No Reply

Let me just start this entry by stating that I absolutely love this song.  I always have, from the first time I put the new album Beatles '65 on my parents' turntable.  The urgency in John's voice immediately grabbed me, and the powerful bridge drove home the raw emotion at the core of the narrative, even to a 10-year-old boy who had yet to experience romantic love, let alone the pain of rejection.  It was all over way too soon, but the following song, I'm a Loser, doubled down on the theme, kicking off what was, for me, the best album yet.

Lennon himself was not so keen about his composition.  He initially offered it to another of manager Brian Epstein's artists, a fellow named Tommy Quickly.  In Dave Rybaczewski's in depth look at the song, he relates that Colin Manley, the guitarist who played on Quickly's version, said that Lennon's demo for them to learn the song ended with the sound of a toilet flushing, something John had also done on his demo of Do You Want to Know a Secret that he had recorded for Billy J. Kramer a little over a year earlier.  Manley also reports that the number lacked a bridge on this version.

If the above story is true, that No Reply demo probably preceded the one recorded on June 3rd, 1964.  This eventful day began with Ringo being hospitalized for tonsillitis.  With the group's first world tour scheduled to begin the next day, replacement drummer Jimmy Nicol was promptly brought into the studio to audition and rehearse several numbers with the other Beatles, then sent home to pack.  After his departure, John, Paul and George took turns leading the others through demos of new songs they had written, instead of recording a fourteenth and final track for the album A Hard Day's Night.

When John's turn came around, No Reply, still intended for Tommy Quickly at this point, was put on tape.  Guitar, bass and drums are heard, though it is not known who played what on this very loose version of the number, with John and Paul goofing around and laughing, especially with the phrase "your face," which they insert throughout the song.  As you can hear on Anthology 1, the composition does have the bridge by this time.  Whether or not Quickly received this demo, he did eventually record his own version, but it was never released.

By September 30th, the Beatles were working on their next album, and the song had managed to grow in Lennon's estimation over time.  Anthology 1 also allows us to hear take two from this day, now featuring all four Beatles on their usual instruments, plus producer George Martin on piano.  There is still a bit of goofing at the first "your face," but the overall tone is closer to the dramatic feel of the master.  After the take breaks down, John comments, "...we just found out what to do, anyway.  It's good."

On take five, they repeated the bridge and a verse, but that made the track over three minutes long - an uncommon length in 1964 - so that idea was scrapped.  The master was take eight, onto which they overdubbed handclaps, with John and Paul double-tracking their vocals, as well.

The song was now regarded to be strong enough that it was under consideration as a possible A-side for the group's next single, along with I'm a Loser and Eight Days a Week.  All three eventually lost out to I Feel Fine.  When assembling the album Beatles for Sale, Martin chose No Reply as the opening track, a move Capitol Records in the US repeated on Beatles '65, as I noted above.  It remained in the same position on the UK EP Beatles for Sale.

(An odd sidebar - My professed love for this song was sorely put to the test several years ago when a director loudly played one of the Anthology versions to distract me during a callback audition.  His ploy worked.  I did not get cast.  True story.)  

The Night Before

Of the four songs that McCartney proposed as contenders for the soundtrack of the group's second feature film, this was the strongest.  The only other one to even make the cut was Another Girl.  Tell Me What You See wound up on the non-soundtrack side of the eventual album, and That Means a Lot remained unissued until the Anthology series many years later.

The recording was made on February 17th, 1965, during that day's afternoon session.  A good deal of rehearsal probably preceded the only two takes of the backing track that the group put on tape.  John Lennon chose to forego his usual rhythm guitar and sat down at a Hohner electric piano.  Considering that it is one of his earliest efforts on a keyboard, it is surprisingly good, and proves to be the driving force among the instruments used on the recording.

With take two as the master, Paul overdubbed his lead vocal, John and George sang their backing parts, and Ringo added maracas to the Latin beat he plays on his drumkit during the bridge.  Once Paul double-tracked his lead vocal, all that was left was to overdub a solo.  Paul had worked out a simple, but highly-structured guitar line which he and George played simultaneously, an octave apart.  They also played a brief, similar phrase for the very end of the song.  

The song is used late in the film Help! on Salisbury Plain, immediately after George Harrison's composition I Need You.  Unlike the other songs that appear on the soundtrack, The Night Before is broken up, as the action cuts back and forth just before a huge action sequence, so we hear some sections of the song more than once while other sections are omitted.

The band played the number only one more time, as part of their final BBC Radio appearance on the awkwardly-titled program The Beatles Invite You to Take a Ticket to Ride.  This was recorded in late May and broadcast in early June, months before the album and the film were released, so the song would have been brand-new to listeners.

The Night Before is the second track on both the US and UK versions of the album Help!  It made its sole post-career appearance on the 1976 compilation album Rock and Roll Music.  This has always struck me as an odd choice for that collection.  I have never thought of it as a rocker, but rather more of a pleasant mid-tempo pop song.

Mother Nature's Son

Music critic Tim Riley was not a big fan Mother Nature's Son.  In his 1988 book Tell Me Why, one of the first serious looks at the work of the Beatles, he states that in this song Paul "...targets Donovan's foppishness as he unwittingly outlines a career for John Denver..."  Ouch.  Most fans would disagree with this assessment.

The composition was written in early 1968 in Rishikesh, India on an occasion when McCartney was inspired by one of the Maharishi's lectures.  When the Beatles reunited at George Harrison's house in May to record demos of all the songs they proposed for their next album, Paul double-tracked his vocals on this number and accompanied himself on acoustic guitar, with his guitar work sounding almost note for note like the official recording he would make a few months later.  There is even a tapping not unlike that heard on the finished product. 

The first session took place on August 9th, once again featuring only Paul and an acoustic guitar.  He ran through 25 takes before he settled on take 24 as the best.  Anthology 3 gives us take 2, which was the first full runthrough of the number, with only a few minor flubs keeping it from being perfect.  The 50th anniversary deluxe edition of the "White Album" presents take 15, on which he plays around with some vocal variations, none of them making the final cut.  

Producer George Martin then was given the task of writing an arrangement for brass instruments to accompany the song.  John Lennon had inadvertently given Paul this idea when dropping in on the session for Blackbird back in June, stating that that song could benefit from having a brass band.  Paul immediately switched to playing Mother Nature's Son at the suggestion, realizing that John had hit on a good suggestion, but for the wrong song.

On August 20th, Martin conducted two trumpeters and two trombonists hired to play his arrangement, which, as usual, meshed perfectly with the recording-in-progress.  Aside from Paul, these four musicians were the only others to appear on the track.  The rest of the Beatles were not involved, although John and Ringo reportedly stopped by this session for a few moments, creating a palpable tension noticed by the staff on hand in the studio. 

After the brass players and the other Beatles departed, Paul turned to the overdubs.  He double-tracked his vocals and acoustic guitar in places, though not as much as on the May demo.  Ringo's bass drum was then moved out into a corridor (perhaps this was the source of the tension - Ringo's famous walkout occurred just a few days later) so that, when Paul played it, it could be recorded by a microphone placed a couple floors up a stairwell with a good deal of natural echo.

Finally, the tapping.  As Paul listened to the track in the control room, he tapped a book with his finger.  Liking the sound and perhaps recalling the similar effect on the May demo, he had engineer Ken Scott set up yet another microphone to capture the sound and add it to the finished master.    

The song sounds as though it belongs on side two of the "White Album" with most of the other quieter numbers, but it actually works quite well as an oasis of calm on side three sitting between Lennon's searing Yer Blues and the screaming rocker Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.

And, in case you were wondering, Tim Riley reports that, yes, John Denver did do a cover version of Mother Nature's Son.

Money (That's What I Want)

Those in the know, those who were there, have always stated that this is the one recording that we all should listen to if we want to know what the Beatles sounded like in their heyday in the Cavern Club in Liverpool.  The piano part played by producer George Martin would not have been part of it, of course, but the raw energy generated by the band and the rough, grungy sound would have been much the same.  Listening to it today you can almost smell the sweat and the smoke in the dark, crowded basement venue, even if, like me, you have never even been there.

In Mark Lewisohn's book Tune In, the frontman of rival Liverpool band Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes claims that the Beatles learned the song from watching his band perform it.  John, Paul, George and Pete would each listen to a different line and write out what they heard.  The next time Kingsize saw them, they were performing it in their act.

The boys began playing Money on their first visit to Hamburg, West Germany, in 1960, and it remained in their repertoire for the next few years.  They performed a surprisingly lackluster rendition of the song as part of their audition for Decca Records on New Year's Day of 1962.  Ringo was familiar with the number, so they continued to feature it after he joined the group.

The official recording for the album With the Beatles was begun on July 18th, 1963.  It was played live in the studio with Martin sitting in on piano.  The band required six takes before all were satisfied with the result.  Martin then added a piano edit piece, but the Beatles' work on the track was complete.

The next session for the album was not until July 30th.  On this occasion, the Beatles were present, but only Martin was recorded, playing overdubs on piano for takes eight through fourteen.  Yet, when the mono mix of the song was prepared on August 21st, these overdubs were ignored, leaving an edit of take six and the piano edit piece known as take seven from July 18th as the master.

Martin was still not happy with his piano work on the recording, so he made three more attempts at an overdub on September 30th.  The song was not mixed for stereo until October 29th and again on the 30th, when Martin chose to combine two mono mixes along with overdub work from September 30th, thus making the stereo mix quite different from the earlier mono mix.

With the album due to come out in November, the song returned to the group's set list.  Anthology 1 gives us a listen to a fine performance of the number for a radio broadcast in front of a studio audience on the band's inaugural visit to Sweden in October of 1963.  Though the fans are unfamiliar with the song, the Beatles win them over with a hard-rocking attack and guitars that sound surprisingly distorted for the period.

In addition to returning Money to their stage act, the Beatles also played the song several times on various BBC Radio programs.  On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2 gives us one such performance from their show From Us to You broadcast on Boxing Day 1963.    

The song closed out the album With the Beatles in the UK, also appearing on the EP All My Loving.  Capitol only released it on The Beatles' Second Album.  After the group's career, it was a natural choice for the compilation Rock and Roll Music in 1976.

In January of 1969, the Beatles revisited the song on two of the early sessions at Twickenham Film Studios for the Get Back project.  It was briefly considered for the grand rock and roll show that never came to fruition.  Perhaps this kept it in the back of John Lennon's mind at the end of the year when he assembled a band at the last minute for a live performance in Toronto on September 13th.  A line up consisting of John, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Alan White appeared on this occasion, playing a selection of rock and roll oldies they all agreed upon on their trans-Atlantic flight.  Their version of Money was sufficiently grungy, though the tempo was lethargic compared to the versions by the Beatles, and John had no backing vocals to support him.  Their entire set was released on the Plastic Ono Band album Live Peace in Toronto at the end of the year.

Mr. Moonlight

It's fair to say that most fans of the Beatles dislike this song, with many hating it outright and declaring it the worst that the band ever recorded.  Yet John Lennon clearly loved it and, as with just about every cover song he chose for the group to preserve for posterity, he sang it as if his life depended on it.  And along with such obscurities as Anna (Go to Him), Devil in Her Heart and Bad Boy, it displays the incredibly wide musical knowledge of the Beatles.

The composition was one of those hard-to-find B-sides that all Liverpool bands constantly searched for in an attempt to get a leg up on the competition.  Lennon discovered this record by a band called Dr. Feelgood and the Interns in June of 1962, and the Beatles soon learned it and worked it into their stage act.  In Dave Rybaczewski's in depth look at the song, the group's road manager Neil Aspinall relates that they would sometimes use it as an opening number, recalling the tension in the room before John had to deliver his screaming vocal intro.

The song appears on the Star Club tapes recorded in December of 1962 in Hamburg, West Germany.  John does not even bother to attempt the intro on this occasion, when the boys were simply anxious to return to England to promote their first singles.  Instead, the band launches into a breakneck version of the song, as they did on quite a few numbers on that evening.  The loose nature of the event is exemplified by John singing "here I am on my nose" in place of "here I am on my knees," - not just once, but twice.

On August 14th, 1964, at only the second session for the album Beatles for Sale, the group brought back this novelty number after a long absence (it had not even been among the various old favorites that they had resurrected for their many BBC radio appearances).  Anthology 1 gives us take one, which merely consists of John attempting the vocal intro.  "Nearly," Paul says encouragingly.  By take four, which is also on Anthology 1, John nails it, and the group turns in a full performance, which was then considered to be the master.

They ultimately thought otherwise, however, and returned to the number during a marathon session on October 18th, where it was one of eight recordings completed on the day.  Takes five through eight were not essentially different from the August takes, but producer George Martin was unhappy with the odd, twangy guitar solo played by George Harrison.  It was decided that the solo would be played instead as an overdub by Paul on a Hammond organ.  This hilariously cheesy, lounge-lizard organ part is especially offensive to those who despise the recording.

When the production team was mixing the song for mono and stereo, John's vocal intro from take four in August was edited onto the beginning of the master take eight from October.  Fans have always wondered why this song was chosen over the band's blistering cover of Leave My Kitten Alone for a spot on the album, but no explanation has ever been given except that the Beatles were supposedly unhappy with their recording of the latter song.  Most, if not all, would disagree.

In the UK, Mr. Moonlight could only be found on the album Beatles for Sale.  Capitol Records in the US not only released it on the album Beatles '65, but also included it on the EP 4 by the Beatles, despite having many other tracks to choose from.