Recording "Love You To", "Paperback Writer"

Album Songs recorded during this session officially appear on the Revolver (UK Mono) LP.

Studio:

EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "Paperback Writer"

Paul McCartney:

Electric guitar

Ringo Starr:

Drums

John Lennon:

Tambourine

George Harrison:

Electric guitar

Musicians on "Love You To"

Paul McCartney:

Background vocals

Ringo Starr:

Tambourine

George Harrison:

Vocals

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Geoff Emerick:

Engineer

Richard Lush:

Second Engineer

About

This was the fifth day of recording the “Revolver” album, continuing the work done on George Harrison’s “Love You To” on April 11, 1966, and starting the recording of “Paperback Writer“.

This was the debut Beatles session for 18-years old Richard Lush, as the second engineer.

I was pretty nervous. I’d worked with Cliff and the Shadows and they were very easy going but I knew that Beatles sessions were private. One was rarely allowed to open the door and peek in, and I heard that they tppl a while to accept new people. It certainly took a while before they knew me as Richard. Until then it was ‘Who is that boy sitting in the corner hearing all of our music?’ But everything worked out in the end.

Richard Lush – From The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn, 2004

From 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm, The Beatles continued working on George Harrison’s “Love You To“, under the working title “Granny Smith“. From Wikipedia:

With take 6 selected as the best performance, a reduction mix was carried out on 13 April, freeing up space for more overdubs on the four-track tape. Harrison added another vocal part onto what was now referred to as take 7, and Ringo Starr played tambourine. McCartney contributed a high harmony vocal over the words “They’ll fill you in with all their sins, you’ll see”, but this part was omitted from the final mix. […] Producer Tony Visconti has marvelled at the guitar sounds the Beatles introduced on Revolver, particularly Harrison’s part on “Love You To”, which he says “sounds like a chainsaw cutting down a tree in Vermont”.

The mono mix released on the mono version of “Revolver” was created on this day, after three attempts The stereo mix would be made on June 21, 1966.

From 8 pm to 2:30 am, The Beatles recorded two takes of “Paperback Writer“, which would be released as the A-side of their next single. Paul McCartney and George Harrison played electric guitars while John Lennon played the tambourine and Ringo Starr was on drums. Take 2 was considered to be the best and formed the basic track of the released version.

Well, what happened was that we fell in love all over again with my Epiphone Casino, which I played on a lot of Beatles records – the ‘Paperback Writer’ riff, the solo on ‘Taxman,’ and so on. It always feeds back nicely.

Paul McCartney – Interview for Guitar Player, November 2005

Paul’s bass would only be recorded on the following day, but he gave engineer Geoff Emerick a challenge on this day, to make his bass sound like a “deep Motown bass sound“:

One afternoon, Paul strolled into the studio, marched straight over to the piano, and confidently proclaimed, “Gather round, lads, and have a listen to our next single.”

John gave Paul a sideways glance of disapproval — he never liked losing — but nevertheless joined Ringo and the two Georges for the private concert. Paul pounded out a catchy melody, instantly hummable, filled with memorable hooks. I couldn’t make out the lyric entirely, but it seemed to involve book writing. Each time he would come to the chorus, Paul would stop playing and gesture to John and George Harrison, pointing out the high harmony part he planned on assigning each. By the time he finished the first run-through, it was obvious to everyone in the room that this was an instant hit. The song was “Paperback Writer,” and it would indeed top the charts when it was released just a few weeks later.

But even before he got down to the brass tacks of teaching the others their parts, Paul turned to me. “Geoff,” he began, “I need you to put your thinking cap on. This song is really calling out for that deep Motown bass sound we’ve been talking about, so I want you to pull out all the stops this time. All right, then?”

I nodded an affirmative. Paul had long been complaining that the bass on Beatles records wasn’t as loud or as full as the bass on the American records he so loved. He and I would often get together in the mastering room to listen intently to the low end of some new import he had gotten from the States, most often a Motown track. Even though we had DI (Direct Inject) boxes available, I rarely used them to record Paul’s bass — I still don’t, as a matter of fact. Instead, I followed the standard EMI directive of placing a microphone in front of his bass amplifier. The bass sounds we were getting were decent — partly because Paul had switched from his signature Hofner violin “Beatle” bass to a beefier Rickenbacker — but still not as good as what we were hearing on those American records.

Fortunately, as Paul and John turned to George Harrison and began showing him the chords to “Paperback Writer,” inspiration struck. It occurred to me that since microphones are in fact simply loudspeakers wired in reverse (in technical terms, both are transducers that convert sound waves to electrical signals, and vice versa), why not try using a loudspeaker as a microphone? Logically, it seemed that whatever can push bass signal out can also take it in — and that a large loudspeaker should be able to respond to low frequencies better than a small microphone. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

I broached my plan, gingerly, to Phil McDonald. His response was somewhat predictable: “You’re daft; you’ve completely gone around the twist.” Ignoring him, I took a walk down the hall and talked it over with Ken Townsend, our maintenance engineer. He thought my idea had some merit.

“Sounds plausible,” he said. “Let’s wire a speaker up that way and try it.” Over the next few hours, while the boys rehearsed with George Martin, Ken and I conducted a few experiments. To my delight, the idea of using a speaker as a microphone seemed to work pretty well. Even though it didn’t deliver a lot of signal and was kind of muffled, I was able to achieve a good bass sound by placing it up against the grille of a bass amplifier, speaker to speaker, and then routing the signal through a complicated setup of compressors and filters—including one huge experimental unit that I secretly borrowed from the office of Mr. Cook, the manager of the maintenance department.

With renewed confidence, I returned to the studio to try it out for real. […]

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

The recording of “Paperback Writer” would continue on the following day, April 14, 1966.

Last updated on October 22, 2023