In 2007 british actor Peter Serafinowicz made some funny sketches about the Beatles for his “Peter Serafinowicz Show” on BBC, playing the role of all of them.

Here you are the ones you can watch on internet. They’re great, aren’t they? I laughed to death.

For the Beatles, Across the Universe was rather an odissey than a song. More than two years passed from the very first recording to the release of the most famous remix. In the meantime, there were six takes, a lot of rehearsals and at least three mixings. All of it with without making its author satisfied.

John Lennon always loved this song. He said he had written it as it came in mind, one morning, writing the lyrics first and the melody later. It was basically poetry in music, something very unusual for him.

He had in mind to release it as an A-side of a single, and that was his hope when he brought the other Beatles to start recording on February the 4th 1968. But during the day, something became clear soon: no one of them had idea how to play it.

Sadly at that time they suffered from such a lack of energy, after hard working on Revolver and Sgt Pepper during 1966-67. All the things they recorded after – including some real masterpieces – showed anyway more than a problem inside the band, something to become clearer during the year, while recording the White Album. Considering also a big drug intake (Lennon was a real Lsd-addicted at that time), the result was some chaotic sessions, such a mind confusion and a randomic way of working, doing and redoing many times the same songs. It seemed they had no more those graceful feelings of Sgt.Pepper sessions, the capability of having few good ideas and improve them with no hesitations.

On February the 4th the Beatles recorded 6 takes of Across the Universe, trying some different ways. At first the played acoustic instruments with a big amount of effects, later they added ethnic drums and sitar (it’s the take 2, as you can listen on Anthology album). In the afternoon they seemed to be satisfied of take 6, such an acoustic ballad.

But when they turned to work after a break, they started again experimenting. John recorded his vocals, but suddenly had the idea of adding some female choirs. So they took two of the little girls which used to stay day and night in front of the Abbey Road studios (called Apple Scruffs) and, despite their obvious anxiety, they made them sing not too much in tune some background choirs in the chorus.
As if it wasn’t enough, in the evening the Beatles added bass and drums too, destroying the acoustic nature of the song. They also recorded some takes of psychedelic effects and noises (with instruments played backward etc.) to be added later – no one knows how.

They spent some days completing Lady Madonna, then on February the 8th they went on torturing Across the Universe. First of all they threw away the bass and drums tracks, and added some other background vocals at their place; then went on experimenting some different instruments, such organ, mellotron and guitar.
But at the end they gave up and chose for the next single the other two songs they had recorded in the same days: Lady Madonna and The Inner Light. They couldn’t help this song finding its way.

But John Lennon didn’t give up for a long. Some months passed, they recorded and released the White Album. In January 1969, when they started rehearsing at Twickenham theatre, Lennon suggested this song again.
Let’s listen to a short passage of those rehearsals:

As you can notice, the song was played, according to the Get Back project philosophy, by all of them live, including this way bass and drum. It’s well known they were very crappy sessions, but it has to be said they could finally play Across the Universe a little better than in the vid before.

They worked hard on harmonized voices, singing in two in the verse and in three in the chorus, this one in a fascinating way, although at a point you can hear Harrison complaining it’s too high for him.
One of my favourite is the one of January the 7th 1969 (you can find it on the “Let it Be Rehearsals” vol. 1 bootleg): despite some mistakes, it’s quite pretty played and shows McCartney singing good background vocals on the second verse and jamming such a bass solo at the end.

Anyway, it seemed this song had no future. Unhappy with the result, the Beatles gave up again and didn’t play it any more as they moved to the Apple Studios.

Like a song of second choice, it became the Beatles‘ contribution to a charity album for the WWF, called from its chorus “Nothing’s gonna change our world”. George Martin, with no one of the Beatles in the studio, on October the 2th 1969 took the 1968 recording and mixed it with some bird singing effects and most of all speeding it up to semi-tone higher. The album was released in December 1969 and nowadays you can find this version in Past Masters vol. 2.

It seemed the song could rest in peace, but it was not so. In May 1969 producer Glyn Johns was asked to mix a master for an lp from the enormous number of takes recorded during the Get Back sessions. Across the Universe was not included, also since it had not been recorded ad the Apple Studios, but just rehearsed at Twickenham (so there were no professional recordings).
In January 1970 Glyn Johns was asked to make another version of the album. This time there was an important difference: the movie which would become Let it Be was nearly made and it had a very short passage of Across the Universe. So they thought the song had to be included in the album
Not having something like good recordings of the song from the Get Back Sessions, Glyn Johns was forced to use the 1968 recording again. So he threw away all effects and choirs, so to make people believe it was a live performance at the Apple Studios. On January the 5th 1970 he brought its mixing to the Beatles.

But this version had to remain unreleased. Glyn John’s mixings were refused again and the new producer was the unfamous Phil Spector.

Spector, well known even before for his “wall of sound”, worked on Let it Be multiplying if possibile his exagereted use of the orchestra and reverbers; this trying to hide the more he could the low quality of recordings.

Across the Universe was actually the only one not to need it, having been recorded non at the Apple but at the Abbey Road studios; anyway it was mixed by the same logic and flooded by a string ensemble in a Disney-like way – as Ian MacDonald ironically wrote.
The track was also slowed down to a D drop.

That’s the most famous version, as it was released on Let it Be on May the 8th 1970.

Could the song have finally peace?
Not completely.
In 2003, when Paul McCartney worked on Let it Be…Naked project, Across the Universe was mixed for another odd time.
Basically the philosophy of that project was to release Get Back as it had been conceived at the beginning, a live album with no overdubs; so Across the Universe shouldn’t be included, not having been recorded at the Apple studios.
But they made a differente choice, not to make the album too different from Let it Be; and since they hadn’t anything better, they took for another time the 1968 take and threw everything away but lead voice and guitar, to make us believe it was a live performance.

Such a pretty swindle, isn’it?

Paul McCartney’s passion for jazz and swing music is well known. It was a family heritage, his father having been a pianist in a little band back in the 40s. Paul himself had began playing the trumpet.
So it’s no surprise some of his songs recall that style: the famous “When I’m 64” from Sgt. Pepper, “Honey Pie” from the White Album, not to forget “You Gave Me the Answer” from his solo album Venus and Mars.

Of all these, “When I’m 64” was written during Beatles’ very early years. Some remember them playing it in Hamburg, as a quite break of their show.
But there was another Paul’s song the Beatles used to play in those years: it was called “Cat Walk”.

Here it is:

(you can find it also in bootleg album “The songs the Beatles gave away”).

Except this home recording, the Beatles never released this song. But in 1967 it was put on record by the Chris Barber Band, with another title (“Cat Call”) and Paul credited as the only author.

Let’s listen to it:

Delicious, isn’t it? I think it’s my favourite one of all songs the Beatles gave to other artists.
Maybe the same as “It’s for You”. But we should talk about it later…

Just like Lennon’s Rickenbacker, the viola bass is Paul McCartney’s instrument par excellence, so much that he still plays it. And yet it has to be said that he chose it for several reasons, not all of whom concerning music.

Paul McCartney wasn’t a bass player at the beginning. When the Beatles played in Hamburg during 1960-61, he was one of the three guitarists of the band (with John and George), and bass player was Stu Sutcliffe. Stu, a young and promising painter, had joined the band more for being one of Lennon’s greatest friends than for his musical skills. Bass sound, anyway, was not considered much at that time and a band would be satisfied with someone playing just tonic notes with enough rhythm. Stu soon got bored of this and didn’t join all performances; at the end, when he decided to marry Astrid Kirckherr, a german girl, and stay in Hamburg, he definitively was out of the band.

Paul McCartney had played bass guitar in Hamburg when Stu didn’t join; when they came back to Liverpool he became the one and only bass player; but he needed to buy a new instrument, since Stu’s Rosetti bass was more than broken. But Paul didn’t have much money: even before, when he played guitar, he was forced to use some instruments of second choice. So he chose one of the cheapest basses he found: a Hofner 500/1 with short neck and a strange viola shape.

Asked in an interview during the 60s, he said that choice had been just for lack of money: “It’s just that it’s very cheap – he said – and I’m a bit mean, you know”. Talking more seriously, he later explained it was a matter of shape too: he’s left-handed and this bass is symmetrical; so it would look nice even if played upside down. It wasn’t that easy at that time to find instruments for left-handed (think about Jimi Hendrix!).

The fame of the Beatles made this strange instrument, too, well known over the world. So Hofner company didn’t lose such a business chance and in 1964 gave McCartney a new model, similar in the shape but with some little technical differences (pickup position, pickguard etc.). Paul went on using this new one as the main bass guitar, and the old one as backup. Some years later – as they say – the latter was stolen.

But in 1966 he began being unsutisfied with Hofner sound. At that time he was trying to obtain a more powerful and clear bass sound on records, so to support better the new style he was improving: the sound of their albums of psychedelic period (Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour). With EMI engineers he tried some new ways of using microphones and mixing; but it took to switch to another bass guitar, too: Rickenbacker 4001 S-LH.

McCartney anyway didn’t leave his Hofner at all: he played it sometimes during his last years with the Beatles and most of all during the Get Back/Let it Be sessions. But as soloist he preferred most of the time Rickenbacker models.

Paul not only ownes this Hofner still, but he plays it very often, live too. Someone says this is happened cause of Elvis Costello, which wrote with Paul some albums between 80s and 90s. Being asked if he would join him to produce what would be released as “Flowers in the Dirt”, he answered he would only if Paul had played his old Hofner viola bass. And that’s it.

Nowadays Hofner company still produces three versions of this guitar: the second and the third are replicas of Paul’s models. They’re called 500/1 Vintage ‘59, 500/1 Vintage ‘62 e 500/1 Vintage ‘63 and you can find more informations here. They’re sold at about 1200/2000 euros. Hofner offers also a model called Violin Bass from its CT series, not a reissue but a modern bass with a vintage shape, for 5/600 euros.

There’s also a replica by Epiphone, not exactly the same but very similar, called simply Viola Bass: you can have it for 250/350 euros.
At least you can find many other replicas, cheaper and surely not as good as the ones before.
A vintage model from the 60s, instead, could be yours if you can afford about 1500/2000 euros.

Most people agree that the fourth Beatles album, called for a joke “Beatles for sale”, is not one of their best ones at all.

Explications talk about the hurry and the stressed mood the Beatles were involved in during recording sessions. When the four came in studio on August the 11th 1964, they came from mounths over mounths of hard work with no break at all. On June they had finished “A Hard Day’s Night”, new album and soundtrack of their first movie. Then they had travelled around the world for a couple of mounths, playing from June to July in Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zeland, Sweden and doing a lot of performances for radio and tv shows. In the meantime, on July the 6th there had been the premiere of the movie in London. All this effort led to another great ammount of success: at the beginning of August “A Hard Day’s Night” was on the top of the UK and US charts. And there was a tour in the United States to be done between August and September.

It sounds strange for a band, being so busy, to start recording new stuff. But marketing was different at that time, and the Beatles had to release at least two albums a year. So they decided to spend some breaks from touring recording a new album to be released during Christmas time.

It looks clear, then, that they had no songs enough for a new record. Don’t forget the album before was the first one to present only Lennon-McCartney songs: such an effort in creativity was hard to repeat after few weeks.

So the band tried to find a solution using some old material not released on record yet. Basically they chose some rock n’ roll evergreens they were used to play live; but they were forced, too, to record some of their previously unreleased songs.

As matter of facts, if you read the tracklist, you’ll notice there’re 14 songs, 6 of which are covers (Rock And Roll Music, Mr Moonlight, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, Words of Love, Honey Don’t, Everybody’s Trying to Be my baby); plus 5 new songs and “I’ll Follow the Sun”, that McCartney wrote in his teenage.

Dispite all of this, the album was just another hit over the world: that proves just the Beatles at that time could make gold out of everything they touched. Realeased in the UK on December the 4th, and in the US on the 15th as “Beatles ‘65”, it topped soon both the charts.

As he told Mark Lewisohn, George Martin is not so proud about this album. He thinks it came out of hurry and tiredness and it represents a lack of creativity of the band.

I don’t agree completely. It’s sure it’s an album without much coherence and first choice material. Most of the covers anyway show the Beatles as good as usual in terms of improving others’ songs. Try comparing “Rock And Roll Music” or “Kasas City” with the original versions: you’ll notice the Beatles’ ones are stronger and much more exciting.

It’s true new songs are not all good the same. But technically they show some little experiments, as to prove the Beatles were just tired and simply had no time, but they were all but in lack of creativity. “I Feel Fine” presents the very first feedback on a rock record; “Eight Days a Week” starts with an unusual fade-in; “Every Little Thing” and the delicious “What You’re Doing” offer some interesting experimental drum parts. Not to forget that during those sessions they recorded “She’s A Woman” (not to be put on the album), which about a year and a half before “Rain” and “Paperback Writer” show one of the first attempts to innovate bass sound, that would be one of their main interests during 1966-67.

About lyrics, instead, “I’m a Loser” was one of the first songs Lennon, influenced by Bob Dylan, tried to write autobiographically, apart from the “boy meets girl” cliché.

At the end I think it’s a good album, not a masterpiece anyway, but it deserves attention for a number of reasons.

p.s. or maybe it’s just that it reminds me my teenage, since it was the last one I bought for my collection of vynils. I came in the shop to buy only “With the Beatles” and they told me they were about to switch to Cds only; so I thought I should hurry buying “Beatles for Sale” too…

Look at this font: do you recognize it?

It’s the exact reproduction of the one used for the logo on Ringo Starr’s basedrum. You can donwload it for free here.

Beatles’ story it’s not just the one of a rock band: for more than a reason it’s the story of contemporary music itself and of its technical progress.
The years of activity of the band saw an autentic revolution of studio recording technics, passing soon from primitive overdubbing methods to modern multitrack machines.

When the four first came to studio, George Martin could show them all marvellous possibilities of technology of that time, which allowed to record a song using two different tracks.
Being so, they usually divided their work recording a live musical base first, and all voices on the second track later. There were also some overdubs, but it took a method so complicated that they used it only for very short parts: there was to record a new take listening to the one before, and then put both takes over a third one, trying to synchronize them exactly.

All early Beatles’ records were made this way, which explains also why the stereo version of those songs has all instruments on a channell and all voices on the other.

A great change happened when new four-track recorders were adopted in 1964 (maybe the first song recorded on it was “I Want to Hold your Hand”). Now they could have fun using more overdubs with much more cure for details. Think about “Help!”: if you listen to the basic recording made on the first track, you can notice the lack of the country guitar phrase at the end of every chorus (for ex. before the first verse “when I was younger etc.”). That phrase was recorded later on a different track, allowing Harrison to play concentrated and eventually redoing it in case of mistakes.

Working on “Rubber Soul” in 1965, for the first time the whole 4-tracks technique was fully used to create new sounds: in the next two years all this would improve to new and revolutionary possibilities. Paul McCartney, for example, soon wanted his bass part to be recorded later on another track, so to allow a better mixing (improvement of bass sound was one the Beatles’ main problems in 1966-67). They usually did so: the band recorded a basic track, with just essential instruments: drum, bass (sometimes), rhythm guitar, keyboards and a lead voice to be cancelled later. From now on they started overdubbing, trying and experimenting several versions. If all of four tracks were full and song was not finished yet, they bounced two tracks down, trying to balance the two volumes correctly (it would not be possible fix such a mistake during mixing). And so and so until the end: that’s the way “Sgt. Pepper” was recorded.

But the Beatles, eternally unsatisfied, soon became bored and frustrated about only four tracks, also since they knew the were eight-tracks recorders. That caused some problems with the EMI, which policy was not to switch to new machines before testing them for a long time.
That’s why the earliest eight-tracks sessions of the Beatles took place not at Abbey Road Studios, but at indipendent Trident Studios, while working on White Album. The first song to be recorded this way was “Hey Jude” in 1968; some weeks later, the new technology was used also for some strange solutions: for example, the drum parts of “Back in the USSR” and “Deat Prudence”, recorded while Ringo Starr was out of the band, were played by all three other ones, putting together different parts from different tracks.

Now possibilites were enormous, and it has to be said that they used them mainly for their maniacal cure for details, which is what most of all characterizes their best records. The Beatles went on recording a base track all together; the other seven ones, beside vocals, were filled sometimes with apparently minimal but essential parts. The better clue is “Abbey Road”, the last album to be recorded, which after the live experiment of “Get Back” put Beatles back to work with George Martin: it’s a masterpiece of precision, smartness and cure for details.

However it was hard work the main difference between the Beatles and the others. You cannot become a Beatle by chance.

When the double-album “The Beatles” was released (or the White Album as soon was called from its cover), the press and the fans took it as a new masterpiece. Writing on The Observer, Tony Palmer suggested the Beatles to be the greatest songwriters ever since Schubert. That article soon became well-known for this phrase, but actually it was moved by a great appreciement for the musical variety of the record: “do you want some rock n’ roll? The Beatles have done it and better… do you want some blues? The Beatles have done it and better…”

The press and the fans didn’t know, anyway, that the record was what came out of several mounths of discussions between the Beatles themselves and between them and their technicians, of drug intake and nights over nights spent doing nothing but losing time. What seemed to be just the new masterpiece was actually the first step on the way to the break-out.

When the Beatles started recording on May the 30th 1968, that meant coming back to studios after the long sessions which led to Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. Many things were different. Their manager Brian Epstein was dead by a overdose of pills. The four had tried to escape in the arms of oriental meditation, following the spiritual leader Marahishi in his indian monastry; but since it was a disappointing experience, they left back all hippie suggestions. In the world the summer of love 1967 became the barricades of 1968.

John Lennon was the most changed. In few mounths he had got rid of his Lsd addiction and met the woman of his life: the infamous Yoko Ono. Both of these events took him back to the aggressive mood and egocentricity tipical of his early years. Aware of having lost the leadership of the band, he strongly wanted to take it back.

Things became going wrong from the very beginning. First of all, John took Yoko with him in studio, something that had never happened before and strongly disturbed their work. Then he pretended such a politicization of the band, suggesting Revolution as the first song to be recorded and claiming it as the next single. The other, and especially Paul, were afraid of the public opinion and tried gently to make him giving it up. That caused one of the first discussions. John, out of spite, recorded the next track himself: Revolution 9, a dadaistic collage of noise and voices, just as sperimental as boring.

From that moment they went on recording in a new way. Anyone of them recorded his own songs using the others as sessionmen, often overdubbing alone. What had been their better quality – team working – seemed vanished. According to those who were there, in the studio there was a neverending state of tension, the Beatles very often discussing between them and with the engineers. Many times they were drugged (Lennon had started taking heroin) and forced the Abbey Road staff to long pointless night-sessions. In a word, they switched to the well-known unbearable rockstar mood.

The result was a big ammount of quarrels. Geoff Emerick, the engineer which had played a very important role in the success of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, left before the end of the work: he didn’t take anymore that frozen atmosphere. George Martin stayed, but he couldn’t have really the situation under control: he often let the Beatles produce themselves, and at one point he went on holyday, as if he was not necessary anymore. Finally, Ringo Starr went away and announced he wanted to leave the band: he was tired to be just the sessioman of three egocentric which simply didn’t know what they wanted.

Being so, it’s strange even that they could complete the work. But the result was a long and pointless album, with too many differences of quality between songs and a great number of fillers as never heard in a Beatles’ record. A double album, 30 songs: but mainly a collection of soloist albums.

It’s known what George Martin thought about: he tried to the very end to make them choose just 14 songs and release a single album. But fruitlessly. After 40 years, he didn’t change his mind. Not so Paul McCartney: as self-indulgent as he often is, he still defend that choice.

I’ll tell you my opinion.
I love this record and it’s still one of my favourite albums ever. I remember how excited I was, when I was a boy and bought it, and for the first time I played the Lp and started listening to “Back in the Ussr”.
I must admit anyway that it’s full of fillers and since Cds and iPods exist I started using a lot the forward button. Many would probably not agree, but I think that “Obladì Obladà” is one of the silliest songs ever written: I get nervous even just listening to the first notes.

I think the record rapresents a great improvement of Lennon as songwriter, and a period of lack of inspiration by Paul. After having taken on his shoulder most of the songwriting between 1966 and 1967, during 1968 McCartney, apart from “Lady Madonna” and “Hey Jude” (which were not put on the album) couldn’t suggest nothing but incomplete scribbles, more studio jam sessions than songs.

So I think George Martin was right, and I too, as many other Beatles fans, have fun suggesting my personal list of songs for the “single White Album”. Her you are:

1) Back in the USSR
2) Dear Prudence
3) While my guitar gently weeps
4) Happiness is a warm gun
5) Glass Onion
6) Blackbird
7) I’m so tired
Julia
9) Yer Blues
10) Cry Baby Cry
11) Helter Skelter
12) Long Long Long
13) Sexy Sadie
14) Good Night

And you? Which is your list?

The Beatles (The White Album)

According to the Daily Mirror  Paul Mccartney is about to announce for the next autumn the start of his last tour ever.

It will be a colossal two-years tour across all the five continents, after which Paul is going to stop touring to spend more time with his family (he got a four years old daughter to grow up, anyway).

If so, we’re going to learn more in the next weeks.

In the meantime, what do you think about? Dont’you think is normal being bored to travel around the world for a 66yo man which is always been too busy - as John Lennon once said - having 25.000 children and 25 album to promote at a time?

One of the main problems Beatles’ fans are involved in is which is the best or “authentic” version of their records: mono or stereo? Nowadays you can buy only stereo albums, as we use to; but during the 60s you could choose between both formats.

A solution is suggested by Mark Lewisohn - what a great man! - in his famous book. Talking about “Sgt. Pepper”, Richard Lush, second engeneer for that album, told him drastically: “The one and only version of Sgt. Pepper is the mono one, ‘cause all the Beatles worked on mixing. We made the stereo version later, faster and without them”.

As matter of fact, stereo format was so new in the 60s that very few people owned machines which could play it. So producers worked harder on mono mixings, being aware this would be the one to be listened.The very early Beatles’ records weren’t mixed stereo. When he had to do this later, George Martin had to fix the problem of making a stereo mix out of takes with all instruments on a track and all voices on the other one. That’s why those songs sound so strange to our ears, as unbalanced as they are. But they were not recorded for stereo.

When four-track recorders came in use, mixing became easier for both formats. The stereo one was anyway such a little brother of mono: stereo mixings were always made later and without any suggestment by the Beatles (who, on the other hand, started having much more decisional power about mono ones). A careless and fast mood which causes some lacks or differences between stereo and original mono. Anyone lucky enough to have listened to the mono version of “Sgt. Pepper” knows how if it’s not another record, anyway it sounds different. Think about the passage between “Good Morning Good Morning” and “Sgt. Pepper reprise”: in mono you can hear a famous link between a guitar note and the voice of a chicken, while in stereo there’s only the guitar.

Anyway stereo was so new that George Martin’s mixings sound so strange by today standards. Nowadays a producer who gets bass or drums toally panned on this or that channell would probably be fired; but that’s what we can hear on Beatles’ records.At the end, the real Beatles’ sound is in mono: that’s the only one approved and built by them. Think just that the first album to be mixed directly in stereo was “Let it be” in 1970…

p.s. there’s a Beatles’ song which was never mixed completely in stereo, since it had many sound effects added during mono mixing which would be hard to remake. As matter of fact, “I Am the Warlus” starts stereo and ends mono…