Studio Three, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector
Engineers: Richard Lush, Andy Stephens
The sixth recording session for John Lennon’s debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, took place on 9 October 1970.
The session began at 2.30pm, and finished at 3.30am the following morning. Earlier in the day Lennon had had his final meeting with his father Alf, at Tittenhurst Park.
This session, the first produced by Phil Spector, took place on Lennon’s 30th birthday. The musicians were Lennon, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums, later joined by Billy Preston on piano.
They worked on four songs: ‘Isolation’, ‘God’, ‘Love’, and ‘Remember’. The session began with a stereo mix of ‘Isolation’, after which the song was complete. Attention then turned to ‘God’, which still had its working title ‘God (The Dream Is Over)’.
Three takes, numbered 21-23, were recorded, with Lennon playing guitar and Voormann on piano. Billy Preston joined the group on piano for takes 24-42, which also had Lennon on piano and Voormann on bass guitar. Spector arrived between takes 37 and 38.
The master take was 42. Lennon overdubbed a vocal take. This can be heard on the final mix up to and including the line “and that’s reality”. The remainder of the vocals are from another overdub recorded on 18 October.
During the session a single take of ‘Love’ was also recorded with Preston joining the full band. The song was re-recorded by Lennon alone on 15 October.
The rest of the day and night were devoted to ‘Remember’, which had previously been worked on on 6 and 7 October.
Thirteen new takes were recorded on this day, the last of which, take 13, became the album’s master version. Two vocal overdubs were also recorded during the session, with more additions following on 18 and 19 October. The song was mixed on 24 October.
One of the outtakes from this session has Lennon singing “Happy birthday… to me…” to the tune of ‘Remember’, while Starr and Voormann performed the backing track.
While the band were working on ‘Remember’, George Harrison arrived at Abbey Road in his dark blue Ferrari. He presented Lennon with a plastic flower and the pair hugged one other.
George Harrison had a Ferrari, a 330 GTC, which was dark blue with a cream interior, and it was parked out the front of the studio. And stuck to his windscreen he had a little vase holder with a little plastic flower in it. He took it out, walked into Studio 3 and said, ‘Happy birthday, John.’ He gave him the plastic flower and they had a hug. Yoko had brought in this present for John, which was a sensory box. It was about twice the size of a shoebox, with lots of holes in it. You had to put your finger in – one hole would be warm and mushy, one would be wet, one would have a pin in it. John had such a ball with it.
#OTD 9OCT1970 George presents @johnlennon with #ItsJohnnysBirthday @AbbeyRoad for his 30th. http://t.co/wJmFMKhXb2 pic.twitter.com/1bsr1YMVi3
— George Harrison (@GeorgeHarrison) October 9, 2014