came up with the brilliant suggestion of simply fading in the song, instead of having everything come crashing in at full volume."
With the discussions about the song's introduction and conclusion, the matching of sounds by engineer Norman Smith, and the actual recording of the edit pieces, the entire first hour of this session (from 2:30 to 3:30 pm) was taken up with putting the finishing touches on "Eight Days A Week." The following eight hours resulted in seven more songs being completed, including what became their next British number one single "I Feel Fine."
Both the mono and stereo mixes of the song were performed in the control room of EMI Studio Two on October 27th, 1964 by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Ken Scott. It was at these mixing sessions that the fade-in to the song, a first for any pop song, was performed. However, because the separately recorded conclusion needed to be added to the body of the song, two mixes needed to be made and edited together for both the mono and stereo mix.
A new stereo mix of the song was created in 2015 by Giles Martin (son of George Martin) and Sam Okell in Abbey Road Studios for inclusion on a re-released version of the compilation album "Beatles 1."
Song Structure and Style
Lennon and McCartney return once again to their usual 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse' formula, this actually being a simple but classic case. No need for an instrumental or solo section, just a quick introduction and almost identical conclusion with a repeat of a bridge and verse thrown in the middle. This results in an aababa format, which has been seen many times thus far in their cannon.
The interesting facets to listen to are in the arrangement, which were very pre-determined and concise. The four-measure introduction, for instance, comprise the same chords heard in the first four measures of each verse, but played quite differently. Apart from its being faded in (at the suggestion of engineer Norman Smith) to build momentum, Paul's bass notes propel these measures with fast triplets that stay permanently locked on the D note even though the chords are changing. George's vivid guitar phrases (which may very well have been double-tracked) are the primary focus here, while the drums stay subdued on the toms. This creates an irresistible anticipation, as well as a perfect vehicle for disc jockeys to cross-fade from the previous song.
The drums kick in on the one-beat of the first sixteen-measure-verse along with Lennon's lead vocals, which are double-tracked throughout the whole song. Handclaps are heard strategically on the two- and four-beat of each measure throughout the first eight measures, as are George's swing-style rhythm guitar phrases (which you hear him rehearsing in between earlier takes on "Anthology 1"). Lennon's acoustic rhythm guitar work is actually the dominant instrument in the mix, while Ringo's drums are slightly quieter than heard in the earlier takes on the Anthology disc. Paul is heard playfully walking his bass on the quarter notes of each measure.
The third section of the verse, which would be measures nine through twelve, shows George reduced to guitar strums on the one-beat of each measure and the virtual disappearance of Ringo. Instead we hear John's guitar propelling the song along with the characteristic handclaps adding a beat at the end of each measure while the words "hold me, love me" are repeated twice. Afterwards, the last four measures of the verse go back to the instrumentation heard earlier in the verse while Paul kicks into harmony for the first time on the key phrase of the song "eight days a week." Wisely, they decided to abandon the awkward slip into falsetto on this phrase that they experimented with in take five.
Another identical verse follows, the only differences being another set of lyrics in the first eight measures and Paul slipping into harmony for the "hold me, love me" section of the verse. The bridge then follows, which is eight measures long and is full of intricacies all its own. For instance, Paul harmonizes with John throughout the whole bridge, which is especially prominent during the third and fourth measures where the band fully drops out (except for Paul's bass) and you hear their rising-and-falling harmonies sing "I lo-o-o-o-ove you." This is followed by a drum accent by Ringo which calls the band back into the song on the fifth measure. It's noteworthy to mention that George is almost non-existent in this first bridge as if he hadn't gotten this part quite figured out yet. He enters in strongly with the next verse, though.
The first verse is then repeated in exactly the same formation as we heard it before with one notable exception. John lets out a moaning introduction to the phrase "hold me" in the eighth measure, which is the only time this is done in the whole song.
The bridge is then repeated, but it appears George is more confident in his playing this time around because his rhythm guitar phrases can be heard very prominently. The second verse is then repeated identically as heard the first time, complete with harmonies during the "hold me, love me" section. The last two measures of this verse are then repeated three times to drill the title of the song into our subconscious mind for the rest of our lives. This is then followed by the conclusion of the song that was recorded nearly two weeks later and edited on at the mixing stage. It is a virtual repeat of the introduction (without the fade in), with a crash landing on the one-beat of the fourth measure. This ending inspires a satisfied feeling and encourages applause, which is what the perfect pop song is supposed to do!
Lyrically, the song is very "surfacy." It's obvious that the catch phrase "eight days a week" is the primary focus with all of the cliché-heavy surrounding lyrics being used as filler to point to the end of each verse, which highlights the song's title. Lyrics such as "ooh, I need your love babe," "always on my mind" and "love you all the time" are a far cry from the more introspective and personal songs that Lennon was writing at that time, such as "I'm A Loser" and "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party." This, no doubt, was a contributing factor to John's opinion of the song throughout the years, viewing it as "lousy" and "manufactured."
Musicianship and arrangement is what is key to this song, giving it its undeniable commercial appeal. While the writing may be slightly in favor of McCartney over Lennon, John appears as the central figure with his lead vocals and acoustic guitar. Even though George plays his passages with electric guitar, it is by no means a "lead guitar" part. The overall emphasis of John's rhythm guitar identifies the song as acoustic-based, with George's electric guitar playing a supporting role, which is quite opposite of what we're used to in Beatles recordings up to this point. George's harmony vocals, which appear during the bridge as well as when the title of the song is sung, gel very well with the others to perfect their three-part harmony.
As usual, Paul plays and sings to perfection, his harmonies adding the irresistible charm and professionalism to the proceedings. His walking bass, while slightly low in the mix, shows Paul filling his reluctant role as "bass player" of the group with enthusiasm and pride. Ringo's strident drum fills are heard more prominently in the earlier takes (as heard in "Anthology 1") but can still be detected in the finished product. His trademark hi-hat sizzle is in the forefront as usual, as is his incredible attention to the detailed arrangement (that is, knowing when to stop, start, accent, and crash).
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