(Continued from Part Eight)
The Beatles recorded their next album from May to October of 1968. The Beatles, a double album known as The White Album, was another solid effort featuring more innovations and great creativity.
However, relations between the members soured during this period, and recorded footage of the group shows open arguments and hostility between the four members who had been great friends in the beginning. Starr quit the band for two weeks, with McCartney playing drums on "Back In The U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence". The incredible Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership broke apart as well.
Lennon further aggravated tensions when he brought his girlfriend Yoko Ono to the sessions, even though the Beatles had established a rule that girlfriends were not allowed in the recording studio.
By that time, recording technology had evolved into an eight-track console, which made layering much easier than the incredible but difficult recording they achieved with Sgt. Pepper. Each member recorded their parts separately, which led to the album to be regarded more as solo efforts rather than a cohesive band project.
The Beatles released the White Album in November, the first on Apple Records. There were two million advance orders, and sales reached four million in little over a month. Radio stations in America began to play album tracks, breaking from the tradition of only playing singles, and tracks on the White Album received tremendous airplay.
At the time Lennon wrote this next song, world conditions were as turbulent as in any year since World War 2. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, two of the most loved and promising leaders in a generation, turned the Summer of Love in 1967 into a year of disillusionment, anger, and discontent in 1968. Student protests in Paris had crippled France. Anti-Vietnam fervor in both the U.S. and the U.K. resulted in numerous clashes with police with hundreds wounded and deaths. Clashes between those simply demanding civil rights for all and police turned ugly.
“There were three ‘Revolutions’” Lennon said in 1971, “two songs and one abstract. I don’t know what you’d call it… musique concrète, loops and that, which was a picture of a revolution.”
The Beatles began recording on May 30, the same day that nearly half a million people took to the streets of Paris to protest. The final take of that day, Take 18, evolved into a jam session of 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The final six minutes were a sonic portrait of chaos, spiced by sound effects, screaming, and other assorted noises.
As Lennon wanted "Revolution" to be a single, the last six minutes were cut, a segment that would become the foundation for "Revolution #9", another track on the album.
The group worked further on Take 18 in the next few days, with John recording vocals lying on his back to attempt to create a different sound. Tape loops and further instrumentation were added. On June 21, Harrison added a lead guitar track and Martin scored a brass section to finish the song.
But Paul and George felt the track, which is included on the album, was too slow, so the Beatles recorded a faster and heavier version on July 9. It is this re-recorded version that was included as the flip side of "Hey Jude".
"Revolution" reached #1 in New Zealand but only #12 in the U.S.
McCartney wrote this next Jamaican-styled song incorporating a phrase by Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor (a Nigerian musician who lived in London) for the title and chorus. Paul began writing the song while the group was in Rishikesh early in 1968. McCartney's character of Desmond was a reference to Reggae singer Desmond Dekker.
After the Beatles returned from India, they went to Harrison's home in Surrey in May to record demos for their new album, and this song was one of 27 demos the group recorded there. McCartney double-tracked his vocal, which, because it wasn't perfectly synchronized, created an echoing effect.
On July 8, the group recorded "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", which included Scott on congas and a trio of saxophonists. Lennon openly expressed his dislike of the song. John left the studio at one point and returned under the influence of marijuana.
Frustrated at being forced to continue working on the song, John strode to the piano and played the opening chords louder and faster. He claimed this was how the song should be played, and it became the version you hear.
Paul made a mistake in the final verse by singing "Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face" (rather than Molly), but the group kept it in as the other Beatles liked it.
Ever the perfectionist, however, McCartney wasn't happy and the Beatles
reworked it in the afternoon of July 9. This was a particularly acrimonious session and producer George Martin offered Paul his suggestions. But when McCartney retorted, "Well, you come down and sing it," the usually calm Martin shouted back, "Then bloody sing it again! I give up. I just don't know any better how to help you," according to Mark Lewishohn's 2013 book The Beatles - All These Years, Volume One: Tune In.
That intense argument led engineer Geoff Emerick to quit, citing the exchange between McCartney and Martin, as well as the unpleasant atmosphere of the White Album sessions in general, as the reasons for his leaving.
After listening to it, however, Paul decided the one recorded the previous day was the best and that evening, overdubs were added.
The other Beatles didn't like the song and refused to let McCartney release it as a single except for limited release in some European countries. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" topped charts in Australia, New Zealand, West Germany, Switzerland and Japan.
After the song was released, Scott asked to get songwriting credit but was denied. However, McCartney later paid Scott's legal bills while he was in Brixton Prison awaiting the trial for failing to pay maintenance to his ex-wife.
This next song underwent quite a transformation before it became the song we all know today. The early versions were soft, with Harrison singing to his own acoustic guitar accompaniment on July 25, backed only by a harmonium played by McCartney. This version was released in 1996 on the album Anthology 3.
Harrison utilized a guitar picking method he learned from Donovan while in Rishikesh. It sounded fine, but it wasn't the sound that George wanted, so he drastically changed it and dropped many of the lyrics before he was satisfied.
George began writing the song as an experiment using a theory from the I Ching while Harrison was visiting his parents. “‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ was just a simple study based on the theory that everything has some purpose for being there at that given moment,” George explained in the book Anthology. "I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes… The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there’s no such thing as coincidence – every little item that’s going down has a purpose."
“I was thinking that anything I see when I open a book, I’m going to write a song about. So I opened this book and I saw ‘gently weeps.’ I shut the book and then I started the tune,” Harrison said.
The Beatles returned to the song on August 16 and recorded 14 takes before they added overdubs on September 3, the first using Abbey Road's new eight-track recording equipment. In this latter session, Harrison worked by himself, spending eight hours trying to record a backwards guitar solo. George recorded two lead vocal parts on September 5, with maracas, drums and lead guitar also added. But after hearing the result, George scrapped that version as well.
George didn't feel the other Beatles were taking the song seriously. So he brought in a famous guitar player to give him some more credibility with his bandmates:
We tried to record it, but John and Paul
were so used to just cranking out their
tunes that it was very difficult at times to
get serious and record one of mine. It
wasn't happening. They weren't taking it
seriously and I don't think they were even
all playing on it, and so I went home that
night thinking, "Well, that's a shame,"
because I knew the song was pretty
good.
The next day I was driving into London
with Eric Clapton, and I said, "What are
you doing today? Why don't you come
to the studio and play on this song for
me?" He said, "Oh, no - I can't do that.
Nobody's ever played on a Beatles
record and the others wouldn't like it."
I said, "Look, it's my song and I'd like
you to play on it.
So he came in. I said, "Eric's going to
play on this one," and it was good
because that then made everyone act
better. Paul got on the piano and I
played a nice intro and they all took it
more seriously.
The Beatles recorded 28 takes that same day, with Clapton playing the Gibson Les Paul guitar, nicknamed Lucy, that he had given to Harrison the month before.
The band finally finished "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on September 6 with the addition of a distorted bass part from McCartney, organ by Harrison and percussion from Starr. George recorded his lead vocals with backing from McCartney.
Although the mention of "Georgia" without it referring to a U.S. state upset weird people in the United States (likely the same ones who have betrayed their country by now adopting Soviet philosophy), the Beatles were one of the few things that bridged the gap between the West and the Iron Curtain.
"The Beatles brought us the idea of democracy," Rocker Sasha Lipnitsky said to Leslie Woodhead for the book How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. "For many of us, it was the first hole in the Iron Curtain." Now, in everyone's best interests, the world has to get power away from the evil Vladimir Putin.
To be clear, "Back In The U.S.S.R." was a tongue-in-cheek song, and a spoof of the Beach Boys' "California Girls", and Mike Love of the group, who was with the Beatles in India, gave the song his approval.
One group who didn't approve was the far right John Birch Society, the same group which now endorses Putin and opposes freedom and democracy, the very ideals that the United States was founded upon. We now know all of their bemoanings were a line of crap they fed to Americans who were easily brainwashed, and the true intention of "conservatives" all along was to destroy the country. They have fooled people along the way. We now know what they are all about.
This is the song which launches the White Album with the sound of squealing aircraft engines and the matching screeching guitar.
The greatness of the album, however, masks the internal dissension. It is during the recording sessions of the White Album that Starr quit briefly. "Ringo was always sitting in the reception area waiting, just sitting there or reading a newspaper," Ron Richards of the Abbey Road staff told author Mark Lewishohn. "He used to sit there for hours waiting for the others to turn up. One night, he couldn't stand it any longer."
Starr returned to the band after a couple of weeks, but the Beatles recorded this song without him. Although the three remaining Beatles get credit for playing drums on the song, it is most likely the accomplished McCartney who played in Ringo's absence.
When Ringo returned, his drum kit was decorated with flowers and "Welcome Back" signs, and recording continued on the album.
Next up, a plea to a fellow guest in India learning Transcendental Meditation from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. During their stay, Prudence Farrow, the 19-year-old sister of actress Mia Farrow, locked herself in her hut where she and Mia were studying TM along with the Beatles, Donovan, Mike Love, and others. Prudence had been meditating far longer than everyone else (three weeks) and the others began to worry about her.
McCartney said, "Prudence Farrow got an attack of the horrors, paranoia, what you'd call these days an identity crisis, and wouldn't come out." "We all got a bit worried about her," Paul continued. "So we went up there and knocked. [We said]: "Hi, Prudence, we all love you. You're wonderful! But nobody could persuade her out."
Lennon did the thing he was best at--he wrote a song, "Dear Prudence, won't you come out and play..." John and Paul perfected the song which they sang to her, and finally, they were able to bring Prudence back to reality.
John used fingerpicking on his guitar, something the Beatles learned from Donovan:
It's a difficult style that requires
perseverance. When John had it down he
was so pleased to find a whole new way
of songwriting emerge. That's what
happens to a natural songwriter when you
get a new set of performing skills. He
immediately wrote 'Dear Prudence' and
'Julia'.
As for the inspiration behind the song, Prudence claimed to have no memory of hearing it while in India. "George was the one who told me about it," she said. "At the end of the course, just as they were leaving, he mentioned that they had written a song about me but I didn't hear it until it came out on the album. I was flattered. It was a beautiful thing to have done."
Lennon, who never fully was committed to what the Beatles were doing in India said, "Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing, I did write some of my best songs while I was there." "The experience was worth it if only for the songs that came out."
On May 28, the Beatles gathered at George's home in Surrey, England, to record demos of songs that they were working on for the White Album.
"Yer Blues" was one of the first ones demoed that day.
Harrison had recorded lead vocals for "Not Guilty" in the control room, searching for an on-stage feeling. Ken Scott recalled the event to Mark Lewisohn for Mark's book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions:
Lennon heard him and said, "bloody hell,
the way you lot are carrying on, you'll be
wanting to record everything in the room
next door! [which had no proper studio walls
or acoustic setup of any kind]. John then
said, "That's a great idea; let's try it on the
next number!' The "next number" was "Yer
Blues" and we literally had to set it all up in
this minute room. That's how they recorded
"Yer Blues", and it worked out great!"
"And 'Yer Blues' on the White Album, you can't top it," Ringo said. "It was the four of us. That is what I'm saying: it was really because the four of us were in a box, a room about eight by eight, with no separation. It was this group that was together."
Here's another of the songs the group worked on while they were in Risikesh, India. McCartney recounted to Barry Miles the writing of this one:
I was doing a song, "I Will", that I had as
a melody for quite a long time but I didn't
have any lyrics to it. I remember sitting
around with Donovan, and maybe a
couple of other people. We were just
sitting around one evening after our day
of meditation and I played him this one
and he liked it, and we were trying to
write some words. We kicked around a
few lyrics, something about the moon,
but they weren't very satisfactory and I
thought the melody was better than the
words so I didn't use them. I kept
searching for better words and I wrote
my own set in the end; very simple
words, straight love-song words really.
I think they're quire effective. It's still
one of my favourite melodies that I've
written. You just occasionally get lucky
with a melody and it becomes rather
complex and I think this is one of them;
quite a complete tune.
Love songs, of course, usually take much longer to record than Rock songs, because mistakes can't be hidden in the noise. It took 67 takes for the Beatles to finish this song. Harrison didn't participate in recording, but Paul, John and Ringo began recording at 7 p.m. on September 16 and did not finish until 3 a.m.
These recordings included take 19, which was an improvised song built on the line, "Can you take me back where I came from?" That take was trimmed to just 28 seconds and used on the White Album between "Cry Baby Cry" and "Revolution 9". The full version of that improvisation was released in 2018 as "Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1)".
The version of "Helter Skelter" that Paul warmed up with before recording "Blackbird" was a far cry from the screaming number the group released on the album. That evening, Paul sang with a falsetto with acoustic accompaniment.
The Beatles began to record it on July 18, but even those were nothing like the final version. One of the takes resulted in a jam that lasted 27 minutes and 11 seconds. Paul sought to record the heaviest Beatles song yet, but none of the attempts sounded like what he had in mind.
On September 9-10, the group tried again at Abbey Road and turned all volume controls up, with Paul's screaming vocal supported by John and George. John squealed out a saxophone part and roadie Mal Evans blasted away on a trumpet.
"Helter Skelter" was "a track we did in total madness and hysterics in the studio, "Ringo later said. Paul remembered the recording in his biography, Many Years From Now:
We got the engineers and [the producer] to
hike up the drum sound and really get it as
loud and horrible as it could and we played
it and said, "No, it still sounds too safe, it's
got to get louder and dirtier." In the end
you can hear Ringo say, "I've got blisters
on my fingers!" That wasn't a joke put-on:
his hands were actually bleeding at the
end of the take, he'd been drumming so
ferociously. We did work very hard on
that track.
Paul wrote this next song drawing inspiration from his childhood, the teachings of Mahesh Yogi and the song "Nature Boy". As McCartney told author Barry Miles, he wrote it after stopping at his father's home in Liverpool--"Visiting my family I'd feel in a good mood, so it was often a good occasion to write songs."
Paul remembered his explorations of the country while writing "Mother Nature's Son":
I was always able to take my bike and in
five minutes I'd be in quite deep
countryside. This is where my love of the
country came from. I remember the Dam
Wood, which had millions of
rhododendron bushes. This is what I was
writing about in "Mother Nature's Son"; it
was basically a heartfelt song about my
child-of-nature leanings.
Paul recorded a demo at Harrison's home in May of 1968, but he didn't complete the song for over two months. On August 9, Paul recorded his vocals and acoustic guitar part at Abbey Road Studios. McCartney recorded 25 takes, with take 24 being the best. On August 20, Paul overdubbed timpani, another acoustic guitar part and drums.
McCartney and producer George Martin worked on the brass arrangement and two trumpet players and two trombonists recorded their parts on August 20. This was the same day that Lennon and Starr were working on "Yer Blues" in another studio.
When John and Ringo arrived at the studio, "you could cut the atmosphere with a knife," engineer Ken Scott said to author Mark Lewisohn for the book Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. "An instant change. It was like that for 10 minutes and then, as soon as they left, it felt great again. It was very bizarre."
Harrison wrote this song, said to be inspired by his friend Eric Clapton's sweet tooth. Clapton had just come back from an appointment with his dentist, who told Eric he had to give up candy. "Savoy Truffle" was of several candy names that George wrote into the song.
Up next, another song Lennon started to write in India, but it appears only one verse was written there, as the demo recorded in late May contained just that one verse. McCartney explained how the two consulted on their songwriting:
I would encourage him to keep lines in his
songs that he didn't think were very good.
And I'd say, "No, that's a really great line."
There was a song of his called "Glass
Onion" where he had a line about, "Here's
another clue for you all, the walrus was
Paul." And he wanted to keep it but he
needed to check; it with me. He said,
"What do you think of that line?" I said,
"You know, it's a spoof on the way
everyone was always reading into our
songs. Here you go, you know, you've
given them another clue to follow." So
we would check stuff against each other
and it was obviously very handy for our
writing to be able to do that.
"Glass Onion" mentions several Beatles songs, including "Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am The Walrus", "The Fool On The Hill", "Lady Madonna" and "Fixing A Hole". The final two mentions were added when John recorded his lead vocals on September 12.
There are several phrases in "Glass Onion" which draw out curiosity in the lyrics, one being "bent back tulips". Derek Taylor, press officer of Apple Records, says the phrase refers to a flower arrangement found in a London restaurant called Parkes:
You'd be in Parkes sitting around your
table wondering what was going on with
the flowers and then you'd realize that
they were actually tulips with their petals
bent all the way back, so that you could
see the obverse side of the petals and
also the stamen. This is what John
meant about "seeing how the other half
lives." He meant seeing how the other
half of the flower lives but also, because
it was an expensive restaurant, how the
other half of society lived.
Another phrase is "cast iron shore", which is the nickname for a coastal area of South Liverpool, while a "dovetail joint" is a joinery technique most commonly used in woodworking to attach one piece to another.
This song may appear as a love song, but Harrison wrote it about the happiness he felt when he found God. The group recorded 67 takes on October 7 without Lennon. McCartney played the Hamond organ on the track. The band came up with the ending of "Long, Long, Long" by accident, as Martin's assistant Chris Thomas explained to Mark Lewisohn for the book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions:
There's a sound near the end of the song
which is a bottle of Blue Nun wine rattling
away on top of a Leslie speaker cabinet.
It just happened. Paul hit a certain note
and the bottle started vibrating. We
thought it was so good that we set the
mikes up and did it again. The Beatles
always took advantage of accidents.
The Beatles still had two more albums in them. Be sure to catch Part Ten, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!
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