Flying

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Flying” is an instrumental recorded by the English rock band the Beatles which first appeared on the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour release (two EP discs in the United Kingdom, an LP in the United States). It is one of the few songs credited to all four members of the band: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Origins

The first instrumental written by the Beatles since “12-Bar Original” in 1965, this was also the first song to be credited as being written by all four members of the band with the writing credits of “Harrison/Lennon–McCartney/Starkey”. Like “12-Bar Original”, it was based on the classic twelve-bar blues chord progression.

“Flying” was recorded on 8 September 1967 with mellotron, guitar, bass, maracas, drums and tape loop overdubs on 28 September under its original title of “Aerial Tour Instrumental”. The end of the recording originally included a fast-paced traditional New Orleans jazz-influenced coda, but this was removed and replaced with an ending featuring tape loops created by John Lennon and Ringo Starr during the 28 September session. The loops extended the song to 9 minutes 38 seconds, but the track was cut down to only 2 minutes 17 seconds. Part of the loops were used alongside an element of the ending jazz sequence to make “The Bus”, an incidental piece used at various points in the TV movie.

Recording

On the track, as recorded and officially released, Lennon plays the main theme on mellotron, accompanied by McCartney and Harrison (both on guitars, plus a later McCartney bass overdub) and Starr (on maracas and drums). All four Beatles sing the melody without lyrics of any kind, and the track fades in an assortment of tape effects created by Lennon and Starr. This released version is identical to that heard on the soundtrack of the Magical Mystery Tour film; the music is accompanied in the film by colour-altered images of landscape in Iceland taken from an aeroplane, as well as some unused footage from the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove.

A different version can be found on some Beatles bootleg albums (such as Back-track 1), and features added Hammond organ and strange whistling noises in the early parts of the track. The jazz-influenced ending is also present on this version, which is slightly shorter, clocking in at around 2:08. This coda, which Mark Lewisohn speculated was “seemingly copied straight from an unidentifiable modern jazz record”, was in fact played on a mellotron. (In addition to the familiar samples of instruments playing single notes, mellotrons had entire banks of a pop orchestra playing popular styles of music, with optional accompaniment. The piece here was played with the Dixieland Rhythm Mellotron setting.)

Reception

Richard Goldstein of The New York Times believed that the track, “as instrumental interlude, is more interesting, if only because it is more modest [than the rest of the album]”. Robert Christgau said that the track was “just a cut above Paul Mauriat, not bad but not Our Boys”. Rex Reed, in a highly unfavourable review of the album for Stereo Review, said that it “sounds like the soundtrack of an old Maria Montez jungle movie at just about the point where she feeds the chanting populace to the cobras”. […]

“Flying” was an instrumental that we needed for Magical Mystery Tour so in the studio one night I suggested to the guys that we made something up. I said, ‘We can keep it very very simple, we can make it a twelve-bar blues. We need a little bit of a theme and a little bit of a backing.’ I wrote the melody. The only thing to warrant it as a song is basically the melody, otherwise it’s just a nice twelve-bar backing thing. It’s played on the Mellotron, on a trombone setting. It’s credited to all four, which is how you would credit a non-song.

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

I wrapped up my pre-vacation Beatles work with one last long session, during which they recorded the instrumental song entitled “Flying.” It was really nothing more than a twelve-bar blues born out of one of their late-night jams; I simply lifted out a few minutes of the best bits, they added a number of overdubs, and the song was complete. From the outset it was always meant to be just incidental music for the film, so nobody wanted to spend a lot of time on it. Ringo’s voice was the most prominent one on the chanting, and that was done deliberately because Paul wanted a different kind of vocal texture, one that wasn’t so obviously “Beatlish.” George Harrison’s guitar had a distinctive sound, too, because I used a DI box instead of miking his amp. The end result was a mellow, jazzy tone that we felt perfectly complemented the tasty part he was playing.

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

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 28 Sep 1967. edited.
UK: Parlophone MMT 1 (EP) Magical Mystery Tour 1967.
US: Capitol MAL 2835 Magical Mystery Tour 1967.
CD: EMI EP box set 1991.

[b] stereo 7 Nov 1967. edited.
UK: Parlophone SMMT 1 (EP) Magical Mystery Tour 1967.
US: Capitol SMAL 2835 Magical Mystery Tour 1967.
CD: EMI CDP 7 48062 2 Magical Mystery Tour 1987, EMI EP box set 1991.

A section of several minutes at the end was edited off. Stereo [b] is a few seconds longer, long fade; on [a] the tape loop track begins earlier. The mono [a] has louder guitars near the beginning. The home video Magical Mystery Tour has a 1988 stereo mix similar to the old mono mix [a].

Last updated on April 8, 2023

Variations