Paul and me in the studio with Mary Hopkin.

We’ve been dealing with Beatles songs, Beatles projects, Beatles ideas, and Beatles people, and now we reach the letter G. Of course, I have no idea what time of day you’re reading this book, but whatever time of day it is, I figure it could do no harm to wish you all a very good morning, with the Beatles’ “Good Morning Good Morning”—a great John Lennon song. I love the weird rhythm of it. I don’t know if any of you noticed or if anyone’s counting, but there are various missing beats all over the place, which really keeps you on your toes. John was quite dismissive of the song in various quotes that are ascribed to him, but I like it a lot. He supposedly was inspired by a Kellogg’s cereal commercial which was on the television one day while he was toying with song ideas, and that led him to write “Good Morning Good Morning.”

Let us suppose it is morning for the time being. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and all one can say is “Good Day Sunshine,” another fine song, this one written by Paul and one of my favourite tracks off the brilliant Revolver album. Inspired to some degree by John Sebastian’s lovely “Daydream,” this song ended up as a truly wonderful record in its own right. From Ringo’s immaculate triplet snare fill at the beginning to the surprise modulation and vocal round at the end, it is full of delightful surprises—all built around a seemingly effortless seductive slow shuffle.

I’ve mentioned before that Beatles songs can be very hard for other singers to cover effectively. But there is a really great cover version of “Good Day Sunshine,” and I discovered that it is not very well known. I distinctly remember an R&B cover version being played all the time in the clubs in London around 1967. There was a small selection of London clubs where we all used to hang out at night, sometimes making a round of several of them in one evening. I specifically remember the Ad Lib, the Speakeasy, the Scotch of St. James, Dolly’s, Tramp, and the Cromwellian. They all had excellent sound systems, and they all played this record, and it sounded terrific—but now it is largely forgotten. It is a brilliantly made, very American-sounding record, sung by Roy Redmond and produced by one of my musical heroes, Jerry Ragovoy, a very successful songwriter and a brilliant producer who is not as well known as he should be. He wrote “Time Is on My Side,” first recorded (curiously) by the jazz trombone maestro Kai Winding in 1963, then by Irma Thomas in 1964, and later that year covered extremely well by the Rolling Stones. He also co-wrote, with Bert Berns, “Piece of My Heart,” sung most famously by Janis Joplin. But to me, his towering achievement is that he co-wrote and produced a song called “Stay with Me,” recorded by Lorraine Ellison. If you get a chance, listen to it. It’s a classic R&B record. Lorraine Ellison is an amazing singer. What makes Jerry Ragovoy’s achievement with “Stay with Me” all the more astonishing is that he co-wrote the song and created the complicated arrangement on a day’s notice. Frank Sinatra had pulled out of a recording session at the last minute, and it was too late to cancel the large and excellent orchestra which had been booked. So Jerry jumped into the breach and made a classic record rather than let the musicians’ skills and time go to waste.

We have been talking about Beatles songs that begin with the letter G, and there is a very important one that we cannot miss. And that is “Get Back,” which was pretty much recorded as a live track, as I understand it. John played the guitar solo live, with Billy Preston playing some really cool piano stuff. There has been a lot of discussion about the song’s lyrics—Who was Jojo? and so on—but my understanding is that Jojo is a compilation of various people. There is no specific Jojo. All the people running around claiming to be Jojo were not. I do believe, however, that the Tucson reference may have actually come from my assistant at the time. I was working at Apple as the head of A&R, and a remarkable and charming woman named Chris O’Dell was my assistant—and remains a friend to this day. She is from Tucson, and she talked about her hometown a lot, so I think she may be able to take credit for the Tucson reference.

Sadly, I missed the famous performance the Beatles gave on the rooftop of our office in Savile Row which included “Get Back”—I was working out of Apple’s Los Angeles office (in the Capitol Tower) at the time. Despite my protestations to the contrary, I am frequently told that I can be seen in the video—but it really is not me! A fellow redhead by the name of Kevin Harrington was working as an assistant to Mal Evans, dealing with band equipment on that day, and he can be seen in several shots. I think that must be the cause of the confusion. I certainly wish I had been there.

Another very important Beatles G song, one that I hope applies to all of our lives, is “Getting Better,” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I heard at one time that “got to admit it’s getting better” was based on a phrase used by the drummer Jimmie Nicol, who substituted for Ringo for about a week during the Beatles’ Australian tour in 1964, when Ringo was ill with tonsillitis. He later also played with Peter & Gordon for a while. He was a very good drummer, but apparently his whole life after briefly being a Beatle got kind of odd. I think he is still around somewhere, and I hope he is okay. I have fond memories of him and his drumming.

“Getting Better” was mostly a Paul song. He says that he wrote the lyrics walking his dog Martha on Hampstead Heath one day. That was the origin of the song, and I guess things felt as if they were getting better for Paul. But then, of course, John inserted a few slightly less uplifting lyrics when he put in the bit about, “I used to be cruel to my woman,” which, sadly, John occasionally was. He owned up later in his life to having been someone who did not always treat women particularly well. He also added a more realistic note to the song; when Paul said, “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better,” it was John who added the lyric “It can’t get no worse,” putting a cynical turn of phrase on things, which Paul loved. They ended up making a great song out of the contrast between their two attitudes.

Another G song, “Got to Get You into My Life,” features one of the best horn sections assembled for a Beatles record. Paul, in particular, loved brass sections, like those on some of the best R&B and jazz records, and he used it to great effect on this brilliant song. George Martin worked closely with Paul on the horn arrangement, and it is exceptional.

There was a relatively small pool of incredibly talented saxophone players, trumpeters, trombone players, and so on, in London at that time, whom everybody used when they needed a horn section. Many of them also played on Peter & Gordon records such as “Black, Brown and Gold,” our only attempt ever at a jazz track—with an all-star horn section and an arrangement by John Paul Jones, later of Led Zeppelin. These musicians formed the core of the British jazz scene, which was very healthy. Like the London rock and roll scene, the London jazz scene was based around our admiration for (and emulation of) our American idols, but there were some truly wonderful players in their own right.

The Beatles have often been accused of writing so many songs that are drug related, when very frequently they were not. People were reading things into them that were not there. I do not believe that, for example, either “Fixing a Hole” or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” were about drugs, though I concede that the imagery in the lyrics might well have been influenced by the occasional consumption of such substances.

But at least in this one particular case, I know for a fact that “Got to Get You into My Life” is a drug-related song. It is a humble ode in praise of marijuana, about the fun of getting high and the temptation to get high every day. Take the line, “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there.” If that line is about a woman, it’s meaningless. If it’s about a joint, it means a lot.

We’ve been talking about Beatles songs beginning with the letter G, and a great one that we couldn’t possibly leave out is “Golden Slumbers.” The lyrics for this song apparently derive from lyrics written in 1603 by a man called Thomas Dekker. He wrote “golden slumbers kiss your eyes,” and I have read that Paul saw those lyrics at his father’s house. I don’t know this to be true, but I gather there was sheet music lying around the house, and these lyrics caught his eye, and he used them and adapted them and set them to music. It had been set to music a couple of times before, but clearly never as successfully as in the version that the Beatles recorded for the Abbey Road album.

“Golden Slumbers” calls to mind another golden song that you may not know quite as well. It’s a Ringo record that I had the honour of producing, and it is called “Golden Blunders.” It was originally a Posies song, and I suggested to Ringo that we might try a cover of it. He liked the idea of “golden blunders,” and he played and sang it extremely well. It was certainly fun working with Ringo in the studio—he was most cooperative and obliging, but it was never possible to forget that we were collectively making music with a Beatle and with one of the most important drummers in the world. When I mentioned to Ringo how good the hi-hat was sounding, he casually responded that he had brought the same one he had played on The Ed Sullivan Show. The other musicians and I were transfixed with a kind of awe to which he must be thoroughly accustomed. I am very proud to have worked with Ringo in the studio and equally proud to know him and his beautiful wife, Barbara, as friends.

We have moved into the territory of individual Beatles and away from collective Beatles, so let us turn to George Harrison. Possibly his most well-known G song is not a song he actually wrote. It was written by Rudy Clark and first recorded by James Ray. George’s version, which was a huge hit all over the place, was co-produced by George with Jeff Lynne. It’s “Got My Mind Set on You,” with a rocking production and a truly invigorating and lively vocal from George—more aggressively rock and roll than much of his solo work, and in some sense a reversion to his Beatles vocals. The song is also a bit more live sounding, perhaps inspired by the very crisp and precise track which Jeff constructed, as he does so well. And let us not forget the very creative Gary Weis video which was played everywhere and helped the record become extremely successful.

Paul McCartney wrote at least one really excellent G song which the Beatles did not record, and indeed he didn’t write it for the Beatles at all. He wrote it for a production client of his by the name of Mary Hopkin. She was one of the first singers signed to Apple, shortly after James Taylor. The story of how we discovered her starts with Twiggy, who was of course a supermodel back when there was only one supermodel in the whole world. She is a brilliant woman of indefatigable charm and determination and a dear friend of mine and of Paul McCartney. As it happened, one night she was watching a TV talent competition called Opportunity Knocks. This beautiful Welsh girl named Mary Hopkin was on with her acoustic guitar, singing a Joan Baez song. Twiggy called her friend Paul and said, “You have to turn on your television. This girl is amazing. Listen to her.” Paul thought she was amazing, too, and he called me, told me to watch, and then we all decided that Apple should try to sign her. So I drove up to Wales with Derek Taylor, who was one of the key people at Apple, to meet Mary Hopkin. Her father was understandably suspicious of these rock and roll types arriving from London trying to sign his daughter away.

But we did in the end succeed in signing her to Apple Records, and Paul had already decided what song he wanted to produce for her. He had heard the song “Those Were the Days” in a club called the Blue Angel some months earlier, sung by the American duo Gene and Francesca Raskin, and made a mental note of it. The melody was based on a Russian folk song, and Gene Raskin had written lyrics for it. When we signed Mary, Paul said, “We have to find that song ‘Those Were the Days.’ I want to do that song with Mary.” And we did. Paul produced a beautiful version of it. I helped him put it together, and I was in the studio the day it was cut. Paul had a specific sound in mind which involved finding a cimbalom (a kind of Hungarian hammered dulcimer) and someone to play it—both of which I found. Mary sang a brilliant vocal, and Paul had his first No. 1 worldwide hit as a producer.

Paul then wrote a follow-up song to “Those Were the Days,” a G song called “Goodbye,” which Mary Hopkin sang beautifully. “Goodbye” featured an arrangement by Richard Hewson, whom I had brought to Apple to work on James Taylor’s album. Paul and I used him for “Those Were the Days” and Paul stuck with him for “Goodbye.” The arrangement Richard did for “Goodbye” incorporated many of Paul’s favourite elements. The trumpet doing pa-pa-pa-pa eighth notes is very much a Paul kind of idea. Indeed, the little pitter-patter noise that Paul put in there for percussion is very Buddy Holly influenced, another of Paul’s favourites. Paul McCartney, by the way, also played the bass on that record.

Around this time I produced my first record, at EMI Studios. The artist was Paul Jones, an amazingly good musician who used to be the lead singer of Manfred Mann, and the song was “And the Sun Will Shine,” a Bee Gees composition I really like. As it was my very first production, I wanted to hire an incredible band—and that’s how I ended up producing a record that has a definite Beatles connection. The band I hired was Nicky Hopkins on piano, Paul Samwell-Smith from the Yardbirds on bass, Jeff Beck on guitar, and on drums an aspiring young player of considerable ability by the name of Paul McCartney, who played some really good drum fills on the track and set a great groove.

G, of course, also takes us to the great country of Germany. And Germany is important in the Beatles’ lives for many reasons, as you know. Before I ever met the Beatles, they had spent a lot of time in Germany. I was never there for any of those gigs, but I have been to the Reeperbahn subsequently, which is where the clubs were located. And as you may have read in some of the Beatles books or Beatles biographies, the Reeperbahn was and is a fairly naughty district. And we have it on good authority that the Beatles indulged in a bit of naughtiness themselves while they were there, as one does. It is kind of a weird fun place, and if you are there playing multiple sets at clubs every night for a few weeks, what on earth you might get up to one can only imagine. The Beatles obviously became fond of Germany and even learned some German as well. Which is probably why somebody had the idea of re-recording some of their songs in German. They re-recorded two of their biggest early hits, “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” over the same musical tracks to create two new versions called “Sie Liebt Dich” and “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand.” Their pronunciation sounds reasonably good to me, but I am certainly no expert. In time they found that their German fans would buy the English records anyway, so that saved them a lot of effort down the road.

Another interesting thing about Germany is that it is the only place where Gordon and I got to play with the Beatles on tour. I hung out with them on other occasions obviously and worked for them for a couple of years, but we toured with them only once, on the German tour, and it was extremely exciting.

We traveled on this extraordinary train that had been built for visiting heads of state, among them the Queen of England, when she did a royal tour of Germany years earlier. One of the carriages of the train, one full car, had been turned into four separate luxury bedrooms, thus providing one for each Beatle, of course. And I think there were a couple of other bedrooms, too—Brian Epstein certainly had one—each with twenty-four-hour room service and many other extraordinary conveniences that one would not expect on a train. Each Beatle could pick up the phone in his little cabin and order anything he wanted. I remember that attached to that coach was a huge dining room/conference room with a kitchen (a coach on its own) and next came a couple of first-class coaches with seats for everyone else (other acts, crew, and so on). Peter & Gordon’s official seats were in that carriage, of course, but fortunately, being friends, we got invited up to the Beatles’ elite carriages, so we were there in the big dining room, ordering food and drink, and playing poker. I distinctly remember playing poker with Brian Epstein and the Beatles sitting around one end of a very long table in these luxurious surroundings on this magic train whizzing across Germany, thinking, “This is pretty cool,” and it was.

There is actually a video of that tour because one of the shows we did was filmed for a German TV show. Our set included several songs that Paul McCartney had written, not only “A World Without Love” but also “Woman.” Paul had asked that “Woman” be released under a pseudonym, with the songwriting credit given to the imaginary “Bernard Webb.” The reason for doing this was that some of the press were suggesting that the Beatles’ stature had reached a point where anything with their name on it, or anything with a Beatle’s name on it, would inevitably be successful, regardless of its intrinsic merit and quality. And I think this pissed Paul off a bit, because nobody likes to be thought of as resting on his laurels or relying on his name for success. The “Bernard Webb” deception worked for about three or four weeks before somebody found out that it was really Paul, and the cat was out of the bag, but in truth, “Woman” became a big hit very quickly, so even those few weeks were enough to prove that the success of the song did not depend upon the record having Paul’s name on it.

Peter & Gordon on tour with the Beatles in Germany.

Gordon and I went on, I recall, right before the Beatles did. While we were onstage in Germany singing this song, the Beatles were sometimes at the side of the stage, listening. Then when they went on, I cannot tell you how impressed I was with the vigour, precision, and musical excellence of their live performance. What is amazing is that they really could not hear one another; none of us could hear much of anything onstage. They really just had to guess where they were in the song and what everyone was playing and singing. I wish we had a live recording of the songs they performed in Germany. Had the concert been more recent, everyone would have had their phones up, and the concert would have been videoed and recorded from every angle. But sadly, we do not have any recordings. I just know that I watched from backstage with amazement.

Before we leave our discussion of the letter G, I’d like to acknowledge a sentiment that the world needs now more than ever, “Give Peace a Chance.” This was John Lennon’s first non-Beatles single, credited to the Plastic Ono Band—a name that John and Yoko coined for their joint projects. They described the band as more of a concept than a group of specific musicians—indeed, they were in the habit of assuring whatever audience members were in attendance that they, too, were members of the Plastic Ono Band for the evening! As years go by, John and Yoko’s seemingly simplistic plea for peace and friendship seems more relevant and less laughable than ever—though the press at the time preferred to see it as mere silliness.

We began our journey through G by saying good morning, so the obvious way to end is to ask Ringo to be gracious enough to wish us all “Good Night.” This beautiful John Lennon song (credited to Lennon & McCartney, of course) was recorded and released officially as a Beatles track but featured only Ringo, singing over an orchestra playing a lush and traditional George Martin arrangement.