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.

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