October 13th, 1965 marked the second recording session for what
became their “Rubber Soul” album, a five hour and fifteen-minute session
devoted entirely to recording the newly written composition “Drive My
Car.” They entered EMI Studio Two at 7
pm and started working out the arrangement.
George Harrison explains the somewhat different atmosphere of this
session: “We laid the track because,
what Paul would (usually) do, if he had written a song, he’d learn all the
parts for himself and then come in the studio and say, ‘Do this.’ He’d never give you the opportunity to come
out with something. But, on ‘Drive My
Car,’ I just played the line, which is really like a lick off ‘Respect,’ you
know, the Otis Redding version. I played
that line on the guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that.”
What causes some confusion here is that George was quoted at one
point saying “I played the bassline on ‘Drive My Car.’ It was like the line from ‘Respect’ by Otis
Redding.” Many authors take this as
evidence that George actually played the bass guitar on the recording. His quote from the previous paragraph clears
this up, him playing the “bassline” meaning that he played the same part that
Paul played on bass during the rhythm track.
At another time, George had stated:
“I used a (Fender) Stratocaster around ‘Rubber Soul’ time, on ‘Drive My
Car’ and those kind of things.”
After they got the arrangement perfected, four takes of the rhythm
track were attempted before they got it right, the fourth attempt accomplished
the only one that made it all the way through to the end of the song. The instruments used on the rhythm track
consisted of George on electric guitar, Paul on bass (both basically playing
the same part) and Ringo on drums. John
apparently sat out this rhythm track as well as the rest of the entire
song. His only contribution to “Drive My
Car” was his lead and background vocals which were overdubbed later.
These overdubs were numerous and include the following: two tambourines from Ringo (one playing
accents as heard in the verses and the second playing a rhythm pattern as heard
in the choruses), a lead vocal track from John and Paul simultaneously, Paul on
piano during the choruses, Ringo on cowbell throughout most of the song, three
part harmonies from John, Paul and George during the “beep, beep” portions of
the song, and Paul on lead guitar using a slide. At least two attempts at this lead guitar
solo was made since a different take of this solo can faintly be heard in the
background in all of the mixes that were released. This is most discernable in the final two
measures of the solo where Paul's slide work is noticeably different. Also noticeable is John’s overdubbed “and
maybe I'll love you” lines at the end of each chorus, which were probably done
during the three-part harmony overdub.
By 12:15 am the next day the song was complete and they all went home
for some sleep (or to party somewhere).
The mono mix was made on October 25th, 1965 in the control room of
EMI Studio Two by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Ken
Scott. The cowbell overdub was mixed
rather low on this mono mix which also included very little reverb on the
vocals. Interestingly, this mix was not
available in the US at the time since Capitol Records decided to combine both
channels of the stereo mix to create their own mono mix.
While The Beatles were at Buckingham Palace receiving their MBE’s
on October 26th, 1965, Martin’s help created the stereo mix of “Drive My Car” in
the control room of EMI Studio Two. The
same EMI staff was utilized for this session with the exception of Ron Pender
substituting for Ken Scott as 2nd engineer.
The cowbell was raised slightly higher in the mix and the reverb
is punched up somewhat unlike the mono mix made the day before. The rhythm track is heard almost exclusively
in the left channel along with both tambourine parts and the overdubbed
three-part “beep, beep” harmonies (along with John’s “maybe I'll love you”
lines). The right channel consists of
the rest of the overdubs, which consist of the lead vocals, cowbell, piano and
lead guitar parts. In fact, we can hear
George play some adlib guitar runs in-between the vocal lines in the final
verse, but these were turned down in the mix so as not to be heard (although we
still can). Another anomaly is hearing
Paul practice the vocal line “Baby, you can drive my car” in the final measures
of the guitar solo, although this is quite hard to hear since it wasn’t meant
to be heard.
Sometime in 1986, George Martin returned to the master tapes to
make a new stereo mix of the song for the compact disc release of “Rubber Soul”
in 1987. Although the changes to the
elements are minimal, differences include the lead vocals shifted a little more
centered and the absence of Paul practicing his vocals during the guitar solo.
Not to be forgotten are the live recordings of “Drive My Car” that
have been released by Paul on his album “Paul Is Live” which he recorded
sometime between March 22nd and June 15th of 1993. His performance of the song at the 2005 Super
Bowl on February 6th, 2005 was also recorded for a future limited-edition
release. A June 27th, 2007 recording of
the song at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, California saw release in Britain and
Ireland on an album entitled "Paul McCartney Live In Los Angeles" and
then on the US released album "Amoeba Music." The song was also
recorded between July 15th and 21st, 2009 at Citi Field in New York City, the
results of which appear as the opening track of his “Good Evening New York
City” album.
Song Structure and Style
While a George Harrison-suggested R&B arrangement was
implemented as the rhythmic style of the song, the actual structure had been
becoming somewhat common within The Beatles cannon. It consists of a ‘verse/ chorus/ verse/
chorus/ verse (solo)/ chorus/ verse/ chorus’ format (or abababab). A quick introduction and faded conclusion
round out the proceedings.
This quick two-measure introduction, however, is arguably the most
disorienting beginning to any Beatles song in their history. While trying to find the downbeat in the
intro to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” may have been initially confusing, the
opening two measures of “Drive My Car” still leave studied “musicologists”
scratching their heads to this day.
Producer Mark Hudson, who had worked with Ringo on his solo career for
ten years, has related how he asked the drummer about the song’s introduction,
saying that “he could never figure it out.”
Ringo couldn't even explain it.
The idiosyncrasy appears as a result of the overdubbed lead guitar
line placed on top of the bass guitar introduction and drum roll as played on
the rhythm track. The first element of
the rhythm track that we hear in the song is Paul’s four bass notes (A, C, D,
D) which are played as eighth notes that end just prior to the downbeat of the
second measure of the intro. Then Ringo
comes in with an introductory drum roll, consisting of sixteenth beats, which
segue perfectly into the first measure of the first verse. On top of this, Paul adds an overdubbed lead
guitar passage that actually starts on the eighth note before the first measure
of the introduction. In order to decode
it properly, practice counting the second guitar note as the downbeat and it
will all work out.
After the listener finally gets his bearings, the first
eight-measure verse begins. No rhythm
guitar is strummed anywhere in the song, but its groove is held together by
George and Paul playing nearly identical bass lines on their respective
instruments while three Ringos hold down the percussion end of the arrangement
(drums, tambourine and cowbell).
Two-part harmony is heard throughout the verse with Paul singing the higher
harmony which is basically staying on a single note for the entire verse. John sings the lower harmony with its
dissonant F-natural in the seventh and eighth measure that gives the song that
uniquely alarming flair (on the words “you can do something in-between”). Also during these measures, the drums
interrupt their usual 4/4 rock beat to perform a syncopated pattern alternating
between the snare and bass drum while the tambourine and cowbell cuts out for a
brief period.
The chorus, which is also eight measures in length, then begins
with the entrance of Paul’s piano reigns as the most notable additional
element. The piano plays the part of a
rhythm instrument in the absence of the usual strummed guitar as in nearly
every other Beatles song up to this point.
Uniquely, the piano plays a slow triplet pattern in the second and
fourth measures as a nice contrast against the uniform 4/4 rhythm that
continues underneath it. (The group
decides to reprise the use of triplets, per George Harrison’s suggestion, on
“We Can Work It Out” which began recording a week later.)
While the cowbell and accented tambourine enter the picture again
in the chorus, a second tambourine also comes in to shake a steady rock beat
with the drums. John and Paul continue
to harmonize throughout this section except for the final phrase “and maybe
I'll love you” which is sung in unison, Paul on the right channel and John as
overdubbed afterward on the left channel.
The piano plays its final chord of the chorus on the one-beat of the
eighth measure, leaving behind the guitar and bass unison Otis Redding-like
riff to fill out the rest of the final measure.
Apart from different lyrics, the second verse is identical in
structure and followed by a repeat of the chorus which is also structurally the
same except for one added element at the end.
In the eighth measure, not only does the piano drop out but every other
instrument does as well (except for the tambourines). This allows for a three-part harmony
(including George) to be heard singing “beep beep mm beep beep, yeah,” which
was overdubbed and heard in both the left and right channels. The major/minor dissonant harmonies are heard
once again on these words as are their falsetto vocals which have become a
Beatles trademark since 1962.
This ushers in the guitar solo which is played on top of of the
chord changes of a new verse. As has
been becoming more frequent, Paul performs the solo on this track which is
played in part, if not in full, using a slide which is most noticeable in the
seventh and eighth measures. The usual
verse instrumentation as heard elsewhere in the song is also present in this
guitar solo section of the song.
A third chorus is now heard just like the first chorus without the
“beep beep” harmonies at the end. Then
the third vocal verse appears which contains a new set of lyrics. As is evident in many Lennon/McCartney songs
of the first half of The Beatles career, a third verse was optional. “Your inspiration’s gone by that point,”
McCartney explains. “We would often
repeat the first verse…that’s how a lot of our songs end, ‘Repeat 1.’” For “Drive My Car,” however, the inspiration
was obviously still high enough to add another element to the story; therefore,
a new third verse is included. Also, it
is here in this verse, in measures two, four and six, that you can hear
George’s adlib guitar phrases that were meant to be eliminated when the song
was mixed.
A fourth and final chorus is then heard which is identical to the
second in that it contains the “beep beep” harmonies at the end. The only difference here is that all of the
instrumentation disappears for that final measure, even the tambourines. This is followed by the faded conclusion
which repeats the “beep beep” harmonies four more times with complete instrumentation
and a reprise of Paul’s slide guitar work in measures five through eight, along
with a simple drum fill from Ringo in the fifth measure. All in all, the British “Rubber Soul” album
is off to an impressively surprising start.
Since this is primarily a ‘McCartney song,’ it’s no wonder that
he’s the primary performer on the track.
His dual lead vocals with John are tightly performed (no doubt under
George Martin’s tutelage) as are his excellent R&B style bass playing
(under George Harrison’s tutelage). He
makes no qualms about playing lead guitar once again and does so expertly. His piano work also appears to have been
executed effortlessly but with the appropriate feeling.
George Harrison is understandably proud of his contribution to the
song, introducing the rhythmic feel to be used which he also carried out with
much skill. And he also could be counted
on for adding that extra harmony when needed and doing so superbly. Ringo was kept quite busy on this track,
adding all the needed percussion and all in perfect time, while his drumming on
the rhythm track was as vibrant and alive as what we would expect from
him. And although John is instrumentally
missing from the song, his vocal contributions are an essential
ingredient. Since this is primarily
Paul’s song, John taking the lower register of the dual lead vocals is quite
impressive since he sometimes struggled with this task. As heard here, he puts forward a commanding
presentation.
Viewed by Paul as a “comedy number,” the lyrics seem to depict a
pick-up line used by a man to a woman, asking her “what she wanted to be.” Her answer was that she wanted “to be
famous, as star of the screen” but comically suggested that maybe he could be
her chauffer when that time came.
The man then retorted that his “prospects were good,” possibly
indicating that he has high aspirations for his future as well and wouldn’t
stoop to the level as someone’s driver.
She then acknowledges that fact but condescendingly intimates that he’ll
only ever amount to “working for peanuts” and that she could show him “a better
time” if he drove her car. Playing
along, he then says that he’ll “start right away,” but she then puts on the
breaks by saying “listen, babe…I got no car” yet. But her flirtatious final line “but I got a
driver and that’s a start” becomes the humorous pay-off line of the song.
While the phrase “drive my car” is revealed by Paul as a blues
euphemism for sex, other lines they thought to include fit the bill as well,
such as “I can show you a better time.”
“If we could put in something that was a little bit subversive then we
would,” Paul explained.
Next Song – Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown):
“It’s the first pop song that ever had a sitar on it,” John said
in 1980. “I asked George to play this
guitar lick on the sitar.”
“It was such a mind-blower that we had this strange instrument on
a record,” Ringo elaborates. “We were
all open to anything when George introduced the sitar: you could walk in with an elephant, as long
as it was going to make a musical note.
Anything was viable. Our whole
attitude was changing. We’d grown up a
little, I think.”
After tinkering around with a sitar that was a prop on the set of
their movie "Help!" on April 5th and 6th, 1965, George took his
curiosity with the instrument a little further later that year. “I went and bought a sitar from a little shop
at the top of Oxford Street called Indiacraft,” George relates. “It was a real crummy-quality one, actually,
but I bought it and mucked about with it a bit.
Anyway, we were at the point where we’d recorded the ‘Norwegian Wood’
backing track (twelve-string and six-string acoustic, bass and drums) and it
needed something. We would usually start
looking through the cupboard to see if we could come up with something, a new
sound, and I picked the sitar up – it was just lying around; I hadn’t really
figured out what to do with it. It was
quite spontaneous: I found the notes
that played the lick. It fitted and it
worked.”
John adds, “He was not sure whether he could play it yet because
he hadn’t done much on the sitar, but he was willing to have a go, as is his
wont, and he learnt the bit.”
The recording session described above by George Harrison took
place on October 12th, 1965, which was the very first day The Beatles convened
in EMI Studio Two to record what became the “Rubber Soul” album. The first session on this day ran from 2:30
to 7:00 pm and concentrated solely on the song “Run For Your Life.” Immediately thereafter, they spent the next
four-and-a-half hours (from 7 to 11:30 pm) on “Norwegian Wood,” although its
title was simply “This Bird Has Flown” at this point.
The rhythm track was performed in only one take, although “much
rehearsing, head-scratching and overdubbing,” as Mark Lewisohn describes it in
his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” took place during this lengthy
session. As George stated above, two
acoustic guitars, bass guitar and Ringo tapping on his cymbals made up the
rhythm track. They then overdubbed
John’s lead vocal, Paul’s harmonies during the bridge, two overdubs of sitar
from George, finger cymbals and maracas by Ringo, and John double-tracked his
vocals at the end of every line in each verse.
Engineer Norman Smith remembers the difficulty he had in recording
the sitar: “It is very hard to record
because it has a lot of nasty peaks and a very complex wave form. My meter would be going right over into the
red, into distortion, without us getting audible value for money. I could have used a limiter but that would
have meant losing the sonorous quality.”
Nonetheless, they worked out the bugs and got an adequate
recording of the sitar on this first version of the song. Their original intention of this as a “comedy
number” is most evident with their labored vocals and goofy-sounding sitar riff
at the songs’ conclusion. But, with all
this done and a strict time schedule to get the album finished, they still
decided that this wasn’t good enough.
John wasn’t happy.
“We went through many different versions of the song,” John
remembers. “It was never right and I was
getting very angry about it, it wasn’t coming out like I said. They said, ‘Just do it how you want.’”
This opportunity came nine days later on October 21st, 1965, in
EMI Studio Two where the song was started again from scratch. Another four-and-a-half-hour session ran from
2:30 to 7:00 pm and showed the group once again experimenting with different
arrangements. The first try of the song
on this day (take two) premiered an interesting double-tracked sitar
introduction played along with John’s acoustic guitar to the melody and chords
of the bridge. It then segued into the
verse with a simple drum and bass guitar rhythm kicking in as George plucked
out the melody line on the sitar. “I did
the guitar very loudly into the mike and sang it at the same time,” John
remembers about the session on this day.
Paul also did his background vocals during the rhythm track this time
around. This rather awkward take wasn’t
deemed good enough for overdubs and they took a little time to re-think their
strategy.
Take three shows that they decided to change the title of the song
to “Norwegian Wood,” hence Norman Smith’s announcement “This Bird Has,
er…er…Norwegian Wood take three.” This
time around, however, they decided to lift the key of the song from D major to
E major, accomplished by John placing a capo on the second fret of his Gibson
acoustic guitar, thereby deciding to hold off on recording the sitar for the
time being. George “dubbed it on after,”
as John explained in interview, possibly varispeeded from the same key that
George had been playing in the earlier versions. Take three closely resembles the finished
version, although it didn’t get past the rhythm track, which consisted of John
and George’s acoustic guitars and Paul’s bass with vocals.
Take four was the keeper, which began with John performing three
attempts at the acoustic guitar introduction.
After the first try, John stops and says “no, okay” and immediately
tries again. After the second attempt he
stops and calmly exclaims “wrong,” and jumps right into the version that made
it onto the finished recording. An
additional eight measures is included in the instrumental portion of the song
at this stage, which brings this section to sixteen measures as the rest of the
verses have. At the end of the song,
John smugly says “I showed ya.” With
that, the rhythm track, consisting of two acoustic guitars, bass guitar, bass
drum beats and vocals, is complete and ready for overdubs.
George then overdubs his distinct sitar part, playing the riff
during much of the song and performing a drone during the second and fourth
verses. Therefore, the sitar ended up as
more of a complimentary ingredient to the song rather than the primary focus as
originally intended. The answering sitar
phrases heard in the bridges of the song are therefore dropped in favor of
letting the acoustic guitar strums take precedent.
Ringo then enters the picture for overdubs, performing parts on
tambourine and what sounds like knee slaps during the bridges of the song. Who needs drums to be a good percussionist?
No time was wasted in performing the mono and stereo mixes of
“Norwegian Wood,” the mono mix took place on October 25th, 1965 in the control
room of EMI Studio Two by George Martin and Norman Smith with Ken Scott as 2nd
engineer. One thing they apparently
neglected to do on this mono mix was fading down George Harrison's isolated
sitar track whenever he wasn't playing, which left some sound traces that
weren't intended to reach the final package.
First to be noted is George coughing during the bridge (just before the
words “so I looked around”). Also, a
voice is heard presumably saying "sounds good" just as the vocal
begins "she told me she works..." at the start of the second bridge. Nobody noticed these flaws at the time and
they became part of the mono mix that got released to the public.
The first stereo mix was performed the following day, October
26th, 1965, also in the control room of EMI Studio Two by George Martin, Norman
Smith and Ron Pender as 2nd engineer.
The engineering staff did remember to turn down the sitar track during
the first bridge this time around.
However, a quick discernible voice is heard just before George starts
his sitar riff in the instrumental section of the song, possibly a cue from
someone to instruct George to start playing his sitar. The presence of this voice appears to
indicate that engineer faded up that track a little early this time
around. This flaw was also unnoticed and
got released to the public as well.
The Beatles actually went through "Norwegian Wood" on two
different occasions, January 7th and 9th, 1969, at Twickenham Film Studios
during the rehearsals for what became the "Let It Be" album and
film. Of course, neither of these taped
renditions were released to the public in any way.
A second stereo mix of the original 1965 studio recording was made
by George Martin in 1986 in preparation for the “Rubber Soul” album Apple
released on compact disc for the first time.
This has become the prominent mix of the song that is available to this
day.
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