Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
The Beatles began recording their double album, simply titled The Beatles but more commonly known as the White Album, on this day. The session lasted a little over 12 hours, beginning at 2.30pm and ending at 2.40am the following morning, and saw the group work on ‘Revolution 1’.
At this point it wasn’t known as ‘Revolution 1’, however. The title was ‘Revolution’ until it was vetoed for single release, after which a new, faster version was taped under that name.
The Beatles recorded 16 takes of ‘Revolution 1’ on this day. These were numbered 1-18, although there were no takes 11 and 12. The recording had piano, drums and acoustic guitar all on a single track of the tape, and Lennon’s vocals on another.
Take 18 was markedly different from the others, running to 10’17”. It included an extended jam in the coda, which lasted well beyond Lennon’s call to the studio control room at 7:31: “OK, I’ve had enough”.
The final six minutes featured feedback, screaming and moaning, including vocal contributions from Lennon’s new girlfriend Yoko Ono. The full take was released in 2018 on the super deluxe 50th anniversary reissue of the White Album.
Overdub work on ‘Revolution 1’ continued during the next two sessions, on 31 May and 4 June, before Lennon made the decision to create the sound collage ‘Revolution 9’ from the final minutes of the song.
Judging from the audio of Take 14, a fourth instrument is present from the second verse, so since John was on acoustic guitar and singing guide vocals, Paul was on piano and Ringo was on drums, it’s very likely that George is playing some low notes on his electric guitar, either his Fender Stratocaster or the Bartell fretless electric guitar that he was given in 1967, likely while staying in California with Pattie and experiencing the drug culture.
It certainly would’ve made sense for George to be playing low notes on guitar, because a) it gave him something to do on the basic track, b) he was going to overdub his lead guitar parts later on and c) Paul was occupied with piano and going to overdub his own bass parts anyway.