10:68 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (pt.2) Four Beatles In Search Of A Groove

Written in Rishikesh and originally titled Obla Dee Obla Da, the received narrative about this song is that Lennon hated it and furiously forced it over the finish line, propelling the band at breakneck speed with his drug-crazed piano playing.

McCartney was always the musical visionary who could complete what Lennon started but on this song the tables were turned. For once McCartney was at sea musically and it was Lennon that came to the rescue.

A walk through the different versions reveal a clear plan and stunning failure to execute it.

• Esher demo
• Version 1
• Version 2 – this is the version on The White Album
• Version 3 – abandoned after a couple of takes and unreleased

All version were played in A but on the Esher demo the guitars are tuned down a semitone to Ab and on version 2 the tape is varisped up a semitone to Bb.

That the song was always intended to be a ska-influenced recording is clear. Calling the song "one of the first examples of white reggae" Stewart Copeland says, "Ob-la-di has an accent, ob-la-da has an accent, 'life goes on...' sort of leads you into that ska feel. There's a definite scansion to those lyrics, which is probably why they ended up playing a ska beat"*. Paul's lyrics and ska-approved vocal percussion "chicka-bum" and Lennon's studio comments "Oobladi-blada. Brutha!", "Yassuh! Take one, and de Mighty Jumbo Band!” show their heads were somewhere more tropical than St. John's Wood, NW8.

Version 1 has been released as an Anniversary Edition bonus track ('Take 3') and on Anthology 3 ('Take 5'). The latter features the (uncredited) creator of the chorus lyrics, Jimmy Scott Emuakpor on congas.

Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.*

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Esher demo and Take 3 feature very straight ahead drumming and strumming – the only hint of ska is the chord fill in the bridge (1:29).

Take 5 (the same take with overdubs) add a lovely tiny cowbell, some busy sax parts, Jimmy's very busy congas and Paul's extremely busy bass.

There is zero groove at this point - no skanking* from guitar or piano and ultra 'white bread' drumming. The bass runs all over the place and the only semblance of a groove comes from congas and cowbell patterns that are messy and confused. The whole thing is a hyperactive hot mess, the result of adding more and more to a track that isn't working. Ringo has no idea what to play and McCartney, uncharacteristically, isn't able to help. Geoff Emerick stated the obvious saying "Paul wasn't happy with the rhythm of the track … he was after a Jamaican reggae feel and he wasn't satisfied that the band had nailed it"* but then went on to tell the tale that has become legend.

When Paul announced he wanted to … start the song again from scratch, John went ballistic. Ranting and raving, he headed out the door, with Yoko trailing closely behind, and we thought that we'd seen the last of him that evening. But a few hours later he stormed back into the studio, clearly in a highly altered state of mind.

"I AM F**KING STONED!!" John Lennon bellowed from the top of the stairs … swaying slightly, he continued, waving his arms for emphasis. "I am more stoned than you have ever been. In fact, I am more stoned than you will ever be! … and this," Lennon added with a snarl, "is how the fucking song should go." Unsteadily, he lurched down the stairs and over to the piano and began smashing the keys with all his might, pounding out the famous opening chords that became the song's introduction, played at a breakneck tempo.*

Truth From Fiction

Lennon didn't play the song "at a breakneck tempo". Version 1 was recorded at 121bpm. Version 2 is only 112bpm even after varispeeding up. It was played at 107bpm – significantly slower. Lennon didn't speed the song up, he slowed it down to a tempo that allowed to song to breathe.

Side stepping the fruitless search for 'authenticity' he played what Ian MacDonald describes as a "mock music-hall piano"* intro giving it an instant instrumental hook (Ticket 3), before playing what the song had been crying out for all along the 2, 4 skank pattern. He was incapable of overplaying as McCartney and Emuakpor had been doing and Lennon's limitations as a piano player saved the track. Harrison fell in with a similar rhythm on acoustic guitar and Paul created a new, simple grooving bass line built on arpeggios on 1 2+ 3 4+. And Ringo ? Ringo played the same beat as before. But you can't have everything.

Once the track locked together, other ideas presented themselves. Compare the improvement in the rhythmic accompaniment on "Desmond and Molly Jones" from Version 1 (1:21 – Take 3, 1:23 - Take 5) to the Lennon-driven remake (1:30). There are some childlike plinky piano overdubs (2:32) and a sped-up gliss that sounds like a video game (2:08). McCartney's bassline deserves special mention, using a distorted acoustic guitar (0:02) to doubling the very simple bass line, Paul plays both instruments with a plectrum, adding funky ghost notes on the bass (0:06) that really make the song move.

Mind Blown

It's understandable that Paul would listen to Reggae/Ska and subconsciously absorb melodic ideas. So it forgivable that the start of the bridge has the same melody and almost exactly the rhythm as the opening line of River of Babylon by The Melodians.

In a couple of years
A A D D E F# (landing on a D major chord)

By the rivers of Babylon
D D G G A B B B (landing on a G major chord)

But here's the bombshell. Paul's song was released two years earlier! Did the Beatles have a influence on the seminal 1970 song?*

Footnotes

One of the first examples of white reggae
Stewart Copeland: Musician Magazine (1988)

perfection is attained
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Wind, Sand and Stars (p. 31)

Paul wasn't happy with the rhythm
Geoff Emerick: Here, There and Everywhere (p.246)

Skanking
Sharp off beat chord hits which are the foundation of reggae & ska (on beats 2 and 4 in reggae and the 'ands' between beats in ska).

Paul wanted to start the song again from scratch
Geoff Emerick: Here, There and Everywhere (p.247)

Mock music-hall piano
Ian MacDonald: Revolution In The Head (p.295)

Seminal 1970 song
It was a no 1 hit in Jamaica on release and reached an international audience via The Harder They Come Soundtrack which is credited with having "brought reggae to the world" (L.A. Times).

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10:57 Cry Baby Cry (pt.1) The Song No One Wanted

Cry Baby Cry occupies a unique position in the Beatles catalogue. There are many songs where Lennon and McCartney both claim to have contributed the majority of a song, but here we have a song that neither Lennon nor McCartney wanted any credit for. The acrimonious atmosphere it was recorded in caused long time engineer Geoff Emerick to quit, telling George Martin "I want to leave now, this very minute." Yet the band seemed to work conscientiously on it, knocking it out in a couple of days.

Cry Baby Cry was another of John's songs from India … Because John had divorced Cynthia and gone off with Yoko, It meant that I'd hear some of the songs for the first time when he came to the studio, whereas in the past we checked them with each other.

Paul: Many Years From Now (p.487)

Paul gives John sole credit, denying involvement or even prior knowledge! But when asked by Playboy for his thought on the song Lennon simply replied

Not me. A piece of rubbish

John: All We Are Saying (p.200)

Paul's statement is self contradictory. If it was a Rishikesh song then Paul must have heard it. And he certainly heard it again when they gathered to demo songs at George's house Kinfauns. Why was he so keen to distance himself from this one when he admitted he liked it?

And why did John, the Beatle most likely to get bored and lose focus, put so much work into “a piece of rubbish”, reaching McCartney levels of multi tracking, playing acoustic guitar and then overdubbing organ, piano and lead and backing vocals?

A day rehearsing and a day plus change recording is reasonable going for late-era Beatles. It's doesn't seem like the kind of work-rate that would leave lots of time for bitter feuds. And nailing the basic track in ten takes doesn't seem like the kind of problem piece that would cause bad feeling. It's a far cry from scrapping and rerecording the entire thing as they did with other songs on this album. So what made Geoff quit on this of all days?

Untangling The Mystery

Sometimes when a relationship breaks down, the 'straw that breaks the camels back' is something innocuous. A casual observer might be nonplussed as to what the problem is. It's only when you dig around that you understand.

What preceded the unfairly maligned Cry Baby Cry?
Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da and Revolution.

The song that Paul was pushing to be the next single vs the song John was pushing to be the next single. Or if you prefer, the song that John (and George) "openly and vocally detested" vs the song that Paul and George thought was too politically 'on the nose' to be the next single. Or the song that Paul had made his bandmate slog through three recorded versions vs the song Paul and George had (rather unwittingly) goaded John into completely rerecording.

The Beatles 'every member has a veto' policy had them deadlocked. Where they used to earmark a song as a single before it had even been written now they were at a standstill. In fact, worse than a standstill, they were forcing themselves to go back and rerecord songs like some kind of tie-breaker. In the end neither John nor Paul got what they wanted. Paul gave up on Ob-La-Di* and offered Hey Jude in it's place and Revolution was relegated to the B side.

So it's my hunch that the bad feeling at the session and the eagerness to disassociate themselves with Cry Baby Cry was actually based on all the crap that has gone on before.

Does this have anything to say to us lesser mortals trying to write better songs?

Recovering From A Difficult Birth

Songwriters and recording artists can find it impossible to be objective about their own work. For an artist, the song is almost inseparable from the circumstances of it's creation. John said “I can't stand hearing them all the time! Because I have to relive the sessions. It's not like I hate Beatles music. It's like reading an old diary [or going] through your old snapshots”**

A song that flowed out in a single sitting or a track that was a first take is always going to have a warm glow about it. Compare that to a song that was slaved over, rewritten, rerecorded, remixed endlessly. I experienced this with my song I Got Lost. When I heard positive comments from first time listeners I was surprised. I had regarded the song as difficult and inaccessible. Why? I struggled to get the vocal track down, recording it over three separate sessions. The dread of revisiting the vocal booth had coloured my perception of the song.

When the audience hears our song they only hear the song. But a songwriter can hear 'two' songs. The song as they originally conceived of it and the reality. The intention verse the execution. This is an insidious pastime to indulge in because the imaginary song is often perfect whereas the reality can fall drastically short.

So once you have created your song, open it out to the world. During the creation process yours is the only opinion that truly matters so 'keep the door shut'. But once you've finished, or more accurately, 'released' your song your opinion of it is only one among many and no more valid than anyone else's. Listen to others and be willing to be wrong.

Cry Baby Cry isn't deep and meaningful, but it is a great song. It's the result of simply Lennon's imagination taking a stroll in the Wonderland of his youth. It's a well crafted in performance arrangement and composition. That's what I'd tell John and Paul.

Recommended Post: How To Catch A Song Without Killing It
and Three Hammer Prevention Questions


*Paul's nose for a number one was vindicated when Marmalade topped the charts with a faithful cover of the track in 1969.
**All We Are Saying (p.148)

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10:47 Hey Jude (pt.1) – Mistakes And Myths In A Song Of Two Halves

Hey Jude was written by McCartney on the way to visit Lennon's newly-estranged family. He crooned his way though rehearsals at Abbey Road (as heard on Anthology 3) but recorded at Trident Studios in Soho, lured no doubt by the relative ease of doing orchestral overdubs on 8 track tape.

The recording itself was a comedy of errors - some cool, some not.

Ringo walked out to go to the toilet … but … I still thought he was in his drum booth. I started what was the actual take … and while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, 'boom boom boom', his timing was absolutely impeccable. So I think when those things happen, you have a little laugh and a light bulb goes off in your head and you think ... “this has got to be the take, what just happened was so magic!”

Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now (p.466)

At some point during the tracking someone shouted an expletive which remained undetected (or at least 'uncorrected') in the finished mix [at 2:58]. The usual suspects are

Paul McCartney hitting a wrong chord on the piano track and shouting “Wrong chord! F***in hell!”

John Lennon hitting a wrong chord on the acoustic guitar track and shouting “Wrong chord! F***in hell!”

John Lennon recording backing vocals finding the volume levels in his headphones way too loud shouting “Oh! F***in hell!”

According to John (via Geoff Emerick/John Smith) it was Paul* (in which case it was allowed to stand with their full knowledge like many other Beatles 'mistakes'). Personally I'd accuse Lennon in the studio with the guitar, though I can't hear anyone play a wrong chord and the mystery voice seems to have a yorkshire rather than scouse accent.

Problems with the equipment at Trident meant that once the tapes got back to Abbey Road for mixing they had to be heavily re-EQ'd by Geoff Emerick (the cymbals still sound particularly horrible at 0:52).

There's an urban myth that Paul used the same piano as Freddie Mercury used on Bohemian Rhapsody – he didn't**. And Walter Everett*** say the bass guitar was muted in the coda to make room for the 'bottom heavy orchestra', but Paul's bass track is clearly audible until 6:54, where it stops for 6 seconds and then comes back in.

Let's talk about that coda.

The song is a standard AABA structure (Ticket 26) with a huge C section on the end that doubles the running time. While it may sound like a remnant glued on from another song it was always part of Hey Jude and shares a number of musical elements with the A and B sections.

Imagine the song without the coda (and the 'better, better...' link). Perhaps the final verse winds down with Paul delivering the final line solo. What's left is a sweet little ballad. A great example, but one of many piano ballads by Paul McCartney, one of many gifted piano balladeers. But with the C section the song is lifted into a different league. The coda is literally a 'release', a huge, joyful, inarticulate yet cathartic, 'musical group hug'.

Repeated chord cycles of any length are rare throughout the entire Beatles catalogue****. and very long ones even rarer***** (as are fade outs) yet this slow moving four bar melody cycles round NINETEEN TIMES(!) which does become tiresome when the only real variations are George Martin's uncharacteristically bland orchestration and Paul's impression of Little Richard with Tourette's.

So why is it so long?

McCartney says they were having so much fun jamming they decided to keep going******. Others think that Paul had a point to prove, wanting to outdo other artists. Richard Harris had recently scored a hit with MacArthur Park which ran for 7:21. Composer Jimmy Webb (who visited Abbey Road around this time) said “George Martin once told me the Beatles let Hey Jude run to over seven minutes because of MacArthur Park”. Webb's story is believable (the band were in the process of recording a really long album) but, if length was Paul's goal he would never have settled for Hey Jude falling 14 seconds short of the record. Whatever the motive was for the coda's length it probably wasn't an artistic consideration. How long it should be is up for grabs but the coda is 'too' long.

In future posts we'll look at one way to write meandering McCartney melodies and why the lyrics look terrible but are actually brilliant.

Footnotes

*Here There And Everywhere p. 262-3
**Queen did use this studio (and piano) but not for Bohemian Rhapsody. See the long thread here if you have time to kill. 
***The Beatles As Musicians Vol 2
**** See The Band Who Kept Expanding
***** I Want You (She's So Heavy) is a similar length and similarly structured
******But I can't for the life of me find the source. I am a bad researcher. BAD RESEARCHER!




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10:39 Back In The USSR (pt 2) Stuttering

One of my favourite bits is the 'scratched record' effect at the end of chorus 2 (0:59). It's similar Revolution 1's time change (at 3:24) created by Geoff Emerick's editing mistake. Here McCartney deliberately uses a 'Lennon Extension' (Ticket 52) probably attempting another 'joke' - “Back in the US? No! -Back in the USSR”. Geddit?

There are numerous ways of analysing it musically.

It could be 4/4 3/4 3/4 4/4. Or perhaps the time signature remains in 4/4 (with a bar of 2/4 to set it right) with McCartney singing a hemiola cross-rhythm over the top (Ticket 29). If so it's cool to note the hemiola is in our heads – no one is actually playing a 4/4 beat.

More than just a cool bit, this tiny idea has a big effect on the whole song structure.

Chorus 1 – is fresh because we hear it for the first time
Chorus 2 – is a surprise. We expect to hear the same chorus but instead we get the hemiola
Chorus 3 – is uncertain because we don't know which variation we're going to get (we get chorus 1 again)
Chorus 4 – is a partial surprise because hearing chorus 1,2,1 we are half expecting 2 again. (we get 1 again)

Just a few seconds freshen up the whole chorus section, because it subtly undermines the predictability of the chorus.

Try that in your songs. Throw one tiny spanner into chorus just to keep people on their toes. (Ticket 72).

Hurry Up George

One really got the impression that George was being given a certain amount of time to do his tracks whereas the others could spend as long as they wanted. One felt under more pressure when doing one of George’s songs.

Geoff Emerick in Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions

We tried to record [While My Guitar Gently Weeps], 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 ... [getting Eric Clapton into the studio] made everyone act better. Paul got on the piano and played a nice intro and they all took it more seriously.

George Harrison in Anthology

Almost every Beatles song has a 'story' – the 'story' of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is that Harrison asked Clapton to play on the track to make the rest of the Beatles 'behave' and take the song seriously. The bigger 'narrative' is that Harrissongs were second class citizens at Abbey Road and didn't have the same care lavished on them as Lennon & McCartney tunes.

But is that really true?

The band tracked the song on the 5th Sept 1968. Clapton recorded his part on the 6th. The only contributions on that day, other than George himself, were Paul's vocal harmonies and bass, and Ringo's tambourine and castanets overdubs. It's hard to believe that Eric's presence had any real effect on the band's behaviour at that late stage. UPDATE 50th Anniversary Edition reveals Clapton tracked his part live with the band on the 5th.

What about other tracks?

Here's a list of all George's Beatles tracks* with the number of takes spent on the rhythm track. I've used this as a rule of thumb because that's the only time the whole band would need to be involved. Overdubs might not require any other member.

One Take

Think for Yourself
If I Needed Someone
Blue Jay Way
Savoy Truffle

10 Takes Or Less

All Things Must Pass – 2
Love You To - 3
It's All Too Much - 4
Old Brown Shoe - 4
I Need You - 5
I Want to Tell You - 5
For You Blue – 6
You Like Me Too Much - 8
Only a Northern Song - 9

20 Takes Or Less

Don't Bother Me - 11
Piggies - 11
Here Comes the Sun - 13
Taxman - 15
I Me Mine - 16

40 Takes Or More

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - 43
Something - 49
Long, Long, Long - 67
Not Guilty** – 101

Abbey Road Scrapyard

Four of these tracks were not only laboured over, but recorded, then scrapped, and rerecorded.

Don't Bother Me - 7 takes, then scrapped. Version 2 - 4 more takes.
Taxman - 4 takes, then scrapped. Version 2 - 11 more takes.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps – demoed at Abbey Road 2 takes. Full band version 1 - 14 takes, then scrapped. Version 2 - 28 more takes.
Something -13 takes, then scrapped. Version 2 - 36 more takes.

In the case of While My Guitar Gently Weeps it wasn't merely the backing tracks that were scrapped. After tracking 'version 1' Harrison spent an entire eight-hour session trying to record a backwards guitar solo. The following day he recorded two lead vocal parts, alongside maracas, drums and lead guitar. Then he binned the whole thing, enlisted Eric Clapton and started all over again.

What to make of all this?

The proportion of 1st takes to 101 takes, and of scrapping recordings and starting again, looks broadly same as Lennon & McCartney's work on their own songs. Michelle was recorded (and mixed) in a single day. Happiness Is A Warm Gun took forever. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Strawberry Fields Forever were scrapped and rerecorded, as were One After 909 and Hold Me Tight.

As I've written before it's one thing taking up your bandmate's time with something either world class (Strawberry Fields) or very complex (Warm Gun). But imprisoning them in the studio so you can flog a dead horse (Maxwell, Ob-La-Di, Not Guilty) is just going to make everyone crazy.

Looking at the figures it's hard to believe George got a raw deal when he'd made John 'world's shortest attention sp...oh look something shiny' Lennon sit at the Electric Harpsichord for 101 takes***.

George seems to have been indecisive or ill-prepared**** when working on his own songs and, perhaps understandably, lacking in confidence. Compared to the uber-confident, omnicompetent McCartney (who demoed a 'full band' version of Come And Get It on his own, in one hour!) and the laid back Lennon (who often got bored of his own songs before anyone else could) he was perhaps the least fun Beatles to 'work for'.

*I've not included The Inner Light and Within You Without You as no other Beatle was involved with the basic track.

**Not Guilty was not included on The White Album and remained unreleased until Anthology 3.

***Perhaps that explains why Lennon often excused himself when George was recording one of his songs. Of the 22 released, Lennon plays no part in 6, and contributes only backing vocals to 4 others.

****For example each 'version' of While My Guitar has different (or extra) lyrics.

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10:1 The Beatles (aka The White Album) Introduction

Personally Speaking

It's hard for me to be objective about The White Album (I know it's called 'The Beatles' but that's just going to get too confusing). It is forever linked in my memory with the C120 cassette my older sister had recorded it on and lent me. The fact it was on a C120 marked it out as A VERY SPECIAL ALBUM. I am sure that my love of out of key chord progressions is directly linked to repeated listens as a 10 year old. The chromatically rising 5th in Glass Onion, the descending I to VII in Sexy Sadie, the major to minor and back again movement in Piggies are hardwired into my brain and are as much a part of my musical DNA as they are for the men who wrote the songs. In contrast to Let It Be (a few good songs and a few funny bits) and Abbey Road (never heard the album till I started Beatles Songwriting Academy) I feel like this album is part of me.

That Difficult Ninth Album

When looking at the context it's crucial to understand that this is the follow up to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Since that watershed the band had produced several hit singles, an EP soundtrack to a critically panned TV special, contributed a few filler tracks to a film soundtrack (released after TWA) and a whole library full of unreleased atonal jams. But this was the Beatles finally back in album mode. The 'blank' cover was a very conscious reaction to the Pepper cover. Which means that, whatever it's shortcomings as an album, The White Album is possibly the greatest follow up to a world changing album of all time.

Context

It's well documented that this is the album where the Beatles started to break up but it's good to appreciate the level of fragmentation and loss that they were operating at.

This was, of course, the first album since the death of Brian Epstein. Prior to recording the White Album the band (especially Lennon and Harrison) had seriously entertained the possibility of quitting the music business to become full time disciples of the Maharishi. When that dream died the band started a major corporation instead and also opened (then closed) the Apple Boutique.

Lennon had a mental breakdown (proclaiming himself Jesus Christ at a business meeting), started a relationship with Yoko Ono, got divorced and Yoko suffered a miscarriage before they were both arrested on drugs charges. Feeling marginalised and unloved Ringo quit the band in the middle of recording (on the day Cynthia Lennon sued for divorce) returning two weeks later. Paul split up with Jane Asher after 5 years together. Long time engineer Geoff Emerick walked out due to the acrimonious working atmosphere and George Martin took a month long holiday in the middle of proceedings, leaving inexperienced producer Chris Thomas in charge. Even when George was around the increased workload of making a double album forced the band to work on several tracks at the same time and Martin's failure to be omnipresent further reduced his active involvement on the album.

Growth

Arguably The Beatles pushed more convincingly into different genres than any time before or since. They take a good stab at musique concrete, blues, folk and 1920's jazz while, at the same time recording a track (I Will) that could have seamlessly replaced And I Love Her on the A Hard Day's Night soundtrack.

Rishikesh

Whatever the effects of ashram living on the Beatles spirituality, mental health, long term relationships or digestion, spending a month in India writing songs was undoubtedly the secret ingredient in making The White Album such a triumph. It was the most preparation the Beatles ever gave an album. They even managed some preproduction, demoing 26 tunes.

Is It Really A Solo Album?

It's a common misconception that on The White Album the Beatles recorded separately, but with common purpose (rather like that rash of Kiss albums in the late 70's) – everyone working in their own corner of Abbey Road Studios. The facts don't bear this out.

The band recorded 19 Rishikesh songs*. All bar Wild Honey Pie were later demoed at George's house. Which means that the whole band had multiple opportunities to listen, critique and select most of the album tracks. 15 of the finished tracks feature the whole band including (surprisingly) Piggies, Rocky Raccoon and Honey Pie. In fact there are only 6 truly solo tracks and (surprisingly) I Will is not one of them. Of those 6 solo tracks, only two were written back in the UK.

In Conclusion

Yes, it's sprawling. Yes, it features Ringo's second best composition, and the presence of Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da and Revolution 9 show that songwriting quality control was starting to become lax, but for the songwriter there are a million great lessons ahead.

Let me introduce you to Julia.

*The songs they dropped were Harrison's Circle, Sour Milk Sea and Not Guilty and Lennon's What's The New Mary Jane, Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam and Child Of Nature (which later became Jealous Guy). And sadly, none of the guys wanted to touch McCartney's Junk.