I'm Down, and its Incredible Recording Process

 

As film production for the movie “Help!” came to a close, manager Brian Epstein took pain not to put too much on their agenda for about a month (mid-May to mid-June) for a well-deserved vacation if they so desired. (Paul, for instance, went on a five-hour car trip from Lisbon to Albufeira on May 27th that allowed him finally finishing off the lyrics to “Yesterday.”)

 

On June 14th, however, all returned “back to business” with the first of three recording sessions in EMI Studio Two for crafting the second side of their next British album, “Help!” Jokingly christened as “Paul McCartney day,” in the realm, all three songs put on tape were primarily, if not entirely, written by Paul. Two sessions were scheduled on this day: the first, a three-hour session from 2:30 to 5:30 pm that resulted in laying down two Paul songs to completion.

 

The first approximate hour-and-a-half  utilized their talents for recording the country-flavored “I’ve Just Seen A Face,” and, when that was complete, they jumped head-long into Paul’s screamer “I’m Down.” Seven takes of the rhythm track were needed until they all were satisfied with the results. These rhythm tracks consisted of Paul on bass and lead vocals, George on rhythm guitar with solo, John on organ, and Ringo on drums.

 

With Paul’s encouraging Americanism, “Let’s hope this one turns out pretty darn good, huh,” they jumped into the first take, which showed George struggling somewhat with his guitar rhythm but more confident suggests his guitar solo was somewhat thought through. The plan had arranged for John to play an organ solo in the second instrumental spot, but when the time came, he just kept the rhythm going and indicated verbally for Paul to “keep going” with the song. Paul responded to the absence by shouting “oooh yeah” and “oooh-hooo,” not to mention woofing like a dog. (This take can be heard in its entirety on “Anthology 2”).

 

This take ended with George practicing his rhythm chords and solo, Ringo mocking Paul’s flamboyant vocal gymnastics, and an interesting genesis of a future Beatles term. “I think the title ‘Rubber Soul’ came from a comment an old blues guy had said of Jagger,” McCartney explains. He adds, “I’ve heard some out-takes of us doing ‘I’m Down,’ and at the front of it, I’m chatting on about Mick. I’m saying how I’d just read about an old bloke in the States who said, ‘Mick Jagger, man. Well, you know they’re good – but it’s plastic soul.’ So ‘plastic soul’ was the germ of the ‘Rubber Soul’ idea.” Therefore, at the end of take one, we hear Paul repeat “plastic soul, man, plastic soul.”

 

Having identified the seventh take as best, they were ready to add overdubs. George’s guitar solo on this take was isolated onto a separate track to adjust the volume or add effects during the mixing stage. In this case, however, they felt the solo could be improved, so they just had him overdub a better solo on top of the old one. There was one problem, though. Paul’s microphone picked up the original solo, and it can be heard in the stereo mix of the song on the right channel.

 

Other overdubs included John’s flamboyant organ solo, complete with the clicking of the keys during his Jerry Lee Lewis-like finger runs in the seventh and eighth measures. Even though the solo was performed later as an overdub, this doesn’t stop Paul from exclaiming in the rhythm track, “tear it up, John.” Ringo then adds some enthusiastic bongo-playing during the first and second verses and again at the song's conclusion.

 

Interestingly, two sets of background vocals were recorded as overdubs on “I’m Down.” The most discernible are the answering harmonies from John and George during the fifth-through-tenth measures of each verse, namely with the lyrics “I’m really down, down on the ground,” as well as the accented words “how can you laugh” that are sung in the thirteenth measure. These vocals are also repeated throughout the conclusion as the song fades away.

 

The second set of overdubbed background vocals, heard clearly when the stereo mix of the song is played out-of-phase, encompass John singing the word “down” in bass notes followed immediately by George and Paul harmonizing the same word in a slightly higher register. These are performed simultaneously as the first set of background vocals, which adds compensated vocal depth for the absence of a second guitar in the song. All in all, in about an hour-and-a-half (4 to 5:30 pm), it appears evident that The Beatles had a “pretty darn good” time recording this song.

 

An interesting side note, after a 90-minute break, to let Paul’s shredded vocal cords heal, he returned to the studio to record the classic, tender ballad “Yesterday.”

 

The mono and stereo mixes of “I’m Down” occurred on June 18th, 1965, in the control room of EMI Studio Two by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Phil McDonald. Usually, stereo mixes were not initially made of songs intended only for singles, since they were only pressed in mono at that time. The fact that a stereo mix was made on this day indicates that the decision to place “I’m Down” as the b-side of the single “Help!,” and not on the resulting album, was not made this early on. In fact, this stereo mix didn’t surface in Britain or American until the mid-’70s.

 

Two further recordings of “I’m Down” were made during their second American tour. On August 29th and 30th of 1965, The Beatles played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, both performances fully recorded for an intended live album. The first show was produced by Engeman and engineered by Hugh Davies, while the second show was produced by Capitol vice-president Voyle Gilmore and engineered by Pete Abbott. Unfortunately, neither song made it on to the resulting 1977 album “The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl” and remain in the vaults to this day.

 

One final Beatles recording session concerning this song occurred on January 5th, 1966, at CTS Studios in London. In preparation for the television special “The Beatles At Shea Stadium,” the group was called in to “sweeten” some audio tracks. This resulted in Paul overdubbing a better bass track to “I’m Down,” and John adding a more discernible and cleaner organ part.

Song Structure and Style:

“It’s really a blues song,” McCartney explained in 1994. While it does have a standard 12-bar-blues feel and chord pattern, there is, as is usual for The Beatles, more than meets the eye. Always keen to add nuances to make their recordings unique, the boys played with the arrangement until it grew to fourteen measures per verse with many “Beatles breaks” thrown in for good measure. It may have been patterned initially after Little Richard, but the end result is pure Beatles.

 

While “Long Tall Sally,” for instance, stays in line with an identical pattern for all the verses, whether vocal or instrumental, “I’m Down” changes things up by showing a subtle-but-noticeable difference between the verses and solo sections of the song. These differences best described the format as ‘verse/ verse/ solo 1/ verse/ solo 2/ outro’ (or aabacd).

 

The first fourteen-measure verse starts in a very startling manner with Paul’s solo vocal. He sings a cappella for the entire first two measures (“you tell lies thinking I can’t see”), placing the listener somewhat disoriented about the time signature and key. It’s not until the third measure, with the group's accent on the downbeat, that we can tell where the measure begins and that the song is in the key of G major.

 

In the fourth measure, Ringo kicks in an energetic drum fill to invite the band and himself on overdubbed bongos, in on the fifth through tenth measures. These six measures actually feature six overdubbed voices, two of Paul, John, and George, which focus primarily on the title of the song. The eleventh measure mostly comprises an accented band fill switching from D major to G major that highlights the phrase “how can you laugh,” which is sung by Paul alone. This is followed by the twelfth measure, which comprises another "break" that allows Paul to finish the phrase a cappella, namely “when you know I’m down.” The final two measures repeat this same pattern, only it’s John and George who sing “how can you laugh” this time around. The verse ends with a small drum fill from Ringo, which ushers in the next verse. With two breaks at the beginning of the verse and two breaks at the end, a uniformity, or bookend effect, is purposely created.

 

After a structurally identical second verse (minus the final drum fill), the first solo section of the song occurs, which is the first time an actual 12-bar blues format tailors in the music. The two accented breaks of this section mimic the first two verses, but from the fifth measure on, we hear the established structure of most blues and early rock-and-roll songs. In fact, this guitar solo could work as interchangeable with the ones we hear in The Beatles version of its precursor, “Long Tall Sally.”

 

The third verse then appears, which is also identical to the first two, except for the absence of bongos and for two useful building notes from George at the end of the second measure after Paul’s lyrics “nobody else.” This transitions nicely into the second solo section of the song, performed by John on an organ. The difference between this and the first solo section is that the beginning accents are gone, resulting in a very standard 12-bar blues format. Paul’s laughs and mostly unintelligible screams add much to the flamboyant atmosphere of this solo.

 

The conclusion (or “outro”) to the song follows next, which is actually a three-times repeated 12-bar blues pattern consisting primarily of repeating the song’s title. Ringo’s bongos reappear for this section since they had taken a hiatus at the second verse, but now they are higher in the mix and, therefore, more noticeable. All six voices create possibly the highest energy heard in any Beatles track up to this time, complete with Paul’s blood-curdling screams of “I’m down” and “baby, baby, baby.” As the song fades away, the piece actually leaves you breathless and wanting to put another dime in the jukebox to hear it again (if you can remember back to those days)!

 

While Paul tended to dominate the proceedings in the recording studio that year (playing bass, lead guitar, and piano at times), he appropriately allowed this to be a full band performance, probably assumed it was destined to be a concert staple shortly after the final take. He restricted himself to bass guitar, which ended up relatively low in the mix, and concentrated more on his enthusiastic vocal delivery.

 

Paul explains his vocal delivery for the song: “I could do Little Richard’s voice, which is a wild, hoarse, screaming thing, it’s like an out-of-body experience. You have to leave your current sensibilities and go about a foot above your head to sing it. You have to actually go outside yourself. It’s a funny little trick, and when you find it, it’s very interesting.”

 

Little Richard himself remembers Paul’s fascination with his vocal style when he shared the bill with The Beatles at the Tower Ballroom in Liverpool on October 12th, 1962. “Paul especially was into my music and had been playing it since he was in high school. He was impressed with my hollerin’, and when I was on stage in Liverpool, and later in Hamburg (the following month), he used to stay in the wings and watch me sing…People know that if they sing one of my songs on stage, they’re gonna light up the house.”

 

Actually, all four Beatles are on top of their game on “I’m Down.” John’s electrifying organ work, while rudimentary, exemplifies Jerry Lee Lewis to the best of his ability and succeeds in creating the necessary atmosphere. His background vocals, especially his low-register bass notes, show he was very much interested in creating the perfect "screamer" for their repertoire.

 

After much practice, George’s guitar solo is very fitting and confidently played, as is his rhythm work throughout the song. His sense of pitch is also nicely displayed in his two background vocal parts. Ringo reprises his bongo playing expertise once again, as heard four months earlier in “You’re Going To Lose That Girl,” but his strong suit is his spirited performance at the drum kit. Especially after seven takes, he plays as if he was back at the Cavern Club in 1962.

 

As a possible extension of John’s lyrics in the recently recorded track “Help!,” Paul’s lyrics in “I’m Down” loosely convey the depressed state of someone whose girl treats him disrespectfully. “How can you laugh when you know I’m down?” he asks. However, the sad lyrics are obviously not meant to create sympathy but used as a vehicle to deliver a “rock ‘n’ roll shouter,” as Paul called it. This is evidenced by humorous lyrics like “we’re all alone, and there’s nobody else, you still moan ‘keep your hands to yourself.’” Even the line about the woman throwing away the man’s ring (which apparently actually happened to Paul during his courtship with Heather) comes across as humorous in this setting.

 

In actuality, analyzing the lyrics of “I’m Down” could be compared to trying to analyze the lyrics of “Tutti Frutti.” Some lyrics just weren’t meant to be explored.

 

 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.

One after 909 And Its Incredible Recording process Revealed

Although “The One After 909,” as it was officially titled early on, had been performed by The Beatles under whatever name they called themselves from 1957 through 1959, it wasn't until 1960 that it rolled on tape for the first time. It appears to have been around Paul's 18th birthday, June 18th, that he and John, along with Stuart Sutcliffe and possibly George, recorded a forty-seven-minute tape of songs that they had been performing and writing, including six “Lennon / McCartney” originals.

As recounted in Mark Lewisohn's book “Tune In,” Paul recalls: “Sometimes I'd borrow a tape recorder – a Grundig with a little green eye – (or) John would manage to borrow one, and we'd go around my house and try to record things...They were very much home demos, very bad sound quality.” Both John and Paul played guitar and sang while early Beatles' member Stu played bass, George's presence on guitar being barely heard if at all. As Mark Lewisohn remarks, “'One After 909' is clearly a diamond in the rough, polished by John and Paul's attractive harmonizing.” There were only two other songs included on this 1960 tape that were eventually officially recorded by The Beatles, these being “Matchbox” (which was here sung by John) and an early rough rendition of Paul's “I'll Follow The Sun.”

The next time “The One After 909” was recorded took place during an afternoon rehearsal at The Cavern Club in Liverpool on Monday, September 3rd, 1962, just days after Brian recruited Ringo as The Beatles' new drummer. They planned to record their first single at EMI Studios the following day. Because Ringo was a new recruit, this rehearsal day was arranged by manager Brian Epstein to go over what potential songs they would record the next morning. This rehearsal was primitively recorded as well.

Along with John's newly written “Please Please Me,” Paul's “Tip Of My Tongue,” “How Do You Do It” (as suggested by George Martin), and undoubtedly “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You,” John's “The One After 909” was still considered a contender. All of these songs were taped at The Cavern on this day, while only “How Do You Do It” and “Love Me Do” rolled at EMI during the three-hour evening session the following day. Nonetheless, the demo Cavern recording of “The One After 909” shows the group in fine form, Ringo pounding away with enthusiasm and skill on a song that he had possibly just become acquainted with the arrangement.

During the sessions for their second single, John's “Please Please Me” and Paul's “Tip Of My Tongue” had thoughts for consideration, but John's “The One After 909” was passed over. The same can be said during the recording sessions for the “Please Please Me” album, newer “Lennon / McCartney” compositions, such as “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” and “There's A Place,” taking precedence. But when the time came for recording their third single on March 5th, 1963, “The One After 909” was remembered.

The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two for a late afternoon three-hour session on March 5th, 1963, George Martin approving “From Me To You” and “Thank You Little Girl” (aka “Thank You Girl”) as the next Beatles single, and both of these songs were completed within the 7 to 10 pm session booked for this evening. A third song that could have usurp either the A- or B-side of the single,  included “The One After 909.”

The problem here, unfortunately, was that the group was tired and had become a little punchy and irritated as this evening recording session progressed. They had just returned from a performance at the Plaza Ballroom in St. Helens just outside Liverpool the previous evening, their first 100-pound booking, and they had just traveled 200 miles for this scheduled recording session. Then, just after having recorded two excellent new songs, they set off to record a third, one which they thought they knew like the back of their hands by now.

However, tempers began to flare as they were understandably irritable. 'Take one' fell apart during the second verse, Paul's bass playing being hampered by him not having a plectrum (or pick), something he didn't need for the two songs they recorded earlier in the day. “What are you doing?” John says to Paul as he stops the song, “dum, dum, dum, dum,” he demonstrates to his bassist as what his playing should duplicate.

With a detectable irritating vocal from John, 'take two' made it all the way through the song, although George's ad-lib guitar solo featured a noticeable amount of missed strings and flubbed notes toward the end. “What kind of solo is that?” John remarked afterward, the obvious conclusion being that they would need to try again.

'Take three' made it through most of the bridge before it was apparent that Paul was struggling to play the song without his plectrum. John once again stops the song by saying, “What are you doing?” to which Paul replies, “It's murder, I can't do it, I can't keep it up.” When John asks why he isn't using a plectrum, he exclaims, “I haven't got one!” “But your clothes have been brought hours ago,” John confirms. “I wonder where the cases are,” Paul adds, which prompts road manager Neil Aspinall to chime in with, “I said to you before, Paul...I said, 'do you want me to bring your case in,' and you just walked away!”

Paul carried on without his plectrum for 'take four,' which made it through most of George's guitar solo, this being performed with more skill this time around. However, John came in with his lead vocals twelve measures into the guitar solo instead of waiting for the standard sixteen measures that were needed. John then says to Paul, “What the hell, I told you,” to which Paul replies, “It's you, it's you!...you came in at the wrong, halfway through the solo.” “What was it, a twelve-bar?” John sincerely inquires, to which George Martin corrects him.

Since the first half of 'take four' performs quite well, a decision was made to start 'take five' just before the guitar solo and finish through to the end of the song so that the exhausted Beatles could finally retire for the evening. The intention was for George Martin to edit the first half of 'take four' with 'take five' during the mixing stage at a later date, something that never materialized due to “From Me To You” and “Thank You Girl” won their third single after all. As for this recording of “The One After 909,” it was deemed inadequate for any release at all during their career. Interestingly, another early “Lennon / McCartney” composition entitled “What Goes On?” was also considered for this session but, since they struggled with “The One After 909” for so long, the other song had to wait. And wait it did, until November of 1965 for the British “Rubber Soul” album.

The Beatles, of course, went on to much bigger and better things in the next five years,  while “One After 909” got pushed so far back in their memories as to be virtually forgotten. Then in January of 1969, when Paul enacted a new filmed rehearsal and live performance project, a new album's worth of material needed to be composed and recorded. They had all just poured their souls out for over five months in recording the 30-track “White Album,” released toward the end of November of 1968. Nonetheless, they needed to quickly put their nose to the grindstone once again to compose and record another album.

Paul was up to the task at hand; his songwriting skills always being ready for any challenge. George had a good amount of new ideas as well, Ringo even offering up a couple of song ideas. John, however, found himself deeply engrossed in his new relationship with Yoko, not to mention his unfortunate addiction to heroin. He worked up a few song ideas but found himself a bit lacking in inspiration. Because of “lack of material,” as he stated in his 1980 Playboy interview, he decided to reacquaint his band-mates with “One After 909.”

They took to it fondly, their first rehearsal of the song occurring on January 3rd, 1969, at Twickenham Film Studios with the cameras rolling, enacting a more rollicking swing beat to make it sound more fun. They ran through the song a total of three times on this day, George playing his lead guitar through a wah-wah pedal.

On the next day of rehearsals, January 6th, 1969, they ran through “One After 909” three more times, the first two being taken at a slower tempo while the third being a more rocking spirited version. On January 7th, 1969, four performances of the song show it becoming the fun rocker that would eventually grace the “Let It Be” album, Paul and Ringo providing a solid backing while George provided guitar passages that filled the gaps in-between lyrical phrases. The main focus of their January 8th session was working through 41 renditions of George's “I Me Mine.” Still, this enthusiastic and high spirited rehearsal saw them run through “One After 909” once as well, just to make sure they had the arrangement down reasonably well, which they did.

The next day, January 9th, 1969, witnessed them rehearsing the song four times, George still playing his lead guitar through his wah-wah pedal. Footage from two of these edited together versions are featured in the “Let It Be” movie, prefaced by Paul explaining how he and John would “sag off every school day” to write songs at his house in the early days.

All of the January rehearsals mentioned above occurred at Twickenham Film Studios but, because of George temporarily quitting The Beatles on January 10th, 1969, one of the conditions of his return was that they discontinue their rehearsals at this location. Instead, they resumed this project's sessions in their new basement studio at Apple Headquarters on Savile Row in London. After a few rehearsals there, they decided that “One After 909” should be gone over again on January 28th in preparation for the concert they were to perform, although they hadn't decided where that would be yet.

It was apparent that they were genuinely enjoying themselves on this day, Billy Preston joining in on the fun on electric piano. George had decided by this time that he didn't want to use his wah-wah pedal, electing instead to play straight electric guitar while concocting a compelling introduction to the song.

On one of these versions, Paul encourages his returned lead guitarist with “yeah, rock 'n' roll” during the guitar solo. During the bridge that follows, John decides to sing each line very quickly, Paul repeating each line back to him. However, at the half-way point, John mistakenly begins to sing the verse. When he catches himself, he sings, “Oh, I did it again, oh yeah...railman...Oh God!...wrong location.”

It was on the following day, January 29th, 1969, that they decided the Apple Headquarters roof would present the ideal place for their concert, scheduled the following day. Therefore, they decided to rehearse the five songs for this concert, including “One After 909.” They went over this song three times on this day, the first before Billy Preston arrived and with slightly subdued vocals in order to save their voices for the following day. Interestingly, John sang, “I begged her not to leave” instead of “go,” something he habitually did throughout this month's rehearsals, Paul repeating “leave” afterward as if to correct either himself or John.

The second version of the day has John still singing “begged her not to leave,” while humorously singing “oh, hit me now!” as the first bridge goes into the verse that follows. Then, after he sings “one after 909,” he continues with “ten, eleven, twelve,” Paul then introducing the guitar solo with “oh, you're cool,” which is followed by John singing “sheekidy-bah” and “bobidy-boo” during the drum breaks that appear in this instrumental section. John once again mistakenly begins the final verse midway through the second bridge, Paul vocally getting him back on track.

After Billy Preston arrived, they went through “One After 909” one last time, this being the final rehearsal before the next day's live rooftop performance of the song. John once again sings “begged her not to leave,” while Paul sings the complete first bridge with John as if to make sure he doesn't inadvertently move too quickly into the next verse as he had been doing. During the solo, Paul recites the lyrics of the first verse, apparently just to humor himself. All the while, George experiments with playing his guitar through a Leslie speaker, an effect that wasn't practical for the rooftop performance because of having to lug this big piece of equipment to the roof.

Next came that fateful day, January 30th, 1969, when The Beatles and Billy Preston played atop their Apple offices to whoever happened to gather below in the street. Of course, it was filmed and professionally recorded to preserve the event for posterity. While three of the five songs they performed repeated, after a brief partial run-through of “One After 909,” they only needed to play one full version of the song to nail it successfully. This, therefore, became the 'take' that was featured on the resulting “Let It Be” album.

The performance was virtually flawless, John recalling his lyrics properly and not coming in early after the bridges as he had been prone to do in rehearsals. George's impromptu lead guitar work came across appropriately as well without any botching or sour notes. After the song concludes, in the knowledge that they pulled it off without a hitch, John celebrates the event by singing, “Oh, Danny Boy / the old Savannah calling,” Paul quietly joining in as well. While the correct lyrics to the classic Irish folk song “Danny Boy” are “Oh, Danny boy / the pipes, the pipes are calling,” John is known to purposely mess around with lyrics of songs during rehearsals and recording sessions.

With the prospect of an immediately releasable live Beatles performance at hand, Glyn Johns and engineer Alan Parsons (and possibly George Martin) met in the control room of Apple Studios on February 5th, 1969, to create stereo mixes of the five songs recorded on the roof on January 30th. The format of how this was to be released to the public hadn't been formalized yet but, when it was, these mixes would prove themselves to be ready. To preserve the “as nature intended” format, The Beatles wanted for the entire project, a few seconds of extraneous rooftop sounds were preserved at the beginning of this mix, including a piano chord from Billy Preston, some stray guitar notes from George, a member of the film crew shouting “All cameras four!” (indicating 'take 4'), the sound of the clapperboard, and John's count-in for the song. After the song concludes, this stereo mix also included John and Paul's spontaneous “Danny Boy” vocals, as detailed above.

Once Glyn Johns was dispatched in March 1969 to assemble a “Get Back” album, the above-mentioned stereo mix of “One After 909” was included therein. When he and George Martin met with engineer Steve Vaughan in Studio one of Olympic Sound Studios on May 28th, 1969 (with George Harrison possibly in attendance as well) to create the master tape banding and compilation of this proposed “Get Back” album, “The One After 909” (as it was titled on the tape box) was featured as the opening song of side one.

After the “Danny Boy” vocalizations that conclude this mix, we witness a bit of Beatles rooftop chatter that was prepared at Olympic Sound Studios as an insert on either May 7th or 9th by the same engineering team. At the very conclusion of the 42-minute rooftop performance, Paul states, “Thanks, Mo” in response to Ringo's wife Maureen Starkey clapping and cheering the loudest. After this, John concludes the day's events by saying, “I'd like to say 'thank you' on behalf of the group and ourselves., and I hope we passed the audition!” Therefore, while Beatles fans have gotten used to this dialog after the song “Get Back” at the conclusion of the “Let It Be” soundtrack album, it was originally inserted to appear after the opening song on the proposed “Get Back” album, this being “One After 909.”

This “Get Back” album, as history bares out, was rejected by The Beatles and didn't get released in the summer of 1969 as intended. When a second “Get Back” album was banded and compiled by Glyn Johns at Olympic Sound Studios on January 5th, 1970, this same stereo mix of “The One After 909” was once again featured as the opening track of the album. This album met rejection as well, unable to agree whether they liked it or not. John, in particular, was against it due to Glyn Johns wanting a producer's credit for the album.

Legendary producer Phil Spector was then brought in to salvage what staff referred to as the “Let It Be” album. On March 23rd, 1970, his first day working on the project, Phil Spector created three new stereo mixes of the rooftop performance of “One After 909” in Room 4 of EMI Studios with engineers Peter Bown and Roger Ferris. The third stereo mix was deemed worthy of inclusion on the resulting soundtrack album, this being a straightforward and excellent live performance. Omitting the extraneous opening sounds of Glyn John's mix, he made sure Billy Preston's keyboard performance volume increased adequately. Spector did decide to include the “Danny Boy” vocalizations at the song's conclusion, wanting to preserve a degree of the spontaneous element of the sessions as Glyn Johns had done.

Sometime in 1995, George Martin and Geoff Emerick returned to the March 5th, 1963 session tapes at Abbey Road Studios to get a bird's eye view of the original stressful “One After 909” recording session for inclusion on the “Anthology 1” album. They first faded in the aborted 'take three,' which ends with John's dissatisfaction with Paul's bass playing, resulting in the above-detailed dialog between John, Paul, and assistant Neil Aspinall. 'Take four' is then faded up midway through to reveal John mistakenly coming in too early on vocals during George's guitar solo, this resulting in some mild bickering between the vocalists. This is immediately followed by the onset of “take five,' which in itself was intended as an edit piece of the song that began with George's solo. George Martin and Geoff Emerick then performed the edit of 'take 4' and 'take 5' as originally intended but not followed through with back in 1963.

Then sometime in 2003, the engineering team of Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, and Allan Rouse convened at Abbey Road Studios to create a vibrant new stereo mix of the January 30th, 1969 rooftop performance of “One After 909” for inclusion on the album “Let It Be...Naked.” One noticeable difference in this mix, other than the omission of the “Danny Boy” conclusion, was Paul's exclamation “Yes I did!” after the line “begged her on my bended knee,” this being barely discernible in any other mixes up to this point. This engineering team also included a bit of the conclusion of “One After 909” as rehearsed at Twickenham Film Studios on January 3rd, 1969, for their “Fly On The Wall” bonus disc that came with the “Let It Be...Naked” album. This was followed by the band's discussion whether they should include the song in the “Let It Be” project.

Song Structure and Style

Known as the first John Lennon composition, it follows a standard structure as found in popular skiffle and early rock-and-roll songs of 1957, something the composer subconsciously picked up on. The structure of “One After 909” consists of 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse/ verse (instrumental)/ bridge/ verse' (or aabaaba). This format continued to be used and developed throughout the band's career.

George's introductory guitar phrase is the first element t heard, appearing in an anticipatory measure during John's count off to the song. A six-measure introduction is then played by all five musicians, John's rhythm guitar, Paul's bass, Ringo's plodding 4/4 swing-style beat on open hi-hats and Billy Preston's lead electric piano work addsto George's introductory guitar phrase, which he plays three more times to fill out the song's intro.

The first sixteen-measure verse then begins, all instrumentation continuing throughout as in the introduction. John and Paul harmonize their way through the entire verse, John taking his most common Beatles role as lead vocalist while Paul provides the higher harmony. Billy Preston plays lead lines on electric piano to fill in the gaps left in between vocal lines, George relaxing into a rhythm guitar mode until measures 15 and 16 where he delivers a fragrant lead guitar passage. In measures nine and ten, the flow of the swing-style beat is interrupted to accommodate the "move over once / move over twice" lyrics. Everyone performs two standard "Beatles breaks," each on the downbeat of these measures, the tenth measure ending with a suitable piano thumb roll from Billy. Ringo performs a snare drum flam in both the ninth and tenth measures during these breaks as a useful tool to accentuate the rhythm.

The second verse is nearly identical to the first but with different lyrics in the first eight measures. George takes on more of a lead guitarist role this time around, playing lead lines throughout to fill in the gaps. A sixteen-measure bridge then appears, the same instrumentation continuing as usual. John sings solo lead vocals here as George plays subtle lead guitar fills in the gaps of the lyrics as he is prone to do throughout his entire Beatles career. Ringo deviates subtly with snare and hi-hat accents in the fifteenth and sixteenth measures to act as a segue into the next verse while Paul finally joins in on harmonies in the final measure on the word "Well..."

A complete repeat of the first verse enters as the third verse, lyrics and all. George is much more adventurous as lead guitarist this time around, filling in the lyric gaps with much more enthusiasm to accentuate Billy Preston, who does the same. John's encouraging exclamation "Yeah!" in the sixteenth measure spurs George on to greatness in the solo that follows, while Ringo plays three snare drum triplets as a fill to usher in the solo verse that follows.

A sixteen-measure instrumental verse then follows, George gains the primary focus. The lead guitarist flourishes with an equal exuberance as he had done during his formative years at the Cavern and in Hamburg, with the worldly experience of Clapton thrown in. Billy Preston can't help but add in some lead piano chops as well, Paul exemplifying the excitement with an excited "Whooooa-hoooh" after the second "Beatles break" in the tenth measure to give his approval.

A repeat of the bridge appears next, which is a virtual repeat of the first bridge, but with Paul's periodic vocal interjections, undoubtedly spurred on by George's excellently performed guitar solo. Next comes another repeat of the first verse, George scaling down his lead guitar work somewhat, which allows Billy Preston's piano work to shine a little more. This final verse is 20 measures in length this time, due to their repeating the final vocal line "said she's traveling on the one after 90..." three times to conclude the song in a stereotypical 50's fashion, not unlike "Roll Over Beethoven." After Ringo's final cymbal crash, John leads Paul through an ad-lib "Danny Boy" recitation, as described above.

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.

I've Got A Feeling And Its Incredible Recording Process Revealed

Apart from John's audio and filmed demos from December of 1968, consideration of “I've Got A Feeling” for The Beatles to record was on January 2nd, 1969. John and George were the first Beatles to arrive at Twickenham Film Studios at around 11 am on that day, the first rehearsal for what eventually became the “Let It Be” film and album. As they waited, John and George both ran through some of their new song ideas for the project.

To show George the new composite “I've Got A Feeling” song that he and Paul had recently worked out, John played his “Everybody Had A Hard Year” segment. George put in some attempts at adding some lead guitar lines over what he was playing, John also trying to demonstrate Paul's contribution to the song by singing, “Well, I've got a feeling, deep inside.” Also demoed at this time was John's “Don't Let Me Down,” “Dig A Pony,” the Maharishi-inspired “Child Of Nature” (which he introduced as “On The Road To Rishikesh”) and the beginnings of what eventually became “Sun King.” All of these songs stood as preliminary undeveloped ideas at this stage, demonstrating a dry spell as a songwriter at the time. “Child Of Nature,” for instance, was an abandoned song from over eight months prior, and even older “Across The Universe” eventually dredged up as this month's rehearsals moved forward. On this first day, George also presented to John two new well-formed compositions, “All Things Must Pass,” and “Let It Down.”

After Paul and Ringo arrived, they got to work on perfecting three new compositions, these being “Don't Let Me Down,” “Two Of Us” and especially, “I've Got A Feeling,” which was fresh on Paul's mind because of his and John's recent rehearsal of the song at McCartney's home. They ran through the song a total of twenty times on this day, Paul sometimes calling out the chords for John and George. He would habitually stop the performance to explain the arrangement he had in mind, at one point switching to acoustic guitar to reveal his ideas. He also spent a considerable amount of time teaching George how he wanted the descending guitar riff to sound.

It appears that both Paul and John were excited to hear their brainchild come to life with The Beatles for the first time. All of their vocal and harmony parts were already in place, including their simultaneous lead vocals near the song's conclusion. Humorously, John would incorporate different lines in his piece, such as “everybody got a hard-on.” Also of interest is how Ringo switched to a swing-style rhythm (not unlike “Revolution”) during the ascending and descending triplet chords in the instrumental sections that follow John's contribution and then at the conclusion of the song. By day’s end, "I've Got A Feeling" was the most accomplished new song they had thus far for the project, although amounts of refining still had need.

The following day, January 3rd, 1969, was the second day of rehearsals at Twickenham Studios, The Beatles taking up valuable filming time having fun running through many oldies, original and otherwise. However, among the reminiscing, they spent a fair amount of time on some of the new compositions, George's “All Things Must Pass” surfaced first as extensively rehearsed. Being proud of how far they had gotten with “I've Got A Feeling,” they did run through it six times to tighten up their performance a bit further. Lennon was also eager to demo a new song he undoubtedly began to write the previous evening, “Gimme Some Truth,” which shows him trying hard to remedy his dry spell and present more material for the project. Unfortunately, this song eventually fell through the cracks, as had George's “All Things Must Pass” and “Let It Down,” all three of these developed and released as solo tracks after The Beatles broke up.

Day three of rehearsals, January 6th, 1969, saw many conversations and bickering among The Beatles, George's disgruntled “I'll play whatever you want me to play” dialog, as seen in the “Let It Be” movie, taking place on this day during rehearsals of the song “Two Of Us.” Nonetheless, they managed three more versions of “I've Got A Feeling” before the day ended.

January 7th, 1969, the fourth day of “Let It Be” rehearsals at Twickenham, prompted six attempts of “I've Got A Feeling” performed on this day. Having solidified the arrangement, all emphasis focused on refining the vocals. At the same time, Paul instructed Ringo to keep to a 4/4 drum pattern during the ascending and descending triplet chords instead of instinctively switching to a swing beat.

Only two rehearsals of “I've Got A Feeling” occurred on their fifth day of rehearsals, January 8th, 1969, but one of them shined exceptional enough to get featured in the resulting “Let It Be” film, at least in part. Upon watching the footage in the film, Paul is standing, and George is wearing a red shirt during the January 8th footage of the song. Paul enthusiastically shouts, “Good Morning!” at the conclusion of the bridge and repeats John's final line, “everybody put their foot down,” as the song concludes.

Paul's scorching lead vocal is a powerful feature that justified this footage included in the film. However, it wasn't officially recorded and thereby could not enter as a contender for the soundtrack album. Two things of note here is that there were four ascending and descending chord patterns in the instrumental section after John's lead vocal part, now played by Ringo with a straight 4/4 drum pattern on his toms per Paul's instruction.

On the sixth day of rehearsals, January 9th, 1969, they went through “I've Got A Feeling” five times, excerpts from one of them being spliced together with the above mentioned January 8th footage for the “Let It Be” movie. With Paul sitting down and George wearing a dark shirt, the version of the song in question contains John reverting to singing “everybody got a face-lift” in a couple of places and singing in an Americanized nasal tone, repeating “oh yeah?” several times during the song's conclusion. As the song ends, John plays a mock concluding guitar riff with many intentionally sour notes, this being captured twice in the movie from different camera angles. George is featured here playing his guitar through a wah-wah pedal, something that was eventually deemed inappropriate for the song.

In-between these five rehearsals, Paul takes the time to instruct George again on what he envisioned for the descending guitar riff at the conclusion of the bridge, also featured in the movie. “It's coming down too fast, the note,” Paul tells George, adding, “No, there shouldn't be any recognizable jumps...It's, like, falling, falling!” George attempts to follow Paul's wishes in this regard, something that he eventually nails as the sessions continue.

Day seven of rehearsals, January 10th, 1969, is of particular interest to most Beatles fans. Paul was the first to arrive, which prompts him to sit at the piano and run through some of the songs they had previously covered. Interestingly, he chose to perform a unique piano version of “I've Got A Feeling,” followed by a few improvisations of the song in which the late-arriving Beatles participate.

The mood of this day was quite sour, resulting in George quitting the group during their lunch break. Not exactly knowing what they were going to do to remedy the situation, the remaining three Beatles continued to rehearse. The tension of that event led to a rather unproductive session for the remainder of the day. They blew off steam by performing a horrendous version of “I've Got A Feeling,” among many other exercises in futility.

This rendition of “I've Got A Feeling” includes a lot of exaggerated screaming and foolish vocalizations, Ringo, however,  puts in the only suitable performance except for the slowing tempo near the song's conclusion. They rounded out the evening by playing various disjointed selections, such as The Who's “A Quick One, While He's Away” (appropriate with George's absence), Bobby Darin's “Mack The Knife” and an impromptu jam with Yoko on vocals as she sits in George's empty seat. With their future in question, this session concluded in an air of indifference.

It took eleven days to sort out the situation of George quitting The Beatles. During his time away, one noteworthy thing he did was write the song “Wah-Wah,” which eventually appeared on his first solo album “All Things Must Pass” the following year. In a 1987 Musician Magazine interview, George described the song's message as, “You're giving me a headache,” and in his book “I Me Mine,” he revealed that the song's title referred to “a 'headache' as well as a 'foot pedal,'”  No denying, the wah-wah pedal was used by George quite a lot during the January 1969 Beatles sessions. The song described the frustration felt during these Twickenham sessions, in particular with Paul instructing him on how he wanted George to play guitar. The unmistakable similarity between the guitar riff played on “I've Got A Feeling,” and George's main riff in “Wah-Wah” is hardly coincidental.

Per George's conditions, The Beatles moved their rehearsals from Twickenham Studios to their new Apple Headquarters basement studio on Savile Row in London. Their first session at this location was January 21st, 1969, EMI supplying recording equipment to record a performance if The Beatles felt ready. They ran through “I've Got A Feeling” four times on this day, although these versions were quite sloppy.

One of these versions had John shout, “Yeah, let's go!” at the beginning and then replace the descending guitar riff at the end of the bridge with a slow series of vibrato notes. Paul exclaims, “everybody put their foot down” during the ascending and descending chords that come after John's first segment, Ringo then miscounting the four repeats of this section by stopping his drumming after the third time. John shouts, “Can You Dig It?” toward the end, and then after it concluded, suggests what song they should run through next by shouting, “Don't Let Me Down, baby!”

January 22nd, 1969, was day 11 of rehearsals and their second day at Apple Studios. This was the first day that keyboardist Billy Preston was present in the studio, although he didn't arrive until late morning after The Beatles had already worked extensively on “I've Got A Feeling.” They ran through the song a total of 29 times during this session, Billy Preston only contributing to a couple extended versions later in the day. One refinement they decided upon at this point was to reduce the amount of ascending and descending chord patterns they played at two places in the arrangement, once after John's verse and then at the conclusion of the song. Instead of four repetitions of this on each occasion, they now decided only to play it once when it first occurs and three times at the end.

Before Billy Preston's arrival, they experimented with softening the tone of the song by playing it with a more country & western swing tempo to “get more feeling.” The laid-back atmosphere on this day shows itself in many ways, one of which is John's singing “I had a dream” and “I had a dream this afternoon” several times during the rehearsals of this song. Both John and Paul had watched a TV program the following evening entitled “Deep South,” the subject matter concerning rare relations in Mississippi that featured segments of famous Martin Luther King Jr. speeches, such as his famous August 28th, 1963 "I had a dream" Washington DC speech. John and Paul had been discussing this during this day's session, leading to a playful Lennon including a bit of Dr. King's famous speech within the takes of “I've Got A Feeling” from time to time, as well as them both attempting to quote from the speech in-between takes.

One of the better takes of the song on this day especially caught the ear of producer/engineer Glyn Johns, even though this version fell apart just before the final verse, thus omitting the synchronized Lennon / McCartney lead vocals. Nonetheless, this take sounded impressive despite George not quite performing his descending guitar notes at the end of the bridge as intended, something they also worked hard at perfecting on this day. After Paul sings, “I've got a feeling” in the third verse, John answers, “yes, you have,” the interchange continuing with “that keeps me on my toes,” “on your what?” At the 2:40 mark of this take, John realizes that he was drowning out the others with his guitar. “I cocked it up trying to get loud,” he states after the song falls apart. After Paul agrees, John adds, “Not bad, though.”

Glyn Johns was particularly enamored with many other recordings The Beatles made on this day as well. He included the above "I've Got A Feeling" take along with some other recordings from this day on his proposed “Get Back” album destined for release in the summer of 1969, a March 10th acetate of which he put together for The Beatles to review. “I'm extremely proud of it; always have been,” Glyn wrote in the book “The Beatles: An Oral History.” “Everybody thought the album was wonderful. I presented it to them in the same manner that I'd done the first idea, and it went down very well.” His "first idea" was to include bits of chatter and humor caught on tape during the rehearsals, as well as some impromptu jams to be used as link tracks. In the end, The Beatles rejected his "Get Back" album, including this version of “I've Got A Feeling,” the preference being the use of a more perfected recording of the song. Glyn John's instincts were correct, however, concerning the attractiveness of this version of the track, which won space eventually on the 1996 compilation album “Anthology 3.”

The primary focus at their Apple Studios session the following day, January 23rd, 1969, was the newly developed song “Get Back,” which they ran through with Billy Preston 43 times. Their arrangement of “I've Got A Feeling” had reached finalized approval by that time, so they only jammed on the riffs of the song on three occasions, an eight-second snippet of one of these included on the Glyn Johns "Get Back" album acetate that he gave the individual Beatles to review.

They didn't need to go over “I've Got A Feeling” for the next few sessions at all, The Beatles returning to it on January 27th, 1969 at Apple Studios, this being day 16 of rehearsals. They ran through the song nine times, one of which eventually being mixed on May 13th, 1969, and included on yet another acetate that Glyn Johns prepared. Just after the song begins, John's guitar begins to feedback, which halts the song. As he immediately starts another take, he sings, “I'm so ashamed, I goofed again!” This rough rendition was performed with much enthusiasm and is an enjoyable listen. After it was over, Ringo asks the producer, “Glyn? (taps on tom-toms)What does that sound like?” This small segment was also included in the above-mentioned March 13th acetate.

Rehearsal day 17, January 28th, 1969, saw the group run through “I've Got A Feeling” 17 more times at Apple Studios. These rehearsals were a bit more experimental and unfocused, one of these takes lasting a full 15 minutes because of the inclusion of a repeated three-chord coda. One version was played at a slower pace while containing lead vocal improvisations from John and Paul and lead guitar experiments from George. During the final ascending and descending chord section, John is reminded of Bob Dylan's song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and thereby sings “They'll stone you when you're...”

Paul had to leave the rehearsals at some point on this day for a meeting, John taking it upon himself to lead the remaining Beatles through a couple of renditions of “I've Got A Feeling” singing both his and Paul's lead vocal parts. John's vocal range isn't as high as Paul's, so, on his first attempt, he alters his melody line accordingly to suit his abilities, exclaiming, “now, listen!” as he's about to go into his “everybody had a hard year” segment. Upon Paul's return, they resume work on the song as before.

The main focus for the following day, January 29th, 1969 (day 18 of rehearsals), was to run through the five songs that they would perform on the next day's rooftop performance. Each of the five songs, “I've Got A Feeling” included, were rehearsed once with subdued vocal performances in order to save their voices for the next day. It appears that Billy Preston was unavailable for this day's rehearsals.

Next came the January 30th, 1969 Beatles lunchtime performance on the roof of their London Apple headquarters, which was described by young engineer Alan Parsons as “one of the greatest and most exciting days of my life.” They performed “I've Got A Feeling” twice, the first deemed best and worthy of inclusion on both the “Let It Be” film and soundtrack album.

That first version, while excellent, features one notable lyric flub from John, “everybody put the fool down” instead of “foot down,” as heard when the verse repeats later. This, however, could have been an intentional jab at The Fool, a Dutch design collective, and band that had been associated with The Beatles for many projects during their psychedelic 1967 period. After this version ends, John sings, “Oh, my soul” and then states “so hard!” in reference, no doubt, to his guitar-playing ability on that chilly January afternoon. During the lag time before the engineering team in the Apple Studio basement is ready for the next song, Ringo is heard sniffing his inhalant as he had also done just before “Dig A Pony” begins. The engineering crew is then heard through a connected speaker system asking, “Ringo, adjust the mic on the snare drum,” which he then proceeds to do.

The second version of “I've Got A Feeling” is also very spirited. John, however, begins his descending bent notes after the bridge a little high, resulting in Paul chuckling through the first line of the third verse that follows. John's first vocal verse appears quite different here, the first segment coming out as, “everybody had a hard year/everybody had a head dream/everybody saw the sun shine/everybody got an obscene.” After John's usual “oh yeah” repetitions, Paul inquisitively asks, “Oh, yeah?” Paul then predates the rapper era by vocalizing, “yeah, uh, yeah, uh” during the closing section of the song.

On February 5th, 1969, Glyn Johns met with engineer Alan Parsons (and possibly George Martin) at the Apple headquarters basement studio to create stereo mixes of the five rooftop songs. Both versions of “I've Got A Feeling” were mixed to stereo, a decision as to best lingered.

Having received the task of assembling the next Beatles album, Glyn Johns entered Olympic Sound Studios on March 10th, 1969, to create stereo mixes from the pile of eight-track tapes recorded in January. As detailed above, Glyn (and possibly George Martin) chose a January 22nd rendition of “I've Got A Feeling” to make a stereo mix of, even though this version didn't make it to the end of the song. Acetate discs followed of the 13 songs mixed today for The Beatles to hear, John's copy ending up in the hands of American disc jockeys and then appearing as bootleg album releases before the end of 1969.

Glyn Johns apparently changed his mind as to which version of “I've Got A Feeling” he wanted to include on the proposed “Get Back” album. On March 13th, 1969, he re-entered Olympic Sound Studios (possibly with George Martin) to create a stereo mix of a rendition The Beatles recorded on January 27th, as detailed above.

May 28th, 1969, was the date that the proposed “Get Back” album was finalized at Studio One of Olympic Studios by George Martin, Glyn Johns, and engineer Steve Vaughan. They did the master tape banding and compilation of the album on this day, “I've Got A Feeling,”sequenced as the sixth song on side one. As it turned out, they decided to go with Glyn's first instincts and featured the January 22nd recording of the song as originally intended. This album, of course, was rejected by The Beatles, and laid dormant for nearly another full year.

On January 5th, 1970, Glyn Johns was commissioned once again to prepare a new version of the “Get Back” album to coincide with the soon-to-be-released movie of the same name. Some recent Beatles recording sessions and track selection adjustments made a new master tape banding and compilation necessary, so this was done by Glyn alone in Studio One of Olympic Sound Studios on this day. As before, the January 22nd, 1969 recording of “I've Got A Feeling” was used and sequenced as the sixth track on side one. This verson of the album was again rejected by the band, partially because Glyn Johns requested credit as producer of the album, something John Lennon flatly objected.

With the movie's premiere set for May of 1970, legendary American producer Phil Spector was recruited in March to prepare the soundtrack album, which was now titled “Let It Be.” He first needed to choose the best renditions of the Beatles songs in consideration to create stereo mixes, this process beginning on March 23rd, 1970 in Room 4 of EMI Studios.

With engineers Peter Bown and Roger Ferris, his first order of business on this day was to choose a January 28th version of “I've Got A Feeling” that The Beatles recorded in their Apple basement studio, two stereo mixes took place on this day. After creating a stereo mix of the rooftop performance of “Dig A Pony,” Spector decided to give his attention to the excellent first rooftop performance of “I've Got A Feeling” from January 30th, 1969, creating four stereo mixes of this as well. He then created an edit of both mixes of the January 28th version of "I've Got A Feeling"  then edited of all four mixes of the January 30th rooftop performance of the same song. After close comparisons, the rooftop mix of “I've Got A Feeling” won the choice for inclusion on the soundtrack album.

Sometime in 1996, George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick dug into the Abbey Road Library for the master tape of “I've Got A Feeling,” as recorded on January 22nd, 1969, and featured in Glyn John's proposed “Get Back” albums. They created a vibrant new stereo mix of this recording for inclusion on the 1996 compilation album “Anthology 3.”

The engineering team of Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, and Allan Rouse pulled out this tape once again sometime in 2003 to create a mix of “I've Got A Feeling” for the album “Let It Be...Naked.” Both rooftop performances were edited together to create an excellent stereo mix showcasing the verses, and the second half of John's solo vocal verse from the second rooftop performance interspersed with the rest from the first performance as featured on the “Let It Be” album. All unwanted flubs and vocal mutterings ended up on the cutting room floor in the process, John singing the correct lyric “everybody put their foot down” in both of his verses for the first time on a general release.

Paul had a live rendition of “I've Got A Feeling” recorded on June 27th, 2007, at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, California, the results eventually being released on his 2019 album "Amoeba Gig." Then, he recorded another live performance of the song between July 17th and 21st, 2009, at Citi Field in New York City, placed on his “Good Evening New York City” album released later that same year.

Song Structure and Style

The structure of “I've Got A Feeling” parses out to be 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse/ alternate verse/ alternate verse/ alternate bridge/ alternate verse/ alternate verse/ alternate bridge' (or aabaccdccd). The appearance of alternate verses and bridges are due to this being a composite song made up of two individually written sections pieced together. Lennon's “everybody had a hard year” alternate verses, while unexpected, add a degree of flair to the song that displays camaraderie amid the otherwise turbulent time in their career.

John starts everything out with a two-measure intro that consists entirely of the identifiable guitar riff of the song played twice. As in the early Beatle years, Lennon is once again responsible for providing the opening two-measure guitar riff as witnessed on, for instance, “You Can't Do That” and “I Feel Fine.” The first 12-measure verse begins immediately afterward, Paul's lead vocal being the only added element in measures one through four. Paul's impromptu exclamation “that's right” brings in the single other component needed for the next four measures,  Ringo's hi-hat/kick drum beats that climax with a drum fill in measure eight.

Measure nine kicks up the energy with George's lead guitar figure and Billy Preston's electric piano coupled with Paul's bass and vocal “Yeah” accentuation. Both George and John play their guitar chords in a triplet fashion in measure nine. At the same time, Ringo keeps the steady 4/4 beat with crashing cymbals, the tenth measure featuring another spirited “Yeah” from Paul while George moves into an ascending guitar figure to augment John's guitar chords. The final part of measure ten consists only of Ringo's eighth-note snare beats and Paul's exuberant repeat of the song's title. The eleventh and twelfth measures consist of John's return to the song's guitar riff, George's accentuating lead guitar figure, Paul's “yeah” and jumping bass line, Ringo's steady 4/4 drum beat while riding on the hi-hat, and Billy's flowing electric piano accents.

The second twelve-measure verse continues the same instrumentation as in the final two measures of the previous verse, the only addition being John's vocal harmony throughout. The first eight measures continue this same pattern, Billy taking the role of lead player in measures three / four and seven / eight. Measures nine through twelve are identical to the previous verse, the only addition being another ad-lib “I've got a feeling” from Paul in the twelfth measure.

A high-energy five-measure bridge follows, Paul's screeching vocal taking center stage. While Ringo plods through with crashing cymbals on the quarter-beats, George plays lead guitar lines that are prominent in volume but overshadowed by our attention in deciphering Paul's lyric. John's rhythm guitar chops, Billy's pounding electric piano chords, and Paul's eight-note stair-step bass notes fill out the musical landscape nicely. The fourth and fifth measures, however, bring everything to a halt for yet another “Beatles break,” George's excellently delivered bending note lead guitar passage filling the void. Ringo's drum fill in the fifth measure works perfectly as a transition to the third verse that follows.

This third verse is a virtual repeat of the second verse but with different lyrics. One difference here is John taking somewhat of a backseat on harmony vocals, punching in only occasionally on the repeated “oh yeah”s.

Next comes two alternate verses, the first being six measures long and the second being only four. John sings solo lead vocals throughout, the only exception being an impromptu “ooh yeah” from Paul in the fifth measure and “yeah” in the sixth measure of the first alternate verse. Ringo subtly rides on his hi-hat as the intensity of the song's feel dies down somewhat during these alternate verses, John's startling lyric “everybody had a wet dream” sticking out like a sore thumb. After John repeats “oh yeah” three times in measures five and six, the second alternate verse begins, this progressing with the same subdued feel as the first but cutting off after the fourth measure this time around. Throughout both of these verses, George meanders through some quiet lead guitar lines that are hardly noticeable but interesting. Paul adds in yet another quiet “yeah” at the end of the third measure of the second alternate verse while Billy plods along unambiguously in the background.

Next, follows a four-measure alternate bridge divided into two parts. The first part is a two-measure progression that features John and George playing chords in a triplet-like fashion, John ascending upward and then downward as George is ascending downward and then upward. All the while, Ringo, under Paul's instruction, is plodding away on his toms and kick drum in a steady 4/4 pattern despite the obvious swing pattern that the guitarists are playing. With a simple “yeah” from Paul at the conclusion of the fourth measure, the second half of the alternate bridge commences, which primarily features a reprise of John's identifiable guitar riff played twice solo. The fourth measure of this alternate bridge brings in a drum fill from Ringo and an excited “woo-hoo” from Paul.

Next comes the piece de resistance, a remarkable second set of alternate verses that accommodates the vocalizations of Paul's “I've got a feeling” verse and John's “everybody had a hard year” alternate verse sung simultaneously. Both of these alternate verses are four measures long this time around, John omitting his “oh yeah” repeats at the conclusion of the first verse of this set. For the first two measures of these verses, George continues his lead guitar ad-libs, but then, when it's realized that the dual lead vocals are the primary focus, discontinues this exercise in futility and reverts to his standard verse guitar playing as heard earlier in the song.

Next comes a seven-measure alternate bridge, which inadvertently works as the song's conclusion. The first two measures of the previous alternate bridge repeats three times in this instance, Paul exclaiming, “I've got a feeling” three times within the proceedings along with one “oh yeah” from John. The seventh measure consists of a cymbal-crashing end to the song, followed up by a fast snare drum roll from Ringo and an impromptu characteristic “oh my soul...so hard” from John.

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.

Maggie Mae And Its Incredible Recording Process Revealed

On January 24th, 1969, the 13th day of rehearsals for what became the “Let It Be” film and album, The Beatles convened in their basement Apple Studios to work on new compositions earmarked for inclusion in this current project. They rehearsed both “Get Back” and “Two Of Us” extensively to solidify their arrangements, but, as was their habit, they were easily distracted and regularly jammed other songs, old and new.

While rehearsing their guitar arrangement of Paul's song “Two Of Us” or working title “On Our Way Home,” John decided to break the monotony three times by leading the group through a favorite of his from The Quarrymen days, the skiffle song “Maggie May.” With both John and Paul on acoustic guitars, George on his newly-acquired Rosewood Fender Telecaster and Ringo and drums, this song was a natural to break the tension, John jokingly using banjo chords like back in the skiffle days.

The first ad-lib rendition lasted nearly a minute long, including two choruses and one verse regardless of them not remembering the lyrics after “Two pound ten a week, that was my pay.” After flubbing through the remainder of the bridge, they repeated the chorus a second time, Paul then says “take it, Maggie!” before he segues the song into “Fancy My Chances With You,” an early Lennon / McCartney composition they never developed into a Beatles song. An edited version of this impromptu performance, excluding the bridge of “Maggie Mae,” was featured in the “Fly On The Wall” bonus disc that inside the “Let It Be...Naked” album of 2003.

After a second version of “Maggie Mae” was attempted in-between later takes of “Two Of Us” that lasted just over ten seconds, it surfaced once again a little later. With Glyn Johns rolling the tapes to capture an acceptable performance of “Two Of Us,” John started “Maggie Mae” once again, slightly slower, allowing the song to breathe a little more than the recognized Vipers Skiffle Group version. Wisely, the song fell apart precisely at the point where John forgot the words to the song, lasting 39 seconds. True to its Liverpudlian origin, John and Paul sang the song in an appropriately strong 'scouse' accent. Since the control room captured on eight-track tape, it was easily remembered by Lennon as a minor highlight to the fun had during their January project.

John apparently felt strongly enough about including “Maggie Mae” in this project that on January 31st, 1969, the very last designated day of recording for what became the “Let It Be” film and album, he wanted to capture a proper version of The Beatles performing the song. After the first filmed version of the song “Let It Be” was cut short because of Paul continuously popping his microphone on the word “be,” John states, “Poppin's in man. I'll never get 'Maggie Mae' done if it goes on like this!” The three main songs to be recorded on this day were all Paul's, these being “Let It Be,” “Two Of Us” and “The Long And Winding Road.” John also wanted to squeeze in “Maggie Mae” but, since it took so long to perfect these three songs, either exhaustion or boredom took over once they were in the can. After they finally nailed all three of Paul's compositions, John exclaimed, “OH, YES!” and left for the day, relieved that the project had finally come to a close.

By March 10th, 1969, producer Glyn Johns was given the task of assembling the next Beatles album from the January sessions. Starting from that Monday, Johns worked each day at Olympic Sound Studios through Thursday, March 13th, isolating what he considered the best Beatles performances from all of these session tapes. On this Thursday, he discovered that the third quick version of “Maggie Mae” recorded in-between takes of “Two Of Us” would make a nice link track for the proposed album, tentatively titled “Get Back” in conjunction with the upcoming April single. Johns thereby, with George Martin possibly present, created a stereo mix of “Maggie Mae” for inclusion on the proposed album.

This “Get Back” album was finalized at Olympic Sound Studios on May 28th, 1969, with George Harrison present, as the master tape banding and compilation took place on this day. Appropriately, “Maggie Mae,” which was spelled differently than “Maggie May,” as on the Vipers Skiffle Group's record, was sequenced on side two directly after “Two Of Us.” However, the entire album was shelved indefinitely at this point due to The Beatles' disapproval of the overall results.

With the January 1969 project now shifted toward prepared film editing, so that a movie could materialize, Glyn Johns took another crack at assembling what would now be considered a soundtrack album to the film. He entered Olympic Sound Studios on January 5th, 1970, to perform some last-minute stereo mixes and put together the album's running order, still referred to as “Get Back.”  Again, he placed the same mix of “Maggie Mae” on side two directly following “Two Of Us.” As it turned out, The Beatles also rejected this effort, not to mention, John Lennon objected to Glyn Johns's request to be listed as producer.

By mid-March 1970, with the film close for release, legendary producer Phil Spector was hired to assemble and re-produce what now was titled the “Let It Be” soundtrack album. On March 26th, 1970, he entered Room 4 of EMI Studios to create yet another stereo mix of “Maggie Mae,” this being a simple remix of the same take that Glyn John's had done back on March 10th, 1969. It only took Phil Spector two attempts at getting a proper stereo mix of this 39-second track, engineers Peter Bown and Roger Ferris assisting him with this duty. This has become the official Beatles version of the song to this day.

Sometime in 2003, after Paul had summoned for a Phil Spector-less version of the “Let It Be” LP, an engineering team assembled at Abbey Road Studios to create the “Let It Be...Naked” album. While “Maggie Mae” did not earn a place in the official running order of this album, the first Beatles ad-lib rendition of the song gained space within the 22-minute “Fly On The Wall” bonus disc that was compiled and edited by Kevin Howlett and Brian Thompson. The first and second chorus of the song merge and then run into an impromptu performance of the early Lennon / McCartney composition “Fancy My Chances With You.”

Song Structure and Style

This brief rendition of “Maggie Mae” has the aborted structure 'chorus/verse' (or ab). If The Beatles had performed the entire song, we would have seen a continued repetition between choruses and verses, but this impromptu version didn't get as far as they would have liked had John remembered more of the lyrics on the fly.

After an introductory acoustic guitar strum from John, his band-mates jump in immediately, knowing that he wanted to reprise the song as they had done twice before that day. The standard eight-measure chorus has John on acoustic guitar and lead vocal, Paul on acoustic guitar and harmony vocal, George playing some ad-lib picking on electric guitar, and Ringo playing a standard swing beat on drums while riding on his hi-hats. At the end of the chorus, when it appears that the song might conclude there, Ringo offers up a small drum fill and cymbal crash.

As John insists on attempting the eight-measure verse that follows by singing lead and continuing his guitar strumming, Ringo complies by tapping out some beats on his cymbals. After the first measure, both Paul and George also respond by plucking on their guitars. On the third measure, since Paul doesn't remember the words, he contributes a backing “aaah” melody line to complement John's lead vocal. At this point, Lennon has to acknowledge that his memory is giving out and stops playing and singing entirely, leaving Paul, George, and Ringo to end the song as gracefully as possible.

This results the verse receives only four measures in length, the final phrase “two pound ten a week, that was my pay” becoming the final word but leaving the story hanging in the air. As the needle on the record then ran to the run-out groove (the tonearm possibly returning to its stand), the listener, no doubt, wonders why The Beatles wouldn't bring this entertaining story to a conclusion. But then again, fans of the group were getting used to just this sort of thing, the hidden track “Her Majesty” from their most recent “Abbey Road” album scores a prime example.

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.

Let It Be And Its Incredible Recording Process Revealed

The first appearance of the newly written “Let It Be” in the recording studio was on September 5th, 1968, as mentioned above. While perfecting George's “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in EMI Studio Two with Eric Clapton present as lead guitarist, Paul took advantage of some downtime in-between takes to fool around with “Let It Be.” Engineer John Smith, not knowing how to identify this amusing new ad-lib, simply wrote “Ad Lib” on the tape box.

Paul wasn't bothering to teach them the chords or officially run them through a true rehearsal of the song at this time since the focus of that session was to give George's composition the attention it deserved. George specifically invited Eric Clapton on that day because he felt his bandmates weren't focused enough to record his song properly. If Paul started taking over the session by seriously leading The Beatles through a new song he had just written in the last few days, George possibly would have been even more perturbed.

In fact, when George witnessed Eric joining in on guitar for this ad-lib of Paul's new song, he reels everyone back in for the task at hand. George breaks up the ad-lib of “Let It Be” by saying, “Should we do one just a slight slower? OK, roll it Ken (Scott), roll it. Make a note of this one 'cause this is the one. Cans on, Eric!” Shortly after Clapton proceeded to put his headphones back on, they recorded the final rhythm track for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as we've come to know it.

The instrumentation on this early rehearsal of “Let It Be” had Paul on piano and lead vocals, John on organ and backing vocals (humorously repeating the phrase “let it be” in imitation of Paul), Ringo on drums and Eric Clapton fumbling through some lead guitar lines. Paul's lyrics went as far as including the lines “When I find myself in times of trouble / Mother Malcolm comes to me / whispering words of wisdom / let it be.” As detailed above, this is a reference to Beatles associate Mal Evans, this lyrical insertion being remembered by the other Beatles in later months when they were officially working on the song.

Then, two weeks later, on September 19th, 1968, The Beatles were in EMI Studio One recording George's song “Piggies” when “Let It Be” was heard for the second time. “There were a couple of other songs around at the time,” producer Chris Thomas recounts in the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions.” “Paul was running through 'Let It Be' between takes.” McCartney had fleshed out a little more of the lyrics in the past two weeks and thought to play through it on the piano during a lull in the session. He apparently didn't feel comfortable enough with the song for inclusion on the “White Album,” unlike “Martha My Dear,” which was written and quickly recorded in October of 1968 for inclusion on the LP.

Three-and-a-half months went by before Paul considered “Let It Be,” ready for proper consideration to be recorded by The Beatles. He corralled his bandmates together in January of 1969 for a month of filmed rehearsals and recording sessions, eventually released under the title “Let It Be.” The rehearsals commenced at Twickenham Film Studios in London each of the band members could bring forward newly written material for a future live appearance, wherever they decided that would be.

The second day of these rehearsals was on January 3rd, 1969, Paul being the first to arrive. While waiting for the others to get there, he ran through a few of his newly written compositions on piano, such as “The Long And Winding Road,” “Oh! Darling” and “Maxwell's Silver Hammer.” After some other piano exercises, including a McCartney song titled “Torchy, The Battery Boy,” Paul resurrected “Let It Be” as a recently written song that could possibly have a go at this time.

He made it through the first verse and chorus of the song with the recently arriving Ringo watching on. Paul had by this time given “Let It Be” its gospel feel and its “Mother Mary” line, one slight difference in the lyric being “and in my darkest hour” instead of “in my hour of darkness” as on the released version. After this minute-long rendition, attention was then given to two newly written songs by Ringo, “Taking A Trip To Carolina” and “Picasso,” neither of these ever being worked out by the band. Once George and John arrived on that day, they gave detailed attention to George's “All Things Must Pass” and John's “Don't Let Me Down,” along with running through old Beatles material and impromptu cover songs.

While The Beatles worked extensively on other new material, Paul finally decided to officially introduce “Let It Be” to his bandmates five days later, January 8th, 1969, this being the fifth day of rehearsals at Twickenham Studios. After a lot of attention had been heaped upon George's “I Me Mine,” this being the only day they actually worked on the song, as well as other new compositions, Paul played “Let It Be” on piano during an equipment set up in the earlier part of the day. Ringo joined in on drums for a bit, as did an uninterested John on guitar. Recognizing Paul's changing the lyrics from “Mother Malcolm” to “Mother Mary,” John suggested changing it back to reference their loyal assistant and former roadie. Paul complied with this during the two renditions of the song they went through at this time, but only when it became evident they botched the performance.

After a lunch break, they returned to “Let It Be” again, Paul calling out the chords to George during the performance. Ringo also began working out his drum part while John occasionally sang during the choruses. A lot of the lyrics formed at this point, except the final verse. The Beatles had only scratched the surface in becoming acquainted with the song.

The next day, January 9th, 1969, which was the sixth day of Twickenham rehearsals, they go through “Let It Be” a total of sixteen times. One of the earlier rough run-throughs has Ringo playing a shuffle beat on drums per Paul's request, with John on acoustic guitar, George on lead electric guitar, and Paul on piano and lead vocal with clear demonstrations of what he envisioned for the guitar solo. John moves to bass guitar shortly thereafter to keep with the no-overdubs policy they wanted to maintain throughout this project. In a later rendition that day with John on bass, Paul instructs John to sing backing “aaah”s during the choruses, the song sounding a little more cohesive at that point.

By the end of the day’s rehearsals, the arrangement became much more refined and similar to what we recognize as the final mix. Paul plays and sings the first verse by himself, John and George supplies backing vocals during the first chorus, Ringo joins in on kick drum and tambourine during the next verse and rolls into the following chorus, which has him play a steady rock beat while riding on his hi-hat. That second chorus also has John join in on bass, the instrumental break that follows, including a guitar solo from George and backing vocals by Paul, John, and George. Paul still hasn't completed the lyrics in the last set of verses, so ad-libs such as “read the Record Mirror, let it be” are heard during these rehearsals.

Paul was the first to arrive at Twickenham the following day, January 10th, 1969, so he ran through a few recent compositions on piano for music publisher Dick James, including “Let It Be.” Tensions ran quite high after the other Beatles arrived, resulting in George actually quitting the band during their lunch break. With the future of the project, as well as The Beatles as a whole, in question, the following two rehearsals without George proved unproductive and didn't include any attempts at running through the song “Let It Be.”

Upon George's return to The Beatles, all agreed they move the rehearsals to their basement studio at the Apple Building on Savile Row in London. Their January 23rd, 1969 session at this new location, which was day 12 of their rehearsals, witnessed Paul sneaking in two piano renditions of “Let It Be” for guest keyboardist Billy Preston to hear and get acquainted. No band rehearsals of the song occurred on this day, however.

Even though Billy Preston was not present at their January 25th, 1969 session at Apple Studios, this being day 14 of rehearsals, Paul thought to run through “Let It Be” again to reacquaint his bandmates with the arrangement they came up with a little over two weeks prior. Everybody believed that Billy could easily pick up on how to better the song. The four of them rehearsed it a total of 18 times, although it wasn't all fun and games!

The earlier run-throughs of “Let It Be” on this day showed they had either forgotten their parts or just weren't into it, John, in particular, showing his contempt for the song. His bass playing was full of flubs, Ringo hadn't had his drum part perfected yet, and John and George's backing vocals were erratic and too loud. Recognizing their disinterest in the song, Paul encouraged, “OK, you watch us, we're gonna do this now. OK boy, now, come on. Pull yourselves together!” John replies, “You talkin' to me?” George then responds by beginning an impromptu rendition of Chuck Berry's “I'm Talking About You,” which is then squashed by Paul, who wants to get back to the business at hand. “Come on now,” he interjects, “back to the drudgery.” John angrily responds, “It's you that's bloody making it like this!” Paul sarcastically comes back with “The real meaning of Christmas” before beginning another rendition of “Let It Be,” the next few rehearsals of the song sounding very mediocre.

Paul then decides to think positive and instructs producer Glyn Johns to record the next take properly. “This here's gonna knock you out,” he states, leading the group through the version included on the 1996 released “Anthology 3.” This excellent rendition features great piano and vocal work from Paul, although the lyrics in the final verses were yet written. Paul begins the song with the descending piano figure used after the second chorus and the conclusion of the song but replaced by the instrumental verse chord pattern within the next week. Ringo stopped playing during these final verses but otherwise put in an adequate subdued performance. John and George's backing “aaah”s ranked well as was George's lead guitar solo, which was goaded on by Paul with an appropriate “yeah” during its opening measure. The composer adds in a couple of exclamations of “let it be” during the final chords, indicating that he was well pleased with the outcome of this take. They did go through the song a few more times after this but, because of lack of interest and low energy, these were half-hearted at best.

Billy Preston was present for the next day's rehearsal, January 26th, 1969 (day 15) at Apple Studios. Paul was enthusiastic about seeing how Billy's Hammond organ contributions to “Let It Be” would work with The Beatles' performance, so he led everyone through a total of 28 rehearsals of the song. They still began each rendition with the descending piano figure heard after the second chorus, deciding to repeat it twice on this day. Things were coming along very nicely, except for the fact that Paul still hadn't written the lyrics to the final set of verses. This led to amusing vocal ad-libs, such as “You will be a good girl, let it be /, and though you may be told off, you will still be able to see / that there must be an answer, let it be” On one version, Paul sings, “Now somewhere out in Weybridge is a cat whose name is Banagy / there will be the answer, let it be / and in my darkest hour, she is...,” George then interrupting with “...sitting on the lavatory,” causing John to repeat the phrase while laughing. Many of these takes were officially recorded by producer Glyn Johns, one of which, as we'll see later, made available to the public illegally.

Twelve more versions of “Let It Be” were performed with Billy Preston the following day, January 27th, 1969 (day 16) at Apple Studios. The final arrangement was pretty set by this time, although they did some experimentation on this day. On some versions, George and John played guitar and bass riffs during the early part of the song, while Billy experimented with different organ parts, even substituting electric piano instead of organ. George also took some time to work through a lead guitar part during the song's final chorus. Since Paul still didn't have the lyrics to the final set of verses written, he would sometimes sing scat vocals, John even adding what Bruce Spizer describes in his book “The Beatles On Apple Records” as “inappropriate vocal ad-libs, perhaps out of boredom.” At any rate, with the time frame to complete the project nearing its end, all that was left was for Paul to complete the lyrics. Otherwise, everyone had their parts perfected.

It was on day 18 of rehearsals, January 29th, 1969, that The Beatles decided their live performance would take place on the Apple Headquarters roof the following day. The five songs deemed appropriate played live were rehearsed on this day, the remainder of the session being used to work out all of the bugs on the other selections they felt were complete, “Let It Be” being among them. They only needed to go through the song once on this day, this lackluster performance being evidence that they were simply going through the motions on something they basically knew like the back of their hand.

Their rooftop performance the following day, January 30th, 1969, went quite well, despite the cold weather and the threat from police to shut them down. With the filming of Ringo and Peter Sellers' movie “The Magic Christian” beginning in February, The Beatles had one remaining day to officially record and film the other three songs that they had perfected for this project, these being “The Long And Winding Road,” “Two Of Us” and “Let It Be.”

Therefore, on January 31st, 1969, The Beatles assembled with George Martin and engineers Glyn Johns and Alan Parsons to record the “Apple Studio Performance.” Various other songs were performed in between takes, such as “Lady Madonna,” “Run For Your Life,” and even “Build Me Up Buttercup,” but the primary focus was the three compositions mentioned above deemed unsuitable for the rooftop performance. Since cameras would also capture the proceedings in what eventually became the “Let It Be” movie, the four Beatles and Billy Preston arranged themselves into stage formation around a platform, John insisting on sitting on the floor in front of the piano next to Yoko throughout the ordeal.

After The Beatles nailed down an acceptable performance of “Two Of Us,” as well as messed around with various other selections, Paul moved from acoustic guitar to piano to set their attention to “Let It Be.” They performed many takes of this song numbered 20 through 27 to coincide with the take numbers from the film's clapper board. Since there were a few breakdowns and false starts, some of these numbered takes included these incomplete versions along with full renditions of the song. Paul had finally written the lyrics to the final set of verses by this day. He had decided to introduce the song by playing an instrumental version of the verse on piano instead of the descending chord pattern as he had been.

A rehearsal of the song before the official takes started included a version played with a skiffle-style beat and Lennon singing the words to a different melody. It was obvious that John was becoming irritated and/or bored of the whole process by this point, making fun of the lyrics on occasion to relieve some stress. “And in my hour of darkness, she is standing left in front of me,” he sings at one point, continuing, “squeaking turds of whiskey over me.”

'Take 20' started well but was called to a stop by Glyn Johns midway through the first chorus because Paul's vocals were popping, especially on the word “be.” John begins whistling when the signal to stop occurs and then mutters, “What the f*ck is going on?” and mentions the popping. “This isn't very loud, Glyn,” Paul complains, John interjecting, “Poppin's in, man. I'll never get 'Maggie Mae' done if it goes on like this!” After another false start, they deliver their first complete performance, flawed only by John flubbing his bass part during the descending chords just before the guitar solo, John announcing “F*cked it!" directly after his mistake. After the song concludes, John asks, “Let it be, eh?” After Paul answers, “Yeah,” John adds, “I know what you mean.”

'Take 21' started off fine but kept slowing in tempo, this prompting Paul to call the performance to a halt after the guitar solo. He then sang the line “When all the broken hearted people” as a slurring drunk, which causes John to call out, “Get off, you bum!” in imitation of a heckler in a nightclub. Paul then states, “It just, I don't know, it got so, sort of...I don't know.”

'Take 22' was a complete performance but also marred by a slowing tempo. When Paul realized this wasn't going to be the final take, he sang the last verse as “When I find myself in times of heartache, Brother Malcolm comes to me,” and then finishes the take in a less-than-serious vocal tone. After it concludes, John sings, “There once was a woman / that loved a Moondog.” “Moondog,” of course, was a reference to an old name for The Beatles and was also included in the lyrics to John's “Dig A Pony” from these January 1969 sessions.

Before 'take 23' begins, John states, “Daddy wants to wee-wee,” which triggers Paul to announce, “Daddy wants wee-wee, Glyn!” After 'take 23' is announced, Paul says, “Keep it going, leave it up a bit or something.” John then states, “Don't say that word,” which Paul answers with “a-a-a-a-awful sorry!” John then asks with mock sincerity, “Are we supposed to giggle in the solo?” to which Paul replies, “yeah,” followed by John's “OK.” This take went quite well, although after it was over, John stated in a British royalty accent, “I lost a bass note somewhere!” After Paul relies “Oh!” in a similar accent, John continues, “I don't think it mattered if that was it.”

'Take 24' was going quite well right into the guitar solo section where George ad-libs impressively, Paul singing encouragingly “Let it be, yeah, whoah.” Paul then accidentally leads the band through two choruses instead of just one, a mistake he would typically make. Since there are two choruses at the end of the song, John mistook this to be the conclusion and started playing the descending bass pattern heard at the song's end. As Paul notices this when he begins the final set of verses, he reacts vocally with, “When I find myself in, whoah!” Billy Preston reacts to this flub with some soulful swirling organ playing, knowing McCartney ruined this take. Paul continues, nonetheless, singing in an exaggerated style until John stops the take by exclaiming, “OK, OK,” Paul continues with, “OK, she stands right in...” until everybody stops playing. “I thought it was 'end,' you know,” John apologetically states regarding his bass flub.

'Take 25' just makes it through to the first chorus where Paul starts singing in a high falsetto harmony on top of John and George's “aaah”s. This prompts Paul to exclaim, “What the sh*t and hell is going on here?” John and Paul then engage in some pseudo-German banter before Paul continues into a second attempt at 'take 25' by counting it off in a mock German accent. This next rendition makes it to the end but was determined mid-way through to be spurious, resulting in Paul once again, including “Brother Malcolm” in the lyrics. After it concludes, the following conversation takes place:

John (sarcastically): “I think that was rather grand. I'd take one home with me.”

Glyn: “No, that was fine.”

John (mimicking the computer HAL9000 from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”): Don't kid us, Glyn. Give it to us straight.”

Glyn: "That was straight."

Paul: “Ah, what do you think, Glyn?”

Glyn: “I don't think it's yet.”

Paul: “C'mon.”

John: “OK, let's track it. (Sharply intakes breath creating a sound of shock.) You bounder, you cheat!” (and then reprising “2001: A Space Odyssey”) “Get Me Off This Base! Get Me Off...”

The Beatles had been more than used to editing and overdubbing practices throughout their career, especially during the extensive “Sgt. Pepper” sessions. However, they were determined to make this new project different. “We would learn the tunes and record them without loads of overdubs; do a live album,” George related in the book “Beatles Anthology.” Therefore, this performance of “Let It Be,” like all of the other songs for this project, was intended to be performed perfectly from beginning to end and become the finished product. They usually would “track it” even though it wasn't a perfect performance, but they didn't want to take advantage of that luxury here. If they did, they would be considered a “bounder” or “cheat.” As we will see below, they ended up doing a good share of 'cheating' at future sessions to get the song to the releasable state.

Meanwhile, as 'take 26' just gets passed the first measure, Paul proceeds to play the introductory notes to the “Twelfth Street Rag,” prompting John to sing, “Oh, Everybody's got a little bit about the bo...” They move directly into another attempt at "Let It Be," this falling apart when Paul messes up the lyrics in the final set of verses. Since they appeared to lose their enthusiasm for the song at this point, they decided to move on to “The Long And Winding Road” and then come back to “Let It Be” a little later in the day.

After “The Long And Winding Road” was wrapped up, they came back with renewed drive to finish up “Let It Be.” During the commotion before 'take 27' began, John exclaims in a funny British accent, “Uh, no, I've lost me little paper,” undoubtedly referring to a cheat sheet he was using for the song. “Don't talk like that,” he then said to himself as a film crew member announced, “Take 27, sync to second clap.” Paul follows this with “Sync to second clap, please” before beginning what then became the basic master recording of the released single and album track as we know it. Apart from a few sour lead guitar notes on George's solo (which would be improved upon twice in later months), passed inspection to be a perfect take.

Paul, always being the one to try to top himself just in case it could be done even better, quickly announced, “One more time, very fair, one more.” He started another rendition immediately, which was stopped by George by saying, “Oh, just let me get this...” so that he could quickly tune a guitar string. After George says “OK,” Paul reprises his statement from the beginning of the last version, saying “Second clap” and then claps his hands, causing George to laugh during the introduction of their next rendition.

This second version of “Let It Be,” commonly identified as 'take 27b,' stood near perfect, Paul replacing “there will be an answer” with “there will be no sorrow” twice in the final moments of the song. George's guitar solo came out better on this take, remembered decades later when the “Let It Be...Naked” album came along. This version, used as the primary performance for the "Let It Be" movie, slightly alters the structure of the song. As the last performance of the month-long project, John emphatically exclaims, “OH, YES!” once the final sounds of the instruments fade out. His intentions of including "Maggie Mae" on this day were either forgotten or deemed less important than his desire to go home for the evening.

One of the more suitable takes of “Let It Be” recorded with Billy Preston on January 26th, 1969, as mentioned above, was initially mixed by Glyn Johns (and possibly George Martin) at Olympic Sound Studios in London on March 10th, 1969. This became part of what Glyn Johns submitted to be a “Get Back” album, at The Beatles' request, for release in the summer of 1969. The proposed album was compiled and cut as acetate discs for The Beatles to hear, which they eventually rejected. John's copy of this acetate disc got into the hands of a disc jockey in Buffalo, New York, in September of 1969. He proceeded to play the entire album on the air and then handed it off to WBCN in Boston, who also aired it on September 22nd, announcing it as the “Get Back” album. These broadcasts were recorded and then re-broadcast in various other American cities, resulting in a variety of bootleg albums distributed later that year.

One complaint Paul had about the proposed “Get Back” album was that the January 26th, 1969 version of “Let It Be” sounded inferior to what they had recorded on January 31st. He apparently wasn't happy with the chosen take of “The Long And Winding Road” either, so two days later, on March 12th, 1969, Glyn Johns (and possibly George Martin) re-entered Olympic Studios to create new stereo mixes of these two songs as recorded on January 31st. They chose 'take 27a,' the next-to-last rendition they recorded on that day, which eventually won space on the released single and album.

One thing George wasn't happy about on the chosen take of “Let It Be” was his inferior guitar solo. While other takes of the song recorded on that day included better solos, the overall performances by The Beatles weren't as good as 'take 27a.' Therefore, even though they swore not to add any overdubs to the project, they decided to make an exception here. After all, there were some edits and studio manipulation done on the “Get Back / Don't Let Me Down” single that was recently released.

The Beatles entered EMI Studio Three on April 30th, 1969, at 7:15 pm, the first order of business required George to overdub a more suitable lead guitar solo onto the eight-track tape of “Let It Be” with Chris Thomas as producer. With this done to everyone's satisfaction, John and Paul used the remainder of the session to add vocal and sound effects overdubs to a recording they started in 1967 entitled “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number),” a mono mix of this song took place at the end of the session. They probably didn't realize it at the time, but both of the songs they worked on at this session ended up as the A- and B-side of their 1970 single, which was released just before the announcement of the band's breakup. In any event, this overdub session concluded at 2 am the following morning.

On May 28th, 1969, George Martin, Glyn Johns, engineer Steve Vaughan and George Harrison (the only Beatle in town at the time) entered Olympic Sound Studios in London to create a stereo mix of “Let It Be” that included George's newly recorded guitar solo. Also included in this mix, at the song's beginning, was a member of the film crew announcing “Take 27 (the sound of a clapperboard)...Take 27, sync to second clap (the sound of the second clap)” and Paul responding, “Sync to second clap, please.”

After this stereo mix satisfied all, the above engineering team, with George Harrison looking on, accomplished the master tape banding and compilation of the proposed “Get Back” album, “Let It Be,” slated as the sixth track on side two. The Beatles remained keen to release this album in the summer of 1969, even having photographer Angus McBean take pictures of them in the same pose as he had taken for the front cover of their 1963 “Please Please Me” album. However, upon listening to the album's mix created on this day, they decided to postpone it for the time being.

By the beginning of 1970, with the decision to release the footage of January 1969 as a full-length motion picture in fulfillment of their contract with United Artists, The Beatles felt they needed to work a little further to get those songs into a releasable state. With John on vacation in Denmark, Paul, George, and Ringo first got together on January 3rd to record “I Me Mine,” since slated to be in the film. With that accomplished, a decision to add more overdubs onto “Let It Be” surfaced as well.

George Martin was commissioned to write a score for brass and cello overdubs for the song, hiring approximately eight studio musicians for the next day, January 4th, 1970, for a recording session at EMI Studio Two. Before the studio musicians arrived, George, Paul and Linda McCartney added some beautiful harmonized backing vocals to the song. This filled up all eight tracks of the tape so, while a reduction mix occurred to open up more tracks, the newly-arrived brass musicians played George Martin's score simultaneously. As it turned out, however, it took three attempts to get the best possible tape reduction (labeled takes 28 through 30), so the brass players performed the score on each of the three reductions, 'take 30' scored the best.

This having been accomplished, George added yet another lead guitar overdub, a more stinging distorted one as opposed to the more subdued April 30th, 1969 overdub played through a rotating Leslie speaker. Since this new guitar solo was added to its own track on the new tape, both overdubbed solos were isolated onto different tracks. Further overdubs on this day were Ringo adding some additional drums, Paul on electric piano during both codas as well as maracas, and a concluding score for cellos to finish off the arrangement.

With all of the overdubs complete, George Martin and engineers Phil McDonald and Richard Langham took to creating a stereo mix of the song, their second attempt used for the released single. One should note, however, that George Martin here decided that he preferred George's first overdubbed solo from April 30th, 1969, for the record, the producer muting the guitarist's newly created stinging solo from the master tape when the stereo mix took place. This energetic rocking solo may have just been recorded that day, but a decision emerged that the earlier solo fit the arrangement better. Tape bleedthrough from George's latest guitar solo, however, allows it faintly heard during the final chorus. By 4 am the following morning, the session closed, bringing to an end the final Beatles recording session of their career (apart from the “Free As A Bird / Real Love” sessions from the mid-1990s).

It's interesting to note that, given Glyn John's attempt at putting together another “Get Back” album the following day at Olympic Sound Studios, these new “Let It Be” overdubs from January 4th, 1970 were overlooked. It undoubtedly was thought that, given The Beatles' original plan to avoid all overdubs, the presence of brass and cellos on “Let It Be” wouldn't fit with these plans. Johns instead submitted his previous mix of the song, repositioning it as the last song of side one this time around. This configuration of the album, of course, never saw the light of day either.

With George Martin's production of “Let It Be” released as a single in early March of 1970, Phil Spector decided to provide a somewhat different mix of the song for the soundtrack album once he was hired as its producer. He undoubtedly wanted to present the song in a different light to give the illusion as an entirely different performance. However, he used the same exact January 31st, 1969 rendition ('take 27a') used on the released single.

On March 26th, 1970, Phil Spector and engineers Peter Bown and Roger Ferris entered Room 4 of EMI Studios to work on creating stereo mixes of four of the songs to be featured on the soundtrack album, including “Let It Be.” He made four attempts at getting a new mix of the song, the fourth deemed best. Crowned the master of the famous “Wall Of Sound” as heard on his American productions, Spector added a good amount of tape echo to Paul's maracas in the third set of verses and Ringo's hi-hat in the second set of verses, punching up the drummer's contribution to be a stand-out feature of the recording (parodied by the group Klaatu on their classic song “Sub Rosa Subway”). He also elevated George Martin's brass performance much higher in the mix, choosing Harrison's searing new guitar work from January 4th, 1970, to give the song a more jarring presence.

One other trick that Phil Spector had up his sleeve was to extend the song from 3:50 to 4:01 by editing in a repeat of one of the final choruses, providing three choruses instead of two. It took him four attempts to get this edit done satisfactorily, the best attempt identified as 'remix stereo 1.' Since this song was now going to be featured as the title track of the movie, as well as the newly released hit Beatles single, Spector obviously felt “Let It Be” needed to be the album's true focal point. Opinions vary as to which released version of the song is better. John Lennon, who has gone on record to compliment Spector on his production of the soundtrack album, had to admit, however, that his treatment of “Let It Be” was “a little fruity.”

Sometime in 1996, George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick returned to the January 25th, 1969 master tape of “Let It Be” to create a mix of the unfinished song for inclusion on the compilation album “Anthology 3.” They included Paul's introductory remark “This here's gonna knock you out” that was uttered before that take was originally recorded, but also edited in a couple Lennon utterances from their January 31st sessions just for fun, such as, “Are we supposed to giggle in the solo?” and, “I think that was rather grand. I'd take one home with me...OK, let's track it...You bounder, you cheat!”

Then, sometime in 2003, the engineering team of Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, and Allan Rouse returned to the January 31st, 1969 master tape of 'take 27a' to create a new mix of “Let It Be” for inclusion on the album “Let It Be...Naked.” Since George's guitar solo was considered subpar on this take, his solo from 'take 27b' was edited in to create the perfect rendition as originally intended, without any overdubs. Also corrected was a piano flub from Paul during the final chorus behind the lyric "Mother Mary," by his performance from 'take 27b'. With the versions of "Let It Be" featured on the single, the album, and on "Anthology 3," "Let It Be...Naked" features the fourth version of the song's guitar solo to be released thus far.

“Let It Be” was returned to once again sometime in between 2004 and 2006 by George Martin and his son Giles Martin to add a bit of the song's elements within a mash-up version of “All You Need Is Love” for the album “Love.” Then, sometime in 2018, Giles discovered The Beatles' first ad-lib recording of “Let It Be” from September 5th, 1968, in-between takes of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” for inclusion in the “Super Deluxe” 50th Anniversary “White Album” box set.

Various live McCartney performances of “Let It Be” have been recorded and released on albums, the first being “Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea.” Paul's December 26th, 1979 performance of the song at the Hammersmith Odeon in London with the celebrity band “Rockestra,” featuring the current members of Wings, Pete Townshend, John Bonham, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Kenny Jones, Dave Edmunds, and many others, was featured on the album.

“Let It Be” was also recorded on April 14th, 1990 in Miami, Florida, the results being a feature on both his albums “Tripping The Live Fantastic” and “Tripping The Live Fantastic: Highlights!” Paul also performed the song at a benefit show he organized in response to the September 11th US attacks, the show taking place on October 20th, 2001 at Madison Square Garden. This concert was recorded and released on a double-album entitled “The Concert For New York City.” “Let It Be” was also recorded on May 13th, 2002, in Atlanta, Georgia, included on both his “Back In The US” and “Back In The World” albums.

On June 27th, 2007, Paul and his band played a secret show at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, California, this version of “Let It Be,” eventually released on the album “Amoeba Gig” in 2019. On July 16th, 2008, Paul made a guest appearance at a Billy Joel concert at Shea Stadium and performed “Let It Be” as a duet, this being recorded and featured on the Billy Joel album “Live At Shea Stadium: The Concert.” When Paul was performing at CitiField in New York City between July 17th and 21st, 2009, a recording of “Let It Be” was made that appeared on his “Good Evening New York City” album.

Song Structure And Style: The gospel-tinged “Let It Be” can be parsed out to the following structure: 'verse (instrumental)/ verse/ verse/ chorus/ verse/ verse/ chorus/ chorus/ coda/ coda/ verse (solo)/ verse (solo)/ chorus/ verse/ verse/ chorus/ chorus/ coda' (or aaabaabbccaabaabbc).

While this appears complex, it's actually quite simple. Because each verse section copies a twice-repeated eight-measure pattern, they've been counted here as separate verses instead of just one. The same applies to the coda, which is a four-measure pattern twice-repeated in the middle of the song but only played once at the song's conclusion. Since Paul's solo introduction is an instrumental version of the verse, it has been counted as such also. One change to this structure differs, however, when we consider the original album version of the song. Phil Spector edited in a repeat on the final choruses, which would add another “b” toward the end of the structure indicated above.

As mentioned, Paul's introductory piano verse appears first, this being eight measures in length as all of the verses of the song are. The next two verses are identical, the only addition being Paul's vocal. The chorus that follows, which is also eight measures long, adds John, Paul, George, and Linda's hushed “oooh” backing vocals, along with soft chords played by Billy Preston.

The next set of verses continues the above verse's instrumentation with the addition of Ringo's hi-hat taps (with additional echo on the album) and John's bass in the latter verse that is accentuated by some subtle organ from Billy. The energy kicks in on the following twice-repeated chorus, by Ringo’s drum fill in the latter verse's final measure. Ringo plays through both of these choruses with a steady swinging drum beat while riding on the hi-hats, punctuating the last measure of the first chorus with another drum fill. Paul sings with more gusto in these choruses while the presence of the backing “oooh”s and Billy's organ appear more felt than heard. The latter chorus reveals the brass for the first time, which is substantially higher in the mix on the album.

Next comes the twice-repeated coda, both of which are four measures in length. Each coda consists of a descending chord pattern, the first one being played more vibrantly with Paul's acoustic piano, his electric piano overdub, Billy's organ, John's bass, George's lead guitar (appearing here for the first time in the song) and Ringo's drums all following each other down the scale. The second coda is primarily played by Billy on organ, adding a church-like religiosity to the song, Paul playing softly on piano and John on bass to fill out the sound subtly. Note that Phil Spector chose to put Paul's electric piano overdub quite high in the mix during the first coda, presumably to differentiate his mix from the single version, which rose high on the charts while he was preparing his album version.

Two instrumental verses follow next, the primary focus on George's guitar solo. The more unobtrusive guitar part George overdubbed on April 30th, 1969, placed on the single version, played through a rotating Leslie speaker. The brash distorted solo George played on January 4th, 1970, appears on the album version, Phil Spector obviously wanting to make the listener take notice of the rock 'n' roll sensibilities The Beatles were capable of, even on an otherwise tender but meaningful ballad. The personalities of both producers are apparent in their choices; George Martin wanting to convey the tenderness of the message within the instrumentation, and Phil Spector aiming to jolt the audience with an “in your face” approach. Consensus may reveal George Martin's version as the winner, but many can also applaud Phil Spector's tenacity.

Otherwise, these instrumental verses bring the song to a high crescendo, all instrumentalists playing at full bore along with the brass overdub until George tastefully concludes his guitar solo (in both cases). Next comes a repeat of the chorus, which slowly brings the tension down to prepare us for the concluding inspirational thoughts of the final two verses that follow afterward. Ringo rides on the cymbal for this chorus as the brass accentuates the process of tying things together for what follows, Paul touching on a falsetto exclamation as this section ends.

These final two verses feature percussive elements meant to differentiate from all previous verses and help us decipher the meaning of the final lyrical message Paul has for the listener. Paul's maracas come to the fore as do Ringo's added drum fills played throughout both verses, both elements added on January 4th, 1970. Paul's lyric “and when the night is cloudy...” within this atmosphere makes for us all to lean in to be inspired as he also accompanies himself quietly on piano.

George Martin may not have wanted Harrison's brash guitar solo featured in his mix, but it does make some brief appearances only because of tape bleed-through, the final measure of the second of this set of verses triggers the first occasion. Ringo returns to riding on his hi-hat here while John and Billy put in a more subdued performance as a backdrop to Paul's message. As Ringo pounds out a double-tracked drum fill to usher in the choruses that complete the message, Paul excitedly mutters, “Ee, yeah, let it be!” to bring in the song's climax.

Ringo goes back to riding on his cymbal during the final set of choruses, while Paul loudly emphasizes his mother's comforting message (or was it Mal Evans' message?) so all can be inspired. Billy's organ and the brass musicians bring up the excitement as does George's vibrant lead guitar passage on Phil Spector's mix (another guitar bleed-through appearing in George Martin's mix at the end of the fourth measure of the last chorus). Phil Spector masterfully omits Harrison's lead guitar during the first of this final set of two choruses, but when the producer spools back to repeat this chorus a second time, he brings in George's 1970 solo as if the guitarist was waiting patiently in the wings for a few measures.

After one last falsetto offering from Paul in the final two measures of the last chorus, the concluding coda slightly slows in tempo at the end to great effect. Once again, Paul's overdubbed electric piano takes center stage as all instruments, including a quiet cello overdub, follow him down the scale to a final cymbal crash and a higher octave shift from John's bass to get in the final word.

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.