Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) Read Online Free

Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3)
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recordings lacked “highend.” After they were played back for George Martin and the Beatles, everyone agreed work needed to bedone to add equalization (EQ) to give the recordings the proper high-end sound. Scott explained why EQ needed to be added: “Trident’s speakers [Lockwood Tannoys] had too much high-end, so you didn’t put too much on tape, which sounded dull when played back on Abbey Road’s speakers [Altec-Lansings].” Fixing the track “took a long time,” according to Scott. The song was finally mastered and George Martin walked out the door with the final results.
    On August 8 and 9, the group continued work on “Not Guilty.” On the 9th they resumed working on tracks that would be part of
The White Album.
“Hey Jude,” backed with “Revolution,” was released on August 26. John had actually lobbied for “Revolution” to be the A-side, but the other three outvoted him. Although it officially bore the Parlophone name and number in England, the single was the first release from the Beatles’ new company, Apple. (It was released on the Apple label in America.) Just like
The White Album
—the group’s debut album on Apple, which did bear the Apple logo—and all the Beatles’ other releases, “Hey Jude” was still an EMI-owned product.
    Clocking in at 7 minutes and 11 seconds, “Hey Jude” became the group’s longest single. By comparison, the previous May, Richard Harris had hit the top of the charts with “MacArthur Park,” which clocked in at 7:20. Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” which hit the charts inAugust of 1965, was perhaps the first pop song to hit big and to break the three-minute length barrier. It lasted for just over six minutes.
    One point of interest in “Hey Jude” happens at 2:59 into the song. Upon close listening, one can hear a very frustrated Paul McCartney say, “Fuckin’ hell.” He said it because he rushed too quickly to the next lyric while he was doing a vocal take of the song. Knowing that the vocal had been good up to that point, he was angry with himself. Through various mixes the expletive continued to get more and more buried, but because the vocal was so good, it was never completely removed. The group, the producers, the engineers, and everyone else left it in as yet another private little joke among the Beatles and their inner circle.
    Any concerns Paul McCartney might have had about the song’s length were quickly forgotten as the song shot to No. 1 by September 14 and stayed there for nine weeks. By the end of the year, total worldwide sales of the single reached five million copies.
    The Beatles had gone to Trident because of its eighttrack tape machine and also to break away somewhat from recording at Abbey Road. It has been suggested that Paul had already worked at Trident with Mary Hopkin and that George Harrison had already worked there with Jackie Lomax. Various chronological sources do not back up the claim that Lomax recorded at Tridentprior to the “Hey Jude” sessions. Liner notes for the reissue of
Postcard
by Mary Hopkin state that the recording of the album was begun at Trident in July.
    When the group decided to film promotional clips for “Hey Jude” and “Revolution,” it chose Michael Lindsay-Hogg as director and returned to the familiar confines of Twickenham Film Studios. Twickenham had been the site of parts of the films
A Hard Day’s Night
and
Help!
Also, earlier in the decade the group had filmed clips there for “I Feel Fine,” “Ticket to Ride,” “Help!,” “Day Tripper,” and “We Can Work It Out.”
    Michael Lindsay-Hogg had directed the clips for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.” The son of actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lindsay-Hogg was an American living in England (as was Richard Lester, who directed
A Hard Day’s Night
and
Help!).
He first met the Beatles when he was working on the British pop-music show
Ready, Steady, Go!
    Although the clip for “Hey Jude” was filmed using the
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