Old Brown Shoe And Its Incredible Recording Process Revealed

George premiered the song to The Beatles and Billy Preston at Apple Studios on January 27th, 1969, this being the 16th session for the "Get Back / Let It Be" project. The session began with Paul running through a version of "Strawberry Fields Forever," then followed by George at the piano instructing Preston on the chords of his brand-new composition, "Old Brown Shoe," while fresh in his mind from his previous evening's writing session.

After they worked extensively on “Let It Be” and “The Long And Winding Road,” along with various other oldies by Elvis, The Drifters, and Screamin” Jay Hawkins, George was allowed to rehearse “Old Brown Shoe” with his bandmates. Ringo experimented with different drum patterns, starting with a standard shuffle beat and eventually moving to an impressive performance focusing primarily on the toms. Since John had been playing bass during the rehearsals for “Let It Be” and “The Long And Winding Road,” he stayed on this instrument while working on George's new song. As the rehearsal continued, Billy Preston came in on organ while Paul played guitar.

While they did start to get a good feel for his new composition, they recognized to press on further with songs they had been working on previously. They ended up laying down the definitive version of the song “Get Back” on this day. This recording would soon be released as their next single (minus the coda recorded the following day), leaving the refining of “Old Brown Shoe” for another day.

The following day, January 28th, 1969, was the next session allotted for further refining of "Old Brown Shoe" at Apple Studios, this being the 17th “Get Back / Let It Be” session. After much work on “I've Got A Feeling” and other songs, including the basis for the released recording of “Don't Let Me Down,” The Beatles and Billy Preston worked extensively on “Old Brown Shoe,” running through the song eight times.

George started on piano again, this time teaching the chords to John for him to play on guitar. Ringo had by now adopted the drumbeat reminiscent of Bob Dylan's “Highway 61 Revisited” as he eventually played on the finished song. However, he stumbled from time to time during the verses and resorted to a triplet snare beat in the bridges, not unlike what he plays in “Get Back.” Paul is on bass this time around throughout all of these rehearsals, but a change in instruments happens sometime during the proceedings regarding other band members. Billy Preston replaced George on piano, which freed him up to play lead guitar. Harrison joked that he now needed to teach himself the song again on this instrument, formulating some of the guitar riffs heard on the finished recording in the process. John then abandoned his guitar for an Omnichord, which is an instrument that sounds somewhat like an organ.

Another unusual musical instrument in the studio on this day was a Stylophone, which George and Billy Preston experimented with in-between rehearsals of “Old Brown Shoe.” The Beatles never used the instrument on any song in their catalog. Still, it did famously get used five months later at Trident Studios in London on David Bowie's classic “Space Oddity.” Nonetheless, on this day, The Beatles worked on two other Harrison compositions, “Something” and “All Things Must Pass,” as well as other songs, before retiring for the evening.

The following day, January 29th, 1969, did see one more rehearsal of “Old Brown Shoe” at Apple Studios, this being the 18th “Get Back / Let It Be” session. With Ringo needing to start filming his role in Peter Seller's movie “The Magic Christian” at the beginning of February, the whole Beatles project required completion in the next two days. Therefore, on this day, they decided to hash through the recently offered George Harrison compositions in consideration of one of them suited for inclusion in the proposed "Get Back / Let It Be" documentary film. In addition to a quick run-through of “Old Brown Shoe,” they rehearsed “All Things Must Pass,” “Let It Down, “ “Something,” and “For You Blue.” This last song eventually won, the rhythm track for the released version already recorded on January 25th. Interestingly, George's “I Me Mine,” which did briefly make it into the film in a very rough state, was deemed unsuitable on this day and not even considered.

This also became the fate of “Old Brown Shoe” at this stage of the game. The band did decide on this day, however, that they would rehearse a group of songs they did feel comfortable within preparation for a last-minute concert they would perform on the roof of the Apple building the following day, January 30th, 1969. After rehearsing these songs, they rifled through many other oldies and underdeveloped tunes before the day’s end.

“Old Brown Shoe” may have been put on the back-burner as far as The Beatles were concerned, but it was up to George to bring it to the fore again in the future. Apparently, to treat himself on his 26th birthday, February 25th, 1969, George met with engineer Ken Scott at EMI Studios (time and studio unknown) to record three demos of recently written songs. He chose to record “All Things Must Pass,” “Something,” and “Old Brown Shoe,” the latter song being the most elaborately recorded of the three.

George first recorded himself singing the song while playing piano on track one of the four-track tape, then added an electric rhythm guitar overdub throughout the song on track two that focused on the lower-pitched strings and then performed a further electric guitar part on the higher strings as a solo during the instrumental verse as well as a suitable guitar part during the conclusion on track four. As included on “Anthology 3,” it is an excellent performance that one can only imagine, even accentuated further with Ringo on drums, Paul on bass, and backing vocals from Paul and John to create an impressive finished song on the eight-track tape. However, this was kept only for posterity and, possibly, to reacquaint his bandmates on how he wanted the song to sound when they recorded it as a band.

About seven weeks later, on April 16th, 1969, George appeared in EMI Studio Three between 2:30 and 5 pm to record yet another demo of “Old Brown Shoe” in anticipation of the full band convening at 7 pm that day to record the song properly. With producer George Martin in tow, along with engineers Phil McDonald and Richard Lush, this second Harrison demo of the song has yet to surface on any releases, official or bootleg. Most assume it features George once again on piano and vocals. Mark Lewisohn's “The Beatles Recording Sessions” book intimates that this demo was recorded over once the rest of the band arrived on that day, but discoveries have come to light in the past to prove similar statements untrue. Only time will tell.

At 7 pm, The Beatles recorded four takes of the rhythm track which, in essence, means that there were three “take one” recordings of the song at EMI Studios in 1969: George's demo on February 25th, George's demo on this day (April 16th), and the first rhythm track recorded this same evening. This “take one,” however, broke down before the song's conclusion. The rest of the four takes show that The Beatles were well acquainted with the song by this time.

"Take two," which appears in the "Super Deluxe" 50th Anniversary edition of "Abbey Road," was complete, as were the following two takes. The instrumentation here shows three Beatles: Ringo on drums on track one, George's vocals on track two, George on lead guitar using his Fender Telecaster on track three, and Paul on “jangle box” on track four, this instrument also referred to as “tack piano.” Andy Babiuk's book “Beatles Gear” explains that a "jangle box" was a modified upright piano. "The instrument's hammers were brushed with cellulose, which then dried hard, and some of its strings were re-tuned. The result was a percussive, jangling piano sound.” Popular pianist Russ Conway recorded many of his hits at EMI Studios using this piano sound, such as “Side Saddle” from 1959, and The Beatles worked at achieving this “jangling” sound as well. Author Kevin Howlett, in the "Track By Track" section of the "Super Deluxe" edition of "Abbey Road," asserts that John played the "jangle box" piano on "Old Brown Shoe" but, Mark Lewisohn's "The Beatles Recording Sessions" book insists, John played rhythm guitar on the song for "take four," which they used for the finished recording, apparently on track eight of the eight-track tape. Since only three musicians perform on "take two," as witnessed on the "Super Deluxe Abbey Road" release, we can either conclude that John arrived late for the recording session on this day, or the track that contained John's guitar escaped the mix that Giles Martin made for this 2019 release.

Noteworthy of mention here is the additional assertion by Kevin Howlett that Paul performed the drums on the official recording of "Old Brown Shoe." While Ringo was indeed in the process of filming the movie "The Magic Christian" on location in London, made him available for this evening's Beatles recording session. Upon listening to the late January "Get Back / Let It Be" rehearsals of "Old Brown Shoe," Ringo's drum performances developed quite closely to what we hear on the rhythm track as recorded on April 16th. Paul's rudimentary drum-work, as witnessed on "The Ballad Of John And Yoko," "Dear Prudence" and "Back In The U.S.S.R.," the latter song being a composite of Paul, John, and George playing drums by the use of overdubs, appears to not be of the caliber of what we hear on the released "Old Brown Shoe." "Anything I really can't do is 'shuffles,'" Paul himself admitted during a filmed interview in the 1990s concerning his drumming ability. "They're difficult to do. That's just the coordination I can't do...But I can do more of just a straight sort of rock (beat)," which he then demonstrates for the cameras. Therefore, it appears most likely that Ringo broke away from his acting duties to join The Beatles for this April evening's recording session, something George Harrison would undoubtedly have preferred for recording one of his songs.

"Take four” met with everyone's satisfaction at that time. Onto track six of the tape, George overdubbed some guitar along with Paul on bass guitar using a Fender Jazz Bass, his performance mimicking the impressive rising and falling pattern that repeats throughout the bridges of the song that George played during the rhythm track. During a 1987 interview for Creem Magain, interviewer J. Kordosh remarked that the bass playing on this song "sounds like McCartney was going nuts again," which prompted George to reply, "That was me going nuts...doing exactly what I do on guitar." George then re-recorded his lead vocals onto track two while huddling himself into a small corner of EMI Studio Three to create a "tight but natural echo,” as Mark Lewisohn describes it in “The Beatles Recording Sessions." John and Paul also sang some harmony vocals on track two, along with George, deliberately distorted by engineer Jeff Jarratt.

Another overdub recorded on this day was John and Paul recording backing vocals onto track five with distortion added, which was secretly witnessed by 17-year-old Tom Hartman of the group The AeroVons on this day. As related in Andy Babiuk's book “Beatles Gear,” this young group got the opportunity to record at EMI Studios in April of 1969, the same day that The Beatles were recording “Old Brown Shoe.” Someone instructed the group to store their equipment in a small storeroom that had “once been a control room and thus had a window that looked into Studio Three.” While their band was recording on this day, they overheard The Beatles recording in Studio Three and decided to sneak into that storeroom because they “could not help but take a peek through the curtained window. They saw the group around a microphone, repeatedly singing, 'Who knows baby, you may comfort me... ' trying for the perfect take.”

After these overdubs were complete, The Beatles began recording yet another George Harrison composition, namely the beautiful “Something.” After 13 takes of this second song, three attempts at a stereo mix of “take four” of “Old Brown Shoe” were made by producer George Martin and engineers Jeff Jarratt and Richard Lush. Since Britain's New Musical Express magazine stated that "four more tracks are needed" by The Beatles to create their next album, know as "Let It Be," we could easily assume that "Old Brown Shoe" may very well have been a contender for that album if not released in mid-1969. This, of course, was not to be. Meanwhile, the third stereo mix of "Old Brown Shoe" deemed “best,” which ended the session at 2:45 am the following morning.

However, George decided that more work could help “Old Brown Shoe” improve. Therefore, two days later, on April 18th, 1969, George arrived at EMI Studio Three once again at 2:30 pm to finish off the song once and for all. With Chris Thomas acting as producer, George overdubbed his distinctive lead guitar solo during the instrumental verse of the song onto track seven using his Fender Telecaster played through a Leslie speaker treated with ADT (“Artificial Double Tracking”) to create fullness. He then overdubbed a Hammond organ part onto track eight, which contained John's rhythm guitar, erasing Lennon's performance in the process because they had run out of open tracks on the eight-track tape. George apparently felt that John's rhythm guitar wasn't as crucial to the overall sound that he wanted on the song, relegating John's only performance on the finished track to be his backing vocals. These overdubs were completed by 10:30 pm, thus concluding the recording of “Old Brown Shoe” to George's satisfaction.

George then spent the next two-and-a-half hours, from 10:30 pm to 1 am the following morning, perfecting a stereo mix of the song in the control room of EMI Studio Three, mono mixes being deemed redundant by 1969. George and producer Chris Thomas, along with engineers Jeff Jarratt and John Kurlander, created 19 new stereo mixes of “Old Brown Shoe,” numbered 5 through 23, to get a suitable stereo mix. Remix 23 was the keeper, which made it readied for quick release as the b-side to John's recently recorded “The Ballad Of John And Yoko.”  John wanted his new song released immediately. Afterward, on April 19th, 1969, George joined John in EMI Studio Two to overdub multiple guitars onto John's “I Want You (She's So Heavy)” to create a massive guitar sound for the conclusion.

Sometime in 2019, George Martin's son Giles Martin, along with engineer Sam Okell, returned to the master tape of "Old Brown Shoe" to create a stereo mix of "take two" for inclusion on various 50th Anniversary editions of "Abbey Road."

George then recorded a live rendition of “Old Brown Shoe” during his brief tour of Japan in December 1991. His buddy Eric Clapton plays his distinctive guitar riff and solo, while famous percussionist Ray Cooper bangs away on tambourine in the background. This vibrant performance appears on the 1992 release “Live In Japan.”

Song Structure and Style
The structure of "Old Brown Shoe" is quite usual for Beatles compositions, namely: 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ instrumental verse/ bridge/ verse' (or aababa). A brief introduction and lengthier faded conclusion rounds out the format for this song.

The four-measure introduction is played almost entirely by Paul, the rhythm track having him starting off the song on piano while he accompanies himself on overdubbed bass. McCartney's keyboard work mimics George's ska piano rhythm, as he demonstrated during the “Get Back / Let It Be” sessions as well as his demo. At the same time, Paul interjects a quick-rising bass figure that anticipates the downbeat of the first measure. He repeats this to lead into the third measure, while the fourth measure brings in an anticipatory drum fill from Ringo and George's opening lyric, “I want a...”

The first verse runs sixteen measures long and begins with Ringo's cymbal crash on the downbeat of the first measure. He then begins his effective plodding ska drum rhythm that continues throughout the verse, which shows him alternating between a slightly open hi-hat and snare drum beat. He deviates from this only on the seventh, ninth, and eleventh measures where he rolls simultaneously on the snare and hi-hat, which he opens wider before hitting a crash cymbal on the downbeat of each following measure. George sings single-tracked throughout while performing his lead guitar riffs in the two open spaces for the first eight measures of the verse where he isn't singing. He then plays rhythm guitar during the second half of the verse, namely measures nine through sixteen. Paul continues his piano and bass patterns throughout the verse, which alter appropriately through the chord changes.

The second verse is virtually identical in instrumentation from the first, although two additional measures are added at the beginning to act as a buffer between the two verses. This makes for an eighteen measure verse this time around, George fills the first two measures with a  lead guitar riff. One additional element in this verse is George's overdubbed Hammond organ, which appears in the latter half of the verse, starting in measure eleven. In the eighteenth and final measure, we detect Ringo transitioning from his ska drum pattern to the standard 4/4 beat that he plays in the bridge that follows.

The bridge runs twelve measures long and highlighted by Paul and George performing bass and guitar overdubs playing the same rising and falling melody pattern in unison throughout. The ska rhythm of the verse is here abandoned entirely in the bridge for a standard rock beat, Ringo riding on a closed hi-hat for its entirety until the twelfth measure where he performs a drum fill to usher in the instrumental verse that follows. John, Paul, and George chime in with George's lead vocal for the first time in measures three and four on the lyric “wearing rings on every finger.” But after George sings lead on the following line, the other Beatles harmonize for the remainder of the bridge. With Paul's piano rolling on in the background, George's overdubbed organ becomes apparent in measure seven and continues to swell in volume for the rest of the bridge to create an appropriate climax along with Paul's final exclamation “Hey!”

Next comes the instrumental verse, which, like the first, runs sixteen measures long. The ska rhythm returns with great force, with George repeating his sliding guitar riff four times within the first eight measures. Paul spices up his piano rhythm by interjecting triplet-like jabs among the ska pattern while he moves along nicely on overdubbed bass. George is present also on the organ in the first eight measures, playing a rhythmic pattern for the first eight measures, and then holding out full chords for the remainder of the verse. Measures nine through sixteen feature a searing lead guitar solo from George. In contrast, Ringo's impressively executed third drum fill in measure twelve follows a syncopated triplet-like fashion similar to what Paul had previously been performing on piano earlier in this verse.

The second bridge is a virtual repeat of the first bridge but with different lyrics. One noticeable difference, however, is George's held out organ chords, which are heard throughout the entire eight measures this time around. Paul utters a similar “Hey!” at the end of this bridge as well, followed up by yet another subdued “hey” just afterward in the first measure of the fourth verse that follows.

This fourth verse runs twenty measures long this time due to the final repeated four measures a second time for emphasis. The instrumentation is the same as in the other verses, with George's organ being made very prominent in the mix this time around. An interesting observation is George's lyric, “making sure that I'm not late,” followed by him exclaiming “Hey” afterward instead of Paul. When the final lyric repeats in measures seventeen through nineteen, John and Paul join George with harmony, followed by a “She Loves You”-like “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” from George.

The conclusion comprises the band vamping on the song's main riff for twenty measures before it fades away. The instrumentation is identical to what has appeared in previous verses with some additional surprises along the way. George repeats his sliding guitar riff for the first eight measures and then switches to a heavy bass drone for the remainder of the song, double-tracked for a noticeable fullness, especially when joined in with Paul's bass. George's organ work is very forward in the mix here, nearly drowning out Paul's piano from the rhythm track, while Ringo's drums continue their ska pattern with assorted drum fills scattered throughout.

Interestingly, John begins mimicking George's guitar riff in falsetto in the first measure by repeating, “Owww, doo, da, doo,” which prompts Paul to join in with harmony by measure six and thereafter playfully. When the bass drone of George's guitars begin in measure nine, these mock falsetto harmonies are brought up in the mix and stay there until the song eventually fades away.

Those who assert that The Beatles dreaded time spent in the studio together during their final couple of years, brings no such evidence on “Old Brown Shoe” sessions” This full band performance, despite John’s guitar part wiped off, displays all four of them having an enjoyable time. All three singers give in to joyful shouts during their vocal tracks, Ringo's drums are steady, exuberant, and flawless, and Paul's piano and bass work show he was putting his all into the session. George, of course, is in his element, putting in great performances on rhythm guitar and organ, not to mention his vibrant guitar solo, which has a commanding presence. “Old Brown Shoe” stands tall among the later Beatles' rockers.

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