Honey Pie

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Honey Pie is a song off The Beatles' 1968 self-titled album. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Contents

Writing

Honey Pie was written by Paul McCartney in the style of British music hall music. Paul commented, "Both John and I had a great love for music hall, what the Americans call vaudeville... I very much liked that old crooner style, the strange fruity voice that they used, so Honey Pie was me writing one of them to an imaginary woman, across the ocean, on the silver screen, who was called Honey Pie. It's another of my fantasy songs."

Recording

The earliest recorded version is a demo done at Kinfauns, George Harrison's house in Esher, in late May 1968. During this demo session, The Beatles recorded demos of several songs written during their trip to India in Spring 1968. The demo of Honey Pie has only a couple minor lyrical variations. The most obvious difference is that the Kinfauns demo lacks the introduction used in the final version. The demo appeared on Anthology 3, though had been available for years before on bootlegs. The first studio recording began on October 1, 1968 at Trident Studios. Just one take was recorded, though it is likely that there were many rehearsals before this take that were recorded over. In this basic track, McCartney played piano, Harrison played bass, Lennon played electric guitar, and Starr played drums. The next day, Paul taped his lead vocals, and John added a lead guitar part. George said of John's solo in 1987, "John played a brilliant solo on Honey Pie - sounded like Django Reinhardt or something. It was one of them where you just close your eyes and happen to hit all the right notes... sounded like a little jazz solo." George Martin arranged the woodwind parts from a mix made on October 1, and these parts were recorded on October 4. This score featured five saxophones and two clarinets. At the end of the October 4 session, Paul added a brief voal overdub; the line "Now she's hit the big time!" This was fed through an audio compressor to reduce the treble and bass. The sound of an old phonograph record was also added to give it a sound of authenticity. Paul recalled, "We put a sound on my voice to make it sound like a scratchy old record. So it's not a parody, it's a nod to the vaudeville tradition that I was raised on."

Recording Sessions


Personnel

The Beatles

Guest Musicians

Production

Available Versions

Available On

Cover Versions

Source

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