For the Beatles, Across the Universe was rather an odissey than a song. More than two years passed from the very first recording to the release of the most famous remix. In the meantime, there were six takes, a lot of rehearsals and at least three mixings. All of it with without making its author satisfied.
Paul McCartney’s passion for jazz and swing music is well known. It was a family heritage, his father having been a pianist in a little band back in the 40s. Paul himself had began playing the trumpet.
So it’s no surprise some of his songs recall that style: the famous “When I’m 64” from Sgt. Pepper, “Honey Pie” from the White Album, not to forget “You Gave Me the Answer” from his solo album Venus and Mars.
Of all these, “When I’m 64” was written during Beatles’ very early years. Some remember them playing it in Hamburg, as a quite break of their show.
But there was another Paul’s song the Beatles used to play in those years: it was called “Cat Walk”.
Just like Lennon’s Rickenbacker, the viola bass is Paul McCartney’s instrument par excellence, so much that he still plays it. And yet it has to be said that he chose it for several reasons, not all of whom concerning music.
Most people agree that the fourth Beatles album, called for a joke “Beatles for sale”, is not one of their best ones at all.
Explications talk about the hurry and the stressed mood the Beatles were involved in during recording sessions. When the four came in studio on August the 11th 1964, they came from mounths over mounths of hard work with no break at all. On June they had finished “A Hard Day’s Night”, new album and soundtrack of their first movie. Then they had travelled around the world for a couple of mounths, playing from June to July in Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zeland, Sweden and doing a lot of performances for radio and tv shows. In the meantime, on July the 6th there had been the premiere of the movie in London. All this effort led to another great ammount of success: at the beginning of August “A Hard Day’s Night” was on the top of the UK and US charts. And there was a tour in the United States to be done between August and September.
Look at this font: do you recognize it?
It’s the exact reproduction of the one used for the logo on Ringo Starr’s basedrum. You can donwload it for free here.
