Recording, mixing: Let It Be, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)

Studio Two (control room), EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: Chris Thomas
Engineer: Jeff Jarratt

This Beatles recording session began with a lead guitar overdub onto the best take of ‘Let It Be’ from the 31 January session. This solo featured on the single release, but an alternative one was used for the Let It Be album.

The new solo was added to take 27A of the song, and was performed by George Harrison. It was included in Glyn Johns’ two unreleased Get Back albums.

The Beatles then turned their attentions to an old recording. ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’ had been begun in May 1967, but recording had ceased the following month following the creation of a master edit of its various parts.

During this session, John Lennon and Paul McCartney gathered around a single microphone and added all the song’s vocals onto two tracks.

The vocals included Lennon’s nightclub MC, McCartney’s crooner Denis O’Bell, ska-styled staccato, Pythonesque falsetto, mumbling and other sounds.

John and Paul weren’t always getting on that well at this time, but for that song they went onto the studio floor and sang together around one microphone. Even at that time I was thinking, ‘What are they doing with this old four-track tape, recording these funny bits onto this quaint song?’ But it was a fun track to do.

More effects were added to track four, including audience ambience and applause, and the sound of Beatles assistant Mal Evans running a spade through a heap of gravel.

We had these endless, crazy fun sessions. And eventually we pulled it all together… and we just did a skit, Mal and his gravel. I can still see Mal digging the gravel. And it was just so hilarious to put that record together. It’s not a great melody or anything, it’s just unique.

Three mono mixes were made at the end of the session, which finished at 2am. The day began, however, with a playback of recently-recorded material, in the control room of Studio Three from 2.30-6.15pm.