Yeah, like in Nevermind, i youy hear Bleach, then you hear Nevermind, you know ethere's somethign going on in between them. Somethign in the producing. But it's just a story I've never heard.
With Strawberry field,s, there are around seventy different recordings of that song. At least what they said on the show. It's one of the beatles most re-recorded songs. As they explained it, John lennon wrote the lyrics while he was relaxing on the beach one day.
Then they spent weeks workiung on it. Eventually, he came up with a version that was kinda slow and psychodelic. But he still wasn't happy to it. So he asked Paul to do a version. And Paul does this highly instrumental, louder, more popish version. Because Paul was like that. And of couse John didn't like that either. But john did like the instrumentals in Pauls version. So he tells the produce, I like the beginning of mine, I like the ending of Pauls, put them together.
Well, the produce has just been told to do this while Jophn goes out clubbing. So the producer and an enginner spend all night trying to figure out how to do this. because both versions were completely differnt tempos and pitches of instrumentation. So the engineer gets the idea of speeding one up. So they speed up Johns version, and it fits, but it still doesn;'t spound right. So what they did was speed up Johsn justa little bit, and slow down Pauls just a little bit. Then they slice the two the after the second "strawberry fields forever." When you hear the drums kick in, that's Pauls version. And if you loisten closely, you can hear the splice, but you have to listen for it.
Then the Harrioson story was hilarious. Harrison had written three songs on their last album. But Paul and John thought that Sgt.. Pepper was too good an album for Harrison. So they only let him have one song. And most of the time George Harrison was in India while they were working on Sgt Pepper. So Geore comes back to England towards the end of making Sgt. Pepper, writes a song, and Paul and John think it's shit. Eventually that song gets put on Yellow Submarine. But basiclaly they give George the nuge nuge that he's probably not going to get a song. Which starts a row.
So the producer evens things out and goes tell George to write somethign else and he'd make sure it got put on the record. So John goes back, writes within and without you, and he has thios whole orchestral vision of it in his head because he's just flown back from India. But when he plays it for Paul and John, he's basically doing it as an acoustic solo, and Paul and John hate it. But think of the song with John and Paul listening and George sitting on a stool, struming with a single guitar, and singing. I woudl think it sucked too. But the producer is like, let's just record it and play around with it and see what happens.
At this poinnt, John and Paul are like, "You can do whatever you want because the album is done as far as we're concerned." and then go off to club or smoke marajuwanna or whatvere they did at that point.
But George has this vision in his head, which he can't seem to express. So he flies in this indian orchestra he knew from his time in india, and as soon as they arrive, they start recording that night. And they spend allevening with george directing the english and indian orchestra on that beautiful interplay between east and west. And then in the morning he did the part where he sings.
They put it all together, and the producer is blown away. That song is somnething totally composed and put together by george, with the help of this producer. Because George had a very difficult time getting the music in his head out in a real performance. But the producer said that when they were done, it was the first tiem that he had known george with the beatles as being truly happy. Because for the first time he's put together something as he truly saw it in his mind and expressed it in the real world, and he knew it was as good as anything that Paul or John could compose. I had always thought hat musical composition was developed by John but I was absolutely wrong.
And then the following day, Paul anmd John hear the finished within and without you, and they were absolutely stunned. Because all the beatles had gone to india. But only george had thought to put together something liek Within and without you. ANd frankly, it was just as ood if not better than the stuff Paul and John had pout on Srgt Pepper. And it did get their goat a little, because Johna and Paul were nothing but prideful men. And it helped george mmensely because let's face it, he's no Paul or John. But once, just once, he came upwith some on their par and he knew it. And they could never again think that he could never be as good as them.
But this program was full of stories like that.