Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Recording was completed for the Sgt Pepper song ‘She’s Leaving Home’ during this session, which ran from 7pm to 3.30am the following morning.
Reduction mixes of the previous day’s work were carried out first. Four were made: three mixes of take one (numbered takes 7-9), and one of take six (which became take 10).
Take nine – the final reduction mix of take one – turned out best, and became the basis for further work. This combined the harp and violins on one track, and double bass, violas and cellos on track two.
Paul McCartney then recorded his lead vocals, joined by John Lennon during the chorus. The pair then double-tracked their parts, after which the song was complete.
Six mono mixes were then made of ‘She’s Leaving Home’. Vari-speeding was used to raise the pitch from E by nearly a semitone, although this was forgotten when the stereo mixes were made on 17 April 1967.
Towards the end of the session the final mono mix, take six, was edited to remove two cello passages, from 1’17” and 2’30”.
Some more notes from listening to the cache of bootleg Sgt. Pepper multitracks I’ve found on the web:
* on track 4 Paul harmonized with himself during the end of the first verse (“Quietly turning the back door key, stepping outside she is free”). Apparently they didn’t like this bit of performance and left it out of the final remixes.
* Paul was recorded mostly dry during the verses, but John was recorded with a great deal of reverb for his chorus lines, and Paul sounds like he had some on his chorus lines. Emerick either put them on separate mics, or did a great deal of fader manipulation during the tracking. (Paul’s verses wound up being wet anyway, which was added at the remix stage.)
Brian Matthew also paid a visit during this session and recorded a couple of bits with John and Paul. First up was their acceptance speeches for Ivor Novello Awards, which were used at the ceremony and on the BBC broadcast on 27 March 1967, which was followed by a 4 minute-ish interview for the BBC Overseas programme, Top of the Pops, which aired in the build-up to Pepper in May 1967.