Paul – lead
vocals, piano, guitar
John – backing vocals, bass
George – backing vocals, guitar
Ringo – drums
Side one of Abbey Road sandwiches Paul’s two songs together in the middle. But apart from the fact that this song, originally subtitled ‘I’ll Never Do You No Harm’, also starts with a direct vocal entry (after a faint augmented E major chord for Paul to register against), the songs couldn’t be more different. Whereas ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ is a jaunty third-person narrative with whimsical lyrics and spurious instrumental effects that is ultimately disposable, ‘Oh! Darling’ is a personal, no-nonsense, impassioned plea for reconciliation. Although Paul spent some time developing both tracks, the exasperation he caused the rest of the group in recording ‘Maxwell’ was avoided as the preparations for ‘Oh! Darling’ centred on his own vocal performance.
Throughout the week prior to the recording of the track’s lead vocal, Paul had gone into the studio at about the same time in the afternoon to rehearse the song, with the aim of giving his voice a rawness that would have come from having performed it every night on stage. Second engineer Alan Parsons’ main memory of Abbey Road was Paul coming in early to do the ‘Oh! Darling’ vocal. “He’d come in, sing it and say ‘No, that’s not it, I’ll try it again tomorrow’. He only tried it once per day. I suppose he was trying to capture a certain rawness which could only be done once before the voice changed. I remember him saying ‘five years ago I could have done this in a flash’.” But the result is truly extraordinary – an unparalleled vocal performance that surpasses even the best of his earlier work.
It’s possible that the final vocal comes from the best of these vocal takes. At one stage the vocals recorded on 18, 22 and 23 July were on three different tracks of the eight-track master tape. It is likely that these were mixed together on a single track, with Paul choosing the best moments from each of the three performances, double-tracking on the bridges.
In writing ‘Oh! Darling’, Paul shunned any hint of clever wordplay. The lyrics are straightforward and say it all – in fact, it is Paul’s ‘I Want You’. (There are interesting parallels between the two songs. Rehearsals for both were recorded during the Let It Be sessions back at the end January, just before the rooftop performance. The periods over which the songs were recorded were longer than any other on the album, and both were completed on the same day. Conversely, during the recording periods, John’s song gained a subtitle and Paul’s lost one.) As with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’, there seems to have been a degree of mutual emulation between John and Paul in their compositions. In spite of their diverging musical development, there were still times when they would, so to speak, come together.
Paul’s first-verse vocal is restrained, as he gives his reassurance that he means no harm – the line itself “I’ll never do you no harm” is delivered carefully and evenly. With a guitar scything on the off-beat, slow, staccato piano triplets and a weaving bass, the effect of layer upon layer of textures beneath the vocal surpasses the total of the parts. The directness and maturity of Paul’s vocal contrasts with the glossy harmonising that creeps in during the second part of the verse – but way, way in the background. But so far, relatively undramatic.
However, as he elaborates “I’ll never make it alone”, his composure begins to crack, and the control of the guitar and piano with it. In fact after this line, George loosens the guitar-work and produces two deliciously plummeting slides – a D major chord sliding all the way down from the tenth fret. Paul’s first spot-on falsetto “Believe me when I beg you, ooh!” follows, then the plea “don’t ever leave me alone”, and splendidly rocky 12/8 piano and drum semiquavers break the composure completely as the bridge approaches.
Now Paul hurls himself into the bridge with a raucous energy and vocal power that entirely justify the extended build up of the days of recording. This extraordinary vocal performance, reminiscent of the best of ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘Kansas City’ and Sgt Pepper, is heightened by the relentless, calculated arpeggios from the guitar. These are matched by the attack of the piano in the opposite channel, which degenerates into hysterical sextuplets on “you know I nearly fell down and died”. The force of the lyric and the power of the delivery reach their peak here, and then ebb back, exhausted. We return to the relative calm of the verse, but a temporary calm because soon the emotion of the bridge transfers itself to the verse – “I’ll never make it alone”. He only manages half a verse before he opens up again – “When you told me” and a stunning octave leap to a high A “woooh!”. After the intensity of the previous line, the purity of this falsetto is breathtaking. Despite the maddening intensity of the unrelenting guitar arpeggios, this time he takes time to slide through a full octave and more on “cried”.
This second bridge is even more harrowing than the first, the piano also losing its grip during the final set of sextuplets. The backing becomes louder during the final verse, though the piano and guitar still chip away at their lines. Paul ultimately could not resist throwing in an ad-libbed “Oh, believe me darling”, which the song could probably have done without, but this is a triviality. Verse and bridge combine with the dazzling delivery of the final “I’ll never do you no harm”, the last word powered out with staggering ferocity.
For the recording of the basic track, George Martin was absent – lately this was a surprisingly rare event in itself – and so his young assistant, Chris Thomas, was listed as producer.
Exactly who played what on the track requires a little guesswork. John is usually credited with piano, with Paul on bass, but it was probably the other way round. Not only does John not appear on piano on the rest of the album, the bass playing is a little hesitant in places and features a couple of miss-hit notes (just before “Believe me when I beg you” and in the second “you didn’t need me anymore” in the first bridge), which Paul would surely have redone. An organ part was recorded, most probably by Billy Preston, but later erased.
The last of the overdubs for the song took place on 11 August with the three-part harmony backing vocals, that are mixed so low in the song they are easily overlooked. An historic session in hindsight, in that it was John’s last recording on a Beatles track.
Although he later praised the song, John was surprisingly dismissive of Paul’s delivery, feeling his own voice could have done the song greater justice. However, it is hard to believe that John, or anybody else, could have bettered Paul’s vocal performance on this song – as just one listen to the delivery of that final line proves. Nevertheless, John’s comment could be taken as a full endorsement of the song, in a rather back-handed way. He certainly wouldn’t have felt compelled to tackle the vocal on many other McCartney tracks on this album, or indeed on Let It Be.
The song seems to have been a basis for Wings’ Band On The Run track ‘Let Me Roll It’, which has a similar chord and lyric structure, but is a pale imitation of this outstanding track.