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Friday, September 13, 2019

THE INNER LIGHT AND ITS INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS.






"In January 1968, I was in Bombay (India) working on the soundtrack for the film 'Wonderwall' - a Sixties hippy movie directed by Joe Massot," George Harrison relates in the book "Beatles Anthology." He continues, "He asked me if I would do the music, but I told him I didn't write music for films. Then he said that Whatever I gave him, he would use. That sounded pretty simple, and I thought, 'I'll give them an Indian music anthology, and who knows, maybe a few hippies will get turned on to Indian Music.'"
George started recording the soundtrack for this movie using conventional instrumentation in EMI Studio Two on January 5th, 1968, but flew to India on January 7th for a five days of recording sessions at EMI's Bombay Studio. “I worked with Indian musicians at the EMI/HMV studios in Bombay,” George continues. “Mr. Bhaskar Menon brought a two-track stereo machine all the way from Calcutta on the train for me, because all they had in Bombay was a mono machine.”
The five days that George had booked for recording in India were January 9th through 13th, 1968. Each of these sessions ran from 10 am to 7 pm. On January 12th, the “Wonderwall” project was just about complete but he didn't want to waste the studio time for that day or the next. He thereby decided to utilize the Indian session musicians that he recruited and record a selection of ragas (traditional Hindu musical pieces) for possible use on Beatles recordings. One in particular that he had in mind was what became known as “The Inner Light,” although it was simply referred to as “Untitled” on the documentation for that day.
Five takes of the song were recorded on this day, documentation showing 'take five' being the keeper. All the instrumentation for the song was recorded on this day, all vocals to be added in at a later date back in London. According to Andy Babiuk's book “Beatles Gear,” the instruments used on “The Inner Light” comprise the following: “Harmonium and flutes and sitars, plus a plethora of Indian instruments including dholak and pakhavaj (double-headed drums), shehnai (conical oboe), santur (box zither), sarod (a lute-like instrument with double sound box), surbahar (bass sitar), tabla (pair of hand-drums), and tar sahnai (a fiddle with an amplifying horn).”
Back at EMI Studios in London on February 6th, 1968, The Beatles turned their attention to completing what was now titled “The Inner Light” by adding George's vocals. The Beatles minus Ringo (who was busy rehearsing and then appearing as a guest on Cilla Black's television show “Cilla” that evening) entered EMI Studio One at 2:30 pm with intentions of completing the song. A tape copy of the originally recorded music from Bombay needed to be done first, documentation showing the two-track tape containing “take five” being copied onto a four-track tape to open up two extra tracks for recording vocal overdubs. They now called this "take six."
Tape operator Jerry Boys remembers the reluctance of George Harrison to perform his vocal part for the song. “George had this big thing about not wanting to sing it because he didn't feel confident that he could do the song justice. I remember Paul saying 'You must have a go, don't worry about it, it's good.'”
Engineer Geoff Emerick concurs and, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” adds his recollections. “Abbey Road's Studio One was a cold, cavernous place even on the sunniest summer day. In the dead of winter, it was like a cross between a meat locker and an airplane hangar. But that's where I found myself on a frigid February afternoon, working with George Martin and three of the Beatles...We would be working on George Harrison's Indian-influenced song 'The Inner Light' that day...Mal Evans lit some candles and incense to create a vibe for George...Harrison, in particular, was quite nervous about doing his lead vocal. He felt that he couldn't do the song justice, but with encouragement from Paul, he actually did a good job of it. John had little to say that day – I had the impression he wasn't too keen on the song – but he and Paul stayed on anyway, alternating between the control room and the studio, where they would sit behind George, perched up on high stools, the lights turned down low.”
Just before the 8 pm mark, when they brought in a television to watch Ringo on live TV, the first mono mix of what was thought to be the completed song was done by the engineering team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick and Jerry Boys. A second recording session followed after the television show was over, them adding overdubs to the previously recorded McCartney song “Lady Madonna.” They all left for the night around 2 am the following morning.
On February 8th, 1968, it was decided that one finishing touch needed to be done to “The Inner Light.” The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two at about 2:30 pm with the first thing on the agenda being adding a very brief harmony vocal overdub by John and Paul toward the end of the song on the lyric “do all without doing” as well as George double-tracking his vocals on the line "arrive without traveling." This was undoubtedly completed rather quickly, followed by another mono mix being created by the engineering team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott and Richard Lush. A decision was made that an earlier 'take' of the instrumental first verse, as recorded in Bombay, sounded better. Therefore, the engineering team first edited together this better sounding first verse from what possibly was "take four" onto the newly created "take six" just before George's vocals kick in. Three attempts at a mono mix were made at this point, numbered 2 through 4, the final one becoming the finished mono master. By around 4:30 pm, more work was done on the previously recorded Lennon composition “Across The Universe.”
Interestingly, it was decided sometime during the remainder of this session that “Across The Universe” was to be shelved because it didn't meet with John's satisfaction. It was given away for use on a charity album called “No One's Gonna Change Our World,” which was conceived by comedian Spike Milligan who happened to be in attendance at this recording session. With this decided, George's “The Inner Light” was earmarked to be the B-side of their next single “Lady Madonna.” By 12:15 am the following morning, the recording session was complete.
Since “The Inner Light” was only destined to be on a single at the time, and was even overlooked to be a part of the compilation album “Hey Jude,” no stereo mix was needed any time soon since Beatles singles were only printed in mono up to that point. But for some reason, on January 27th, 1970, Geoff Emerick (acting as producer), along with engineers Peter Bown, Jeff Jarratt and John Barnett,
entered the control room of EMI Studio Two to create a stereo mix of the song. It took them an hour and a half to make the one attempt needed to create a suitable stereo mix, from 10 to 11:30 pm. This engineering team, however, did not go to the effort of editing in the better sounding first instrumental verse, so the full "take six" as originally performed is contained on this stereo mix. As the need arose in upcoming years, this stereo mix was dusted off and used on later compilation releases.
The Beatles did actually touch on "The Inner Light" briefly one additional time in the studio. On the seventeenth day of rehearsals for the "Get Back / Let It Be" project, which was on January 28th, 1969 at Apple Studios in London, the group delved back into their back catalog and ran through a few numbers, including "Love Me Do" and, surprisingly, "The Inner Light." This impromptu version lasted less than a minute and never saw official release anywhere.
Then, sometime between 2004 and 2006, George Martin and his son Giles Martin returned to the master tapes of “The Inner Light” for inclusion on a track for the soundtrack to the Cirque du Soliel production “Love,” which was put together using all newly mixed versions and mash-ups of Beatles music. The track it is included in is called “Here Comes The Sun (with 'The Inner Light' transition),” which features a small snippet of the final moments of “The Inner Light” at the track's conclusion.
Also, as mentioned above, the instrumental 'take' of the song as recorded in Bombay on January 12th, 1968, that features the first instrumental verse as heard on the mono mix (possible 'take four') was mixed sometime in 2014 for inclusion as a bonus track on the remastered compact disc release of George's “Wonderwall Music” album. The track begins with instructions from George to the Indian musicians as to how the song should be played, which make for a very interesting listen
Then, sometime in 2018, Giles Martin created a new stereo mix of the instrumental backing track of the song for inclusion in the "'White Album' 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Box Set." This new mix was made from the tape copy created on February 6th, 1968, that transferred the instrumental two-track tape made of "take five" onto the four-track tape to allow for vocal overdubs, which was then called "take six." After Geoff Emerick verbally documents the tape copy that was being made, we hear the original instrumental backing as produced by George Harrison with a vibrance never before available.
Song Structure and Style
The structure of the song is quite simple, namely, 'verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ verse' (or ababa).  The first two verses are instrumental while the final verse has vocals. Both choruses are relatively identical and have vocals. A brief two measure introduction starts things off, which consist of a faded-in harmonium drone and then a sitar.
The first instrumental verse is ten measures long and consists of the drone of the harmonium in the background with the tar sahnai playing a lead melody line for measures one and two with a simple single note sitar pattern playing in the background. The sitar then plays an interesting twice-descending melodic phrase in the foreground on measures three and four while the tar sahnai takes a break. All the while, the percussive sounds of the pakhavaj, tabla and santur keep the beat. Measures five through eight display both the tar sahnai and the sitar playing an intricate melody line in unison until the percussive instruments fade away by the ninth measure. The ninth and tenth measures, then, consist of the final ringing note of the tar sahnai and sitar with the drone of the harmonium acting as a segue into the first chorus that follows.
This first chorus is fifteen measures long and features the wonderfully delivered single-tracked vocal by George while the dholak and tabla keep the beat in half-time. The harmonium and surbahar hang back in the mix to create a low toned pad which work nicely for the chord changes. A shehnai is playing a finely-crafted counter melody throughout the chorus while a sitar plays a quick melodic phrase in measures two, four, six and eight to fill in the gaps left from the vocalist. Measures thirteen through fifteen see the return of the tar sahnai playing in virtual unison to George's sung melody line which then brings the chorus to its conclusion.
The second instrumental verse is nearly identical to the first except for the inverted order of the melody lines played by the lead instruments. First to occur this time, in measures one and two, is the sitar while the tar sahnai appears in measures three and four followed by the sitar again in measures five and six only to play in unison again for the remaining measures. This verse is followed by the second chorus which is also nearly identical to the first, the only noticeable difference being the slight lyrical change from it being George's personal experience to one we can have personally. For instance, “Without going out of your door,” instead of “my door” from the first chorus, and so on.

The third verse is similar instrumentally to the second verse but is different in that it features lead vocals from George in measures two, five and six, the line “arrive without traveling” in the second measure being double-tracked for added affect. George's lead vocals are joined with harmony vocals from John and Paul in the sixth measure on the line “do all without doing.” Another notable difference this time around is two added measures at the end of the song, making it a twelve-measure verse. Measures nine through twelve feature the final three notes of the tar sahnai melody line being repeated three times and then allowing the final note to fade out with the droning harmonium.
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.


Thursday, September 12, 2019

LADY MADONNA, AND ITS INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS.






The Beatles had planned a trip to India to continue their studies of Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi, John, and George scheduled to leave on February 15th and Paul and Ringo February 19th. Figuring they would stay until late April, they scheduled some studio time at EMI to record a new single to be released in their absence, then record a new album later in the year.
With this in mind, they arrived in EMI Studio Three at 2:30 pm on February 3rd, 1968 for the first of two sessions on that day, the first order of business being recording Paul's new composition “Lady Madonna.” This first three-and-a-half-hour session was spent laying down a rhythm track for the song, the only musicians playing being Paul and Ringo. “Paul plays piano on it,” Ringo explained. “We said to George Martin, 'How did they do it on “Bad Penny Blues”? And he said, 'They used brushes.' So, we put an off-beat on it.” After rehearsals, Paul and Ringo laid down three takes of this rhythm track, both instruments recorded on the first track of the four-track tape. The first take was incomplete, the second making it through the song with some interesting jazzy syncopations on the piano, and the third full rendition being the best. At 6 pm, the session was over which allowed for an hour break before the second session began.
At 7 pm, they started their second session held in EMI Studio Three. Overdubs commenced for “Lady Madonna,” track two of the tape containing Paul on bass, Ringo on drums playing a more standard 4/4 beat with sticks, and both John and George simultaneously playing melody lines on “fuzzed” guitars through the same amplifier, something they'd done three years before on “Nowhere Man.”
Paul recorded lead vocals onto track four of the tape, this deliberately being overloaded to create an edgy quality, not unlike Fats Domino. Also on this track was John contributing some mouth noises in imitation of a tuba along with some handclaps. The group then all gathered around the microphone to perform more backing vocals onto track three. Along with a tambourine and some doodling on a mellotron, Ringo describes what they experimented vocally for this track: "There's a lovely sound on 'Lady Madonna,' that's like sort of muted trumpets, or a kazoo, or something. But, in actual fact, it's just John and Paul (and George as the recording suggests) sort of humming through their hands into a mike. It was purely by accident that we discovered that sound. We had just finished taping a bit of the record, and John and Paul started to hum into the mike with their hands cupped round their mouths. When we played back the piece of tape with this bit tagged on the end, it sounded great, so we decided to use it." Mark Lewisohn, in his book "The Beatles Recording Sessions" describes this overdub as John and George singing “scat backing vocals while munching Marmite flavored crisps,” the author adding that “the crunching was omitted from the remix.” The mock brass overdub would be perfected at a later time as an additional overdub. With all for tracks of the tape filled by 1:30 am the following morning, this second session was over and all left for the night.
The next day was used to record the song John wanted as their next single, namely his gorgeous “Across The Universe.” Then, on February 6th, 1968, two more recording sessions were booked with intentions of finishing “Lady Madonna” from a few days before. This time they were in EMI Studio One, which was quite large and used primarily for recording orchestras. The first session on this day rolled for recording George's lilting “The Inner Light,” Ringo being absent at this time because of him performing on the live BBC TV show “Cilla” starring Cilla Black, a television being brought into the studio for the other Beatles to watch in between recording sessions.
Undoubtedly inspired by their vocal simulation of brass instruments on their first session for "Lady Madonna," Paul decided that actual saxophonists should play for the song. Since there was a time crunch involved, there wasn't an opportunity for George Martin to write a score for them to play. Instead, Paul insisted on finding four accomplished brass musicians to be present in the studio for the second session that evening. Could that be arranged?
The book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” explains: “Laurie Gold, a session 'fixer' for EMI, often used by George Martin and The Beatles, was called into swift action.” Baritone sax player Harry Klein remembers: “They were in a real flap to find four musicians and called on Laurie to conjure some up for them. I was in the bath at about 6:30 in the evening when Laurie called and said, 'Are you working tonight?' 'No, I'm in the bath!' 'Well get over to EMI as quick as you can, and how can I find a tenor player?' I suggested he call Ronnie Scott, the chap who runs the London jazz club, and sure enough, when I got to Abbey Road, Ronnie was there, along with Bill Jackman and Bill Povey. Paul didn't recognize Ronnie Scott until we told him who he was." Paul, however, recalls that he personally invited Ronnie Scott to the session. In the "'White Album' 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition" book, he states: "I used to know Ronnie, and I'd meet him in Soho and go to his jazz club quite a lot. I said, 'We need a nice wild saw solo.' He came along to the session, play it great!”
This second session, also in EMI Studio One, began at 9 pm. Before the sax players arrived, a tape reduction of the previous “take 3” was done, which combined all of the vocal work of tracks three and four to track four only, leaving track three open for more overdubs, this reduction now referred to as "take 4.” Onto this, Paul recorded another lead vocal along with John and George singing tight “see how they run” backing vocals as well as the now-perfected mock brass singing. John and George performed handclaps as well, while Ringo added a tambourine and Paul put in another piano overdub. Engineer Geoff Emerick recalls: “We spent a lot of time getting the right piano sound for 'Lady Madonna.' We ended up using a cheaper type of microphone and heavy compression and limiting.” In his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” Emerick adds: “As usual, Paul was looking for a different kind of sound, so I took the same cheap microphone that we had used for John's lead vocal on 'I Am The Walrus' and positioned it way down in the sound holes, which yielded a muffled midrange tone.”
With these overdubs complete, the four-track tape was again full. Another tape reduction was then made to once again combine tracks three and four to track four, thus opening up track three for yet another overdub. Then entered the brass musicians. Harry Klein continues, “There was no written music, but we played around with a few riffs until Paul liked what he heard. And then we recorded it – 101 times! I remember there was a big pile of meditation books in the corner of the studio, like the back room of a publisher's office, and I also recall that they asked if we wanted a bite to eat. We were expecting a terrific meal, but a few minutes later someone returned with pie and chips!”
Tenor saxophonist Bill Povey remembers: “There was not only no prepared music for us to follow, but when Paul called out some chords at us our first reaction was to look at each other and say, 'Well, who plays what?'” Baritone saxophonist Bill Jackman adds: “Paul went through the song on the piano and we were each given a scrap of manuscript paper and a pencil to write out some notes. Had there been music we would have been in and out in about ten minutes. As it was, it took most of the evening, recording it in A-major pitch with the rhythm track playing in our headphones.”
At the end of this session, the engineering team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Jerry Boys, undoubtedly with input from The Beatles, worked at creating a suitable mono mix of the song, two attempts occurred. However, neither of these mixes were deemed acceptable for release. This session, which completed the recording of “Lady Madonna,” ended at 2 am the following morning.
The true mono mix was made on February 15th, 1968 by George Martin, Geoff Emerick and 2nd engineer Martin Benge. Eight attempts were made, numbered 3 through 10, the last undoubtedly sounded the best. “During the mix we would heavily overdo the effects on the vocal and the piano too, making for a distinctive sound,” recalls Geoff Emerick.
The next time “Lady Madonna” would grace a recording studio was on September 5th, 1968, during the recording of George's “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” “Take 40” of this song developed into a couple of snatches of other songs, “Lady Madonna” is one of them, this being saved and added onto a “Beatles Chat” tape they were keeping for posterity.
Also, during the recorded sessions that became the “Let It Be” album, The Beatles touched on “Lady Madonna” three times. The first time was in Twickenham Film Studios on January 7th, 1969, and the other two were in Apple Studios on January 24th and 31st. The last of these three ran during the “Studio Performance” session that appeared in the “Let It Be” movie, “Lady Madonna” started as a simple jammed version that was actually mixed by engineer Glyn Johns on March 11th, 1969 and considered for release on the soundtrack album. In the end, it was deemed to be too rough of a recording to make the grade. However, it did include Paul altering the lyrics to "Lord and lady docker, in your private yacht / all the people wonder why you have such a lot."
You may have noticed that a stereo mix of the song lacked before the song was released in early 1968. This was because there was no intention of “Lady Madonna” appearing on an album at that time, singles only printed mono copies then. This was soon to change, of course, but as of 1968, stereo singles basically didn't exist. However, because of a September 1969 deal that new Beatles manager Allen Klein had struck with Capitol Records in America for a higher royalty rate, a new U.S. album was being arranged which strung together Beatles singles that hadn't been released on an album yet. Now a need surfaced for a stereo mix of “Lady Madonna” for inclusion on what became the “Hey Jude” album (also known as “The Beatles Again”),
Only made only one attempt at creating this stereo mix, which was done in the control room of EMI Studio Two on December 2nd, 1969 by the engineering team of George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Richard Lush. One noticeable difference between the stereo and mono mix is the final fading piano chord from Paul which cuts off slightly sooner on the stereo version.
Sometime between May and June of 1976, Paul and his band Wings recorded a version of the song during their “Wings Over The World” tour, the result appearing on their live album "Wings Over America." Also, sometime in 1993, Paul and his band recorded “Lady Madonna” during his “New World Tour,” this recording contained a spot on his “Paul Is Live” album of that year.
George Martin and Geoff Emerick returned to the song sometime in 1995 to prepare a new mix for inclusion on the interesting compilation album “Anthology 2.” This version featured mostly the stripped-down rhythm track from Paul and Ringo with Paul's lead vocals, adding in selected overdubs sporadically, such as the sax solo and the mock vocal brass from John, Paul, and George. An interesting ad-lib saxophone line, originally intended for the conclusion of the song, was included here as well.
Then, between April 1st and May 18th, 2002, yet another live version of “Lady Madonna” was recorded by Paul and his band for inclusion on both his “Back In The US” and “Back In The World” live albums.
George Martin gave “Lady Madonna” yet another overhaul sometime between 2004 and 2006, this time with his son Giles Martin, for inclusion on the album “Love” as a companion piece to the Cirque du Soliel production of the same name. They interspersed elements of “Why Don't We Do It In The Road?,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “I Want You (She's So Heavy)” and “Hey Bulldog” into this interesting mashup. Paul was quite happy with this new mix because of one certain element. "You can finally hear the sax player Ronnie Scott...He came along to the session, played it great but, of course, in the mix we buried it. After he heard it on the radio, he said, 'What did you do to my solo?' So on 'Love,' at the end of 'Lady Madonna,' you finally hear Ronnie!"
A recording of Paul performing the song at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, California took place on June 27th, 2007, and was included on the 2019 released album "Amoeba Gig."
Sometime in 2015, Giles Martin once again returned to "Lady Madonna" to create a new mix of the song for inclusion on a newly released version of "Beatles 1."
Paul recorded yet another live version of the song at Citi Field in New York City sometime between July 17th and 21st, 2009, for inclusion on his “Good Evening New York City” album
Sometime in 2018, Giles Martin gave yet more attention to "Lady Madonna" for inclusion on the "'White Album' 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe" box set. Two new mixes followed, the first being the unreleased 'take two' of Paul and Ringo playing the rhythm track. The second mix was of an extract of the original 'track three,' complete with their goofing around, their crunching of Marmite crisps, and their mellotron doodling.
Song Structure and Style.
While "Lady Madonna" is quite typically made up of verses and bridges, just like the majority of the rest of the Beatles catalog, the sheer amount of them staggers the mind. It parses out to 'verse (instrumental)/ verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse/ verse (instrumental)/ bridge (primarily instrumental)/ verse/ verse (instrumental)/ bridge/ verse' (or aaabaabaaba) with a unique conclusion thrown in as well. And all of this in just over two minutes!
The first instrumental verse is four measures long, the same length of all but the last verse as we'll see later. This first verse acts as the introduction to the song, this consisting of only the rhythm track of Paul on piano and Ringo on brushed snare.
Then begins the second verse, the first vocal verse, which adds in Paul's lead vocals, Ringo's second drum track (with his kick drum mixed rather high) and Paul's bass guitar overdub. This is followed by the third verse with the exact same instrumentation.
Next comes the first bridge which, like all of them, is eight measures long. While the rhythm track of piano and brushed snare continue as before, Ringo's second drum part is reduced primarily to hi-hat accents on the two- and four-beat of the first six measures. Paul's single-tracked vocal continues as does his bass part, but it all abruptly changes for the seventh and eighth measures. Paul plays half-note chords on the piano and adds to these with bass guitar notes while Ringo accents these beats with brushed cymbal beats. The primary focus, however, is the three-part harmony of John, Paul, and George that augment Paul's lead vocal passage “See how they run.” Ringo then finishes off this first bridge with a simple brushed snare flam.
Then comes verse number four which contains all of the elements of the last two verses but adds John and George's simultaneous lead guitar lines, this becoming a very effective counter-melody to Paul's main vocal melody line. Verse five follows directly afterward while Paul jumps into falsetto for the final word of his last line from the previous verse (“feed the re-eeeeeeeest”). The four saxophonists appear in this fifth verse as well, playing along with John and George on the exact counter-melody that they had played on the previous verse. Also predominant is the handclapping which occurs on the two- and four-beats of each measure.
The second bridge then follows, the rhythm track of piano and brushed snare, as well as the bass guitar and hi-hat accent, overdubs still in place as in the previous bridge. However, John, Paul and George's cupped-handed brass overdub is present in the first six measures, along with Ringo's slightly heard tambourine in the background. Ronnie Scott steals focus here though with his saxophone solo in these first six measures. The final two measures of this bridge follow the pattern set from the first with the four-part harmony “See how they run” while Ringo ends it all with a slightly longer brushed snare fill. Interestingly, John and George begin their dual lead guitar counter-melody line for the next verse a little early with a smartly played introductory riff that actually occurs in the eighth measure of this second bridge.
What occurs next is a pairing of verses six and seven, these being a virtual repeat instrumentally of verses four and five, right down to the saxophones and handclaps. The only difference here is the different lyrics, Paul going into falsetto on the final line “music playing in your he-eeeeead.”
Then comes the third bridge which is somewhat a combination of the first two bridges in that the cupped-handed brass is heard here but with another lead vocal from Paul on top. The rhythm track elements repeat here as in the other bridges, as well as Paul's bass and Ringo's hi-hat accents. One curious occurrence is in the second measure where there appears to be a vocal faux pas from Paul. After the line “Tuesday afternoon is never-ending” there is what sounds like an audible accentuated “g” sound as if he was humorously ending the sentence with a vocal exclamation point. (I always thought it was a scratch on my old 45, but it's clear as day on the CD.) The “See how they run” harmonies are once again in place, Ringo crashing the cymbal with emphasis this time around on the downbeat of the seventh measure. John and George's introductory riff is once again in place at the end of this bridge.
Then comes the eighth and final verse, this one being five measures long instead of four. The fourth measure this time around is actually in 6/4 time instead of 4/4, the measure beginning with the lyric “make ends meet.” Instrumental differences here include the saxophones mimicking the lead guitar counter-melody line at the same time that Paul sings his melody line, which is a lyrical repeat (for emphasis) of the first line of the entire song. Paul jumps into falsetto here as well on the line “make ends me-eeeeet” while John and George mimic Paul's piano riff on their guitars and the saxophones hold out a high note to end their involvement in the song. This verse comes to a halt on an anticipated third beat of the fifth measure, Ringo ending this extended verse with a brushed snare fill to usher in the brief conclusion that follows.
This brief conclusion is actually just a repeat of the final two measures of the previous verse, the only instrumentalists being Paul and Ringo as in the introduction. Paul, this time, is on both piano and bass while both of Ringo's drum tracks are in place, him supplying a hearty crash on the same anticipated three-beat as in the fifth measure of the final verse while Paul's piano rings out.
A lot has been documented about the discord among The Beatles during their later 1968 recording sessions. As of February, as witnessed here, all four of them seemed extremely cooperative and willing to put forward a good performance, undoubtedly in high spirits in anticipation of their impending trip to India to raise all of their consciousnesses.
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.

Friday, September 6, 2019

The three strange Lennon-McCartney hits that went to No. 1 without Lennon or McCartney—and what they tell us about the secret to recording a smash. By CHRIS MOLANPHY, First Published JULY 16, 2015.



Fifty-one years ago this summer—in late June 1964—the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart was a Lennon-McCartney composition. Only it wasn’t by the Beatles, and John Lennon had nothing to do with it. It was a Paul McCartney–penned song recorded, and taken to the chart summit, by a British duo named Peter and Gordon, one of whom was McCartney’s would-be brother-in-law.

Seventeen years after that, in late June 1981, the Hot 100’s No. 1 song also sported Lennon-McCartney writing credits. Only neither man had anything to do with this song, a disco medley of covers—mostly Beatles tunes, though not entirely—by a Dutch studio collective calling itself Stars on 45. Lennon and McCartney weren’t even singing on the record; their vocals were covered by a bunch of sound-alike Dutchmen.

The fact that these two singles rank among the only non-Beatles, Lennon-McCartney compositions to top the chart—ever—says something about the quirky place the Fab Four’s catalog holds in the American imagination. To be exact, there have been three such No. 1 hits. You may have heard of the guy who recorded the third one, back in the mid-’70s, at a time when he had a penchant for large glasses and feather boas.

Before I probe these three strange records—even the one by Elton John is peculiar—let’s take a moment to marvel that none of these chart-topping covers is “Yesterday.” Guinness World Records claims, perhaps apocryphally, that that McCartney-penned tune is the most covered song of all time. “Yesterday” was issued in 1965 as a Beatles single even though Paul McCartney performed it alone, backed only by a string section. Despite the absence of John Lennon and the other two Beatles, it was—like all songs written by either man in the 1960s—published under the songwriting entity Lennon-McCartney.

According to Guinness, “Yesterday” has been recorded more than 2,200 times at last count. Yet the song’s history on the Hot 100 chart is remarkably scant. Two years after the Beatles single topped the Hot 100, Ray Charles’ 1967 version of “Yesterday” reached a modest No. 25 on the same chart and peaked at No. 9 on the R&B chart. Amazingly, Charles’ 1967 cover remains the only version of “Yesterday” besides the Beatles’ own to successfully breach the U.S. Top 40. One other cover, by ’90s R&B girl group En Vogue, briefly appeared on Billboard’s radio charts in 1992; it reached No. 73 at pop radio, No. 29 at R&B.

Of course, recording artists have taken on many other Lennon-McCartney songs. A half-dozen Beatles songs have been turned into Top 10 hits by other acts. These include “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” by the Silkie (No. 10, 1965); “The Fool on the Hill” by Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (No. 6, 1968); “You Won’t See Me” by Anne Murray (No. 8, 1974); “Got to Get You Into My Life” by Earth, Wind, & Fire (No. 9, 1978); and  “I Saw [Him] Standing There” by Tiffany (No. 7, 1988). Two more covers by soul legends made the R&B Top 5 and the pop Top 20: Stevie Wonder’s “We Can Work It Out” (No. 13 pop, No. 3 R&B, 1971) and Aretha Franklin’s “Eleanor Rigby” (No. 17 pop, No. 5 R&B, 1969). As good as many of these covers are, this is a pretty random assortment of songs; many are album cuts, albeit well-regarded ones. Other renowned Beatles covers did even worse on the U.S. charts. For example, neither of Joe Cocker’s classic singles, “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” broke into the Top 30; and two well-known covers of “Come Together,” by Ike and Tina Turner and Aerosmith, missed the Top 20.

We’ve heard Brill Building songwriters and the studio musicians of the Wrecking Crew talk about how the self-contained Beatles made it tougher for the industry’s supporting players to earn a living. But it could be argued that they made it tough for song interpreters, too—once the Fab Four had laid down their George Martin–produced, meticulously recorded versions, other artists approached the songs at their peril. When it comes to the charts, the public has shown, time and again, that it’s wary of Beatles covers.

This trapped-in-amber cultural perception about the Beatles’ catalog might help explain why the only three Lennon-McCartney covers to reach No. 1 are such curios. Each hit’s success was more about the moment than about the song itself. The strange alchemy that makes a song a No. 1 record is always somewhat fluky. But when it comes to Lennon-McCartney songs, it’s really fluky.

Peter and Gordon, “A World Without Love” – No. 1, June 27, 1964 (one week) Enjoy the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdx6lLvvRyg

Seven Lennon-McCartney songs topped the Hot 100 during 1964, the year the British Invasion kicked off in America. Six of these songs were by the Beatles—from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “I Feel Fine.” The seventh, smack in the middle of the year, was by a British duo who’d never had a hit before, Peter and Gordon.

How did these two pasty-faced lads wind up in possession of an unrecorded, unreleased Lennon-McCartney song in 1964? As with all things show business–related, a little networking never hurt.

The bespectacled half of Peter and Gordon was one Peter Asher, brother of actress Jane Asher. Like his sister, Peter Asher had been a child actor in the 1950s, but around 1963, as Beatlemania gripped England, he formed an earnest, bookish pop duo with his Scottish schoolmate Gordon Waller. In a bit of fortuitous timing, 1963 was also the year his sister began a half-decade courtship and eventual engagement with one James Paul McCartney. While McCartney infamously never married Jane Asher—she finally broke it off in 1968, just before he married Linda Eastman—McCartney spent the mid-’60s as de facto extended family to the Ashers, and his relationship with Peter Asher was brotherly, as chronicled in Bob Spitz’s Beatles biography. McCartney wound up giving his would-be brother-in-law four songs that became Top 40 hits, the biggest of which was the first.

“A World Without Love” was a song McCartney wrote by himself as a teenager. It was deemed unworthy of the Beatles and was even rejected by fellow Merseyside musician Billy J. Kramer, who had hits with several Lennon-McCartney compositions. But Peter and Gordon took it and ran to producer Norman Newell, who openly emulated the then-hot “Mersey sound.” Even if you’ve never heard the song, the chiming guitars and dewy vocal harmonies instantly read as an early-Beatles pastiche. One slightly innovative touch was a Hammond organ bridge—at this point, the Beatles were still months away from prominently employing organ on “Mr. Moonlight.”

Despite this small sonic novelty, on the whole “A World Without Love” is British Invasion without the invasion, as if the lads have been cordially invited to America for a cup of tea. Critic Tom Ewing, in his post on the song for his blog on every U.K. No. 1 hit (“World” topped both the U.S. and U.K. charts in ’64), calls it “a glimpse at a world where the Beatles didn’t make the step up from national to global phenomenon. … Instead they … pursue a profitable sideline and afterlife as a superior pop songwriting team.”

Peter and Gordon had not only the songwriting of McCartney on their side but also great timing. That’s because “World” caught Beatlemania during a brief interlude where the band itself had no product. When the Beatles broke in America in early 1964, they dominated the Hot 100 like no artist before or since. One week in April, famously, they held down the entire Top 5; at various points that spring they held up to 14 spots on the chart. The week in May that “A World Without Love” debuted on the chart, the Beatles still occupied multiple births—two slots in the Top 5 that week, and four out of the Top 12.

However, what also kept the Beatles busy in the spring of ’64 was shooting a movie, A Hard Day’s Night. This kept them out of the studio and recording for a crucial couple of months, and their many singles finally began slipping off the Hot 100. Indeed, the week in late June that Peter and Gordon took over the No. 1 spot, there were no Beatles singles in the Top 10—former No. 1 “Love Me Do” had slipped to No. 11, and Billy J. Kramer’s cover of the Lennon song “Bad to Me” had just reached its No. 9 peak—and there were only three Beatles singles on the entire Hot 100.

To borrow an economic term, Peter and Gordon were filling a market gap. “World” spent eight weeks in the Top 10. The very week it fell out of the Top 10, from No. 8 to No. 22, debuting right next to it at No. 21 was the Beatles’ own single “A Hard Day’s Night” (the film had premiered a couple of weeks earlier). Two weeks later, “Hard Day’s Night” had shot to No. 1, and “A World Without Love” had fallen off the chart entirely.

Mind you, this wasn’t the end of Peter and Gordon’s hit-making career; they were back in the Top 20 twice before the end of ’64—with two more songs written by McCartney—and they scored two additional Top 10 hits in 1965 and 1966 before disbanding in 1968. Peter Asher ultimately wound up a renowned producer—he recruited a young James Taylor to the Beatles’ label Apple Records in 1968, and he manned the boards for a raft of platinum soft-rock stars in the ’70s and ’80s. But Peter’s ’60s breakthrough with Gordon was all about parlaying his connections at the best possible moment; Asher was to Paul McCartney in 1964 what one-hit-wonder Motown artist Rockwell was to Michael Jackson in 1984.

Elton John, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” – No. 1, Jan. 4 to Jan. 11, 1975 (two weeks) Enjoy the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTAUHKkDXyE

While Peter and Gordon’s hit had been a Paul McCartney composition and a leftover, Elton John’s “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was a chart-topping cover of a song largely written by John Lennon. And “Lucy” was far from a leftover—it was a track from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album that famously had no singles issued from it in 1967 and, hence, no chart hits. But what Elton’s cover of “Lucy” had in common with Peter and Gordon’s fluke chart-topper was that it didn’t matter what they knew so much as whom they knew.

Elton John met John Lennon at a great time for Elton’s career, and a strange moment for Lennon. It was Lennon’s so-called “Lost Weekend,” a debauched 18 months from late 1973 to early 1975 in which he was estranged from wife Yoko Ono and drinking and drugging his way through Los Angeles. Elton was no slouch in the debauchery department, but when he and Lennon met up in the summer of 1974, Elton’s career was at an apex—he was in the middle of an unprecedented American run of No. 1 albums and hit singles. Lennon, by contrast, had to that date built (oddly) the least commercially successful career of the four solo Beatles—even Ringo had scored No. 1 singles while Lennon had none. (His canonical hits “Instant Karma!” and “Imagine” had both peaked at No. 3 in America, in 1970 and 1971, respectively.)

Lennon’s and Elton’s sessions in the summer and early fall of ’74 changed all that. Elton did Lennon a major solid, singing backup on “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and betting Lennon that the song would be his first solo-career chart-topper; if proved right, Elton said Lennon had to join him in concert. In November, “Whatever” indeed became Lennon’s first solo No. 1 single, and the Beatle made good on the bet by appearing at an Elton John show at Madison Square Garden at Thanksgiving 1974. (It turned out to be Lennon’s last live appearance.)

Listen to the live presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuG9_sJU_V8

Even before that show, Lennon had already repaid Elton by helping him record a cover of Lennon’s composition “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” Not that the public needed it from Elton at that moment, but the bromance between him and Lennon was a kind of Good Housekeeping seal of approval on Elton’s cover of “Lucy.” Lennon even provided backing vocals and guitar on “Lucy” under the pseudonym Dr. Winston O’Boogie. Like Lennon’s “Whatever,” Elton’s “Lucy” also wound up atop the Hot 100, at the start of ’75. Elton was especially prolific during this period—“Lucy” was a non-album single, and it was followed immediately by another one-off No. 1 hit, the smash “Philadelphia Freedom.”

This 1974–75 period marked the apex of what we might call Elton’s Imperial phase, and it explains why the “Lucy” cover even exists: It was a total Because I Can move. In its original Beatles incarnation, “Lucy” already had a reputation as a drug anthem. But in Elton’s hands, “Lucy” turns whimsical—it is largely meant to play off of and boost Elton’s brand, his glittery, cuddly Captain Fantastic persona.

In a review several years later of the Greatest Hits Volume II album on which “Lucy” appeared, dean of American rock critics Robert Christgau called Elton’s cover “dippy,” and I’d agree—everything about it is too cute by half. Listen to the way Elton overplays the courtliness of Lennon’s whimsical lyrics. (I’m thinking especially of the way he says “maaashmallow” around 1:40.) Then there’s the head-scratching reggae version of the chorus, during which Elton—and an audible Lennon—do some plinky white-boy toasting for half a minute. A novel concept, to be sure (listen for it around 3:30), but it only further establishes the track as a novelty.

Even if you are a big Elton John fan, it’s hard to regard “Lucy” as much more than a footnote. For a No. 1 hit, it had a remarkably quick burn on the charts (just 14 weeks, versus 21 weeks for “Philadelphia”), and on the radio of today, it has a modest legacy. Nielsen reports that last year, Elton’s “Lucy” was played on oldies radio less than one-sixth as much as “Philadelphia,” its twin 1975 chart-topper. In sum, Elton’s “Lucy” is to Elton what “Who’s That Girl” is to Madonna or the cover of “I’ll Be There” is to Mariah Carey—a No. 1 hit whose very existence is a reflection of a megastar’s own megastardom.

Stars on 45, “Medley …” – No. 1, June 20, 1981 (one week) Listen to the hit single here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7skQvj-aBV8
Where should we begin with everything that’s strange about the Stars on 45’s chart-topping 1981 hit—the true outlier among this collection of Lennon-McCartney outliers? Let’s start with its twisted backstory.

The story starts with the Shocking Blue’s “Venus,” a worldwide smash in 1970, including here in America where it was No. 1 (you may also know its second chart-topping version, a 1986 cover by Bananarama). The Shocking Blue is a Dutch group, and the copyright for that song was owned by Dutch publishing company Red Bullet Productions, run by one Willem van Kooten. In the summer of 1979, van Kooten was in a record store and heard a 12-inch disco medley, which mashed together original recordings of songs by the Beatles and the Archies with then-current hits by Heatwave, Lipps Inc., and the Buggles. Disco medleys like this weren’t unprecedented. The Ritchie Family’s 1976 Top 20 hit “The Best Disco in Town” strung together snippets of a half-dozen current hits; and countless white-label disco 12-inches would mash together current hits on the gray market, like modern-day hip-hop mixtapes.
But the 1979 bootleg 12-inch single van Kooten heard was more brazen in its use of so many original recordings, many of them hard to clear. What piqued van Kooten’s curiosity was a small snippet of the Shocking Blue’s “Venus” in the mix; he knew he hadn’t authorized it. The bootleg sported the not-quite-grammatical English title “Let’s Do It in the 80’s Great Hits”; it was credited to a faux band, Passion, on a faux record label, Alto—but the bootleg’s real origins were in Montreal. It was the handiwork of French-Canadian DJs Michel Gendreau and Paul Richer, who specialized in splicing together bits of music from different genres, a kind of analog Girl Talk.

Despite invoking the ’80s in their record’s title, the single largely trafficked in ’60s nostalgia. One version of Gendreau and Richer’s medley included three Beatles songs: “No Reply,” “I’ll Be Back,” and “Drive My Car.” A longer version added another five Fabs titles: “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” “We Can Work It Out,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “Nowhere Man,” and “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.”

Charmed and inspired by the unlicensed 12-inch, van Kooten decided that rather than stamp it out, he would better it, creating a licensed version of the medley using sound-alike artists to replicate the original hits (covers require only the payment of publishing fees, not licensing of the original recordings). He contacted producer Jaap Eggermont—formerly of the veteran Dutch rock group Golden Earring—who in turn worked with musical arranger Martin Duiser. In addition to all eight Beatles songs from the Montreal 12-inch, Eggermont threw in a small snippet of “Venus,” as well as one other oldie from the bootleg, the Archies’ 1969 hit “Sugar Sugar.” The Beatles sound-alikes were by established Dutch singers, all of them in current Dutch bands.

The recordings were spliced together, analog-style, against an unremittingly chipper clap track. That clap track is what you’ll remember most from the final Stars on 45 single. It is to this record what the relentless snare beat is to 1989’s “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers (that ghastly mashup of ’50s songs that wedding DJs love). The clap also specifically dates the track to the turn of the ’80s—when the disco backlash was at full force, and dance music was transitioning into forms like electro where it could hide in plain sight.

What’s charming about the Stars on 45 single, however, is its unhip, unabashed attachment to pure, late-’70s disco—made explicit by Eggermont’s incongruous introduction to the record. It’s an original melody he wrote, sung by a female vocalist and chorus, with Bee Gees–style harmonies and multiple references to disco in a kind of pidgin English (curiously, the intro mentions two Beatles song titles, “Twist and Shout” and “Tell Me Why,” that never appear in the Stars on 45 medley):
You can boogie, like disco—love that disco sound.
Move up your body, spinnin’ round and round.
But don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t forget, oh no.
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t forget, no, no, no.
The Stars on 45
Keep on turning in your mind.
Like “We Can Work It Out.”
Remember “Twist and Shout”?
You still don’t “Tell Me Why” and “No Reply.”

This incongruity is what is most surreal about the Stars on 45 track—the idea that Beatles-era production would ever fit so comfortably next to late-disco-era production styles, let alone lead to a hit single. (A previous, very recent attempt to do the same with a bigger budget had proved disastrous.) Eggermont and Duiser’s production labors mightily to pull this off, taking more than a minute to segue from its original disco lead-in into “Venus” and “Sugar Sugar” before all the Beatles hits show up roughly a minute and a half into the record. There are some ingenious moments: The juxtaposition of “No Reply” with the ensuing, minor-key “I’ll Be Back” is the single’s most inspired segue.

While the original, nearly 10-minute Dutch single made its first appearance in early 1980, it only really took off about a year later, after Dutch DJs focused on the four-minute Beatles segment. In response, Eggermont and Duiser came up with a tighter, sub-five-minute mix that focused on the Beatles segment and fit on a 45-RPM single. That version topped the Dutch charts in February 1981 before beginning its improbable world conquest, hitting either No. 2 or No. 1 in England, Australia, Germany, Spain, and other countries before finally hitting the top in America.
And in our country, it had a unique title. In most parts of the world, the song was released simply as “Stars on 45 (Medley),” and the artist credit was sometimes also Stars on 45 or the generic Starsound. But the single’s U.S. label, Radio Records (a subsidiary of major label Atlantic), covered its bases with litigious publishers by listing every song in the title. The result—“Medley: Intro Venus / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I’ll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You’re Going to Lose That Girl / Stars on 45”—remains the longest title of a No. 1 hit in Hot 100 history, more than four times the length of a 10-word chart-topper from 1975, B.J. Thomas’ “(Hey, Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.”

In the U.S., the Stars on 45 single was so popular in the summer of ’81 that it interrupted the nine-week run at No. 1 of the year’s biggest single, Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes.” Which prompts the question: What the fuck, America? Or more politely, why? European pop kitsch only occasionally crosses over in the U.S.—otherwise Boney M. would have had bigger hits here. Not to mention the fact that Stars on 45 also had to get past the mirror ball–exploding fever pitch of the disco backlash, which was at its apex by 1981. How did Stars on 45 overcome these hurdles?

I would credit two cultural phenomena—one global, one specific to America. First was the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. The fact that the song only took off globally in early 1981, more than a year after its release, can clearly be attributed to the outpouring of grief prompted by Lennon’s death, which prompted a fusillade of Beatles nostalgia and a kitschy reinvigoration of Lennon’s, and the Beatles’, legacy. The Stars on 45 single is Beatles kitsch on steroids. As with Peter and Gordon in 1964, the song was helping to satisfy a hungry market.

After Lennon’s murder, sales for his music exploded: Double Fantasy, his just-issued album with Yoko Ono, shot to No. 1 in America and generated three Top 10 hit singles, the most ever from a Lennon album. The third and final of these three hits, “Watching the Wheels,” reached its No. 10 peak in the spring of 1981, the same week the Stars on 45 medley broke into the Top 10. In effect, the public was passing the baton from Lennon himself to other acts that could help them grieve. Indeed, just over a month later, George Harrison began climbing the Hot 100 with “All Those Years Ago,” his breezy, unabashed homage to Lennon. The week Harrison’s song peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100, Stars on 45 was still in the Top 10. Both singles were embraced in the summer of ’81 as tributes to Lennon—but only Harrison’s was intentional.

The other, more U.S.-specific reason Stars on 45 caught on was another fluke of timing: the aerobics-and-fitness craze, fueled by the release of Jane Fonda’s 1981 book Workout. “Stars on 45,” with its clap beat and novel repackaging of a familiar Boomer hit parade, was the ultimate hit by which a 35-year-old record-buyer could feel the burn. (I myself have junior high memories of our gym teacher soundtracking our seventh-grade workouts to her vinyl copy of “Stars on 45.”) The song was ahead of the curve on a uniquely American phenomenon—later in 1981, Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” would be a bigger hit here (10 weeks at No. 1) than in any other country around the world. This one-two punch—grief-stricken Beatles nostalgia and resonance with the year’s biggest U.S. fad—proved potent.

Indeed, Stars on 45 proved so popular that it actually spawned a fad of its own: a roughly 18-month-long medley craze. Before the end of 1982, the estates of Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles themselves would all score Hot 100 hits with official medleys of their original recordings. (The Beatles’ medley, a mashup of their movie themes that lacked a click-track beat, was awkwardly mixed and actually made the Stars on 45’s clap-beat approach look more deft.) Meco, the guy behind the chart-topping 1977 disco version of the Star Wars theme, came back to the Top 40 in ’82 with a medley of other random movie themes, from The Magnificent Seven to Goldfinger. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra—an actual classical ensemble from London—amazingly reached the Top 10 with the symphonic disco medley “Hooked on Classics” (selections included “Flight of the Bumblebee,” “Rhapsody in Blue,” and “The Marriage of Figaro”). And as for the Stars on 45 themselves, they were no one-hit wonder—“Stars on 45 III,” a medley of Stevie Wonder covers, reached No. 28 in the spring of 1982, almost a full year after their world-beating Beatles medley.

All three of the Lennon-McCartney-attributed No. 1 hits I’ve discussed here feel like fads or flukes. As recordings, they defy categorization, but they do offer a small window into the strange alchemy by which songs become hits. If the first three rules of real estate are “location, location, location,” the first three rules of hit-making are “timing, timing, timing.” Peter and Gordon’s pleasant McCartney recording found a small window when the public was starved for a novel simulacrum of the Beatles’ sound. Elton John’s Lennon cover went all the way to the top, where other ’70s Beatles covers fell short, by riding Elton’s own tsunami just as it crested. And the Stars on 45 producers hit the ultimate timing jackpot, in the saddest way possible.

Other than a brief Top 10 run by Tiffany’s 1988 cover of “I Saw Her Standing There,” there have been very few Lennon-McCartney hits since the Stars on 45. Actually, the last one was by a 1995 band that had the temerity to call themselves the Beatles.
That would be the trio of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, reunited for the 1995 ABC-TV Beatles Anthology documentary series and recording over leftover solo recordings by John Lennon. While the Anthology project generated a trio of chart-topping, multiplatinum albums, the two singles released from those LPs charted much more modestly: a No. 6 peak for the breathlessly awaited “Free as a Bird,” and a No. 11 peak for the follow-up, “Real Love.” They peaked quickly on the Hot 100, fueled largely by sales to the most rabid Beatle fans, but radio airplay was minuscule. A quarter-century after they broke up, the Beatles’ inimitable recorded legacy—having frustrated generations of song interpreters—finally foiled the Beatles themselves.

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Friday, August 23, 2019

1963: The Year the Beatles Found Their Voice—By Colin Fleming



Having spent entirely too much of my life studying all matters Beatles-related, I sometimes like to play a parlor game with other fans. I ask them which year was the band’s best, before offering an answer of my own. Many people stump for 1967, when Sgt. Pepper came out, recasting the pop-culture zeitgeist. Others opt for 1964, the first year of stateside Beatlemania. A dark horse sometimes gets a vote, like 1965, the year the Beatles produced their first mature masterwork in Rubber Soul. But when I provide my answer—1963, all the way—I’m usually met with puzzled looks. It’s no wonder. Fifty years have passed since that magical and formative year for the band, yet most of the music the Beatles recorded throughout it remains commercially unavailable. But 1963 is the band’s annus mirabilis.



In 1963, the Beatles were exploding in England. Their debut LP, Please Please Me, came out in March, followed by their megahit single “She Loves You” in August. Their second album, With the Beatles, and another hit single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” followed in the fall. Screaming girls, throngs of fans, bushels of albums being sold—this was when it all started. But the Beatles were also a veritable human jukebox that year. One of their many commitments was to turn up semi-regularly at the BBC, horse around on air, read requests, make fun of each other, make fun of the presenter, and play live versions of whatever people wanted to hear, whether that was their own material or a vast range of covers: Elvis Presley numbers; obscure rhythm-and-blues songs by lost-to-time bands like the Jodimars; Broadway show tunes; Americana; vamps on Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry; rearrangements of girl-group cuts; torch songs. If you wanted to hear what made the Beatles the Beatles, here is where you would want to start.


Yet although these sessions (including some from ’62 and ’64, and one from ’65, but mostly from ’63) would fill about 10 CDs, only a double-disc set has been commercially released. Live at the BBC—as Capitol Records titled that package back in 1994—is fine; you can’t go especially wrong with it. But its songs are plucked from their context, and context is the best reason to listen to the Beatles’ BBC shows. This is not music meant to be heard in piecemeal fashion, with a few cuts cherry-picked from one session here, another there. Each of the 40 BBC sessions from ’63 has a specific, homegrown feel, like it’s a mini-album unto itself, and the sequence of sessions as a whole shows the band’s startlingly rapid evolution.


No official archive of the BBC sessions exists, and the original tapes appear to be long gone. But over time—and particularly as the Internet has gained reach and speed—partial, homemade recordings from the original broadcasts have surfaced, and been stitched together into increasingly complete compilations. Earnest seekers can find the most complete version of the sessions, courtesy of a bootleg label called Purple Chick, on the Web; from start to finish, it is an absolute wonder.

If you ever asked yourself whether the Beatles, as people, were as funny as their biographies make them out to be, here is your proof. They ride each other hard, in between playing and reading out mailed-in song requests from former band rivals, kids in the hospital, “Jeff the greengrocer.” One schoolgirl, standing in as the spokesperson for her gaggle, begins her request with “Dear Messrs. Beatles,” prompting a short, knowing laugh from Paul McCartney. It’s a confident laugh, appreciative that the band’s audience was beginning to pick up on the band’s humor—riffing off it, in a way, just as the Beatles were riffing off the music that had come before them and, increasingly, finding ways to transcend it.


At one of the key sessions, on July 16, the band recorded 17 tracks, and we find the quartet adroitly working its way through covers with the same bucolic grace—and hard-won realism—that would later flower into the songwriting on the band’s mid-career masterpieces. From another blue-collar Merseyside act, a cover of “To Know Him Is to Love Him” might sound fey. The number was written by Phil Spector (the title comes from his father’s headstone) and was a hit for his Teddy Bears. John Lennon changes Him to Her, and his vocal unfurls over a lush patch of backing harmonies, his whoa-hoas linking one line to the next. A nakedness is at play here, as the macho Lennon musically denudes himself with each plush declaration of love, the minor key couching his voice in something somber, autumnal. This is utter vulnerability, an invocation of feelings not normally spoken (and altogether absent from the Teddy Bears’ original version), now shared with anyone who happens to listen. Casual listeners might think it’s a long way from the Lennon of this session to the Lennon of Rubber Soul—a high point of his songwriting career—but the sensibility of this performance is the same sensibility we find in “Girl” and “In My Life.” Rubber Soul may have been released in December 1965, but it was taking some kind of form in July 1963.

The same session featured the band’s attempt at Ann-Margret’s “I Just Don’t Understand.” Here, Lennon’s vocal possesses an R&B swing, but the ensemble-playing is in a country-western mode, albeit one that comes off as dark, like an outtake from a John Ford Western. This is the Beatles, as Dylan would say, mixing up the medicine. At their compositional zenith—which is to say, during their mid-career run of Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper—the Beatles were master collagists. You listen to “I Just Don’t Understand,” and in Lennon’s vocal you hear the same ragged howl from the abyss that dominates “Tomorrow Never Knows,” from 1966’s Revolver; the countrified electric strut of “What Goes On,” from Rubber Soul; the blanched, plain-sung blues of “She’s Leaving Home,” from Sgt. Pepper.



The quick session from July 2 is a tour de force of range, with the Beatles pulling from the past and again experimenting with different elements from different genres—the band a veritable musical Cuisinart. A take on Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right” gets us started, with McCartney bucking against the traditions set down by his hero. The song is given a pronounced Liverpudlian inflection, as though the Beatles are claiming it for the north of England, George Harrison’s licks providing tart commentary. A stomp through their own “There’s a Place”—their most mature composition to date—follows, and rock and roll is fleshed out with introspection, the foundation for most of the band’s best work going forward. A lithe rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Carol” is next, before the group gets into what may be the best BBC cut of all. Arthur Alexander sang rhythm and blues harder than anyone in the States. For a group of early 20‑something white kids to think they could lay claim to his best number, “Soldier of Love,” was either hubristic folly or burgeoning self-awareness; for the Beatles, on this date, it was the latter. For the first time, we hear that full, almost violent Beatles swing, a propulsive, churning attack that was reimagined the following year in “A Hard Day’s Night.” By then, the Beatles had upped the tempo, but this has that same rhythmic chassis. Covers of Carl Perkins’s “Lend Me Your Comb” and the Jodimars’ super-obscure R&B number “Clarabella” follow, and you get the sense that there wasn’t anything they couldn’t take on and improve. But improvement was clearly no longer the point. The Beatles were getting on with the creation of something else altogether.

To be a good songwriter, you need to be a good listener. And what you really hear in the ’63 BBC sessions is the Beatles listening to themselves, beginning a dialogue and moving toward a future that was less and less inchoate as that year, and the BBC sessions, wore on. It’s almost as if the version of the band that we all got to know owed this earlier iteration a “Dear Messrs. Beatles” note of gratitude.

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