Entertainment For Lively Minds
Beatles technical puzzler that's driven me mad
Ok, I have a niggling question that's been met by blank stares by even the most hardened Beatles fans over the years. Maybe this is the forum where someone can finally give me an answer?
1965: Having released Yesterday, Paul performed this solo a couple of times, and at least once on a televised show. Now everywhere I've read confirms that he sang along to his own guitar and to a pre-recorded backing tape of the famous string quartet section.
My question is (now let this sink in) how on earth did Paul synchronise himself to the backing track? Think about it: he's not playing along to it because the strings don't even come in until after a verse or so: so the strings have to play along to HIM as it were. Is George Martin standing in the wings with his finger poised over the play button, ready to press it at the EXACT moment? You see what I mean? If this was today you would have the track all cued up with a click track and earphones for Paul... but it's 1965! What's his secret?
Someone please put me out of my misery. I can't be the only one (lonely one)...
- More from Stephen Merrick.
- Login or register to post comments
-
I wouldn't worry about it
listen to some other music instead
Sorry, no help from this end ...
... but that clip has thrown up another puzzle. Was Paul promoting Ambre Solaire on that tour?
Listen, do you want to know his secret?
He's a genius.
But that's no secret.
Eyebrows?
Perhaps the left one raised signals to "George" to push down the play button on the reel-to-reel allowing for the second or two it takes for the strings to kick in.
I'm no musician but...
....wouldn't it be possible to just start the backing track at the point when the strings came in?
Perhaps...
... they just used old-fashioned, low-tech, human musicians.
Perhaps just old fashioned professionalism?
Although Paul seems to muck around with the tempo a bit, he seems to be fully on the beat - his phrasing falls just either side of the rhythm rather than go off in any weird diections.
I assume it's just the result of solid rehearsal - Thumbs Aloft and the HJHs can be accused of many things, but no one has ever said they treated an audience like Axl Rose.
This devilry is precisely why
Paul had to be killed and replaced by a lookalike.
'Turn me on,
dead man'
It's all true...:-)
Cranberry Sauce
even spookier.....
A Lookalike Called
Rodney Bewes.
Hmmm...
...The Fabs' first live performance of the song was on 'Blackpool Night Out':-
...and if you notice, there's no mic for the guitar which makes me wonder if it's only Macca's vocal which is live, so removing the problem of the taped strings having to come in at the right moment. If this is the case, I don't see why they'd risk the potential for synchronisation disaster during the later 'Ed Sullivan' appearance when there was a working solution available to them.
Good question, though.
Good thinking, Paulo
It must be the answer. There are too many things that could have gone wrong with the nightmare scenario of trying to synchronise a tape of strings to Paul's guitar (the cue would have to rely on split second timing and take into account the slight delay when pressing "play", and if even the slightest thing went wrong it would cause an audible stumble).
So Paul MUST be miming his guitar playing. Interesting, and curious that everyone (even Mark Lewishon) states that he is playing live guitar along to a backing track.
Everyone knows
Ringo played everything on "Yesterday". He was the talented Beatle.