The Beatles' "Yer Blues" - A Closer Look
Ringo has described the sessions for this song as his all time favorite recording time with the Beatles. Ironically, it ocurred during the otherwise tension-riddled months of "White Album" sessions during the summer of 1968. Let's see what Ringo was talking about . . . .
Once again we draw from "Recording the Beatles," by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, Curvebender Press, 2008. We also draw a bit from "Fab Four Faq" by Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriquez, Hal Leonard Press, 2007.
If you are an avid fan of the Beatles or even a casual fan that has been reading these blogs, you will know that John Lennon was going through a seismic emotional/mental/priority shift in 1968. For one thing, his output of material had become protigious, in part, due to the influence of Yoko Ono. That was a good thing. John's range of style and sensibilities had also expanded logarithmically producing an amazing diversity in stylings such as gentle poetry (Cry Baby Cry), hard-difficult to play-rock (Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey), lost love and found new love (Julia), gentle coaxing (Dear Prudence) and bold, dramatic avant-garde experimentation (Revolution #9).
All of which brings us to this unique track, a send up of the then current heavy blues scene going on in Great Britain, especially London. Lennon as well as the rest of the Beatles, had little use for the blues and literally never ventured into that musical territory. While respecting the playing chops of the Claptons, Jeff Becks and Pages on the scene, it just wasn't what the Beatles were into. Notwithstanding, Lennon just couldn't help but take a stab at it himself. Lennon wisely chose to make an earnest effort at the tune as opposed to mocking the genre. His lyrics harken back to the originator of the blues, Robert Johnson and evoke the pain and suffering Lennon was going through at the time; a new love in Yoko, the loss of his wife Cynthia, the abondonment of his child Julian, and conflicting thoughts of leaving the Beatles for good. All of this was going through Lennon's tortured mind in the fateful summer of 1968 and he expressed it nicely albeit, painfully in this great tune.
Very interestingly, both John and George Harrison shone brightly in their respective guitar solos, especially Harrison. One might have thought George would have been a bit intimidated by venturing into friend Eric Clapton's realm, but George rose to the occasion mightily and showed he could lead riff with the best of them, when he put his mind to it. The fact is, George's sonic work on "Yer Blues" is unearthly as it is astounding. One of his best ever.
August 13, 1968: The Beatles gathered in Abbey Road studios to record this new Lennon composition. Even more unique than the song itself was HOW the band recorded it. Recording engineer Ken Scott remembers the day, "We were doing a track called 'Not Guilty,' with George Harrison. He (Harrison) wanted a different vocal sound, so he decided he wanted to sing in the control room, with everything coming out of the monitors. But we couldn't put him through the monitors, so we literally had to listen on headphones. He wanted the complete reversal kind of thing. Funnily enough, that's how we later recorded his vocal on the remake of 'My Sweet Lord.' Anyway, at one point we were having a playback, and I stood beside John and said, 'Bloddy hell! The way you guys are going, the next thing you'll want to do is record in there-' and pointed to the room next door where the Telefunken four-tracks use to be, which was this tiny room. And he (Lennon) said, 'What a great idea!' And the next track we did was 'Yer Blues', which was all of them stuck in there."
The room Ken Scott was referring to is Room 2A, and it had originally been one of the remote four-track machine rooms before the machines were moved into the Control Room. It had been recently cleared out and at that moment, became an ad hoc recording studio.
Tape Op John Smith adds the following recollections, "So, they took Ringo's kit and moved it into that side room, and the others were going to play in the (actual) studio. We rigged up the headsets and they started going through it, and Ringo said, 'I can't, I need to have Paul here, to play off of. So, we moved Paul in(to the small room) and started going through the song again, but Paul now needs John, so John then came up. Right. So we've got three in there (the small room). And George Harrison faces me and says 'F**k this . . . .' and I'd even swear he brought his own amp up, because he felt stupid going on his own in Number 2!" *George would have been left stranded in the big studio floor while the other three were jammed into a closet.
14 takes of the backing track were recorded, featuring Ringo's drums on Track 1, Paul's bass on Track 2, and John and George's guitars on Tracks 3 and 4. Deciding that Take 14 had the most potential, John and George then re-recorded their guitar solos, thus wiping their previous efforts in the process. The entry of the overdubbed guitars occurs at precisely 2:28, though leakage of the original solos into the other microphones can be heard in the final Stereo mix.
After this effort, the band decided that while they all liked Take 14 up until the end of the guitar solos, they preferred Take 6 for combining the guitar tracks to Track 3. Take 17(a reduction mix of Take 14) was then spliced with Take 16 ( a reduction mix of Take 6) to form a complete four-track master. The edit point is rather blatant: at 3:17 there is an abrupt change as the song cuts from Take 17 to Take 16 (what you hear to this day is a sudden, jarring return to the slower bluesy timing of the beginning of the song lead into by Ringo's drums).
Returning to the Studio the following day, John Lennon recorded his lead vocal on the remaining free track with very occasional spots of harmony from Paul. Tape Op John Smith recalls this vocal overdub also being done in room 2A but with a twist: "For his vocal, somebody had found this mic - an old RCA with little posts where you had to connect the wires, the leads, to them (the authors tell us that is must have been a RCA 44-BX mic). Lennon stuck his head halfway through, between the Control Room and that little room, and that's how his vocal was recorded. It was just basically coming off the speaker and him at the same time." On this same track, Ringo double-tracked his snare for the duration of the guitar solo and also doubled the drum fill that occurred at the transition between Takes 17 and 16.
Takes 14 & 6:
Track 1: Drums
Track 2: Bass
Track 3:Electric Guitar
Track 4: Electric Guitar
Tracks 17 & 16:
Track 1: Drums
Track 2: Bass
Track 3: All Guitars in a reduction mix
Track 4: Lennon Vocals, snare drum overdub
Trivia: Paul used a Fender Jazz bass on a number of songs on the "White Album." "Yer Blues" was one of them. You can hear the difference in the bass; it sounds dirtier and different than the Hofner and Rickenbacker basses.
By John Haberstroh (Bassist for BeatleTracks) Find us at www.beatletracksband.com
Once again we draw from "Recording the Beatles," by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, Curvebender Press, 2008. We also draw a bit from "Fab Four Faq" by Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriquez, Hal Leonard Press, 2007.
If you are an avid fan of the Beatles or even a casual fan that has been reading these blogs, you will know that John Lennon was going through a seismic emotional/mental/priority shift in 1968. For one thing, his output of material had become protigious, in part, due to the influence of Yoko Ono. That was a good thing. John's range of style and sensibilities had also expanded logarithmically producing an amazing diversity in stylings such as gentle poetry (Cry Baby Cry), hard-difficult to play-rock (Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey), lost love and found new love (Julia), gentle coaxing (Dear Prudence) and bold, dramatic avant-garde experimentation (Revolution #9).
All of which brings us to this unique track, a send up of the then current heavy blues scene going on in Great Britain, especially London. Lennon as well as the rest of the Beatles, had little use for the blues and literally never ventured into that musical territory. While respecting the playing chops of the Claptons, Jeff Becks and Pages on the scene, it just wasn't what the Beatles were into. Notwithstanding, Lennon just couldn't help but take a stab at it himself. Lennon wisely chose to make an earnest effort at the tune as opposed to mocking the genre. His lyrics harken back to the originator of the blues, Robert Johnson and evoke the pain and suffering Lennon was going through at the time; a new love in Yoko, the loss of his wife Cynthia, the abondonment of his child Julian, and conflicting thoughts of leaving the Beatles for good. All of this was going through Lennon's tortured mind in the fateful summer of 1968 and he expressed it nicely albeit, painfully in this great tune.
Very interestingly, both John and George Harrison shone brightly in their respective guitar solos, especially Harrison. One might have thought George would have been a bit intimidated by venturing into friend Eric Clapton's realm, but George rose to the occasion mightily and showed he could lead riff with the best of them, when he put his mind to it. The fact is, George's sonic work on "Yer Blues" is unearthly as it is astounding. One of his best ever.
August 13, 1968: The Beatles gathered in Abbey Road studios to record this new Lennon composition. Even more unique than the song itself was HOW the band recorded it. Recording engineer Ken Scott remembers the day, "We were doing a track called 'Not Guilty,' with George Harrison. He (Harrison) wanted a different vocal sound, so he decided he wanted to sing in the control room, with everything coming out of the monitors. But we couldn't put him through the monitors, so we literally had to listen on headphones. He wanted the complete reversal kind of thing. Funnily enough, that's how we later recorded his vocal on the remake of 'My Sweet Lord.' Anyway, at one point we were having a playback, and I stood beside John and said, 'Bloddy hell! The way you guys are going, the next thing you'll want to do is record in there-' and pointed to the room next door where the Telefunken four-tracks use to be, which was this tiny room. And he (Lennon) said, 'What a great idea!' And the next track we did was 'Yer Blues', which was all of them stuck in there."
The room Ken Scott was referring to is Room 2A, and it had originally been one of the remote four-track machine rooms before the machines were moved into the Control Room. It had been recently cleared out and at that moment, became an ad hoc recording studio.
Tape Op John Smith adds the following recollections, "So, they took Ringo's kit and moved it into that side room, and the others were going to play in the (actual) studio. We rigged up the headsets and they started going through it, and Ringo said, 'I can't, I need to have Paul here, to play off of. So, we moved Paul in(to the small room) and started going through the song again, but Paul now needs John, so John then came up. Right. So we've got three in there (the small room). And George Harrison faces me and says 'F**k this . . . .' and I'd even swear he brought his own amp up, because he felt stupid going on his own in Number 2!" *George would have been left stranded in the big studio floor while the other three were jammed into a closet.
14 takes of the backing track were recorded, featuring Ringo's drums on Track 1, Paul's bass on Track 2, and John and George's guitars on Tracks 3 and 4. Deciding that Take 14 had the most potential, John and George then re-recorded their guitar solos, thus wiping their previous efforts in the process. The entry of the overdubbed guitars occurs at precisely 2:28, though leakage of the original solos into the other microphones can be heard in the final Stereo mix.
After this effort, the band decided that while they all liked Take 14 up until the end of the guitar solos, they preferred Take 6 for combining the guitar tracks to Track 3. Take 17(a reduction mix of Take 14) was then spliced with Take 16 ( a reduction mix of Take 6) to form a complete four-track master. The edit point is rather blatant: at 3:17 there is an abrupt change as the song cuts from Take 17 to Take 16 (what you hear to this day is a sudden, jarring return to the slower bluesy timing of the beginning of the song lead into by Ringo's drums).
Returning to the Studio the following day, John Lennon recorded his lead vocal on the remaining free track with very occasional spots of harmony from Paul. Tape Op John Smith recalls this vocal overdub also being done in room 2A but with a twist: "For his vocal, somebody had found this mic - an old RCA with little posts where you had to connect the wires, the leads, to them (the authors tell us that is must have been a RCA 44-BX mic). Lennon stuck his head halfway through, between the Control Room and that little room, and that's how his vocal was recorded. It was just basically coming off the speaker and him at the same time." On this same track, Ringo double-tracked his snare for the duration of the guitar solo and also doubled the drum fill that occurred at the transition between Takes 17 and 16.
Takes 14 & 6:
Track 1: Drums
Track 2: Bass
Track 3:Electric Guitar
Track 4: Electric Guitar
Tracks 17 & 16:
Track 1: Drums
Track 2: Bass
Track 3: All Guitars in a reduction mix
Track 4: Lennon Vocals, snare drum overdub
Trivia: Paul used a Fender Jazz bass on a number of songs on the "White Album." "Yer Blues" was one of them. You can hear the difference in the bass; it sounds dirtier and different than the Hofner and Rickenbacker basses.
By John Haberstroh (Bassist for BeatleTracks) Find us at www.beatletracksband.com
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