The Craziest Edit in Beatles History

strawberry fields forever it's one of the most well known and highly regarded Beatles songs and rightfully so it's a masterpiece it also has one of the most fascinating edits in all of recorded music one that you might not have even noticed but as a fair warning once I pointed out you can't unhear this The Beatles started work on Strawberry Fields forever in late 1966 their first time back in the studio since the release of the revolver album a few months earlier by this point the Beatles were transitioning from being on the road and performing almost constantly to spending almost all their time in Abbey Road Studios the band spent a total of 55 hours in the studio working on Strawberry Fields forever to put that into perspective they recorded their entire first album in just 13 hours evolving from a simple acoustic demo by John Lennon into a complex masterpiece all with relatively simple four track tape machines required a ton of ingenuity on the part of the Beatles and Abbey roads engineers led by producer George Martin there's a ton of really interesting aspects to the song and you could spend hours analyzing its musical merits and complex production but I'm gonna focus on the most interesting anomaly on the track if you listen closely just before the 1 minute mark you'll notice a weird shift in the way everything sounds you'll notice first that John's voice changes pretty dramatically between the words cuz I'm and going to let's listen there's an entire orchestral arrangement and a bunch of other world that sounds like reverse high hats and Eastern instruments also Ringo's drums become more intense so what happened what you're hearing is a very careful splice of two completely different takes of the song in two completely different keys cut together mid phrase the first portion of the song from the opening through the one minute mark comes from take 7 take 7 recorded earlier in the sessions is gentle and sparsely arranged there's a clean electric guitar Ringo's drumming is methodical there's a light Tamborine here and there and surrounding it all is the haunting sound of the Mellotron that relied on tape loops to simulate actual instruments such as a flute here's the same section from take 7 without the splice [Music] in the final mix of the track at just before the 1-minute mark we cross over almost seamlessly and to take 26 recorded on a totally different day at IB Road by this point in the songs evolution John pushed the sound in a much darker and heavier direction having George Martin add in our Kestrel Trek along with a host of other sounds and instruments that weren't exactly commonplace on pop records at the time here's take 26 in the same section notice how John's voice sounds a little different here though than in the final version [Music] John liked the style of both of the takes and asked George Martin to figure out a way to put the tracks together at the time engineers had to use actual scissors and tape displaced together the different takes a laborious process that required incredible precision it was made even more difficult because the two takes were performed in different keys and a different tempos that his speeds [Music] luckily the engineers realized that by slowing down take 26 it shifted the pitch that the two takes matched I'll be with John's voice sounding a bit deeper and slower than normal because of the pitch shifting even more impressive is that instead of making the cut say between verses or during a quieter portion of the song it happens in the middle of the first line of the chorus the result which would have likely never happened in a modern digital studio environment is nothing short of brilliant the transition actually fits the song lyrics well resembling a disorienting slide into a nostalgic fever dream and it gives the song otherworldly quality that rivals the Beatles other psychedelic masterpieces such as Tomorrow Never Knows from revolver or a day in the life from sergeant Pepper's it's worth mentioning that by this point the Beatles were experimenting heavily with LSD which probably explains a lot but I can't stress how much ingenuity went into the creation of this track to bring the Beatles vision to life there's a bunch of other little oddities and curiosities such as the wild cacophony during the outro which I'll save for another video if you're especially curious the individual takes 7 and take 26 the two that were spliced together in the final version were released in their entirety as part of the sergeant pepper's remix check out a link in the description below to hear those tracks oddly enough John Lennon said in a 1980 interview that he wasn't pleased with how the final track came out even suggesting that Paul McCartney was subconsciously sabotaging John's songs by allowing them to be released in these experimental versions rather than Paul's typically more polished songs what do you think about strawberry fields forever let me know in the comments thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to my channel you can't unhear this for more videos about the oddities and anomalies in recording music you

Channel: You Can't Unhear This

Views: 1,632,700

Keywords: The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Martin, Abbey Road Studios, Ringo Starr, Music, Music mistakes, You Can't Unhear This, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Classic Rock, Audio Recording, Studio engineering, Yesterday movie

Id: 62HLZVVFRwU

Length: 5min 39sec (339 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2019