Recording, mixing: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!, Good Morning Good Morning

Studio Three, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Work continued on ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’ during this session, which lasted from 7pm to 2.15am. No new recording was made, but a reel of sound effects was created.

George Martin wanted to add the sound of calliopes and steam organs, to give the song an authentic fairground or circus feel. No suitable instrument could be located, however, so EMI’s tape library was raided.

I knew we needed a backwash, a general mush of sound, like if you go to a fairground, shut your eyes and listen: rifle shots, hurdy-gurdy noises, people shouting and – way in the distance – just a tremendous chaotic sound. So I got hold of old calliope tapes, playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ and other Sousa marches, chopped the tapes up into small sections and had Geoff Emerick throw them up in the air, re-assembling them at random.

Although Emerick physically threw the foot-long pieces of tape into the air, remarkably they ended up in almost the same order. The pieces were then reordered and sometimes reversed by hand, then spliced together again.

In all the tape featured 19 snippets of sound. Although it was assembled during this session, it wasn’t added to Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! until 29 March 1967.

Also on this day, a rough mono mix of ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ was made. Although a previous mix had been made on 16 February, this one was also named take 1.