Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
The Beatles recorded ‘Drive My Car’, the opening song for Rubber Soul, on this day at EMI Studios in London. It was the second recording session for the album.
The session began at 7pm, and finished at 12.15am the following morning. This was The Beatles’ first recording session to finish after midnight, although such an occurrence would soon become commonplace.
‘Drive My Car’ was recorded in four attempts, the last of which was the only complete take. The rhythm track featured John Lennon on tambourine, Paul McCartney on bass guitar, George Harrison on Fender Stratocaster, and Ringo Starr on drums.
A number of overdubs were subsequently added. The first was of lead vocals by Lennon and McCartney and backing vocals by Harrison. The third track contained Lennon’s double tracked vocals for the “And maybe I’ll love you” and “beep beep, beep beep, yeah” lines.
Track four contained the finishing touches: McCartney’s lead guitar during the intro, solo and coda, cowbell by Starr, and Lennon’s piano part during the choruses.
Also on this day...
- 2017: Ringo Starr live: Planet Hollywood Resort, Las Vegas
- 2017: Paul McCartney live: Estádio Beira-Rio, Porto Alegre
- 2016: Paul McCartney live: Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, Pioneertown
- 2015: Paul McCartney live: Nationwide Arena, Columbus
- 2015: Ringo Starr live: Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Calgary, Canada
- 2014: Paul McCartney live: American Airlines Center, Dallas
- 2008: PS I don’t love you: Ringo tells fans to stop writing
- 2002: Paul McCartney live: Compaq Center, Houston
- 1993: Paul McCartney live: Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Paris
- 1968: Recording, mixing: Julia, Dear Prudence, Wild Honey Pie, Back In The USSR, Blackbird
- 1964: The Beatles live: ABC Cinema, Wigan
- 1963: Beatlemania begins: Sunday Night At The London Palladium
- 1962: The Beatles live: Cavern Club, Liverpool (evening)
- 1960: The Beatles live: Kaiserkeller, Hamburg
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
John Lennon didn’t play tambourine on DMC. Just vocals.
Neither did he play piano (which McCartney did!)
Wait a minute – if Paul was occupied with overdubbing electric guitar on track 4, he couldn’t have feasibly overdubbed the piano as well without a reduction mix, given the relative limitations of 4-track recording, so it’s possible that John may have been playing it.
Ringo was the one on tambourine, not John, and even session photographs confirm this as true.
This must’ve been the first session where Paul brought along his brand new Rickenbacker bass and he is evidently playing it on “Drive My Car”. It never occurred to me that he used his Rickenbacker bass on more tracks on “Rubber Soul” than I thought he did and over the course of the sessions, he clearly came to love his new Rickenbacker.
Dude, it says “Paul on piano” on the original cover, so let’s not start pointless speculations.
I understand that, but even liner notes can have mistakes. I’m not saying that they do or don’t have errors or that Paul isn’t playing piano on “Drive My Car”, but it can happen – I’m talking about album credits in general as well as not crediting certain instruments.
Paul and George played the opening guitar piece together.
love George’s guitar. still one of my fav Beatles tunes. does anyone know if there is a story behind the writting of it/
Yes. Paul was driving up to John’s house to write another swimming pool when he came up with the line you can buy me diamonds and pearls. At which point John pointed him in the write direction and it became ‘but you can can drive my car’ and the breast is history.
That’s Paul’s guitar, not George.
All the difficult Beatles solos were Paul.
Paul played the slide solo in this song while George played the main riff elsewhere in unison with Paul’s bass.
A great track very underestimated as it didnt appear on the American version of Rubber Soul.
Are there any recording of this played live?
There has been some uncertainty about the opening of DMC. As I hear it, if the pickup is just one eighth and the first beat in the second bar is syncopated from the last eighth in the bar before it, all falls neatly into place.
The solo does not need any bottleneck until the last two bars.