I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

I've only seen Let It Be once, and no one really comes off well (save, I dunno, Ringo?). But I remember lots of shots of Yoko just sitting there next to John, silent and staring. I'm sure she was more lively at other times, and tbf John wasn't that far removed from sitting and staring himself - and the band barely coherent as a unit with or without her present. But given she was the only one that didn't have to be there I can see why she makes a good scapegoat.

Well, given that they were used to recording whenever they felt like it and suddenly they were being forced into this disciplined early morning routine in a place that they weren't used to making music in and the band had no idea what the hell they were meant to be doing and couldn't reach a compromise and John and Yoko were on smack then yeah...

Anyway, let's talk about how great 'I Call Your Name' is... the lyrics, the chord progression, the way it goes into a triplet feel briefly, the 12-string guitar work. Let's talk about how lyrically sour Lennon's 1964 work was and how most of his songs actually deal with unhappy/bad relationships... people shouldn't have been surprised at the direction he took on Plastic Ono Band in hindsight ...

"I call your name" with the ska break? Well ahead of everyone, there.

There was also a ska break in "You know my name", but it got cut until Anthol3.

there's a lot of in-studio chatter from the LIB sessions with Yoko joining in, giving suggestions, ideas etc. i mean she seems pretty polite and all but.. jeez i could see how that would get on my tits if it was mine-and-my-mates' band.

xpost:

Yeah, it goes unexpectedly into this triplet feel with the kinda choppy guitar playing you'd find in ska ... it's a pretty neat trick and I often wonder if that was written into the song to begin with or whether it just spontaneously happened during a take and they thought "we'll keep that"

pisces otm, which doesn't excuse the way boomers love to hate on Yoko, that's a different deal. but plenty of bands have experienced the "band member's partner decides he/she gets to weigh in" phenomenon and it's usually a pretty tense thing

they were just jamming like always and recording new songs but the added stress of (1) new studio w bad sound and (2) Paul shoving cameras in your face at 10am and telling you what to play isn't helping. no wonder George quit the band.

Ringo had quit during the White Album sessions, but a lot of those have leaked, and they are playing together in pretty good spirits for a lot of the outtakes. John quit after both Ringo and George. well he threatened to quit, they were all coaxed back, by Paul. Paul ended the band with the press release issues in his debut solo album. blaming Yoko is idiotic.

the narrative is always changing and what may have been true in RS is not anymore. i think kids nowadays see Yoko Ono in a different light. for the Tumblr-centric she is an inspiration and early proponent of politically conscious social media. Yoko Ono was a rare POC public figure activist artist who had massive media attention. she paid for this in many ways, and the John & Yoko albums & films getting omitted from the Beatles narrative is another one of those ways. whatever, print media is dead. today's kids would probably do ok to look at what she and John did in the 70's wrt media press and activism.

'Tell Me Why'
'I'll Cry Instead'
'You Can't Do That'
'I'll Be Back'
'No Reply'
'I'm a Loser'
'Baby's In Black'
'I Don't Wanna Spoil The Party'
'I Call Your Name'

and after that 'Help!', 'Run For Your Life', 'Norwegian Wood' etc.

Trying to tell us something about yer domestic situaton, John?

Paul also clearly in the wrong relationship circa '65: 'The Night Before', 'Another Girl', 'You Won't See Me', 'I'm Looking Through You' ...

Paul also clearly in the wrong relationship circa '65: 'The Night Before', 'Another Girl', 'You Won't See Me', 'I'm Looking Through You' ...

Paul ended the band with the press release issues in his debut solo album.

In the autobiog Paul says John had already told the band he wanted to split the Beatles before the publication of the PR

xpost:

'I'm Down', too!

told the band

this is different than announcing it to the public behind the other's backs!

oh, totally - but in the biog he puts it in terms of merely publicising something the rest of the band had already agree. Obvs the book is self-serving in purpose so take it with a pinch of salt...

I'm Down is so great. The chaotic live versions are crazy.

xpost to Adam:

John ended the band, Paul told the press and for good reason - telling John to keep quiet was partly an Allen Klein business decision, and McCartney did not want Klein to have anything to do with his post-Beatle affairs or Apple. That's why he sued to dissolve the partnership, and he was right to do so. Christ, this is like, all common knowledge.

I can't help but think that the subject of The Beatles break-up is ground that has been gone over so much that it's now infertile. There's even an entire fucking Wikipedia page devoted to it! Clearly, it's something that caused boomers great trauma.

xpost:

'I'm Down' has grown into a real favourite of mine over the years - I wish they could have swapped out 'Act Naturally' and 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' for 'I'm Down' and 'Yes It Is' on Help! just to make the album all Lennon/McCartney originals.

xpost One of the maddest things about the shit vibes of Let It Be is that they started working on it on January 2nd. That was a terrible decision.

because of hangovers? i thought they were miserable because Twickenham Studios wasn't heated and they were freezing.

love this interview of John & Yoko smacked out of their minds from those sessions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYlm7LQGv6c

Turrican, you know that Paul wrote 'for no one' while on holiday w/ Jane A?

well he was getting a lot on the side & Jane had to put up with it

x-post:

Yup, I did. Those batch of songs that were inspired by the McCartney-Asher relationship really destroy the theory that Paul shies away from writing songs about his personal life. Even during his solo career, McCartney was writing quite a fair amount of songs about Linda, but nobody gave a fuck because the McCartney's had a happy marriage and people only seem to be interested in your "relationship" songs if you're suffering, else you're seen as gloating (I remember this being a criticism that someone levelled at McCartney's 'We Got Married', incredibly) ... I don't seem to recall many songs that Paul wrote about the ending of his relationship with Heather, though. A lot of the stuff on Memory Almost Full that people interpreted as being about Heather was written well before the divorce, iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HacWoVzP2uQ

i like Paul's song "Heather. i believe this is from the acoustic jam session they had with Donovan one day.

There's also the 'Heather' that appears on Driving Rain ... there's a lot of stuff that's about Heather Mills on that album ('About You' etc.) but it was very much recorded at the beginning of their relationship. There's a couple of things about Linda on the record too, most notably 'From a Lover to a Friend' ... the vocal on that sounds like McCartney is on the verge of tears.

The "Heather" on Driving Rain is incredible!

It still blows my mind that "I'm Down," "Yesterday" and "I've Just Seen A Face" were all recorded on the same day. In a three-hour session!

Yeah, nowadays people spend three hours fucking around with a kick drum in Pro Tools.

People generally worked that fast back in the '60s... I mean, take The Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun', the record took 15 minutes to make, including the time it took for The Animals' to perform the entire song live in one take.

Part of it was, obviously, far fewer options -- no spending hours deciding which type of compression to use or even, for that matter, which mic.

But in terms of the shifts in approach ("Yesterday" one minute, "I'm Down" the next), in Hamburg they were likely expected to execute even sharper changes in tone, and in less than three hours. "Play a fast one, or we'll kill you!" "Now play a slow one, or we'll kill you!" Being forced to do that for seven hours a night for months on end no doubt sharpened their skills in this area.

An underrated John composition right here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiFESa2LFkc

"'From a Lover to a Friend' ... the vocal on that sounds like McCartney is on the verge of tears"

yeah, that's not a bad song that is ruined by his vocal performance honestly.

I always took John's narrative in the RS interview to be accurate but correct me if this sounds wrong:

Then we were discussing something in the office with Paul, and Paul said something or other about the Beatles doing something, and I kept saying "No, no, no" to everything he said. So it came to a point where I had to say something, of course, and Paul said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I mean the group is over, I'm leaving."

Allen was there, and he will remember exactly and Yoko will, but this is exactly how I see it. Allen was saying don't tell. He didn't want me to tell Paul even. So I said, "It's out," I couldn't stop it, it came out. Paul and Allen both said that they were glad that I wasn't going to announce it, that I wasn't going to make an event out of it. I don't know whether Paul said "Don't tell anybody," but he was darned pleased that I wasn't going to. He said, "Oh, that means nothing really happened if you're not going to say anything."

So that's what happened. So, like anybody when you say divorce, their face goes all sorts of colors. It's like he knew really that this was the final thing; and six months later he comes out with whatever. I was a fool not to do it, not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record.

You were really angry with Paul?
No, I wasn't angry.

Well, when he came out with this "I'm leaving."
No, I wasn't angry – shit, he's a good P.R. man, that's all. He's about the best in the world, probably. He really does a job. I wasn't angry. We were all hurt that he didn't tell us that was what he was going to do.

I think he claims that he didn't mean that to happen but that's bullshit. He called me in the afternoon of that day and said, "I'm doing what you and Yoko were doing last year." I said good, you know, because that time last year they were all looking at Yoko and me as if we were strange trying to make our life together instead of being fab, fat myths. So he rang me up that day and said I'm doing what you and Yoko are doing, I'm putting out an album, and I'm leaving the group too, he said. I said good. I was feeling a little strange, because he was saying it this time, although it was a year later, and I said "good," because he was the one that wanted the Beatles most, and then the midnight papers came out.

How did you feel then?
I was cursing, because I hadn't done it. I wanted to do it, I should have done it. Ah, damn, shit, what a fool I was. But there were many pressures at that time with the Northern Songs fight going on; it would have upset the whole thing, if I would have said that.

never been sure about that story. a year earlier...that puts the timing when.... middle of recording abbey road? before recording it?

Abbey Road was recorded in Feb ---- on in 69; 'dissolution' of the beatles was in april 70 (around the time McCartney put out that press release). Lennon put out Cold Turkey in the fall of 69 I think. I think his "a year before" thing is just hyperbole or misremembering.

Well, they started working on 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' in February '69, but didn't work on anything else to do with Abbey Road for at least another couple of months. Lennon had been in a car accident, so some of the initial tracking was done without him. I don't think they finished 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' until right before they did the final mixing/compiling the master many months later, although I'd have to consult the Lewisohn Bible to double check.

Re: 'From a Lover to a Friend', the only thing I would change is I would simplify it and get rid of some of the awkward meter shifts, otherwise its perfect.

Lennon is talking about after the Live Peace in Toronto concert, which was September '69.

Abbey Road finished in August according to Wikipedia.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/27/beatles-sgt-pepper-anniversary-listen

"Without the horn fanfare in the middle or the audience’s cheers and laughter, this version sounds pretty stripped back – and it features some trippy voices echoing around towards the end (“I feel it, I feel it, oh baby now I feel it … Gotta be free now”). Then there’s a brief conversation between John and Paul about singing technique, and some bits where Paul has run out of breath. It’s safe to say the final version is more of a banger, but this recording offers an intriguing glimpse into the Fabs’ world."

not the most exciting thing in the world, but cool, and goes along with some of the discussion of how the beatles might've played this later stuff onstage -- this sounds pretty much like them doing it live.

yeah, that whole conversation Lennon references happened around the same time Abbey Road was released - presumably for Paul to propose next steps for the Beatles. It's documented in several books.

not the most exciting thing in the world, but cool, and goes along with some of the discussion of how the beatles might've played this later stuff onstage -- this sounds pretty much like them doing it live.

― tylerw, Thursday, April 27, 2017 11:13 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it's not mindblowing, but definitely interesting to hear -- they're (hopefully) not going to tease the set with the most revelatory stuff. And it seems like they tried to play and sing live in the studio as much as possible.

the box set has Take 1 which i am way more excited for

that 'Take 9' has the same vocal track as the record i think? also the speech at the end is on the mini-docu on the Pepper 2009 stereo remaster.

Yep, take 9 sounds like it's the master, pre-overdubs.

The first session for what became the Abbey Road album was on 22nd February 1969, recording 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)', but the Abbey Road sessions "proper" didn't begin until late April, and the last session for the Abbey Road was on 25th August 1969. They were still working on the album when the cover photo was taken on 8th August 1969 (the sessions that day were for various overdubs on 'The End', 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' and 'Oh! Darling') ... the master tape for the Abbey Road album which the LP was cut from was actually compiled and banded five days before the last session for the album on 20th August 1969. But they actually had a couple of sessions which they did work on the master tape itself. On 21st August 1969 the final attempt at the crossfade for 'You Never Give Me Your Money' into 'Sun King' was completed and actually re-cut into the master tape. The final session on 25th August 1969 was to edit down 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' and 'The End' slightly - these edits were, again, done on the master tape itself. There was some additional recording of sound efffects etc. that weren't used, and then the master tapes were sent off to cut the vinyl.

1967 Wednesday 1 February

Studio Two: 7.00pm-2.30am. Recording: 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (takes 1-9). P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Richard Lush.

Nine takes of the rhythm track ( drums — with heavy echo — bass and two guitars, one by Paul the other by George) were recorded on this night, and only two of those – one and nine – were seen through to completion. Paul's bass was recorded by direct injection of the sound into the recording console, as opposed to being recorded through an amplifier and a microphone. "I think direct injection was probably used on Beatles sessions for the first time anywhere in the world," says Ken Townsend. "We built our own transformer boxes [called DIT boxes] and plugged the guitars straight into the equipment."

Lewisohn, Beatles Recording Sessions, p. 95

the next day they overdubbing the vocals heard here onto Take 9. yet this is missing the "heavy echo" Lewisohn says are on the drums. maybe that's in Take 1 but it seems just as likely he would mix that out.

xpost:

In between the 22nd February 1969 recording of 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' and the sessions picking back up in late April, they were mostly fucking about with coming up with satisfactory mixes for the Get Back project, putting together the 'Get Back'/'Don't Let Me Down' single and the recording of 'The Ballad of John & Yoko' and 'Old Brown Shoe'

Oh yeah, 'Cold Turkey' was recorded the day before Abbey Road was released.

There's the take 2 (instrumental) of "with a little help" on spotify (+ the final deluxe versions of "Sgt Pepper" and "with a little help" and the "Sgt Pepper" take that was already linked upthread). It's surprisingly accomplished (minus the directly plugged bass part, of course).
Also, they DO sound great (it's in stereo, though. I've never heard the mono versions of their albums...).