Recording "Penny Lane" and mixing "When I'm Sixty Four", "Penny Lane"

This day’s session started at 7 pm. The first task was to create the final mono mix for “When I’m Sixty-Four“. The previous day, four mono mixes numbered 4 to 7 had been made. Remix 6 had been marked as best for the US market, and Remix 7 had been considered for the UK market. But Paul was unsatisfied and wanted the song to be faster than the original recording speed. They decided to raise the key by a semitone and only one attempt was needed. The new remix 8 would be released on both UK and US releases of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“. The stereo mix would be created on April 17, 1967.

During the mix, Paul also asked to have the track sped up a great deal – almost a semitone – so that his voice would sound more youthful, like the teenager he was when he originally wrote the song.

Geoff Emerick – From “When I’m Sixty-Four” by The Beatles (beatlesebooks.com)

George Martin in his book says that I had it speeded up because I wanted to appear younger but I think that was just to make it more rooty-tooty; just lift the key because it was starting to sound a little turgid.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Certainly when the stereo remix was made, as far away as 17 April 1967, Richard Lush – the tape operator on that session – remembers George Martin being incredulous at how much the mono mix had been speeded up. “He kept saying ‘Surely it can’t have been that fast’?“. It was, and anybody with the luxury of today’s vari-speed record turntables or tape machines can hear the song at the right speed if they so wish.

From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn

The next task was to create some tape-to-tape copies of the mono version of “Strawberry Fields Forever“, to be sent to Capitol Records in the US.

Once the mixing of “When I’m Sixty-Four” and the tape copying tasks were done, The Beatles focused their efforts on Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane“, which recording started the previous day.

They started by doing a reduction mix of take 6 into take 7, to free up three tracks for more overdubs.

Four-track recording was a real limitation with this particular song, so we were constantly having to bounce tracks together and do reductions (which we sometimes called ‘premixes’). In the end, there were so many keyboards blended together, they ended up becoming a sound of their own; listening to the finished recording, it’s hard to pick out individual instruments. Some of the overdubs even got buried altogether because of the density of the instrumentation and the number of bounces. Nonetheless, ‘Penny Lane’ contains a lot of great sounds.

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

Onto take 7, Paul added his lead vocals, and John Lennon some backing vocals (recorded at a slower than normal playback speed, to sound faster upon playback). Those performances would be replaced during the following session, on January 4, 1967.

Before the session ended at 3 am, two rough mono mixes of Take 7 were created for demo purposes.

Session activities

1. When I'm Sixty-Four

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 8 from take 4

   AlbumOfficially released on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK Mono)

2. Strawberry Fields Forever

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Tape copying • Tape copying of remix mono 12

3. Penny Lane

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Tape copying • Tape reduction take 6 into take 7

4. Penny Lane

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Recording • SI onto take 7

5. Penny Lane

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 7

6. Penny Lane

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 2 from take 7

Staff

Musicians on "Penny Lane"

Production staff

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