Recording "Good Morning Good Morning"

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On this day, The Beatles started recording John Lennon’s song “Good Morning Good Morning,” in a session which lasted from 7 pm to 2:15 am. They recorded eight takes of the rhythm track, with John on electric guitar and guide vocals and Ringo Starr on drums, with Paul McCartney assisting Ringo by beating his floor tom. Drums were recorded on track one, electric guitar on track two, and the guide vocals on track four.

Kevin Howlett, in the book accompanying the 2017 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” box set, indicates Ringo played a tambourine, but doesn’t mention when this tambourine was recorded. Jerry Hammack, author of “The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 3: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band through Magical Mystery Tour (late 1966-1967)“, says Paul didn’t play drums and played the tambourine during this session. George Harrison is not credited on the backing track, could he have played tambourine?

Only four takes were complete. Incomplete Take 1 was released in the 2017 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” box set.

Take 8 was considered the best, and became the basis for further overdubs.

One visitor present during this session was Micky Dolenz of The Monkees, who remembers his visit in a 2016 interview with author Mark Lewisohn:

I thought it was going to be some kind of crazy Beatlemania, fun-fest, freak-out, love-in, be-in, psycho-jello, and I got totally dressed-up for it. I mean, I had tie-dye underwear and paisley bell-bottoms and my hair was up in curlers and I think I had the Lennon glasses and I’m six-sheets-to-the-wind again of course…and I walk in and it looks like my high school gymnasium! There was florescent lighting, nobody there but the four guys sitting in little folding chairs and Ringo behind the kit, and just jeans and t-shirts just playing. And I’m, like, ‘Where are the girls?’ I must have looked like such an idiot. I looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Charley Manson.

And I’ll never forget it. John Lennon looks up at me and says, ‘Hey Monkee Man!…You want to hear what we’re working on?’…And he points up to George Martin and I remember this so clearly…He’s wearing a three-piece suit… and he pushes a button on a four-track tape recorder and I hear the tracks to ‘Good Morning Good Morning.’… And then we sit around and then I remember some guy with a white coat and tie came in with tea… ‘Tea time, eh!’ And we sat around a little table and had really God-awful tea. And then everybody sat around and then we were chatting – ‘What’s it like, The Monkees?,’ me again trying to be so cool. And then I think it was John that went, ‘Right lads, down in the mines.’ And they went back to work.

Micky Dolenz – Interview with Mark Lewisohn, 2016

Work on “Good Morning Good Morning” continued on February 16, 1967.

Last updated on January 20, 2024

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "Good Morning Good Morning"

Paul McCartney:

Drums

Ringo Starr:

Drums

John Lennon:

Guide vocals, Electric guitar

?:

Tambourine

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Geoff Emerick:

Engineer

Richard Lush:

Second engineer

Visitors

Micky Dolenz