In the studio
Although Beatles For Sale was created between August and October 1964, only seven days were spent recording. The first was on 14 August, then the group went on tour in the US and Canada, and resumed recording on 29 September.
Recording Beatles For Sale didn't take long. Basically it was our stage show, with some new songs.
Anthology
Aside from the unused Leave My Kitten Alone, each of the seven songs recorded before The Beatles' 1964 UK tour began on 9 October was a Lennon-McCartney original. Only I'll Follow The Sun would join the cover versions in the remaining two recording sessions. The group knew that they were short of material, and so recorded a selection of songs which would cause them the least amount of bother.
Each of the recording sessions for Beatles For Sale took place in Studio Two at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London. While recording the album they also taped both sides of the standalone single I Feel Fine/She's A Woman, and the group's second fan club Christmas record.
Although The Beatles had limited time in the studio in the latter half of 1964, a number of studio innovations found their way onto Beatles For Sale. The most notable was the fade-in introduction for Eight Days A Week, the first time it had been done on a pop music recording. The Beatles experimented with a number of arrangements for the song in the studio, including a vocal harmony intro.
Every Little Thing was one of the very first songs to feature multi-tracked bass guitar. This is most apparent in the stereo mix, which separates the two bass parts to the left and right channels; the overdubbed notes can be heard during the lead guitar solo.
George Harrison's version of Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby was also innovative in its use of heavy tape echo and delay on the vocals. His guitar introduction for Baby's In Black was another studio experiment, although perhaps not as innovative. A number of variations were tested, including bending the opening note with his Gretch guitar's vibrato arm, with George Martin happy to sit aside and let them perfect their arrangement.
Our records were progressing. We'd started out like anyone spending their first time in a studio - nervous and naive and looking for success. By this time we'd had loads of hits and a few tours and were becoming more relaxed with ourselves, and more comfortable in the studio. And the music was getting better.
For this album we rehearsed only the new ones. Songs like Honey Don't and Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, we'd played live so often that we only had to get a sound on them and do them. But with songs like Baby's In Black, we had to learn and rehearse them. We were beginning to do a little overdubbing, too, probably a four-track. And George Martin would suggest some changes; not too many, but he was always an integral part of it.
Anthology
There were a handful of new instruments used on Beatles For Sale, including Ringo Starr's timpani on Every Little Thing, and George Harrison playing an African drum on Mr Moonlight, to which Paul McCartney also added a Hammond organ.
Although the group had access to four-track recording technology, three of the songs on Beatles For Sale - Rock And Roll Music, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby and Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! - were each recorded in just one take. A second take of Kansas City was attempted, but it was judged inferior to the first.
Beatles For Sale was the first album where The Beatles attended mixing sessions; in future years they took a much closer role in the mixing process, but until this time had been content to let George Martin and his engineers carry out the sessions. Nonetheless, the mixes were mostly done quickly, with five songs mixed for stereo within half an hour on 27 October.
I felt we were progressing in leaps and bounds, musically. Some of the material on Beatles For Sale and the 1965 Rubber Soul album was just brilliant; what was happening elsewhere was nothing like it. It was getting to be really exciting in the studio. We did it all in there: rehearsing, recording and finishing songs. We never hired a rehearsal room to run down the songs, because a lot of them weren't finished. The ideas were there for the first verse, or a chorus, but it could be changed by the writers as we were doing it, or if anyone had a good idea.
The first form in which I'd hear a newly written tune would be on the guitar or piano. It's great to hear the progression through takes of various songs. They'd change dramatically. First of all, whoever wrote it would say, 'It goes like this.' They would play it on guitar or piano, singing it every time - they would be learning to sing the song while we were all learning to play it, over and over again.
Most of our early recordings were on three tracks because we kept on track for overdubs. That also kept us together as a band - we played and played and played. If one of them could sing it, the four of us could play it till the cows came home. There was none of this, 'We'll put the bass on later, or the guitars.' We put most of it on then and there, including the vocals. And songs were written anywhere.
Anthology
Related articles:
- Honey Don't
- UK LP release: Beatles For Sale
- Rock And Roll Music
- Beatles iPod goes on sale at Bloomingdale's
- UK EP release: Beatles For Sale No 2
this album is one of their underrated albums...but this album contains a lot of great songs one of them is i'll follow the sun.
Great album, I need to pick it up sometime.
I just played this one again, twice, after many years. And I was really taken by many of the songs, including the strong opening 5 tracks, skipping Mr. Moonlight which I've always detested, and I especially liked I Don't Want To Spoil The Party, an early melancholic Lennon number. And adding in Eight Days A Week, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, and a few more great covers make this album quite an enjoyable listen. This record certainly gets overlooked unnecessarily.
I've noticed quite a few negative references to Mr. Moonlight, which I do like. Its got a powerful vocal. (Listen to John perfect it on the Anthology series. It also points to the fact that even from their early days they were playing a whole variety of different songs from different genres. This could also be said of many of the Beat boom groups from Liverpool. But it was this diversity as much as anything else which would define the Beatles as timeless.
This is probably my least favourite Beatles album (other than Yellow Submarine but that hardly counts). But when you look at each individual song, they're all great. Not sure what it's lacking, perhaps it's just they were still doing covers when they could have filled the album with self-written music. George didn't have any self-written songs on the album and only sang one, that's also a downside for me.
This album gets ragged on for being "war weary". Actually, I think Help is a better candidate for being tired (but I'll leave those comments for that page). Certainly it's not as varied or dynamic as Hard Days Night, but this is a very good album; especially when you add the single to the analysis. Alot is mentioned of the Dylan influence, but I think many of the acoustic tracks are also inspired by the success of the acoustic numbers from A Hard Days Night. Specifically, I believe they were building on the success of "if I Fell" and "I'll be Back". I know many of these tracks started out with a full electric line up, but I believe the above mentioned influences made it easy to go acoustic. To my mind they are doing the Everly Brothers and adding the folk/Dylan influence, along with their own awareness of their fantastic ability to sing duets. (Cynthia mentions how many times she and her friends were enraptured by the acoustic duets John and Paul would sing). As to the covers, Everybody and Moonlight are weak, but the rest are great. John dominates the writing, as Paul still seems to be looking for his voice (comparatively speaking); which I don't think he really finds until Rubber Soul. What your doing is not a very strong track. I rank it ahead of both Help and their first album and MMT and possibly Let it Be (even with Don't let me Down added). I love Georges 12 string , but it does seem to be getting old on some of these songs.
I really liked this album a lot... the covers and originals. It was an album made in a frenzied time, but you can start to hear the changes that were to be evident a year later with Rubber Soul.
What if the album lineup went like this:
No Reply
I'm a Loser
Baby's in Black
Rock and Roll Music
I'll Follow the Sun
Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby
Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey
Eight Days and Week
Words of Love
Honey Don't
Every Little Thing
I Don't Want to Spoil the Party
What You're Doing
Leave My Kitten Alone
Better? Post modern disc jockeying?
Hey Jerry, looks like you have my habit of mentally resequencing albums or adding unused tracks to see what happens. I do it all the time and my rejigged version of For Sale was pretty much the same except that I think Kansas City would have been a better closer. I agree with inserting Kitten, after hearing it on Anthology 1 I can't imagine why it wasn't used. I would have put it at the end of side one. Maybe I'd have switched round Baby's in Black and I'm a loser too. Otherwise I think you're spot on with this one. Incidentally, I think Mr.Moonlight sounds 10 times better on the remastered version - it's come to life.
This album took a long time for me to like, but once I matured with their music & came back to it, I realized how ridiculously strong it is. "I'll Follow The Sun" was my long time fav, but after really listening I realized "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" is one of John's great performances & "What You're Doing" is definitely one of the most slept on songs they've ever made. Add in "Baby In Black", which is one of the best Lennon/McCartney combo vocals of their entire catalog, and this album is among the strong of the pre-Studio band years. As a complete work, I'd take it over With The Beatles, Please Please Me & even A Hard Days Night.