Good Morning Good Morning

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Good Morning Good Morning” is a song written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and recorded by the Beatles, featured on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Inspiration for the song came to Lennon from a television commercial for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Another reference to contemporary television was the lyric “It’s time for tea and Meet the Wife“, referring to the BBC sitcom.

Recording

The basic track was recorded on 8 February 1967, with overdubs on 16 February (bass guitar and lead vocals), 13 March (brass section), 28 March (backing vocals and guitar solo), and 29 March (animal noises). The guitar solo was played by Paul McCartney on a Fender Esquire. At Lennon’s request, George Martin brought in Sounds Incorporated to provide the song’s prominent brass backing.

Lennon asked engineer Geoff Emerick to arrange the animal noises heard at beginning (and end) of the song so that each animal heard was one capable of devouring (or frightening) the animal preceding it. The final sound effect of a chicken clucking was so placed that it transforms into the guitar on the following track, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)“. These animal noises were inspired by the coda of “Caroline, No” that ended The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, one of the main inspirations for this whole album. They begin with the crow of a rooster, while the other animal sounds heard at the end of the song include birds, a cat, a dog, a cow, a horse, a sheep, a lion, an elephant, and a group of bloodhounds accompanying fox hunters on horseback with horns blasting, suggesting that a fox hunt was in progress.

The rapid 16th note bass drum fills were done on two bass drums according to The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn. The length of the mono version of “Good Morning Good Morning” is 2:35, whereas the stereo version (due to a lengthier fade out of animal sounds) runs to 2:41.

For the Beatles’ 2006 remix album Love, the horse sounds were mixed into “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!“

Rhythm

The song is played at 117 beats per minute, has an unusual rhythmical feel and uses different time signatures. Beats are played in groups of 2, 3 and 4, and time signature changes frequently. Parts with 5/4 and 4/4 bars alternate, with 3/4 transitions. Most of the song uses simple time, where the beats are divided into two, but the middle eight sections use compound time, where the beats are divided into triplets.

The song is divided into seven sections, two of which are repeated once and one twice, in a time-symmetric pattern A, B, C, B, C, B, A (disregarding the fade out of the last bar):

A: 4,4,4,4,4 (introduction: five bars, 20 beats)

B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)

This adds up to 64 bars with 260 beats, which at published 117 beats per minute would result in a length of 2:13,333… minutes. […]

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 19 Apr 1967. edited.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol MAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.

[b] stereo 6 Apr 1967. edited.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol SMAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46442 2 Sgt Pepper 1987.

[c] stereo 1995.
CD: Apple CDP 8 34448 2 Anthology 2 1996.

An Apr 6 mono mix was replaced by an Apr 19 mix [a] containing an improved blend of the hen cluck at the end into the first note of the next song, Sgt Pepper (reprise). Lewisohn does not say when or if the Apr 6 stereo mix was redone, and perhaps it was not. Checking the ending shows that the sound effects match in mono [a] and stereo [b] until the foxhunt, where the mono fades earlier, so that the hunt lasts about 6 seconds longer in stereo and continues past the somewhat later fadeout of the music. This may be the end of the main tape. Because of the early fade in mono [a], “Good morning good morning good” is heard only 9 times as against 10 times in stereo [b]. Both mixes then crossfade to the chicken squawk on what appears to be a separate tape, since unlike the other sound effects it does not overlap any music. The squawk is slightly longer in stereo, and blends better into the Sgt Pepper (reprise)– the retry on the mono mix may have been to make it more like the stereo?

The lead guitar is mixed down after the break in mono [a] but on [b] it continues loud over “People running round…”. After “tea and ‘Meet the Wife'” the guitar phrase is treated to a little extra ADT in mono.

The Anthology mix [c] is deliberately different and appears to show the state as of Feb 16, after the vocal and bass overdub, but without the horns and the sound effecs at the end.

It was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘Nothing to do’, and ‘Meet the wife’. There was an afternoon TV soap called Meet The Wife that John watched, he was that bored.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

Last updated on February 13, 2023

Lyrics

Variations