The Beatles were a talented band that developed many innovative recording techniques and instrumental playing styles. However, a few of their songs demanded a lot out of them and were tough to record. Whether it was due to intense instrumentation or blaring vocals, The Beatles almost went overboard on a few songs. Here are 4 Beatles songs the band struggled to record.
‘Twist and Shout’
‘Twist and Shout’ is a cover of the 1962 track by The Isley Brothers. The Beatles had been recording at Abbey Road Studios for 12 hours for the album Please Please Me. They ended the session with a bang by recording “Twist and Shout”. John Lennon took on the demanding vocal performance and barely got through it. In The Beatles Anthology, Lennon said he was “bitterly ashamed” of his performance on the song, even though it turned into a hit.
“My voice wasn’t the same for a long time after, every time I swallowed, it was like sandpaper,” Lennon said. “I was always bitterly ashamed of it because I could sing it better than that, but now it doesn’t bother me. You can hear that I’m just a frantic guy doing his best.”
‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is one of Paul McCartney’s favorite Beatles songs from Abbey Road. However, his bandmates don’t share the same sentiment as they hated it. McCartney wanted the recording session to be perfect, and it became the most expensive song on the album. They did four takes that took hours to record. At one point, Paul even brought in a blacksmith’s anvil.
Ringo Starr called it “the worst session ever,” and Lennon told Playboy in 1980 that he “hated it.” Lennon recalled McCartney wanted it to be a single, but it wasn’t happening. It became an expensive endeavor for the band, and none of them liked it as much as McCartney.
‘Oh, Darling!’
Another Abbey Road song, “Oh, Darling!” took The Beatles over a week to record. Paul McCartney performed lead vocals on it, but was consistently unhappy with it. The band did 26 takes of this song before finally getting it right. In Many Years From Now, McCartney recalled the various ways he tried to get the vocals right.
“I mainly remember wanting to get the vocal right, wanting to get it good, and I ended up trying each morning as I came into the recording session,” McCartney shared. “I tried it with a hand mike, and I tried it with a standing mike, I tried it every which way and finally got the vocal I was reasonably happy with.”
‘Helter Skelter’
McCartney wrote “Helter Skelter” in an attempt for The Beatles to match The Who, who claimed to have the “dirtiest” song ever. An early prelude to metal, “Helter Skelter” is one of The Beatles’ hardest rock songs that features blaring guitars and eccentric drums. In an interview with GQ, McCartney said the song was hardest on Ringo, evident by what he yells at the end of the song.
“It is pretty raw,” McCartney explained. “You know, it’s pretty screamy. It was good to do. We did a lot of takes on it. It was hard on Ringo. On one of the takes, you can hear him right at the end, he says, ‘I got blisters on my fingers’ because he had been drumming so long and so loud.”
Fortunately, most of The Beatles’ songs still sound great, even if some were harder to record than others. These four are just a few that gave the fab four a challenge to overcome.
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