Sir George Martin tells of devastation when John told him he wanted to re-record everything Fab Four had ever done
Beat it: Lennon at work with Martin
Beatles producer Sir George Martin remains intensely proud of his work with the Fab Four – but remembers how upset he was when John Lennon said he wanted to re-record everything they’d ever done.
The desk-jockey gave the band their big break in 1962 after every other label they’d approached refused them. He remained with them until their final days eight years later, but he can’t forget the moment Lennon offended him.
Martin tells the Independent: “I said to John, ‘I can’t believe that. Think of all we’ve done, and you want to re-record everything?’ He said, ‘Yeah, everything.’ And I said, ‘What about Strawberry Fields?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Especially Strawberry Fields.’
“I was very disappointed with that. If he felt that way about it, he should have recorded the bloody thing himself.”
The 85-year-old says he remains astonished at the quality of work the band churned out, but he can never think of them the same way fans do.
“I recognise now, looking back, there was quite a dividing line then. But the Beatles aren’t the Beatles to me they way they are to someone in the street. They’re four people I knew very well, and two of them are still living, so it’s not the big icon everybody talks about.”
In fact, Martin is glad he doesn’t have to live his life as a fully-fledged member of the band: “They’re the biggest thing ever. I don’t want to be any more famous than I am. Would you like to be Paul McCartney? I wouldn’t. That’s the last thing I’d like.”
And to this day the producer plays a little politics when asked to choose a favourite track from the Beatles’ catalogue. “If I ever give an answer, I take it into Paul and John territory.
“If it’s Paul I’ll say Here There and Everywhere. If it’s John, Strawberry Fields.”
John Lennon was a perfectionist and a fantastic musician. I personally think his best work was in the 70′s but at the same time the Beatles would not have been as great as they were without him.
You have that wrong. John was not the perfectionist. That was Paul. John was flighty. He changed his mind often. You want proof John was not a perfectionist? He was the one who adamantly wanted to release the Get Back album because he thought the imperfections would prove that the Beatles were human.
John’s music in the 70′s was freer than what he did with the Beatles because he wasn’t being judged by Paul, but, at the same time, the competition made them all better. I still believe John AND Paul’s best stuff was in the 60′s because they had each other to push them as well as bounce ideas off of. It’s so rare to combine 2 musical geniuses in one band like that!
Well, I was reading that “Starting Over” book and it appears John WAS a perfectionist. Far more than I thought he was. Also, there were hundreds of takes of SFF because John wanted the vocals to sound a certain way. Same with ADITL. I think John was a little impatient, but when he focused he was even MORE of a perfectionist and anal than Paul. Paul was just more focused more of the time. Doesn’t mean anything, as I have come to love music that sounds less perfect and more raw. Go figure.
“Strawberry Fields Forever” is the most stunning and flawless song I have ever heard. It was like the Awakening the second I heard that song for the first time. Nothing else was ever the same since. But I can TOTALLY understand John’s feelings and don’t think George Martin should take it that seriously. Joh, like many genius artists, was never satisfied with the final outcome of his art. He always felt that what he heard/envisioned in his mind was never fully replicated, and that makes sense. He was looking at his work as his art and picking it apart. Many people do this, and frankly John Lennon had every right to dissect his own work. I love that man for giving us so much beauty, in his band and his solo work, and I get what he was at. Frankly, I prefer artists who don’t fawn over their accomplishments.
I am the author of The Lennon Factor, the only book written about John Lennon while he was alive. A new electronic edition is now available on Amazon at http://sree.ly/hmNB81?r=bb. Paul Young.
George Martin took John’s comments seriously in a way that the other Beatles couldn’t because they knew Lennon and his moods all too well. McCartney in particular has said that John often said things ‘for effect’ or on the spur of the moment, and unfortunately the amplification of media would solidify tantrums or whimsy into definitive statements. Also, these comments were among many others given in his legendary post-split Rolling Stone interview with Jann Wenner when Lennon was in Janovian therapy, purging himself in what amounted to a childish rage. He rails at everybody and everything and nothing moreso than The Beatles which he is intent on belittling in an effort to make himself bigger than the biggest thing ever. Sadly, this kind of macho bs found plenty of acolytes amongst the critics, many of whom are showing their age and lack of further development even today when they continue to recycle these early 70′s chestnuts from Lennon, who subsequently contextualised them by saying he was in deep pain at the time. In particular, he told George Martin that ‘I was out of my head on dope’. Consistency was never Lennon’s strong point and while this kind of depressive excess has damaged the spirit of The Beatles legacy and caused big problems toward the end of the band, it was also responsible for many of the flights of imagination that have earned Lennon the acolade of ‘the band’s genius’ over McCartney, who, it has to be said seems to be pretty much in agreement with it a lot of the time by virtue of his over-compensation against it. In fact, there were a lot of geniuses around The Beatles’ circle, George Martin and his engineer Geoff Emerick not the least of them.
Paul was indeed the perfectionist. He often told George Harrison precisely how he wanted the guitar to be played during certain songs, especially on the Help! album when Paul played his first lead guitar (in the studio recordings of course, as he always played bass live). He also was the most inquisitive regarding different instruments and sounds, according to George Martin. Paul was the one who asked George Martin about classical instruments and used classical instruments and/orchestras in his songs: Got To Get You Into My Life, Eleanor Rigby, Silly Love Songs, and I love the clarinet in When I’m 64,Picasso’s Last Words, Ballroom Dancing, etc… Paul heard the piccolo trumpet while watching a TV performance and immediately went to George Martin to find out what that instrument was so he could use it in Penny Lane.