Recording Session - March 21, 1967
From BeatlesWiki
| Event | |
| Date | March 21, 1967 |
| Short description | Recording Session. Songs Recorded: Lovely Rita. Songs Mixed: Getting Better. This was the infamous night where John took LSD when trying to record. |
| Location | Abbey Road Studios |
A 7:00 PM to 2:45 AM session. At the beginning of this session, Getting Better was given a reduction mixdown so the vocals could be overdubbed onto it. John, however, was on LSD and not feeling well because of that. He excused himself to go into the control room with George Martin. Martin saw that he was not well, though he was not aware of the reason why, so, because the fans who hung around the entrance kept John from being in front of Abbey Road Studios, George Martin took John to the roof to get fresh air. Martin left him there and returned to the session. After Paul and George, who knew he was on LSD, heard where he was, they quickly got him down from the roof, which had no rails or barriers that would keep him from walking off the top of the thirty-foot-tall building. Because John was unable to work, the vocals for Getting Better had to be recorded at another time, which they would on March 23. Also during this session, George Martin recorded his piano solo for Lovely Rita, after which a mono mix was made.
Contents |
About This Session
"I was aware of them smoking pot, but I wasn't aware that they did anything serious. In fact, I was so innocent that I actually took John up to the roof when he was having an LSD trip, not knowing what it was. If I'd known it was LSD, the roof would have been the last place I would have taken him. He was in the studio and I was in the control room, and he said he wasn't feeling too good. So I said, 'Come up here,' and asked George and Paul to go on overdubbing the voice. 'I'll take John out for a breath of fresh air,' I said, but of course I couldn't take him out the front because there were 500 screaming kids who'd have torn him apart,. So the only place I could take him to get fresh air was the roof. It was a wonderful starry night, and John went to the edge, which was a parapet about 18 inches high, and looked up at the stars and said, 'Aren't they fantastic?' Of course, to him I suppose they would have been especially fantastic. At the time they just looked like stars to me."
- George Martin, producer
"I never took [LSD] in the studio. Once I did, actually. I thought I was taking some uppers and I was not in the state of handling it. I took it and I suddenly got so scared on the mike. I said, 'What is it? I feel ill.' I thought I felt ill and I thought I was going cracked. I said I must go and get some air. They all took me upstairs on the roof, and George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me that I must have taken some acid. I said, 'Well, I can't go on. You'll have to do it and I'll just stay and watch.' I got very nervous just watching them all , and I kept saying, 'Is this all right?' They had all been very kind and they said, 'Yes, it's all right.' I said, 'Are you sure it's all right?' They carried on making the record."
- John Lennon, 1970
"[John] took some LSD to keep him awake for a while. At that point, the session was effectively over."
- George Harrison
"John started pointing at the ceiling and said, ‘Look at that!’ And Martin didn’t know what was going on, so he took him onto the roof and left him there, thinking that he was feeling a bit feint."
- Geoff Emerick, engineer
"The problem was where to take him. There were the usual five hundred or so kids waiting for us at the front, keeping vigil like guard-dogs, and if we had dared to appear at the entrance there would have been uproar and they would probably have broken the gates down. So I took him up to the roof, above Number Two studio. Then I suddenly realised that the only protection around the edge of the roof was a parapet about six inches high, with a sheer drop of about ninety feet below."
- George Martin, producer
"I would be stupid to pretend that I didn’t know drugs featured quite heavily in the Beatles’ lives at that time, but at the same time they knew that I, in my schoolmasterly role, didn’t approve, and like naughty boys they would slope off into the canteen, lock the door and have their joints. They always used to disappear to have a little puff, he explained. They never did it in front of me, you see. They always used to go down to the canteen, and Mal Evans used to guard it."
- George Martin, producer
Recorded On This Date
Getting Better
- Getting Better, reduction mix (%)
Lovely Rita
- Lovely Rita, piano solo (%)
- Lovely Rita, RM1 (*)
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.
Source
- LEWISOHN M., 1992, The Complete Beatles Chronicle, Hamlyn -- Buy it on Amazon.com
- LENNON, J., MCCARTNEY P., HARRION G., STARKEY R., 2002, The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle Books -- Buy it on Amazon.com
