I’ll Follow The Sun

 

By the time we got back, the group were already hard at work on their next song—Paul’s gentle, acoustic-based “I’ll Follow The Sun.” It couldn’t have provided a greater contrast to everything else we had recorded that day, and it underscored for me the incredible diversity of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting abilities. At first, they couldn’t think of anything for Ringo to do—he played drums on a run-through, but it sounded all wrong, too aggressive and distracting; Paul wanted something more subtle.

After a good deal of discussion, Paul came up with the idea of having Ringo just slap his legs in time, and that worked well. Enthralled, I watched Norman carefully position a mic between Ringo’s knees; then, back in the control room, he cranked up the EQ to add some extra depth to the sound. I loved the soft charm of “I’ll Follow The Sun,” and especially enjoyed the low harmony line George Martin had contrived for Lennon to sing in perfect complement to McCartney’s lead vocal. But I found Harrison’s simpleminded eight-note solo—not even a solo, really just the melody line—downright embarrassing. He wasn’t even supposed to play that solo: for the first few takes, John did it, on acoustic guitar. Despite the overall good vibe of the day, George Harrison seemed annoyed, perhaps because he hadn’t been given much to do. At one point he marched into the control room and complained loudly, “You know, I’d like to do the solo on this one. I am supposed to be the lead guitarist in this band, after all.” I thought it was a pompous thing to say, but George Martin reluctantly gave his assent, pretty much just to get the pouting guitarist out of his hair. Paul and John went along with it good-naturedly, even though nobody was satisfied with the result— you can almost hear Harrison thinking about what note to play next. He wasn’t happy either, and he wanted to make another attempt at it, but a weary and slightly annoyed George Martin finally put his foot down, saying, “No, we have to move on.”

Geoff Emerick, Here, There, and Everywhere, My LIfe Recording The Music Of The Beatles

The Odd Couple

One reason it’s so tempting to try to cleave John and Paul apart is that the distinctions between them were so stark. Observing the pair through the control-room glass at Abbey Road’s Studio Two, [Geoff] Emerick was fascinated by their odd-couple quality:

“Paul was meticulous and organized: he always carried a notebook around with him, in which he methodically wrote down lyrics and chord changes in his neat handwriting. In contrast, John seemed to live in chaos: he was constantly searching for scraps of paper that he’d hurriedly scribbled ideas on. Paul was a natural communicator; John couldn’t articulate his ideas well. Paul was the diplomat; John was the agitator. Paul was soft-spoken and almost unfailingly polite; John could be a right loudmouth and quite rude. Paul was willing to put in long hours to get a part right; John was impatient, always ready to move on to the next thing. Paul usually knew exactly what he wanted and would often take offense at criticism; John was much more thick-skinned and was open to hearing what others had to say. In fact, unless he felt especially strongly about something, he was usually amenable to change.”

Joshua Shenk and Geoff Emerick, as quoted in The Power of Two, The Atlantic

110%

Q: If you had a favourite of all of the Beatles, who did you feel yourself drawn to?

A: Oh Paul, obviously. Paul was a musician’s musician, and I think Paul had an understanding of what I was doing as well. He was the one that always wanted 110%.

Geoff Emerick, Beatles’ sound engineer

Opposites

My theory is, they’re both opposites. I mean Paul is the romantic, for want of a better word, and John was the aggressive guy, the rough-and-tumble type guy. That combination made….the tracks the way they are.

Q:When John first played you The Day In The Life, what was your reaction?

A: Unbelievable. It was because of the feeling that John could put into a vocal. And my theory…on this was the fact that, being the bashful guy he was, and rough and ready, when it came to do a vocal track he got this emotion in his voice. It was like two different people, and I could never figure it out. It was a long time after, I [decided] he used to think of his childhood, and by doing that it gave him the emotion to sing those songs.

Geoff Emerick, Beatles’ Sound Engineer