Sound Pictures by Kenneth Womack

Author:Kenneth Womack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

Oswald: Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,

And give the letters which thou find’st about me

To Edmund, Earl of Gloucester; seek him out

Upon the British party. O, untimely Death!

Edgar: I know thee well: a serviceable villain;

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress

As badness would desire.

Gloucester: What, is he dead?

Edgar: Sit you down father, rest you.

George managed to capture the dialogue, which featured the voices of John Bryning (Oswald), Mark Dignam (Gloucester), and Philip Guard (Edgar), by feeding the live radio signal directly into the console as he and his team conducted the mono mixing session. In so doing, George was able to supervise a unique instance in Beatles recording history, one that can never be reproduced. As Emerick later explained it, “‘I Am the Walrus’ can never be remixed: the radio wasn’t recorded on the multitrack. Instead, it was flown into the two-track, live, as the mix was occurring.”19

By Monday, October 2, George and the Beatles were entering the home stretch of the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, although editing the film itself was still several weeks away from fruition. That night, McCartney debuted a new tune in Studio 2, a catchy new composition that went under the working title of “Hello Hello.” As was his typical practice with the Beatles during this era, Martin was pushing for a new single’s release to capitalize on the upcoming holiday shopping season. With its infectious, commercial qualities at the fore, “Hello Hello,” later retitled as “Hello, Goodbye,” seemed like the ideal candidate for the single’s A-side. Indeed, Martin and McCartney were confident that “Hello, Goodbye” was a surefire hit, that it would keep “the roll” that they had reinvigorated with “All You Need Is Love” intact. But for his part, Lennon was taken with the idea of releasing “I Am the Walrus” as the A-side. In the wake of Sgt. Pepper and Our World, the bandmates were privy to a massive global audience, and they were penetrating almost every conceivable demographic, from children (“Yellow Submarine”) all the way through pensioners (“When I’m Sixty-Four”). Surely, John reasoned, they could challenge their audience to keep up with their penchant for experimentation and give “I Am the Walrus” a listen. But by the time that George and the bandmates concluded their work that evening, the case had been settled, with McCartney and his producer having pressed and won their case on the grounds of commercialism. “Hello, Goodbye” would be the Beatles’ next single all right.

Martin was joined in the control room that same evening by Emerick and Lush, marking Golden Ears’ first Beatles session since his enforced holiday at the hands of EMI Studios management. That night, the bandmates recorded the basic rhythm track for “Hello, Goodbye,” which was composed of McCartney’s piano, Lennon’s Hammond organ, Harrison’s maracas, and Starr’s drums. In addition to capturing the rhythm track in fourteen takes, the bandmates improvised a free-spirited coda. “The best bit was the end,” John later recalled, “which we ad-libbed in the studio, where I played the piano.

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