On October 18th, 1964, The Beatles met in EMI Studio Two for a marathon recording session to knock out as many songs as possible for their next album and single. Within nine hours (from 2:30 to 11:30 pm) they brought a total of eight songs to completion. They then got up early the next morning to travel to Edinburgh to begin three consecutive performance days in Scotland.
In the final half hour of this recording day they recorded the last of these eight songs, Buddy Holly's "Words Of Love." Although they were no doubt tired by this time, you can't tell by the results. They recorded the song live, vocals and all, in two takes. "Take two" was the keeper and onto this they decided to add some overdubs to sweeten it up, this making the result "take three."
The overdubs included double-tracking their vocals, double-tracking George's 12-string guitar work to create a rich chiming guitar sound, and Ringo performing an unusual percussion overdub. As attested to in Derek Taylor's liner notes for the "Beatles For Sale" album, "Ringo plays a packing case." Upon listening, this odd percussive sound is unidentifiable but resembles more than just thumps on a suitcase. Musicologist Ian MacDonald, in his authoritative book "Revolution In The Head," adds a satisfying explanation: "Ringo slaps a packing case with a loose fastening, a noise resembling out-of-time clapping." This overdub was probably performed as a tribute to Buddy Holly's use of a similar effect in his classic song "Everyday."
Another matter that needs to be examined is the identity of the vocalists on the track. As one of the twelve Buddy Holly songs The Beatles performed in their formative years, "Words Of Love" was originally sung on stage by Lennon and Harrison. Most sources, including the liner notes of the "Beatles For Sale" album, suggest that McCartney nudged George out and sang the song with John for the recording session. The keen ears of Ian MacDonald (in his above-mentioned book) still hear Harrison's voice. Beatlemaniacs need to know!
The answer can apparently be cleared up by an eyewitness to the day's events. Geoff Emerick was the 2nd engineer on that October session and in his book "Here, There and Everywhere," he gives this account of the recording of the song: "They were clearly flagging by the time they got around to it, yet John, Paul and George sang beautiful three-part harmony, gathered around a single mic. Their vocals really imbued the track with warmth and love. It was a fitting tribute to one of the group's musical idols and the perfect way to end the evening, just short of midnight."
The mono mix of the song was performed on October 26th, 1964 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Tony Clark with The Beatles in attendance. George's lead guitar was quite loud in the mix during the instrumental passages of the song and turned down slightly when the vocals kick in when they needed to be highlighted.
November 4th, 1964 was the date the stereo mix was made in the control room of EMI Studio Two by George Martin, Norman Smith and 2nd engineer Mike Stone, but without The Beatles being there. Ringo's squeaky drum pedal can be heard pretty well in the left channel of this mix, while the fade out comes a full nine seconds earlier than on the mono mix
The Beatles touched on "Words Of Love" once more on January 23rd, 1969 at Apple Studios in London during their rehearsals for what eventually became the "Let It Be" album and film. This rendition, which occurred directly after they rehearsed the song "Get Back" a total of 43 times, was never officially released to the public.
Song Structure and Style
The Beatles kept the arrangement and elements, such as vocal harmonies and guitar licks, almost identical to the original Buddy Holly version. The difference would be them dropping the Latin sounding drum rolls of the original, replacing it with a standard 4/4 rock beat from Ringo heard buried in the mix. The structure is also very simple, only consisting in verses with some of them played instrumentally. No bridges or choruses are present, the only emphasis being the characteristic vocal harmonies and distinctive guitar passages.
The first thing we actually hear on the song is the up-beat stroke of Lennon's Rickenbacker just before the one-beat of the first measure. We are then taken directly into the first eight-measure verse, which is fully instrumental featuring George's fluid lead guitar work. The seventh and eighth measures consist of a full band "break" with only George's lead guitar ringing through.
Both the second and third verses are vocal with double-tracked harmonies providing a rich distinctive tone. Like the original, The Beatles extend the last word of each phrase, as in "tell me how you feeeellllla, tell me love is reeeeealllla." The last two measures of each verse consist of harmonized hums as the band continues to go through the three-chord changes, unlike the break in the instrumental section before it.
The hums quickly dissolve as the next of two instrumental verses appear. The guitar phrases in this verse consist of ascending and descending triads played mostly on the quarter notes but end with the distinctive riff as heard in the final measures of the first verse as the band cuts out once again. The next instrumental verse features George playing the rhythm part that he usually plays during the vocal verses but, since its melodic anyway, sounds as if it's a lead guitar part. This verse also features a band 'break' in measures seven and eight to feature the primary guitar phrase as heard at the end of each instrumental verse.
Two more eight-measure vocal verses are then heard (which would be verses six and seven), the second of which is a repeat of the second vocal verse (or third actual verse of the song). The only difference here is the repeat of the hums at the end of the last verse, which extend to eighteen measures in the mono mix (fourteen measures in the stereo mix). Adding to the effect of the fade-out is how the harmonized hums gradually turn into wider-mouthed "aahs" as it goes off into the sunset.
Performance wise, George Harrison turns out to be the focal point of the song, with his perfectly-executed well-rehearsed guitar work in tribute to his hero. Even after eight-and-a-half hours or so of recording that day, this song was so ingrained in his memory from five full years of performing the song with The Beatles that he could nail it without even thinking about it. His harmonized vocals, probably performed while playing, are also spot-on.
John Lennon, though, is the most prominent vocalist on the track, his characteristic voice holding down the low notes throughout. His rhythm guitar part is nicely handled as well, wisely choosing electric instead of acoustic as heard mostly on this British album. Paul puts in his usual great job with harmonies along with some nice bass guitar runs, which were easy to adlib within the song's three-chord range. Ringo gets off easy as a drummer on the track, having only to keep a steady 4/4 beat and 'break' at the right time with only slight drum fills to bring the next verse in afterward. And, of course, his cooperation to play the "packing case" adds a unique sound to the track.
While the lyrics don't convey much of a story, it consists primarily of words of endearment to encourage reassurance of the girl's love for the singer. Lines like "Let me hear you say the words I long to heeearrrrra" and "tell me how you feeelllla, tell me love is reeeealllla" subtly depict the insecurities that someone in love feels. While the song is celebrating the innocence of new romance, we all can relate to the need to hear that our partner feels the same way that we do, especially when it's whispered "soft and truuuuea."
Next Song – Honey Don’t:
After their marathon recording session on October 18th, 1964, the Beatles had almost completed the required fourteen tracks for their next album, not to mention the two songs needed for their next single. All they seemed to need was one further session for further work on the Lennon/McCartney composition "What You're Doing."
The only problem was that Ringo still hadn't done a vocal performance for the album. John and Paul had written "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" for Ringo, but a decision was made at some point that they would sing it themselves, which ended up being a smart choice. So after they returned from their brief tour of Scotland, as well as a few more local shows, they returned to EMI Studio Two on October 26th, 1964 to remake "What You're Doing" and record a second Carl Perkins song for the album especially for Ringo, "Honey Don't." Therefore, the extra track recorded during these sessions, "Leave My Kitten Alone," was left unreleased until the 1995 "Anthology 1" album.
The Beatles were present in the studio on the morning to observe George Martin and staff perform some mono and stereo mixes for the album, but returned at 4:30 pm for a two-hour session solely devoted to recording "Honey Don't." They perfected the song in five takes with everyone playing their instruments live with Ringo's vocals, 'take five' being deemed best. An early take reveals that John played electric rhythm guitar on the song at first but then switched to acoustic by the time 'take five' was recorded, which became the released version. After this, Ringo overdubbed a tambourine throughout the entire song. By 6:30 the song was complete, shortly afterwards recording their remake of "What You're Doing" as well as their 1964 Christmas Record.
Since the album was due out very soon, George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Ken Scott created both the mono and stereo mix of the song the next day, October 27th, in the control room of Studio Two. The mixes show little variation except for the stereo mix having a bit more treble on George Harrison's guitar and a little more volume on the tambourine overdub.
To be complete, it should also be mentioned that both John Lennon and Paul McCartney had recorded versions of "Honey Don't" during sessions for solo albums. Lennon included the song as part of a medley during the sessions for his famous "Plastic Ono Band" album of 1970 as well as ran through a version of it during the sessions of "Some Time In New York City" in 1972. McCartney also jammed a version of the song in the studio with Carl Perkins in February of 1981 during the sessions that resulted in their duet "Get It" on Paul's "Tug Of War" album of 1982. None of these sessions were ever officially released.
Song Structure and Style
While a lot of the songs in Carl Perkins' catalog stayed within the confines of 12-bar blues for their format, "Honey Don't" strays somewhat. While using twelve measures most of the time, it utilizes a chorus instead of straight verses as many of his other classics do, such as "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Matchbox." The structure ends up being 'verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ solo/ chorus (instrumental)/ verse/ chorus/ solo/ chorus' (or ababcdabcb). Unlike most of the cover songs The Beatles officially recorded, the structure of this one stays basically the same as the original, right down to the key.
George Harrison starts off with a note-perfect mimic of Carl's three-measure guitar riff which segues nicely into the remaining two measures of the five-bar introduction where the full band kicks in. The first twelve-measure verse consists primarily of four 'breaks' on measures one, three, five and seven with only Ringo's vocals and tambourine keeping the beat going. The relaxed rockabilly swing is comfortably maintained throughout despite the absence of the rest of the instrumentation. It's not until the ninth measure that the full band kicks into gear as Ringo sings "ah, ah."
One confusing side-note needs to be explained in order to keep the measure count symmetrical. The first time we hear the words "Honey don't" we are actually still in the verse. The second time we hear the title of the song is the signal that the chorus has started. While this may be confusing to some, especially musicians learning the song, this was how Carl Perkins kept to the twelve-measure regimen for both the verse and the chorus. This confusion was even evident when George Harrison joined John Fogerty and friends on stage in a Hollywood club in 1987 as they went through an impromptu version of the song.
The twelve-measure chorus is heard next which mostly comprises Ringo's repeating the title of the song four times (his voice cracking on the fourth) before he climaxes with the phrase "I say you will when you won't, ah ah, honey don't." We then see an exact structural repeat of the verse and chorus, which this time conclude with Ringo's famous encouragement "Ah, rock on, George, one time for me" as a perfect segue into the first solo.
George Harrison takes the lead in this eight-measure solo which primarily follows the chord pattern of the verse except that it dives right back into the home key four measures earlier. This solo ends with Ringo blurting out the title of their recently recorded song "I Feel Fine," which was to be their next single. This moves into what is actually another chorus but without any vocals, the highlight being the rockabilly guitar rhythm of George Harrison and Ringo's ad lib vocal accents "mmm-mm" and a practice of his later heard "I said."
After a third structurally identical verse and chorus, Ringo introduces another solo with the phrase "ah, rock on, George, for Ringo one time." Strangely enough, as this moves into a final chorus, an awkwardness appears as it did in the Perkins original version. While Carl ends up inadvertently adding a couple beats to a measure, Ringo almost missed coming in where he should have, resulting in a rushed sounding "well, honey don't," as if someone nodded to him that he missed his cue.
This final chorus also acts as a conclusion to the song, as a final guitar flourish from Harrison puts the song to a halt on the final beat of the final measure.
While the purpose of the song was to highlight Ringo's vocal abilities, George Harrison appears as the true focal point. Having been raised on Carl Perkins, he has his country-flavored guitar picking down to a tee. This is not to detract from Ringo's vocal work, as his single-tracked performance comes across playful and charming, not to mention on-pitch most of the time. While his drumming is felt more than heard, his overdubbed tambourine keeps the jangly rhythm section in full swing.
Also noteworthy is McCartney's walking bass which is very suitable to this genre of music. Lennon also puts in a nice performance, choosing his acoustic guitar as rhythm instead of his clanging electric guitar as heard in the early BBC recordings. The acoustic/electric guitar contrast heard in this EMI recording, as well as on many other songs on this album, creates a warmth that makes the song palatable to the ears.
Carl Perkins' lyrics are usually less serious than just plain fun, even when they depict depressing subjects, such as with "Matchbox." On "Honey Don't," even though the singer wonders "is love real" between himself and his "honey," he doesn't hesitate to compliment her with such flattering words such as, "I like the way that you wear your clothes." Even though she's "so dog-gone sweet," she's always "out painting the town" and "steppin' around." But, with such an infectious beat, the overall attitude appears to be, "oh well, whataya gonna do?"
The only curious line in the song is "you got that sand all over your feet." Since the subject matter of the flip-side to this disc, "Blue Suede Shoes," was concerning a woman accidentally stepping on her dance partner's expensive shoes, could Carl have meant the sand that was put on dance floors back in the 50's? That's my guess.
Please feel free to leave any comments or corrections and share these articles plus this blog's website with your friends, especially Beatles’ fans. You and they might also enjoy knowing more about my Love Songs CD and my novel, BEATLEMANIAC. Just click on the “My Shop” tab near the top of this page for full details.
No comments:
Post a Comment