Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!

Song facts

That was taken directly off a poster John had. A circus poster. We stretched it a bit.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Playboy, December 1984

From Wikipedia:

“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is a song recorded by the English rock band the Beatles for their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written and composed primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney.

Most of the lyrics came from a 19th-century circus poster for Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal appearance at Rochdale. It was one of three songs from the Sgt. Pepper album that was banned from playing on the BBC, supposedly because the phrase “Henry the Horse” combined two words that were individually known as slang for heroin. Lennon denied that the song had anything to do with heroin.

Background

The inspiration to write the song was a 19th-century circus poster for Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal appearance at Rochdale. Lennon purchased the poster on 31 January 1967 at a Sevenoaks antiques shop while the Beatles were filming promotional films for “Strawberry Fields Forever” in Sevenoaks, Kent. Lennon claimed years later to still have the poster in his home. “Everything from the song is from that poster,” he explained, “except the horse wasn’t called Henry.” (The poster identifies the horse as “Zanthus”.)

The song’s lyrics (based on the original poster) detail the evening’s program, which was to occur at Bishopsgate in the following sequence: On Saturday at 5:50 pm the band was to begin playing while Mr. Kite would perform, flying “through the ring.” Meanwhile, Mr. Henderson would execute ten somersaults, and then perform on the trampoline, “over men and horses, through hoops and over garters,”[a] and “lastly through a hogshead of real fire.” This act would be followed by the Hendersons dancing and singing. Finally, Henry the Horse would dance the waltz.

Mr. Kite is believed to be William Kite, who worked for Pablo Fanque from 1843 to 1845. “Mr. J. Henderson” was John Henderson, a wire-walker, equestrian, trampoline artist, and clown. While the poster made no mention of “Hendersons” plural, as Lennon sings, John Henderson did perform with his wife Agnes, the daughter of circus owner Henry Hengler. The Hendersons performed throughout Europe and Russia during the 1840s and 1850s.

“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is credited to Lennon–McCartney, but Lennon said he had written it entirely himself. In 1977, when shown a list of songs Lennon claimed writing on (including “Mr. Kite”), McCartney disputed only “In My Life“. In his 1997 memoir, he claimed to have also co-written “Mr. Kite”. In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he recalled spending an afternoon with Lennon writing the song based on the poster, and said that “the song just wrote itself”.

Recording

One of the most musically complex songs on Sgt. Pepper, it was recorded by the Beatles on 17 February 1967 with overdubs on 20 February (organ sound effects), 28 March (harmonica, organ, guitar), 29 March (more organ effects) and 31 March. Lennon wanted the track to have a “carnival atmosphere”, and told producer George Martin that he wanted “to smell the sawdust on the floor”. In the middle eight bars, multiple recordings of fairground organs and calliope music were spliced together to attempt to satisfy this request. In a 1968 interview, Martin recalled that he achieved this “by playing the Hammond organ myself and speeding it up”. In addition to the Hammond organ, an attempt was made to find a 19th-century steam organ for hire in London, to enhance the carnival atmosphere effect, but to no avail. After a great deal of unsuccessful experimentation, Martin instructed recording engineer Geoff Emerick to chop the tape into pieces with scissors, throw them up in the air, and re-assemble them at random.

Before the start of the first take, Lennon sings the words “For the benefit of Mr. Kite!” in a joke accent, then Emerick announces, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite! This is take 1.” Lennon immediately responds, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”, reinforcing his title preference from a phrase lifted intact from the original Pablo Fanque poster. The exchange is recorded in The Beatles Recording Sessions and audible on track 8 of disc 2 of Anthology 2. The original recording can also be heard during the loading screen for the song if it is downloaded in the 2009 video game The Beatles: Rock Band.

Although Lennon once said of the song that he “wasn’t proud of that” and “I was just going through the motions”, in 1980 he described it as “pure, like a painting, a pure watercolour”. AllMusic stated that “the Beatles and Martin pulled out all the stops to make a layer of sound that was only possible to create in the recording studio […] resulting in a sound both redolent of the circuses of bygone days, and as avant-garde as anything in rock music.” […]

John got the idea for ‘Mr Kite’ when we were filming in Sevenoaks in Kent. We had a lunch break, and we went in an antique shop on the way to the restaurant. We were looking around when John came out of the shop with a little poster which had more or less the whole lyric of the song ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’ on it.

George Harrison – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

I was from this old poster for an old-fashioned circus from the 1800s that I’d bought at an antique shop. We’d been filming a TV piece to go with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’ There was a break and I went into this shop and bought an old poster advertising a variety show which starred Mr Kite.

It said the Hendersons would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair. There would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogshead of real fire. Then there was Henry The Horse. The band would start at ten to six. All at Bishopsgate. I hardly made up a word, just connecting the lists together. Word for word, really.

I wasn’t very proud of that. There was no real work. I was just going through the motions because we needed a new song for Sgt Pepper at that moment. I had to write it quick because otherwise I wouldn’t have been on the album.

John Lennon – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

Everything in the song is from that poster, except the horse wasn’t called Henry. Now, there were all kinds of stories about Henry the horse being heroin. I had never seen heroin in that period. It’s all just from that poster. I wrote that as a pure poetic job. I had to write it because it was time to write and I had to write it quick because otherwise I wouldn’t have been on the album. So, I had to knock off a few songs, so I knocked of ‘A Day In The Life’ and ‘Mr Kite.’

John Lennon – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

‘Mr Kite’ was a poster that John had in his house in Weybridge. I arrived there for a session one day and he had it up on the wall in his living room. It was all there, the trampoline, the somersets, the hoops, the garters, the horse. It was Pablo Fanque’s fair, and it said ‘Being for the benefit of Mr Kite’; almost the whole song was written right off this poster. We just sat down and wrote it. We pretty much took it down word for word and then just made up some little bits and pieces to glue it together. It was more John’s because it was his poster so he ended up singing it, but it was quite a co-written song. We were both sitting there to write it at his house, just looking at it on the wall in the living room. But that was nice, it wrote itself very easily. Later George Martin put a fairground sound on it.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

I had this very open house then, because I was living on my own. If American fans came over, I’d just invite them in for a cup of tea and we’d have a chat. It was like you were a guru, and you sensed a bit of that yourself, because often you would get the nutters coming and you didn’t want to just turn them away so you felt you had to try and explain to them, ‘No, Mr Kite is a fictitious character, we made him up.’ ‘Yes, but Iam Mr Kite.’ ‘I know what you’re saying, but as far as we’re concerned, really, we didn’t write it about you. You should know that. We wrote it actually off a circus poster and it’s a fictitious name.’ ‘Yes, but I am Mr Kite.’

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

John wanted to hear the sawdust in the ring. That was the brief he gave me, and it gave me a nice problem. ‘What you really want’, I told him, ‘is a calliope!’ He said, ‘A what?’ I told him, ‘A steam organ, you know, one of those tooty things,’ and I thought that it might be possible to get hold of a steam organ and actually use that. But, that was a bit of a wild idea and too cumbersome and it would have taken much too long for it to be done. So, with not being able to get a steam organ in the studio, I got as many different recordings of steam organs I could find and we transferred them to tape and I told the engineer, Geoff Emerick, to chop them all up into one-foot lengths and throw them all up into the air and pick them up and put them all back together again. But, it wasn’t quite as effective as I thought, because some of the bits came together too well! They had joined up in the way that they had started. So, I told Geoff, ‘That’s no good, and turn that one back to front.’ Eventually, we made a background tape that was just chaos. It was just nothing at all, but, undeniably, it was the sound of a steam organ. It was just a whirly-gig sound. When Henry the Horse takes over, I got John to play the tune on one organ, while I played swirling runs on another Hammond organ, played at half speed. The Beatles’ road managers Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall played mouth organs and I played a variety of electronic effects.

George Martin – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

You’ve added a few new Beatles songs to the set [of your concerts] – “Lovely Rita,” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and “All Together Now.” What’s it like playing those live for the first time ever?

That’s challenging. I mean, something like “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is hard to do. Ask a bass player who sings. It’s contrapuntal, man! It really is. I’ve got to sing a melody that’s going to one place, and then I’ve got to play this bassline that’s going to other places. It’s a concentration thing. But that’s half the fun of the show. I’m still practicing, still trying to figure it out, particularly on the new numbers. It’s like, “How does this one go again?”

Paul McCartney – Interview with RollingStone, July 2013

I never used to do anything [in concert] unless it was something that I had done the main vocal on. Which is still true, most of the songs, but now I’ve started to do things like “A Hard Day’s Night,” which was mainly John’s vocal. That I would have called a John song, but you know, I helped write it, and it’s a similar thing for a song called “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” In the end, it’s just down to whether it’s a good song to do. I had always said I could never do that song because it’s got such a complicated bass part that it’s almost impossible to sing the melody, which is kind of contrapuntal. But in the end, I thought, stop being a wimp, let’s try and see if you can do it. And I manned up and learned it.

Paul McCartney – Interview for The New York Times, August 2016

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 31 Mar 1967.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol MAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.

[b] stereo 7 Apr 1967.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol SMAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46442 2 Sgt Pepper 1987.

[d] stereo 1995. edited.
CD: Apple CDP 8 34448 2 Anthology 2 1996.

Mono [a] has more of the organ tape loops in the break after “Henry the horse dances the waltz”, perhaps a track not faded up in the mix of [b]?

The Anthology mix [d] is deliberately different. First it shows take 7 without the organ and calliope effects, including some John scat vocal during the instrumental break that was mixed out of [a][b], and then it crossfades into the organ and calliope overdub tracks to a fadeout.

Last updated on January 18, 2024

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