Happiness is a Warm Gun

Lennon and McCartney had stitched unfinished and unrelated songs together to complete both A Day in the Life and Baby You're a Rich Man in 1967.  Lennon took the process a step further in 1968 by joining three different song snippets of his own to create Happiness is a Warm Gun.

When the Beatles gathered at George's house in May of that year to record demos before beginning work on their next album, Lennon only had the middle section written, as heard on Anthology 3.  He strums an acoustic guitar and sings the "I need a fix" verse, adding a "Yoko Ono no, Yoko Ono yes" part which would not be included in the full version months later.

The sessions for the double album stretched out for so long that it was not until September 23rd that work began on this song, which by now had all three sections in place.  It took much of the evening for John to teach the tricky time changes to the group, yet they still managed to put forty-five takes on tape before wrapping up for the day.  They picked up the next evening and reached take seventy before rewinding the tape and listening to what they had.  Take fifty-three was chosen as the best for the first two sections and take sixty-five was best for the final part of the song.

Overdubbing was done on September 25th, the third consecutive night of work on the number.  The band members had played their usual instruments on the basic track, so they now added organ, piano, a second bass line, tambourine and all of the vocals.  Reportedly, Paul even plays a tuba which just happened to be lying around the studio.

All of this was done with young Chris Thomas sitting in as producer during George Martin's absence from these sessions.  The mono mix was even completed before Martin returned from his extended holiday.  The stereo mix, on the other hand, was one of the last to be made for the album.  This was done under Martin's supervision on October 15th.

Lennon later referred to this song as a "history of rock and roll" reflected in the distinct styles of its three sections.  McCartney loved this track, and it no doubt influenced him a year later when he conceived the idea of stringing together a series of unfinished songs for the long medley on Abbey Road.  He has even continued this practice of combining unrelated song fragments on numerous piecemeal compositions from his solo career.      

Got to Get You into My Life

In 2015, a letter written by George Harrison to American DJ Paul Drew in 1966 surfaced and revealed that the Beatles had considered going to Memphis, Tennessee to make their next album at Stax Records.  Of course, it never came to pass but, if it had, the sound and content of Revolver would no doubt have been quite different from what we now know.  There is one song on that album, however, that seems to have been inspired in part by the Soulsville sound - Got to Get You into My Life.

McCartney's ode to marijuana succeeds in masquerading itself as a love song.  One has to really read between the lines of the lyrics to uncover his true intent, but the words are not the selling point of this number in any case.  It is Paul's soulful delivery and the overall drive of the track that make this yet another high water mark on what may be the group's best album.

When they began work on the track on April 7th, 1966, it had a distinctly different feel from that finished version.  Anthology 2 gives us take five, which was considered best at the time.  It has a one note drone on an organ played by producer George Martin, simple drumming by Ringo, backing vocals by John and George, and a lead vocal by Paul that is completely unlike his singing on the master.

Takes six through eight recorded on the following day show that Paul had rethought how to perform the basic track.  Take eight was the keeper, featuring John on rhythm guitar and George playing a part on his lead guitar which the horn section would ultimately play instead.  A few days later, on April 11th, the glorious guitar flourish near the end of the song was added for the first time.  In his book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn does not indicate who plays this part, but many believe that it is Paul's work and not George's.

The group did not return to the track until May 18th, by which time Paul had decided that a brass section was required to fill out the sound.  Session men playing two tenor saxophones and three trumpets experienced what many others would in the coming years, as Paul sat at a piano and George Martin translated his ideas into an arrangement while the musicians waited.  This was also the first time that engineer Geoff Emerick put microphones in the bells of the instruments to capture their sound as never before.

Once the session players had successfully completed their job, Paul recorded his sensational lead vocal.  A mono mix was done on this day, burying John and George's original guitar parts in the process (though they are still present).  Paul overdubbed another chiming guitar line on June 17th, making a new mono mix necessary.  This was done on June 20th, while also doubling the brass section by double-tracking it just slightly out of sync.  Curiously, the stereo mix done on June 22nd does not have this doubling effect.

After the group's career, the song was released as a single in the US in 1976, one week ahead of its appearance on the compilation album Rock and Roll Music.  This single reached number seven on the Billboard chart - an impressive feat considering that disco was all the rage at the time.

Good Night

Julian Lennon claims that he did not know that his father had written this lullaby for him until he was being interviewed for Steve Turner's 1994 book A Hard Day's Write.  I'm not sure how this is even possible since any serious Beatles fan could have told him this information after the release of John's final interview with Playboy in 1980.  In any case, the song is an anomaly, both for Lennon as a songwriter and for the group as a recording entity.

This is not to say that Lennon was incapable of writing tender songs.  He wrote many as a member of the Beatles and in his solo career, but none of them received the schmaltzy treatment lavished upon this number.  When Paul and producer George Martin ridiculed Phil Spector's orchestra and chorus for The Long and Winding Road in 1970 as being over the top and unlike anything the Beatles had ever done before, they clearly had short (or selective) memories.

The entire group gathered along with George Martin on June 28th, 1968, to work on the song, which John had decided would be sung by Ringo, though Paul and engineer Geoff Emerick say that John sang a beautiful version on a demo tape to help Ringo learn it.  Anthology 3 gives us a marvelous glimpse into the process as Martin sat at the piano and everyone present gave the drummer some encouragement and tips on how to sing the simple, lovely tune.  For the proper takes on this day, John accompanied Ringo on acoustic guitar until take five was deemed to be the best.

On July 2nd, Ringo re-recorded his lead vocal and Paul and George overdubbed backing vocals onto the track.  Martin then took a tape copy home so he could write his accompaniment for orchestra and choir.  This is where Lennon sabotaged his own song by instructing the producer to, "Arrange it like Hollywood.  Yeah, corny," according to Nicholas Schaffner in his 1978 book The Beatles Forever.

July 22nd was the date for the orchestral overdub session in the large Studio One at Abbey Road.  Twenty-six musicians and eight members of the Mike Sammes Singers performed Martin's arrangement.  After they were finished, Ringo stayed behind to re-record his lead vocal yet again, as this was now a complete re-make of the song.  John, Paul and George thus do not appear on the track.

Good Night closes the sprawling double album The Beatles in a strange yet satisfying manner.  Though Lennon admitted in 1980 that the strings were "possibly over-lush," there is no denying that his tune is quite lovely.  It is very revealing, however, to compare the two songs written for Julian Lennon at this tumultuous time in his young life as his parents were getting divorced.  John treats his son like a child and presents him with this lullaby while McCartney treats him like an equal and writes him an anthem for the ages in Hey Jude.