Visiting a Beatles Session

 This is part of an article written by Allan Hall that ran in The Sun on August 12, 1968   It was reproduced in the fanzine called "The Complete Beatlemaniac" in the March 10, 1969 issue, where I found it. 

By looking through The Beatles Recording Sessions (by Mark Lewisohn) I have deducted that the session Allan Hall sat through was July 25, 1968 for "While My Gutiar Gently Weeps."    That was the only George song recorded before August 12.

One of the few photos I have of a Beatles on July 25. 

As the car swung into the drive of the recording studios in St. John's Wood (don't ask me why there should be a recording studio in the middle of this fat suburb of London) the girls lolling on the pavement alerted each other and exchanged guesses about the identity of the new arrivals. 

It was 10 o'clock at night and neither I nor any other member of the entourage I arrived with looked like a Beatle.

The crowd were unlucky.  The Beatles had arrived at seven. They did not leave till four the next morning, but which time the St. John's Wood street was empty. 

There are some who think it is worth staying until four to catch a glimpse of Beatles; the trouble is that when they are on their recording sesions you can't rely on them finishing by four. 

Sometimes it can be six o'clock. It was the other morning. They had tired themselves out. Certainly they had tired out of the technicians. 

Does this perhaps exaggerate the scene - is it diffcult as all that? I was there. I now report it. 

Time for the commerical:  my grateful thanks to Mr. Lennon, Mr. McCartney, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Starr for having me there. They ahve in the past steadfastly refused to have outsiders at their recording sessions except that in this case they were prepared to let the SUN in. 

They are quite right, of course. It is not the same with somebody sitting there scribbling notes about the scene, trying to impose a form on something that is entirely form-free and joyously chaotic. 

The studio belongs to EMI, for whom the Beatles recorded until they formed Apple Records (the first breathlessly-awaited single will be out sometime this month).

Outside the St. John's Wood studio there is a bit of oo-ing and ah-ing from the girls as the Beatles aides go in.

Jeremy Banks, who graduated to the Beatles via Fleet Street ("The best university we've got") and the model photography business and is now an adviser in the Apple organization, wear a black jacket in the Georgian style, purple shirt and cravat and enough hair for a well-dressed yak.

His demeanor to the crowd is that of a world-weary stateman about to reapportion Europe but once inside the studio he is ragging with the Beatles. 

He has brougt in a huge photogrpah of Paul McCartney with Stanley Gortikov, president of Capitol Records in America. 

Paul scrawls an affectionate greeting on it for Gortikov and is due, apparently, to present it to the Capitol president, who is in London.

Apple Records recently signed a very satisfactory deal with Capitol to distribute in the United States, and Paul signifies his pleasure with an athletic salute and big kiss to the Capitol president in the photograph.

He has just come up form the studio floor to the control room and is neatly dressed by Beatle standards (he has had an Army haircut). He is wearing a conventional shirt, no tie, well-cut trousers and the most glaringly discret, shining, hand-made brown shoes I have ever seen.

John Lennon, by contrast is wearing cassual white shoes, white socks, black trouses that might fit somebody else better and an orange shirt with a black, sleeveless cardigan over it. His hair is long and a bit lank and behind those steel-rimmed glasses he looks poised to say something droll. 

He is sitting at a formidable console, manipulating a button which enables him to speak to George Harrison who is in a box on the studio floor, having sung for the 27 millionth time a song of his own composition. 

Ringo, in jeans, is sitting next to the console. He is not saying much but his eyes have an awareness that makes me think he is a partner to be reckoned with.

The Beatles did the instrumental backing during the previous two days. The tape of it is being played over and over agian and George is singing his words on top of it. 

Four times I have heard him sing the song.  "It's getting better all the time," says George Martin, the recording manager. He appears to be paying little attention - even reading the paper - but evidently is missing nothing. 

He is deliberately detached. He once said to me that he is now redundant -- the Beatles have learned so much abotu the art and technique of a record. But he starts the session with them, and he finishes with them - whatever the hour of the morning. 

He appears to leave everything to them, but his role psychologically is essential. I would think. He is very much the master of music. 

George Harrison has finished the song once again and shows no sign of impatience. It is taken for granted that he is going to have to sing it a hundred times more, and he still sounds appallingly keen. 

He is, however,getting slightly lost in the repetition:  "Just a minute, did I sing the same verse twice there?"  He did. 

Up at the console, John is encouraging. 

"It's great," he says, as Liverpool as George. "Like singing through a deaf aid." But he really means it. "It's coming," he says.  "It's coming."

George Harrison has been through the same song yet agian and then wants to hear the playback.  "It sounds a bit low, you know, to me."

Martin points out that Goerge is having difficulty enough with the falsetto bit, never mind putting the song up a key. 

John relays the message down to George and bums a cigarette from somebody. Martin, who stopped smoking at the beginning of this year and is dying fo rone, says John hasn't stopped smoking; just stopped buying them. 

Harrison is contemplating the 28 millionth repeat. The extraordinary thing is that I am still enjoying hearing it. 

Somehow John and Paul have drifted down there and are going through fragments of the song in their own idiosyncratic ways. 

"One more time," says John with a great big swinging American voice. He means three thousand more times, and the insistent beating background is played back again for George to sing to.

John and Paul, both of whom have a much more facile falsetto, are now hearding contributing a fragmentary obligato; it sounds good, and next time and the next time after that they are coming in more and more. 

Martin is now at the console in the control room and says" "When you're singing together you're all coming through loud and clear, equidistant. Is that the way you want it, not George in front?"

"Yeah," says John.  And he faintly mocks Martin with the repeat of Martin's word, "Yeah, equidistant," Martin smiles. 

George fluffs the next one and says sorry. John waiting fo the new start, singing quietly"  "Sorry, I said I'm sorry," to the tuen of Colonel Bogey.  Paul jumps to the piano to accompany him.

They may be perfectionists to the point of insanity, but they seem to be enjoying it. 

Round about midnight I ask Martin what is emergining from the bewildering variations George, John and Paul have worked on the song. 

There is no saying, at this stage. 

George wrote the song and might find the obbligato contributed by John and Paul is good; he might on the other hand think it's not what he meant the song to be about. 

"He knew himself that it wasn't right at first," says Martin. "He didn't need the others to tell him. Especially with a stranger here."

Meaning me.

I quietly backed out and Neil Aspinall, managing director of Apple, makes me a cup of coffee in the canteen kitchen. 

I suppose the song I was hearing recorded was playing nearly 200 times through the session. Nobody yet knows whethere it will eventually be heard. 

A young engineer called Ken Scott sat fiddling the knobs of the console, regulating the sound here and sound there, showing no sign of fatigue. "It's really only a big tape-recorder," he said.  I was greatly impressed; he could well have been captaining the yellow submarine. 

In the corner was a blond-haired boy who never said a word. Just recorded every time and then played it back. 

The Beatles had had enough by four in the morning. On that boy's soul, I thought, must be engraved this song. 

But he went out whistling "A Hard Day's Night."