Recording "Lovely Rita"

About

On the day before, The Beatles recorded the basic track of “Lovely Rita“. On this day’s session, which lasted from 7 pm to 1:15 am, Paul McCartney added his lead vocals to the song. Take 9 was used to record his vocals onto tracks three and four.

As the four tracks of the tape were full, two reduction mixes, named Take 10 and Take 11, were made using frequency control and created at a slightly slower-than-normal speed. Paul’s two vocal tracks were merged onto track three using ADT (artificial double tracking), his bass remained on track two, and the other instruments remained on track one. Take 11 was considered the best, and received additional overdubs in subsequent sessions.

Some sources (like “That Magic Feeling: The Beatles’ Recorded Legacy, Volume Two, 1966-1970” by John C. Winn) indicate that, during this session, The Beatles were visited by a few notable musicians including Tony Hicks of the Hollies, David Crosby of the Byrds, Shawn Phillips, and the brother of Ravi Shankar, George Harrison’s sitar teacher. The April 1967 edition of Beat Instrumental published a report on the session stating “This particular session was concerned with completing the vocal by Paul, John and George over a backing track.” Additionally, in various interviews, Shawn Phillips claimed that he contributed to the backing vocals of “Lovely Rita“. On March 7, the work on “Lovely Rita” continued with the recording of the backing vocals; these visitors were likely present at this session, instead of the February 24 session. This is however slightly at odds with Geoff Emerick’s recollection that “There were a few visitors to the studio [on March 7], including Davy Jones of the Monkees.”

Even though we had worked so long and so late, we were back in the studio the next evening at seven. Now we set to on Paul’s vocals, with the tape-machine running at forty-six-and-a-half cycles, so that his voice sounded faster and higher in pitch on replay at the normal speed. At this stage the song had a much longer piano introduction, which we cut down later. Although we did nothing other than work on the vocals that night, we still ended up working until 1.15 in the morning.

George Martin – From “With A Little Help From My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper“, 1995

Last updated on February 10, 2024

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "Lovely Rita"

Paul McCartney:

Lead vocals

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Geoff Emerick:

Engineer

Richard Lush:

Second engineer