Fixing a Hole

This McCartney composition was partly inspired by a farmhouse in Scotland, which Paul had purchased at the suggestion of his long-time girlfriend Jane Asher in 1966.  The farmhouse had not only a leaky roof, but also a dreary wall that Paul, Jane and another friend took the time to decorate with colored pens that Paul bought in the nearby village.  From these unlikely inspirations came a song about states of mind akin to Lennon's Rain.

A little help in the writing of the song came not from Lennon, however, but from the band's assistant Mal Evans.  According to Mal in an interview shortly before his death in 1976, Paul asked him if he would be okay with not getting credit as long as some royalties came his way.  The ever-loyal roadie agreed.

The recording is notable for being the first taped by the Beatles at a studio not owned by their label's parent company EMI.  All three studios at Abbey Road were booked on the evening of February 9th, 1967, so the boys reported to Regent Sound Studios elsewhere in London.  As an employee of EMI, the group's usual engineer Geoff Emerick could not attend this session, but their producer George Martin, now a freelancer, could.  Regent provided the services of one Adrian Ibbetson as engineer for the evening.

Paul led the band through a series of rehearsals, choosing to sing a guide vocal (unusual during the Sgt. Pepper sessions) while playing a harpsichord.  With Paul at the keyboard, John picked up the bass guitar, leaving Ringo on drums and George limited to maracas.  The first proper take had this unusual lineup.  This take was then bounced down onto another four-track machine and called take two.  Another take, called take three, featured the same lineup.  This take is now available on the 50th anniversary edition of the album.  The tempo feels slightly faster than the version we all know, and Paul plays a few different fills on harpsichord as well as singing a number of simple variations in his lead vocal.

They did not return to the song until February 21st at Abbey Road Studios with Geoff Emerick back in the engineer's seat.  They chose to record a new take one, intending to superimpose it onto take three of the Regent tapes.  This idea was abandoned and they went back to Regent's take two (which was actually identical to Regent's take one, remember), with Paul overdubbing his vocal here and there, and supplementing John's bass line a bit as George Martin did the same thing to Paul's harpsichord part.  John and George also supplied some backing vocals, but the most important addition was George's superb lead guitar line.  While it contains some of his best playing on the album, it does have the feel of being rather precisely constructed by Paul.

Though Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band famously took months to record, Fixing a Hole stands out as being one of the simplest and most straightforward pieces on the album.  Yet it fits in seamlessly alongside the much more complex recordings, more for its subject matter than for its not-very-psychedelic instrumentation (the old-fashioned harpsichord is the only "exotic" instrument present on the track).