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Thursday, June 9, 1966

Recording and mixing "Good Day Sunshine"

For The Beatles

Last updated on October 21, 2022

This was the 29th day of the recording sessions for the “Revolver” album.

The previous day, The Beatles recorded the rhythm track and the first overdubs of Paul McCartney’s “Good Day Sunshine“, under the working title “A Good Day’s Sunshine“. On this day, in an afternoon session lasting from 2:30 pm to 8 pm, they completed the recording of this track by adding more overdubs onto take 1.

George Martin added a honky-tonk piano solo, to complete Paul’s piano, recorded with varispeed (the tape machine was running faster than usual, at 56 cycles per second as opposed to the normal 50, so that it was both slower and lower upon playback).

Ringo Starr supplemented his drum part with additional contributions on snare, bass drum and crash cymbals, the latter at the end of the intro and over the choruses.

Paul, George Harrison and John Lennon provided additional backing vocals for the coda and some hand claps during the final verse and chorus.

Six mono mixes of “Good Day Sunshine” were made at the end of the session. None of those mixes were used and new ones would be made on June 22, 1966.


Session activities

  1. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Recording • SI onto take 1

  2. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 1

  3. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 2 from take 1

  4. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 3 from take 1

  5. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 4 from take 1

  6. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 5 from take 1

  7. Good Day Sunshine

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 6 from take 1


Staff

Musicians on "Good Day Sunshine"

Production staff


Going further

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn

The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970.

We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!

Shop on Amazon

The Beatles Recording Reference Manual - Volume 2 - Help! through Revolver (1965-1966)

The second book of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC)-nominated series, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 2: Help! through Revolver (1965-1966)" follows the evolution of the band from the end of Beatlemania with "Help!" through the introspection of "Rubber Soul" up to the sonic revolution of "Revolver". From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time.

Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.

Shop on Amazon

If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.

Read more on The Beatles Bible

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