Recording "With A Little Help From My Friends"

About

The previous day, March 29, 1967, The Beatles began working on “With A Little Help From My Friends,“ recording the basic track, lead and backing vocals. At the end of the session, Take 11 contained all instruments on track one, and double-tracked vocals were on tracks three and four.

On this day, March 30, The Beatles took part in the photo shoot for the cover of the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album and arrived at the EMI Studios at around 11 pm.

During the session, the band added overdubs to “With A Little Help From My Friends,” with Paul McCartney adding a timpani to the “Billy Shears” introduction and Ringo Starr adding snare drums. Paul also recorded his bass part, while Ringo added tambourine and George Harrison added a lead guitar part. All those parts were added onto track two of the tape.

On track three, John Lennon, Paul and George contributed additional backing vocals, while George Martin added an extra organ part. This completed the recording of the song and the session ended at 7:30 am on March 31.

The song was mixed in mono twelve hours later and in stereo on April 7, 1967.

Later that night, Paul and John added their counterpoint backing vocals with ease — they had obviously rehearsed the parts quite a bit, and their voices blended so naturally—and then George Harrison added a guitar lick or two. Ringo sat up in the control room with us for most of that session, beaming like a proud papa. This was “his” song and he was quite interested in its progress, listening intently to every new overdub.

But there was still no bass on it because Paul had played piano during the backing track. So at around three in the morning, John, George Harrison, and Ringo finally headed home, accompanied by George Martin. Richard and J again hunkered down for what we knew was going to be a long night. We were right—it was a marathon, not a sprint—but it was worth every second of it. By this time, I knew exactly the kind of sound Paul was after, and I didn’t do anything differently than on other Pepper tracks, but I do think there’s something unique about the bass sound in “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Perhaps it’s because Paul deviated from the usual routine in that he decided to sit up in the control room with us while he played; to accommodate his wishes, Richard ran an extra-long lead down to the bass amp. Brow furrowed in deep concentration, fingers wrapped around his psychedelic-colored Rickenbacker, Paul instructed Richard to drop in and out over and over again. Determined to get every single note and phrase as perfect as it could possibly be, that night he was like a man possessed.

Sitting side by side with the ultra-focused McCartney in that cramped control room in the middle of the night, shouting out encouragement every time he’d nail a section, Richard and I truly felt privileged to be there.

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

Next day, 30 March, we added more of George’s lead guitar, Paul’s bass guitar line and Ringo’s tambourine. They had to play together, because all this went on to a single track of the new tape. We recorded John and Paul’s superb backing vocals next, before we got to Ringo’s solo voice, throwing in a tad more guitar from George on to these vocal tracks for good measure.

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

Last updated on January 1, 2024

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "With A Little Help From My Friends"

Paul McCartney:

Bass, Timpani, Backing vocals

Ringo Starr:

Snare drums, Tambourine

John Lennon:

Backing vocals

George Harrison:

Backing vocals, Lead guitar

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Geoff Emerick:

Engineer

Richard Lush:

Second Engineer