The "handbell" in "Everybody's Got Something To Hide 'Cept For Me and My Monkey" | Fab forum

The most remarkable thing about this song (other than the fact that it's a superbly ass-kicking rock song) is the use of the "handbell".  I see that is what is noted under the song section of this site.  I am guessing this means a bell, like a small churchbell, perhaps without a clapper inside, or with a string attached to the clapper to facilitate rapid striking.

And rapid striking is putting it mildly.  The use of it in this song is brilliant.  For years I thought, without listening too closely, that it was the center "bell" part of a cymbal being played with two sticks (only Gene Krupa or Joe Morello could play that tempo with one stick!) and amplified unnaturally with a close mic.  But I suppose a handbell makes more sense.  (It also sounds like an old-fashioned supper bell being rung by a stark-raving mad housewife…)

Still, I have never heard any other musician or band in any genre -- rock, pop, jazz, Latin, African or classical -- use a handbell in quite the way the Beatles did on "Everybody's Got Something To Hide 'Cept For Me and My Monkey".  And I suspect that the whole thing was Paul's idea.

Long John Silver said
Why you suspect it is Paul's idea?

I don't know, he seems to be more musically inventive and gimmicky for the sake of it.  John tended to be too concerned with "meaning", and George and Ringo tended to be rather mainstream in that department (despite the former's sitars).

Joe said
I don't know who added the bell. There was also another percussion instrument, a chocalho, in some of the verses when the bell wasn't ringing. I've no idea why you'd presume it was McCartney – they all had access to the Abbey Road trap room containing effects and instruments, and raided it every now and then when a song needed something new (Yellow Submarine was one).

http://www.beatlesbible.com/19…..-monkey-2/

This is a handbell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handbell - AFAIK they didn't use a drumstick, and it would have had a clapper inside.

Thanks Joe; from the wiki link I can see a person could manage to play that handbell as rapidly as it sounds on the song by simply wielding the handle and deftly oscillating it side to side.

I don't know about a chocalho, but the other instrument I hear sounds like maracas.

As for my comment about Paul, it's not a matter of availability, but the thought occurring to someone.  You could have a room full of musicians, in a room full of exotic percussion instruments, but it wouldn't necessarily occur to all of them to use the same instruments.  There's some je ne sais quoi about Paul where I could imagine him, more than the other three, saying after they'd recorded the song a few times -- "Hey, let's try using the handbell!"