Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 17, 20 February; 28, 29, 31 March 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Released: 1 June 1967 (UK), 2 June 1967 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, Lowrey organ
Paul McCartney: acoustic guitar, bass guitar
George Harrison: harmonica
Ringo Starr: drums, harmonica, shaker bells
George Martin: piano, harmonium, Hammond organ, tape loops
Mal Evans: bass harmonica
Neil Aspinall: harmonica
Geoff Emerick: tape loops
Available on:
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Anthology 2
Love
On 31 January 1967, while The Beatles were in Sevenoaks, Kent, making a promotional film for Strawberry Fields Forever, John Lennon wandered in to an antique shop close to their hotel. There he bought a framed Victorian circus poster from 1843.
The poster announced Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal, coming to Town Meadows in Rochdale. It grandly announced that the circus would be for the benefit of Mr Kite, and would feature "Mr J Henderson the celebrated somerset thrower" and Zanthus the horse.
Mr Kite was William Kite, a performer and the son of circus owner James Kite. In 1810 he had founded Kite's Pavilion Circus and later moved to Wells' Circus. It is thought that he worked in Pablo Fanques' fair between 1843 and 1845. Fanque, pictured below, was Britain's first black circus owner. He was born William Darby in Norwich in 1796.
Lennon hung the poster in his music room at his home in Weybridge, and began to use it as inspiration for a song. Some of the facts he changed - the circus was coming to Bishopsgate rather than Rochdale; the horse became Henry; the circus became a fair; Mr Kite was 'late of Wells's Circus' rather that of Pablo Fanque (pictured below); and Mr Henderson, rather than Mr Kite, promised to challenge the world.
Minor changes aside, the words of the poster found their way almost unchanged into Lennon's Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!, which closed the first half of the Sgt Pepper album. Lennon sat at his piano and sang phrases from the poster until he had the song, possibly with help from McCartney.
Lennon was later dismissive of the song, as revealed in a range of interview snippets collated in the Anthology book.
I wrote that as a pure poetic job, to write a song sitting there. I had to write because it was time to write. And I had to write it quick because otherwise I wouldn't have been on the album. So I had to knock off a few songs. I knocked off A Day In The Life, or my section of it, and whatever we were talking about, Mr Kite, or something like that. I was very paranoid in those days, I could hardly move.
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner
He also denied there were hidden drug references in the song.
There were all kinds of stories about Henry the Horse being heroin. I had never seen heroin in that period.
Anthology
Related articles:
- Anthology 2
- All Together Now
- Recording: Got To Get You Into My Life
- I Want You (She's So Heavy)
- Recording: Tomorrow Never Knows
The most psychedelic song of this album.
It's kind of sad that John felt this song was a throwaway. I think we all love it dearly!
John felt that many songs of him were throwaways, when i read those articles i felt so sad because i like those beautiful songs but he hates them jaja it's weird.
One of the best songs I ever heard. The entire album is incredible.
Great site. I've been reading for hours.
However, "hanged" as in "Lennon hanged the poster in his music room" should be "hung" as described below. (Yes, as well as being a Beatles fan I'm a pedant. Please forgive me.)
"Hanged, as a past tense and a past participle of hang, is used in the sense of “to put to death by hanging,” as in Frontier courts hanged many a prisoner after a summary trial. A majority of the Usage Panel objects to hung used in this sense. In all other senses of the word, hung is the preferred form as past tense and past participle, as in I hung my child's picture above my desk.
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000)
Thanks Ron. That's a weak spot in my grammar. I've fixed the article now though. Glad you like the site!
from the Steve Turner book, "A Hard Day's Write":
At the time, John saw 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr, Kite!' as a throwaway, telling Hunter Davies, "I wasn't proud of that. There was no real work. I was just going through the motions because we needed a new song for Sgt. Pepper at that moment." By 1980, he had radically revised his opinion. He told Playboy interviewer David Sheff: "It's so cosmically beautiful... The song is pure, like a painting, a pure watercolour."
I think what John told Playboy was in reference to the different soundscapes in the song.
This song has the greatest bassline I have ever heard. McCartney was on fire during this album.John was so wrong to dismiss this as garbage.
Funnily enough, i am a pedant too and i thought i would share this with you.
nit·pick
To be concerned with or find fault with insignificant details.
nit'pick'er
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
yes, it's an amazing bassline. isn't it?
Oh heck...John thought all of his Beatle songs were "throw aways"...while his post-Beatle stuff were mainly "throw aways".
Lennon was a great Beatle songwriter/singer (my favorite)...I would have hoped that had he lived he would have gotten rid of his bitterness and come down off his high horse to enjoy life a little...but we'll never know.
In the 1980 Playboy interview one can read that John had changed his attitude concerning this song for the better.
His songs on Double Fantasy showed that he had mellowed some.
Why didn't you give the credits for the tape loops to Martin, Emerick and John himself?
About the reeds, John play one organ and Martin another one and harmonium, but Mal didn't play one.
I'm not sure if the glockenspiel were used at all. It was at the studio, but not included.
Also, there's a piano on this one. Who played it?
There're photographs of this sessions with John, George and someone else playing harmonicas. So, it's most likely John played too, in fact, he was the "official beatle" harmonica player.
The piano was played by George Martin. I agree the glockenspiel probably wasn't used, so I've removed it from the listing. Lennon didn't play harmonica on this though - it was Harrison, Starr, Aspinall and Evans.
Right now I'm reading Geoff Emerick book, and he said a glockenspiel was recorded (half speed), but he didn't mention who played it.
Then, what I always thought about harmonicas seen pictures from those sessions: "a chorus of bass harmonicas (played by John, G. Harrison, Mal, and Neil)."
George Martin was clearly the fifth Beatle and was every bit as important as the other four and this song is evidence of that! To take an idea from the imagination of John Lennon and actually translate it was very impressive.
At about 1:10 through the song you can clearly hear an electric guitar. I think George played it.
Possibly my favorite Beatles song. Incredibly well done. Unbelieveable almost. What a sound. And on a 4-track. Lennon was dismissive of a lot of stuff. I'm guessing it was one way of dealing with being somewhat overwhelmed. He came to appreciate the song anyway.
He went through his primal scream period, during which he believed that all art had to be self referential and brutally honest. It was this frame of reference that made him dismissive of songs that were pure flights of fancy and touched no part of his own inner world as he saw it.
He was wrong on a couple of levels and I think was coming round to a more rounded and balanced view before he died.
Regarding John's comments about his music, I don't know how old most you all are - I'm 53 and lived through these periods - I think one ought to remember that John's comments in 1970 are the comments of a 30 year-old on his work when he was in his 20's. His 1980 interviews are the words of a 40 year old looking back.
We can be sure that had he lived to his 50's and beyond, his view of his music etc., would have become much more circumspect.
Our view and portrait of John remains frozen in time.
I'm only 52 so I'll defer to your greater experience. Yes I totally agree that's very easy to forget how young they were when they produced all this music that still keeps us stimulated more than 40 years later.
well Charlie, next year you'll fully understand my point - at 53 all the wisdom of the world is revealed!