Recording and mixing "All Together Now"

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On the previous day, The Beatles recorded and mixed “Baby, You’re A Rich Man” song during a six-hour session. In a similar fashion, on this day from 7 pm to 12:30 am, they recorded and mixed “All Together Now,” a song for the Yellow Submarine animated film soundtrack.

George Martin was absent from this session, and balance engineer Geoff Emerick took over as a producer.

“All Together Now” was recorded in nine takes. The backing track featured Paul McCartney and George Harrison on acoustic guitars, John Lennon on harmonica, and Ringo Starr on drums. Some unknown studio guests also contributed some cog rattle, horn and tambourine. Take 9 was considered the best and received some overdubs.

Paul overdubbed his bass part, and Paul and John added lead vocals. Also, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and some studio guests added backing vocals. Additional percussions, such as drumsticks and finger cymbals, were also added, as well as handclaps.

Six mono mixes, labelled as Remix Mono 1 to 6, were then created. Some ADT (artificial double tracking) was added to the vocals. RM6 was used in the original Yellow Submarine film and released on the “Mono Masters” album in 2009. The mono version released on the “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack was a mono made from the stereo mix, which was created more than a year later, on October 29, 1968.

In mid-May, George Martin took off for a two-week holiday in the south of France. The Beatles nonetheless soldiered on without him, and I was officially listed on the tape box as both producer and engineer of the two songs they recorded in his absence: Paul’s “All Together Now” and an unusual collaboration between John and Paul called “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number).” Frankly, George going on vacation in the middle of these sessions did not go down well in anybody’s book. We were all tired [from recording the “Sgt. Pepper” album] yet he was the only one taking time off. By this point, I doubt very much if the band were crediting George Martin with their success anyway. In fact, they probably welcomed the opportunity to get some work done without him. […]

Lennon, in fact, made a comment at the start of the “All Together Now” session to the effect of “Well, now that the schoolmaster’s out, we kids finally get a chance to play.” Interestingly, the last time the Beatles had done a recording in George’s absence was the song “Yellow Submarine,” during the Revolver sessions, which was remarkably similar to “All Together Now” in both content and style. And both times, the Beatles invited friends in to sing along and create a party atmosphere. Paul obviously had worked the song out well in advance and knew exactly what he wanted: all the singing and playing is spot-on, despite the fact that it’s not that strong of a song (ultimately it was relegated to the Yellow Submarine film). Still, it was a remarkably productive night, and it was quite an easy session, too, even though there were a lot of overdubs. A lot of it had to be played live, because they wanted the tempo to speed up from beginning to end. Paul even sang the final lead vocal — not a guide — during the recording of the backing track, while accompanying himself on acoustic guitar.

Geoff Emerick – From “Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles“, 2006

Last updated on May 12, 2024

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "All Together Now"

Paul McCartney:

Acoustic guitar, Bass, Lead vocals

Ringo Starr:

Percussions, Backing vocals, Drums

John Lennon:

Lead vocals, Harmonica

George Harrison:

Backing vocals, Acoustic guitar

?:

Tambourine, Handclaps, Backing vocals, Horn, Cog rattle

Production staff

Geoff Emerick:

Engineer

Richard Lush:

Second Engineer