From BeatlesWiki
Paul McCartney was not satisfied with the mono mixes of
When I'm Sixty-Four done
the previous day. So he suggested scrapping all previous mixes and starting over again. In the new mixes made this day, When I'm Sixty-Four was sped up by a semitone. Engineer
Geoff Emerick suggests that Paul wanted his vocals to sound more youthful, fitting in with the theme of the song. When the stereo mix was made on
April 17,
1967, tape operator
Richard Lush remembers
George Martin being amazed at how sped up the mono mix had been. Lush recalls, "He kept saying 'Surely it can't have been that fast'?" The mixing done on December 30 began a 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM session. Directly afterwards, they made two tape copies of the best mono mix of
Strawberry Fields Forever from the previous night. Another tape copy would be made on
January 2,
1967. The rest of the session was devoted to
Penny Lane, beginning with a reduction of Take 6 into Take 7 and an overdub of Paul's lead vocal and John's backing vocals. These vocals were recorded slow at 47 1/2 cycles so that they would sound sped up. The Beatles ran out of time to do the other overdubs they had planned, so they had to wait until
1967 to do further work on the song. All that was left to do in
1966 was mix
Penny Lane into mono so an acetate could be cut.
Recorded On This Date
A (*) indicates a performance not available on any release, legitimate or bootleg.
A (%) indicates an overdub, edit piece, or basic track available only as part of another recording. The overdub, edit piece, or basic track by itself has not been released.
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