The Beatles (89 page)

“I’ll look like shit,” John replied. “Everyone will recognize that it’s me.”

Chapter 25
Tomorrow Never Knows

T
he Beatles were dressed exactly as they had been two weeks earlier, although now the same dark suits were rumpled slightly from an eight-hour flight. As they came through the airliner’s forward door, they stood on the same platform, offering the same wandlike wave to the same monster crowd, except that in place of the 4,000 screaming, well-behaved teenagers, there were now “8,000 to 12,000” who, at the sight of their heroes, went on a rampage through Heathrow Airport, bending steel crash barriers and demolishing car roofs as if they were made of tinfoil. Forty girls fainted, bouquets of flowers were trampled, bins overturned, and the banners—
WELCOME HOME BEATLES
—shredded in the mad scramble to reach the boys.

The Beatles were back in the land of jelly babies.

If the fans’ behavior distressed the Beatles, they refused to let it show as they were herded into the crowded Kingsford-Smith Suite at the terminal to face the homeland press.
More than one reporter
remarked at the civil disorder on the tarmac in terms that encouraged the Beatles to distance themselves from the hooligans, but the boys knew better than to buy into that business. Instead, they saluted the crowd as “
healthy and British
and lads and mates and friends.”

The Beatles defused any potential controversy with their now-expected witty one-liners, stumbling only when it came to the news that while they were overseas, the prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, named the Beatles as his “secret weapon” in diplomatic relations with the Americans. It actually “
flattered
” the boys that the PM knew their names. “The thing is, I don’t get the bit where [he] said, ‘
Earning all these dollars
for Britain,’ ” George said with a shrug, paraphrasing the item. He would learn the hard way—and before long write a song about it he called “Taxman.”

As it turned out, it was impossible to put a real dollar value on their worth to Great Britain. No one knew about
the $253,000 check
from Capitol Records in Brian’s pocket—the Beatles’ share of royalties so far—but it was hot news that the
Barclays Bank Review
had declared them an “invisible export,” estimating their overseas record sales at something over $7 million. But there was no clear picture of what the Beatles actually brought in. Aside from records and performances, merchandising remained a vast gray area. The Seltaeb compact was practically minting money—published reports put it somewhere around $50 million—but who knew how much of that would ever find its way back to the source. Income from the enormous number of bootleg products was impossible to peg.

Their cultural impact, however, was easier to calculate. If the Beatles had left London as explorers to the New World, they returned as conquering heroes. No other British pop star had ever scored so strongly in America. Now, practically overnight, the whole scene cracked wide open. The pop music pipeline that until their appearance had flowed one way—from America to Great Britain—suddenly reversed direction.
The U.S. market was flooded with singles
by topflight British acts, from the Dave Clark Five to Dusty Springfield to the Yardbirds to the Searchers, none of whom imitated American rock so much as adapted it in ways that brought new energy to the form. For the first time in the history of the English charts, British records occupied the top fourteen places. The days of second billing and second-class citizenship for British rock ’n roll seemed over. “
With this transition
,” wrote pop music historian Greg Shaw, “British rock became real.”

The day after their return, the Beatles headed straight back to work, taping a segment of the TV variety series
Big Night Out,
in which they performed three comedy sketches as well as five songs, then huddling with Walter Shenson to iron out a few details for their upcoming film.
Ringo, feeling dispensable, managed to disappear for a day, flying home
to Liverpool to visit his folks and keep a date with Maureen Cox, a Liverpool girlfriend to whom he was engaged.

The next morning, Tuesday, February 25—George’s twenty-first birthday—the boys checked into the Abbey Road studio to work on songs for a new album. They could hardly wait to get started. Since the beginning of the year, they had barely played a note that wasn’t drowned out
by screams and, as musicians, they had become clearly frustrated by the emptiness of it.

This time—for the first time—the scale of the work had changed. Instead of balancing six or eight original songs with a smattering of well-known American covers, practically all the selections were to be Lennon-McCartney compositions.
Most of the numbers were slated
for the movie soundtrack, requiring immediate attention so they could be synced to some specific action on the screen, or vice versa; the rest, for the tie-in album, weren’t as urgent.

John and Paul had written steadily over the past few months, so material wasn’t going to be a problem. They had a ton of songs to choose from and, said Paul, “
we knew they were good
.”
A version of “Can’t Buy Me Love
” was already in the can, but a lyric change was needed and the Beatles redid the vocals. They sketched out three songs the first day, one of which—“You Can’t Do That”—was pretty much completed before lunch. John had written most of the hard-nosed rocker, with Paul contributing the tart B7 chord that electrifies the bridge. The vocal, however, gives the song its most cutting edge. John delivers a stinging emotional attack in the form of a reprimand, practically spitting out the warning “because I
told you before,
” while Ringo reinforces it by punching out the beat.

If there was one highlight, it was Paul’s reading of “And I Love Her,” a lushly melodic ballad that he’d written on the piano at Jane Asher’s house. Paul’s gift for immediacy had never been sharper. The plaintive lyric is simple and direct, the feeling achingly poignant. From the opening notes, his voice expresses an honesty that wrings the heart out of every word. “
It was the first ballad
I impressed myself with,” Paul recalled, pointing to the “nice chords” and the “imagery” as its irresistible assets. There is real power in the song, but after two takes the Beatles couldn’t find the right way to harness it. Dick James, who was visiting the studio, felt the song was “just too repetitive” and during a tape change he mentioned as much to George Martin. Apparently Martin agreed because he called for a short recess and left the control room briefly to discuss it with the band.

James claims that Martin suggested they write a middle eight to break up the repetitious verses. “
I think it was John
who shouted, ‘OK, let’s have a tea break,’ and John and Paul went to the piano and, while Mal Evans was getting tea and some sandwiches, the boys worked at the piano,” he said. “Within half an hour they wrote… a very constructive middle to a very commercial song.” Paul, on the other hand, maintained that John “probably helped” on some minor adjustments, but otherwise, “the middle
eight is mine…. I wrote this on my own.” No matter which account is accurate, the arrangement still lacked the right touch, and they abandoned the song for another day.

The same fate befell “I Should Have Known Better,” which was temporarily scrapped after three wasted takes. The Beatles were frazzled, wiped out from jet lag and the endless work, and after seven hours of recording, they succumbed to a case of terminal giggles. It was all they could do to get through one complete take. No one even felt like celebrating George’s birthday, least of all George, who was “
tired and depressed
” from the brutal grind.
Grudgingly, he’d devoted an hour
that morning to posing for pictures as a favor to the press. (The
Daily Express
made George’s birthday front-page news
.) There were over fifteen thousand cards waiting for him, along with four postal hampers stuffed with presents from fans, none of which he had the energy to open.
Dick James had given him a pair of gold cuff links
, and from Brian,
a gorgeous Rolex
that George wore throughout his life. But what he prized more than anything was sleep, precious sleep.

Two days later another productive session yielded two more songs: “Tell Me Why” and “If I Fell.” Just before the lunch break, they ran right through “Tell Me Why,” a spirited, up-tempo number that John later described as mimicking “
a black New York girl-group song
,” nailing it in eight takes. “If I Fell” proved more elusive.
It was John’s first attempt
at a ballad, wrapped in a snug, intertwining harmony that is easily one of the most beautiful and appealing duets the Beatles ever performed. John and Paul opted to record it together, on a single microphone, which only served to intensify their delivery.
The symmetry of their voices
is perfect; they come to the center with such precision that it is often hard to tell who is singing which part. It sounds easy—but isn’t. The way John structured it demanded chord changes on almost every note of the verse—“
dripping with chords
,” as Paul explained to a reporter—and it took them fifteen takes to get it right.

The album was beginning to take shape. A Sunday session was highly unusual, but since the Beatles were to begin work on their film the next day, Martin suggested they grab a few hours in the studio to keep up the flow. The Beatles worked only the morning session, until breaking for lunch. Still, they managed to lay down three tracks in three hours: a retooling of “I Call Your Name,” written originally for Billy J. Kramer as a B-side to “Bad to Me”; a tear-ass version of “Long Tall Sally” that was captured in one live take; and “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You,”
a “bit of a formula song”
that Paul and John had cobbled together for George.

“
The Beatles didn’t get totally immersed
in record production until later on, when they stopped touring,” recalled George Martin. But they were no longer intimidated by the recording process, getting it right in the first few takes—or else. Most rock ’n roll groups were still expected to complete an entire album in a day, but for the Beatles that pressure had been eliminated thanks to their huge success. As a result, they could work at their own pace. “
We don’t stop until we’re confident
there is no possibility of further improvement,” Martin explained.
With time to spare
—and the advancement of the four-track system—they had the luxury of recording the rhythm tracks and the vocals separately, instead of all at once. Another factor was George Martin’s extraordinary confidence in their ability. It was impossible for Martin to ignore the Beatles’ instincts, and he gave them considerable leeway to explore new techniques. In songs like “You Can’t Do That” and “I Should Have Known Better,”
George had begun to experiment
with a twelve-string Rickenbacker 360 he’d bought in New York,
an instrument so new
that there were only two in existence. Offbeat percussion flourishes were introduced in the form of cowbells and bongos. The Beatles were quickly fascinated with the mysteries of overdubbing and double-tracking. Contrary to what they originally feared, the studio didn’t restrict their songs; it opened up a world of options that gave the songs freedom and new color.