Recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

The Beatles had recorded the basic track of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the day before. On this day, from 7 pm to 1:45 am, they added overdubs to the track.

Paul McCartney added his lead vocals and backing vocals, sung with John Lennon and George Harrison, to track four of the four-track tape. The three Beatles then double-tracked their backing vocals onto track three. Take 9 was included in the 2017 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” box set and contains some studio chatter at the end.

Paul: (singing) I feel it, I feel it…Baby, now I get it…Gotta get free now… (talking) Don’t like that. I think it’ll probably be another day singing it.

George: Yeah, and what you can do with the bits where you can’t get it ’cause you haven’t got enough breath, you can just stop…

Paul: Just take over, yeah.

In 2000, the part “I feel it, I feel it…Baby, now I get it…Gotta get free now” was sampled on the track “Free Now” released on the album “Liverpool Sound Collage” by Paul McCartney, Super Furry Animals, and Youth.

Obviously, Paul changed his mind about re-recording his lead vocals, because the vocals recorded on that day made it to the released version.

Mal Evans wrote in his diary for this day: “Recording voices on ‘Captain Pepper’. All six of us doing the chorus in the middle, worked until about midnight.” This suggests that he and likely Ringo Starr and Neil Aspinall also contributed backing vocals. If this was the case, these were likely placed low in the mix and hardly audible.

As the four tracks of the tape were now filled, a reduction mix, called Take 10, was made to open up two tracks. Track one had the instruments and track four had all the vocals.

Towards the end of the session, a mono mix was made only for demo purposes. George Martin likely used the acetate discs of this mix to score the brass parts. Those were recorded on March 3, 1967, which was a little over a month later.

Session activities

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Recording • SI onto take 9

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

2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Tape copying • Tape reduction take 9 into take 10

3. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 10

Staff

Musicians on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

Production staff

Going further

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