Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

The recording process for this jolly, bouncy, well-loved track unfortunately generated more ill will than perhaps any other track by the Beatles.  And that even takes into account such instances as the sessions for Maxwell's Silver Hammer (when John mostly declined to participate) or Paul's blow-up upon hearing Phil Spector's unauthorized orchestration of The Long and Winding Road. 

The composition was among the many written in Rishikesh, India.  McCartney recalls playing it as a singalong on acoustic guitar while everyone walked down a path through the jungle for a movie night in the local village, though he only had the chorus at the time.  By the time the Beatles gathered at George Harrison's house in May of 1968 to record demos of songs for their next album, the composition was complete.  Paul double-tracked himself singing and playing acoustic guitar, along with some percussion, with the style of the song being much like the first version that the group would officially record.  This demo can be heard on the 50th anniversary releases of the "White Album."

The official recording commenced on July 3rd, with Ringo on drums and all three of the others playing acoustic guitars, re-emphasizing the style of the demo.  Paul then overdubbed his lead vocal onto the final take - take seven - but, in the first of many reversals, he decided that take three had actually been the best.  All further overdubs thus went onto take three on July 4th, including a new lead vocal and backing vocals by John and George.  In this version, they sang the high-pitched "la la la's" in every verse instead of only on the second verse.  Paul then double-tracked his lead vocal, and some percussion was also added.  The deluxe 50th anniversary edition of the album contains the song as it stood at this point.

On July 5th, the third consecutive day spent on the song, three saxophones and a conga player were added to the track.  This conga player just happened to be an acquaintance of Paul's from the London clubs named Jimmy Scott, and it was the Nigerian-born Scott who habitually used the phrase "ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra" which originally inspired the composition.  A piccolo part was also recorded at this session, but it was wiped from the tape and replaced by Paul playing yet another acoustic guitar, only this one was made to sound like a bass by overloading the sound at the mixing desk.

The track, which can be heard on Anthology 3, was now considered to be complete.  Paul took a rough remix home for the weekend, listened to it, and decided that it simply did not capture the Jamaican ska vibe that he had in mind.  So, as the group reassembled on July 8th, no doubt expecting to move on to another song, they were taken aback when Paul announced that he wanted to start a remake.  John exploded and left in a huff, only to return a bit later, shouting that he was high, then going to a piano and declaring, "And this is how the f*#king song should go," before pounding out the introduction we have all come to know.

Though it was born out of anger and frustration, Paul recognized that John was on to something, so he wisely managed to keep his own anger in check.  John remained at the piano for the new basic track, with Paul on bass, George on acoustic guitar and Ringo on drums.  They recorded twelve takes before achieving the master, then spent the remainder of the session overdubbing lead and backing vocals, and additional percussion.  And yet...

...Paul was still unsure.  On the following afternoon, Ringo was attending a session for another artist in Studio Two, so Paul, John and George began a re-remake in Studio Three with Paul on drums.  Two basic takes, numerous overdubs, lead and backing vocals were recorded before Paul realized that the previous day's remake was better.  By the time Ringo joined them in the evening, they were re-recording their lead and backing vocals on that version, including all of the silly interjections from John and George that made it onto the master.  More percussion and handclaps were also overdubbed.

On July 11th, three saxophones played an arrangement somewhat different from that on version one.  And Paul also repeated his trick of playing an overloaded acoustic guitar as on that earlier version.  So the song was now complete, right?

Not so fast.  Paul was still unhappy with his lead vocal.  On July 15th, everyone sat around as he attempted multiple takes with slight variations. seeking a perfection that only he could recognize.  In his book Here, There and Everywhere, engineer Geoff Emerick relates that after one of the many takes, producer George Martin offered a suggestion over the talkback.  Paul stared up at the control room and shot back a nasty retort.  After a stunned silence, the usually-genteel Martin responded with, "Then bloody sing it again!  I give up."

Once tempers cooled, Paul eventually got the performance he wanted, the one on which he accidentally mixed up Molly and Desmond in the final verse.  The damage was done, however.  It was Emerick, not Martin, who had had enough.  When the group returned the next day to begin work on Lennon's Cry Baby Cry, Emerick walked down to the studio floor and told them that he could not work with them anymore.  John made some half-hearted excuses for their behavior, but it would be a full year before Emerick could be coaxed back as a part-time engineer on sessions for the album Abbey Road.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da did prove to be a standout track on the "White Album" when it was released in November of 1968.  Its sunny, seemingly-spontaneous spirit belied the painful and painstaking process of its creation.  There are reports that Paul wanted it out as a single, but John and George were against it, and it turned out that no single was released in conjunction with the double album.  In 1973, the song appeared on the Blue Album.  It did finally get released as a single in 1976 (pictured above), but only peaked at number 49.

Nowhere Man

Unlike a few of the songs highlighted in some of my recent posts, Nowhere Man has never been one of my favorites.  This is not to say that I do not appreciate the significance of the song in the Beatles' catalog, nor the skill that went into its composition and recording.  In fact, a professor who taught a basic music course that I took in college used it as an example, pointing out how the downward spiral of the melody and the almost dirge-like tempo combine to emphasize the theme expressed in the lyrics.  It was no doubt these very qualities that led to my lukewarm reception of it.

While the Beatles were short of new material when they began the sessions for the album Rubber Soul, Lennon appears to have had this one at the ready early on.  After completing Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) during the afternoon session on October 21st, 1965, the boys turned their attention to this song in the evening without even taking a proper break.  This full night's work resulted in only one take (take two - take one was a quick breakdown), featuring some reportedly high-pitched three-part harmonies and just a single electric guitar on the track.

Takes three, four and five were recorded on the following day, with Ringo on drums, Paul playing a very active bass line, and John on acoustic guitar.  All overdubs went onto take four, beginning with John, Paul and George's patented three-part harmonies, supervised as always by producer George Martin.  Once perfected, these were double-tracked.  George then added his electric guitar flourishes throughout the song.  The guitar solo, however, was a different matter.  John sat down with a second electric guitar, and the two of them played it simultaneously, the major difference being the lovely harmonic that George adds at the end of the solo.

The song sits in the middle of side one on the UK version of Rubber Soul, but it does not appear on the American version of that album.  Capitol Records, as always, was looking for an additional single, and, with several strong titles to choose from, opted for Nowhere Man.  It was released in February of 1966, but, unlike the previous Capitol-created singles Eight Days a Week and Yesterday, which both went to number one on the charts, Nowhere Man stalled at number three.   It later appeared on the US compilation album "Yesterday"...and Today in June.  And, in July, it resurfaced in the UK as the title track of an EP.  This proved to be their last official British EP until the Beatles themselves chose to release Magical Mystery Tour as a double EP.  Likewise, the American single was the last that Capitol was allowed to create for several years due to a new agreement hammered out by manager Brian Epstein. 

In 1973, the song appeared on the Red Album.  And, in 1999, it was released on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack.  On this occasion, a remixed version was created, splitting the two sets of three-part harmonies and putting one in each speaker, thus giving the track a fuller, richer sound.

For me, the best use of Nowhere Man is in the animated film Yellow Submarine, when John rather callously sings it about the character of Jeremy Hillary Boob.  The irony, of course, is that Lennon actually wrote the song about himself and how he was feeling in late 1965 in the midst of those heady days of Beatlemania. 

Not a Second Time

The above article by music critic William Mann appeared in the Times of London on December 23rd, 1963, ushering in an era of serious critical consideration for the work of the Beatles, an era which has continued to this very day.  (Search for it online and I'm sure you'll find a version that you can actually read - it's a fascinating piece.)  The most famous line in the article uses the phrase "Aeolian cadence" in reference to Lennon's composition Not a Second Time.  John mocked both the phrase and the article over the years, belittling the intellectual approach of dissecting rock and roll, but there is no doubt that Mann was among the first to praise and legitimize the intuitive writing style employed by the Beatles and others who followed, many of whom had no formal music training.

The song was recorded on September 11th, 1963, during sessions for the album With the Beatles.  The mix of the track is such that many have speculated over the years as to whether Paul and George even play on it, though a bass part can faintly be heard.  At any rate, the first five takes concentrated on the rhythm track accompanied by John's lead vocal.  Takes six through nine were for John to double-track his vocal, and for producer George Martin to overdub his low-register piano part, which dominates the mix.  In roughly an hour and a half, this impressive track was complete - pretty standard work for 1963.

When assembling the album, Martin placed it in the unenviable thirteenth slot, just before the final song, the group's rousing cover version of Money (That's What I Want).  American fans, however, had a different experience of the song.  Capitol Records chose it as the closing number of the album Meet the Beatles!  Not only did this give the song a place of prominence, it affected the listener's sense of the album as a whole.  Finishing with this moody, serious number after the high-spirited, high energy tracks that comprise the bulk of the album helped to highlight the group's broad possibilities for the new American audience.  We may not have had an esteemed music critic like Mann assessing their work for us here in the US, but the discerning fans among us heard more than just the simple "yeah, yeah, yeahs" that were so easy for the press to focus on.  What were these guys capable of?  

Quite a bit, as it turned out.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

I have had several different favorite songs by the Beatles at various points in my life, and, for one stretch of years, that song was Norwegian Wood.  The melancholy mood, the sublime melody and Paul's flair at finding the ideal harmony all combine to create a masterwork of grace and beauty.  How disconcerting, then, to learn that Lennon and McCartney originally conceived the composition as a comedy number.  Furthermore, McCartney takes credit for the line "So I lit a fire," claiming that it was actually about setting the flat on fire and not, as I took it, a reference to the singer having a reflective moment by a fireplace.  Setting these perverse intentions aside, I think most listeners hear the song in a way more closely aligned to what I have always experienced.

The song was first recorded under the title This Bird Has Flown on October 12th, 1965, which was the first day of sessions for the album Rubber Soul.  Only one take, including overdubs, was achieved on this day.  The basic rhythm track featured John and George on acoustic guitars, Paul on bass and Ringo tapping his cymbals.  John's lead vocal was then overdubbed, as well as Paul's harmony vocal, some double-tracking of John's lead, finger cymbals and maracas from Ringo, and the piece de resistance - George playing the sitar.

George had discovered the Indian instrument on the set of their film Help! back in the spring of that year.  He was fascinated by it and soon purchased one in a London shop.  While he had been tinkering with it over the intervening months, he had no formal training on it as yet.  Still, John felt confident enough in his bandmate's ability to introduce it on a pop recording for the very first time.  The playing on this take is a bit clumsy and falls in with the concept of the song as a comedy number, as you can hear on Anthology 2.  Some vocal lines are repeated by the sitar in the bridges, and the track ends with George playing a silly four-note phrase not unlike the old vaudeville bit "and that ain't all!"

By October 21st, a few different approaches were attempted on takes two, three and four, each altering the tone of the song in various ways.  Take four was the keeper we all know and love.  Once more, John and George played acoustic guitars and Paul played his bass.  Ringo, however, merely kept the beat on his bass drum on the basic track, later overdubbing a tambourine.  George's sitar part was played with noticeably more skill and subtlety.  Instead of answering phrases in the bridges, he substitutes droning chords, a technique more akin to the true Indian style that he would eventually learn.

Now known as Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), the song appeared in the second slot on both the UK and US versions of Rubber Soul.  In 1973, it was one of six songs from that album to appear on the Red Album.  And, in 1977, it was chosen for the compilation album Love Songs.