On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 3:34:18 PM UTC-4, cuppajoe2go wrote:
On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 10:43:32 AM UTC-7, Norbert K wrote:
On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 12:20:50 PM UTC-4, Norbert K wrote:
In his book Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick describes how the Beatles recorded two versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever," and how Lennon eventually made the jaw-dropping announcement that he wanted the beginning of the earlier version
of the song joined to the rest of the later, "heavier" version of the song. According to Emerick, George Martin told Lennon sarcastically that as much as he'd love to comply, "The only thing that stands in our way is that the two versions were played in
different keys and at different tempos." Emerick says that Lennon -- who did not seem to understand these problems -- retorted, "You can do it."
Emerick says that he tackled the difficulties by speeding up the playback of the first take and by slowing down the playback of the second, eventually getting them to match in pitch and tempo. Next, he and George Martin searched until they found an
appropriate edit point -- finally find one at which "the change is so subtle as to be vitually unnoticeable." Finally, after many hours of experimentation, Emerick had to find a suitable (extremely shallow) angle at which to cut the tape, creating an
effect more like a crossfade than a splice. The resulting work was one that led George Martin to state that "the gods had smiled upon us."
Lennon, on hearing the piece for the first time, beamed at the results. "He absolutely loved what we had done," Emerick writes. He listened to the song over and over again, his eyes "wide with excitement." Each time it ended, Lennon said, "
Brilliant. Just brilliant."
-- Summarized from Geoff Emerick's Here, There and Everywhere
I thought the passage I summarized here was interesting for its technical explanation of how Emerick & Martin achieved their seemingly impossible task -- also for its demonstration of how hard they were willing to work to satisfy John Lennon.
Also, however, near the end of Lennon's life, he expressed dissatisfaction with the Beatles' recordings of his songs and said that he wanted to re-record them all -- especially "Strawberry Fields." Assuming these later claims of John's were truthful (
e.g., he was not merely seeking controversy through outrageous statements), I wonder what prompted this change of heart. Anyone have any ideas on this?
First off, it seems any understanding of Lennon depended on the day of the week. I'm not saying he was controversial for controversy sake (another thread? :). He was a mile a minute. I'm sure most artists look back at much of their work and want to
improve upon it. With SFF he obviously loved the result of the initial recording and the incredible job it took but over time - and, ever the artist! - maybe he felt it could be even better or more in line with his original idea. Goes for probably lots
of work.
Thanks for your thoughts. IMO, songs like "Strawberry Fields" would have not have been a landmark record without the partners Lennon had at the time. He was making outrageous (for the time) demands -- and everyone was willing to attempt to oblige him.
Imagine the same song in the hands of the 1980 Lennon and his DF sidemen? It would have been nothing (no offense to Jack Douglas & the others).
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