Here, There & Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick

I found this unpublished blog entry from 2016 and thought it was interesting,  so here it is:

Just started reading Here, There and Everywhere : My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick, which looks to be a fascinating tome.  And I thought it'd be nice to keep track of the songs as he mentions them.  So I did.  Here ya go.

1.  "How Do You Do It" by Mitch Murray


After recording this song, Emerick reports that John told George Martin, "Look, George . . . I have to tell you, we really think that song is crap."

And then they played "Love Me Do" for him.
While looking for a clip of that song, I decided to see if there were alternate versions (alternate to the album version, that is), and happened upon a video (HERE) which discussed the three versions of the song, each with a different drummer.  

2.  "Love Me Do" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

The Pete Best "Love Me Do" (which is pretty clearly a rough demo):


The Ringo Starr "Love Me Do" (or more properly, A Ringo Starr version, as I am absolutely sure that this isn't the recording of the song referred to by Geoff Emerick):


The Andy White version (I think; the more I search this thing the more confusing it gets--lots of conflicting information):


But what seems to be true according to both my reading and my ear is that the Andy White version has a tambourine playing on the drumbeat (played by Ringo . . . how humiliating must that have been?) whereas the Ringo version seems to be just drum.  It's hard for me to hear, but after several listens I think I can actually discern the difference.

3.  "P.S. I Love You" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney


And that--"Love Me Do" / "P.S. I Love You" was the Beatles's first single . . . unless you count the "My Bonnie" / "The Saints" single they released with  Tony Sheridan . . . which you shouldn't.  

By the way, there are a couple of anecdotes that I can't resist putting down here . . . though I'd intended this to just be an annotated discography thing.  Say Lavy.  

This kind of sums up the whole Beatles phenomenon in my mind:
"It's almost embarrassing to admit today, but what struck me most about the Beatles when I first saw them was their skinny knit ties.  In fact, I remember making a comment to Richard about them at the time, which drew him to the window to have a look for himself.  A few weeks later, we both bought similar ties and wore them to work; within a short time, it seemed like everyone at EMI was wearing them."

And I have long thought that Paul McCartney wasn't given proper credit for his contribution to the Beatles, so it was good to read this:  
"And then there was the bass player.  He was not only the most conventionally handsome of the four but was also the most friendly and engaging--at one point, he even nodded a hello to Richard and me.  He was also clearly the most interested in how the recording sounded.  Though he didn't raise his voice like the lead singer did, I had the distinct impression that he was the leader of the group.  When he spoke, the others listened intently and invariably nodded their heads in agreement, and before each take, he was the one urging them on to give it their all."

Geoff Emerick also talks about how Paul was much more precise in terms of telling the engineers what he wanted the music to sound like.

4.  "Please Please Me" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Apparently there are at least a couple of versions of this as well, and while trying to track them down I happened upon this very energetic live version, said to be from one of their first concerts in America--in Washington, which I presume means D.C.


Okay.  I think this is the Andy White version, since I'm not hearing a tambourine:




To Be Continued . . . . 

Or, actually, probably not.  From there we just kind of plop into the first album, and this turns out to be not as interesting as I'd hoped it would be in terms of searching out rare or unknown songs and alternate versions, etc.  So that will be that.  Though here are a few Wikipedian facts about that first album that I thought were kind of cool:  The whole album was recorded in less than one day--and also included an unused version of "Hold Me Tight."  The Beatles began working at 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963,  the number of takes varying on each song, and finished at 10:45 pm—less than 13 hours later.  Also, each Beatle collected a £7 10s (£7.50) session fee for each three-hour session; there were three sessions that day, so each Beatle earned £22.50 for their work--less than $36.  

Peace out.