"The Beatles" (aka the White Album) sessions
May 30 - Oct 18, 1968 • Songs recorded during this session appear on The Beatles (Mono)
Recording studio: EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
Session Late July 1968 • Recording "Those Were the Days"
Article Jul 28, 1968 • The "Mad Day Out" photo session
Session Jul 29, 1968 • Recording "Hey Jude"
Session Jul 30, 1968 • Recording and mixing "Hey Jude"
Article Jul 31, 1968 • The Apple shop in Baker Street closes down
AlbumSome of the songs worked on during this session were first released on the "Hey Jude / Revolution" 7" Single
There was no session on Friday, July 26, as Paul McCartney and John Lennon completed the writing “Hey Jude.”
On Friday, July 26, John and Paul spent most of the day at Paul’s house putting the final touches to their latest composition, “Hey Jude”. The following Monday evening at EMI they began to rehearse it with George and Ringo.
Mal Evans – From The Beatles Monthly Book, September 1968, N°62
I finished it all up in Cavendish and I was in the music room upstairs when John and Yoko came to visit and they were right behind me over my right shoulder, standing up, listening to it as I played it to them, and when I got to the line, ‘The movement you need is on your shoulder,’ I looked over my shoulder and I said, ‘I’ll change that, it’s a bit crummy. I was just blocking it out,’ and John said, ‘You won’t, you know. That’s the best line in it!’ That’s collaboration. When someone’s that firm about a line that you’re going to junk, and he said, ‘No, keep it in.’ So of course you love that line twice as much because it’s a little stray, it’s a little mutt that you were about to put down and it was reprieved and so it’s more beautiful than ever. I love those words now…
Time lends a little credence to things. You can’t knock it, it just did so well. But when I’m singing it, that is when I think of John, when I hear myself singing that line; it’s an emotional point in the song.
Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997
On this day, July 29, The Beatles started the recording of “Hey Jude“, which would become the A-side of their forthcoming single, with “Revolution” as the B-side, which had been recorded earlier in July.
The session lasted from 8:30 pm to 4:00 am. George Martin was absent, and this was the first Beatles session for engineer John Smith.
They recorded six takes of “Hey Jude,” featuring Paul McCartney on piano and lead vocals, John Lennon on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, George Harrison on electric guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums. However, these were largely rehearsal runs rather than definitive versions. Only Takes 1, 2, and 6 were complete. Take 1 was later released on the 2018 reissue of The Beatles, and Take 2, faded out at 4 minutes and 17 seconds, appeared on Anthology 3 in 1996.
Live-in-the-studio outtake. While the master version – issued at the end of August 1968 – was long and lavish, this studio run-through of Hey Jude, taped four days earlier, is comparatively abbreviated and purposely stripped-down: live piano and vocal from Paul, live drums, acoustic and electric guitars. The take begins in a jestful manner: John speaks of “the heart of the Black country”, the name of the old smoke-stack industrial region in the middle of England, and Paul responds with a mention of Boston Place, a small London street where the Beatles’ company Apple had just installed an electronics laboratory. (Also, the Beatles had been filmed running along Boston Place for the title sequence of A Hard Day’s Night.)
From the liner notes of Anthology 3
At this stage, the lyrics were still a work in progress, with noticeable differences from the final version. For instance, “She has found you now go and get her” was later changed to “You have found her now go and get her,” and “Remember to let her into your heart” was altered to “Remember to let her under your skin” in the concluding verse.
The Beatles continued working on “Hey Jude” the following day.
Recording • Take 1
AlbumOfficially released on The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)
Recording • Take 2
AlbumOfficially released on Anthology 3
Recording • Take 3
Recording • Take 4
Recording • Take 5
Recording • Take 6
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn
The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970.
We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!
The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 4: The Beatles through Yellow Submarine (1968 - early 1969)
The fourth book of this critically acclaimed series, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 4: The Beatles through Yellow Submarine (1968 - early 1969)" captures The Beatles as they take the lessons of Sgt. Pepper forward with an ambitious double-album that is equally innovative and progressive. From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time. Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.
If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.
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