Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!

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Bing for The Benefit of Mr. Kite is a song off The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Contents

[edit] Writing

The poster that inspired the song
The poster that inspired the song
John Lennon had gotten the inspiration for the song by a poster he had bought during the filming of the Strawberry Fields Forever promotional film (See Strawberry Fields Forever promo filming - January 31, 1967). John had went to an antique shop near his hotel and bought a vintage 1843 circus poster. It was to advertise Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal, which came to Town Meadows in Rochdale. It announced that the circus would be for the benefit of Mr. Kite. It featured "Mr J Henderson the celebrated somerset thrower" and Zanthus the horse. William Kite (the Mr. Kite mentioned in the poster), was a circus performer who was theson of circus owner James Kite. He founded Kites Pavilion Circus in 1810 and later moved to Wells' Circus. It is thought that he worked for Pablo Fanque's Fair between 1843 and 1845. Pablo Fanque, Britain's first black circus performer, was born under the name William Darby in Norwich in 1796. John Lennon hung the poster in his music room in his home in Weybridge. This poster had several of the facts on it changed for the purpose of the song. For example, the circus came to Bishopsgate insead of Rochdale, Zanthus the horse became Henry the horse, the circus became a fair, Mr. Kite was late of Wells' circus instead of Pablo Fanque, and Mr. Henderson promised to challenge the world instead of Mr. Kite. John sat at his piano and sang phrases from the poster, possibly with Paul McCartney's help. John never highly regarded the song, later saing, "I wasn't very proud of that. There was no real work. I was just going through the motions because we needed a new song for Sgt Pepper at that moment. I had to write it quick because otherwise I wouldn't have been on the album. [Later] there were all kinds of stories about Henry the Horse being heroin. I had never seen heroin in that period."

[edit] Recording

George Martin was told to come up with a fairground production for the song. Martin recalled, "In terms of asking me for particular interpretations, John was the least articulate. He would deal in moods, he would deal in colours, almost, and he would never be specific about what instruments or what line I had. I would do that myself... John was more likely to say, as in the case of Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!, 'It's a fairground sequence. I want to be in that circus atmosphere; I want to smell the sawdust when I hear that song. So it was up to me to provide that." The Beatles recorded the first seven takes of the basic track on February 17, 1967, the last of which John overdubbed his vocals onto. The basic track included bass, drums and harmonium. On February 20, George Martin tried to arrange the circus sounds. Martin recalled, "I knew we needed a backwash, a general mush of sound, like if you go to a fairground, shut your eyes and listen: rifle shots, hurdy-gurdy noises, people shouting and - way n the distance - just a tremendous chaotic sound. So I got hold of old calliope tapes, playing Stars And Stripes Forever and other Sousa marches, chopped the tapes up into small sections and had Geoff Emerick throw them up in the air, re-assembling them at random." Nineteen pieces of tape were used in the final song. Even though they tried to make the pieces as random as possible, although it took a few tries to get the desired effect. Engineer Geoff Emerick recalls, "I threw the bits up in the air but, amazingly, they came back together in almost the same order. We all expected it to sound different but it was virtually the same as before! So we switched bits around and turned some upside down." They returned to the song on March 28, when George, Ringo, Neil Aspinall, and Mal Evans overdubbed harmonica parts. John played organ and Paul played a guitar solo. The next day, George Martin added another organ part. On March 31, the final day of recording, they added another organ part and a glockenspiel part, both probably played by George Martin.

[edit] Recording Sessions


[edit] LOVE Mix

A remix of this song is included on the 2006 album LOVE. The drumroll from the intro of All You Need Is Love was edited onto the beginning. During the guitar solo, the animal sounds from Good Morning Good Morning were added in. During the last couple minutes of the song, the sound effects section of the original song, the jam section from I Want You (She's So Heavy), and vocal overdubs from Helter Skelter were included. In addition to this mix of the song, unused sound effects originally considered for the song were included in a mix of Blue Jay Way.

[edit] Personnel

[edit] The Beatles

[edit] Guest Musicians

[edit] Production

[edit] Available Versions

[edit] Available On

[edit] Cover Versions

[edit] Source

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