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Wednesday, February 8, 1967

Recording "Good Morning Good Morning"

For The Beatles

Last updated on January 20, 2024


Master session

Location

  • Recording studio: EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

Timeline

Master release

AlbumSome of the songs worked on during this session were first released on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK Mono)" LP

Some of the songs from this session also appear on:

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.


Session activities

  1. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 1

    AlbumOfficially released on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th anniversary boxset)

  2. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 2

  3. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 3

  4. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 4

  5. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 5

  6. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 6

  7. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 7

  8. Good Morning Good Morning

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • Take 8


Staff

Musicians on "Good Morning Good Morning"

Production staff

Visitors


Going further

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn

The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970.

We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!

Buy on Amazon

The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 3: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band through Magical Mystery Tour (late 1966-1967)

The third book of this critically - acclaimed series, nominated for the 2019 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) award for Excellence In Historical Recorded Sound, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 3: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band through Magical Mystery Tour (late 1966-1967)" captures the band's most innovative era in its entirety. From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time. Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.

Buy on Amazon

If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.

Read more on The Beatles Bible

Paul McCartney writing

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David Harvey • 7 months ago

I have heard Take 8 of "Good Morning, Good Morning" and there are actually two guitars, so this would put John and George on electric guitars, Paul on tambourine and Ringo on drums - before John and Paul overdubbed their vocals and bass, that is.


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