Love

The songs – part three

‘Something’

The remix for Love did not introduce elements from other songs, but the 21st century audio technology gave greater clarity and space to the instruments.

‘Something’ is such a sensitive song that works really well as it is. We moved the strings around for effect, leaving George’s great vocal performance more upfront.

‘Blue Jay Way’ (Transition)

‘Something’ ends with the second ‘Transition’ track on Love – Harrison’s ‘Blue Jay Way’ plus vocals from ‘Nowhere Man’, crowd and fairground noises and other effects.

‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’/’I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’/‘Helter Skelter’

Ringo Starr’s snare drum roll from ‘All You Need Is Love’ marks the beginning of ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’, which is presented almost in full.

This has to be one of John’s most pictorial songs and we all had fun making our recording sound like a real circus in the studio. My problem was playing the ancient harmonium while John and Paul acted as producers. They delighted in seeing me pedal away at that damned instrument for what seemed like hours. The show demanded something a little different, with a much darker mood. So although all the original sounds are still there, it does become rather menacing towards the end.

The remix also contains guitars and white noise from ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, and Paul McCartney’s vocals from ‘Helter Skelter’, in addition to animal noises from ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ and laughter from ‘Piggies’.

The LOVE show director had visions of a macabre Victorian circus for the show. This made us approach ‘Kite’ in a completely different way. ‘Blue Jay Way’ set the scene really well, and the sound effects from ‘Good Morning’ add to the general circus vibe. To create the sound of a circus going wrong we edited in ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ at the end flying in the mad organs and Paul’s vocal on ‘Helter Skelter’ over the top.

‘Help!’

Another relatively unchanged remix, ‘Help!’ appears to contain elements from no other song, but is instead presented with greater audio clarity than on previous releases.

This was recorded really quickly onto a four track, with the band playing live onto one track. This recording has such a great natural Beatles sound that it’s wonderful to just hear the power of their playing.

‘Blackbird’/‘Yesterday’

An instrumental extract from ‘Blackbird’ gives way to another solo McCartney recording: the classic ‘Yesterday’.

We agonised over the inclusion of ‘Yesterday’ in the show. It is such a famous song, the icon of an era, had it been heard too much? The story of the addition of the original string quartet is well known, however few people know how limited the recording was technically, and so the case for not including it was strong, but how could anyone ignore such a marvellous work? We introduce it with some of Paul’s guitar work from ‘Blackbird’ and hearing it now, I know that it was right to include it. Its simplicity is so direct; it tugs at the heartstrings.

For the Love remix, ‘Blackbird’ was transposed from G major to F major, so it was in the same key as ‘Yesterday’.

I wasn’t sure how the more sensitive songs would sound in the theatre, I was scared that some intimacy would be lost. While I was in Montreal, Cirque let me go with sound designer Jonathan Deans to a new show they were about to tour so I could play around with their PA. As soon as I played ‘Yesterday’ through the system all the workmen stopped and just listened to the song. I guessed then that we would probably be OK!