Recording "Martha My Dear", "Honey Pie"

About

The Beatles spent this entire week of recording at Trident Studios. On October 1 and October 2, they worked on Paul McCartney’s “Honey Pie“. On October 3, they worked on George Harrison’s “Savoy Truffle“. And on this day, October 4, they worked on Paul McCartney’s “Martha My Dear” and resumed work on “Honey Pie“.

The session lasted from 4 pm to 4:30 am. They started working on the basic track of “Martha My Dear“, with Paul McCartney on piano and lead vocals, George Harrison on electric guitar and Ringo Starr on drums. John Lennon was absent from this session. By 6 pm, a basic track – named Take 1 – was recorded.

Solo vocal by Paul but his voice is double-tracked. That means you hear him twice over although the blending of his two vocal “takes” has been done so well it’s almost like hearing just one voice. NOT dedicated to Paul’s Good Dog Martha! A lovely ballad with rich orchestral backing. Theme is You Were Meant For Me. Incidentally Ringo bashed a hole in his brand new bass drum skin the night we started this track.

Mal Evans – From the Beatles Monthly Book, N°64, November 1968

From 6 pm to 9 pm, The Beatles were joined by seven studio musicians to record the brass and woodwind arrangement for “Honey Pie” that George Martin had prepared.

At 9 pm, those musicians left and were replaced by fourteen other session musicians for the recording of a brass and strings arrangement for “Martha My Dear“. This was quite unusual for The Beatles to record the basic track of a song and invite external musicians to complement it during the same session (and this suggests George Martin was given a demo of some sort prior to this session to write the score recorded on this day)!

From midnight to 4:30 am, Paul McCartney re-recorded his lead vocal track for “Martha My Dear” and added handclaps. He then double-tracked both the vocals and the handclaps.

Finally, he returned to “Honey Pie” to record the line “now she’s hit the big time!“. As mentioned in “The Beatles” Super Deluxe edition book (2018):

“Now she’s hit the big time” was distorted as a ’78 vocal’ on track seven. It was an aural reference to the scratchy sound of discs played at the speed of 78 revolutions per minute from the era that “Honey Pie” evoked.

We put a sound on my voice to make it sound like a scratchy old record. So it’s not a parody, it’s a nod to the vaudeville tradition that I was raised on.

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

Work on “Martha My Dear” and “Honey Pie” continued on the next day.

Last updated on September 19, 2021

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "Martha My Dear"

Paul McCartney:

piano, handclaps, lead vocals

Ringo Starr:

drums

George Harrison:

electric guitar

Tony Tunstall:

French horn

Leo Birnbaum:

Viola

Leon Calvert:

Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Reginald Kilbey:

Cello

Bernard Miller:

Violin

Dennis McConnell:

Violin

Lou Sofier:

Violin

Les Maddox:

Violin

Henry Myerscough:

Viola

Frederick Alexander:

Cello

Stanley Reynolds:

Trumpet

Ronnie Hughes:

Trumpet

Ted Barker:

Trombone

Alf Reece:

Tuba

Musicians on "Honey Pie"

Paul McCartney:

Vocal

Dennis Walton:

Saxophone

Rex Morris:

Saxophone

Ronald Chamberlain:

Saxophone

Jim Chester:

Saxophone

Harry Klein:

Saxophone

Raymond Newman:

Clarinet

David Smith:

Clarinet

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Barry Sheffield:

Engineer