Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, London
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Barry Sheffield
The Beatles returned to Trident Studios in London’s Soho district, where they had previously recorded ‘Hey Jude’, to begin work on the White Album song ‘Dear Prudence’.
This marked Ringo Starr’s return to The Beatles. He had walked out of the group on 22 August 1968. He had drummed on a Jackie Lomax recording session, produced by George Harrison, the night before.
I had definitely left, I couldn’t take it any more. There was no magic and the relationships were terrible. I’d come to a bad spot in life. It could have been paranoia, but I just didn’t feel good – I felt like an outsider. But then I realised that we were all feeling like outsiders, and it just needed me to go around knocking to bring it to a head.I got a telegram saying, ‘You’re the best rock’n’roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you.’ And so I came back. We all needed that little shake-up. When I got back to the studio I found George had had it decked out with flowers – there were flowers everywhere. I felt good about myself again, we’d got through that little crisis and it was great. And then the ‘White’ album really took off – we all left the studio and went to a little room so there was no separation and lots of group activity going down.
Anthology
At George Harrison’s instigation, Mal Evans covered Ringo’s drum kit with dozens of flowers, at EMI the previous night and again during this session.
The Beatles opted to record ‘Dear Prudence’ track-by-track, wiping each previous attempt until they had a satisfactory version, meaning that the result was a solitary take with numerous layers.
The basic track was recorded on this day, with John Lennon and George Harrison’s fingerpicked acoustic guitars, and Starr’s drums.
