Honey Pie

Among the songs that were demoed by the Beatles in May of 1968 was this tune by Paul McCartney that sounds as if it came right out of an old fashioned Hollywood musical from the 1930's.  Anthology 3 presents an edited version of Paul's Honey Pie demo, allowing us to listen in on the fun.  This demo was recorded at George Harrison's house in advance of the group moving into the studio to begin work on what turned out to be a sprawling double album.

The work on this album stretched out for months before the song finally resurfaced on October 1st at a session booked at Trident Studios in London.  All four Beatles were in attendance, and they obviously spent much of the session rehearsing the number before committing it to tape, as official documentation indicates that the master was take one.  The lineup for this take has Paul on piano, John on lead guitar, George on bass and Ringo on drums.

On the following day, Paul overdubbed his lead vocal and added a lead guitar part to the song's intro section.  And two days later, on October 4th, five saxophones and two clarinets performed producer George Martin's period-perfect arrangement.  The final touch was created by having Paul's line "now she's hit the big time" in the intro treated to sound as if it were playing on a scratchy old 78 rpm record.  All of the work on these subsequent days was done at Trident Studios, as well.

The "White Album" proved to be the most eclectic of the group's career, surpassing even Revolver in that respect.  And McCartney's compositions in particular spanned the widest range of styles, with this song certainly responsible for a good portion of that range.

This was the last album by the Beatles to be mixed for mono, and the mono mix of this song is notable for adding a few more measures of John Lennon's brief guitar solo.  George Harrison later praised this solo, saying, "John played a brilliant solo on Honey Pie - sounded like Django Reinhardt or something."