The legendary song Jeff Beck considered a complete fluke: “Choice wise”
The Beatles were a band that completely took the world by storm. It’s funny to imagine how music may sound today without them, as not only did they write some of the most beautiful music ever committed to sound, but they also inspired how bands should act, look, and market themselves. In all of music, there is The Beatles, and then there is everything else.
Of course, there were a number of factors that contributed towards The Beatles success. The music was great, sure, but there was also the way the band was managed, the plan that was set up around them, and, of course, the talent they had on hand when it came to actually recording their music. We’re talking about George Martin, commonly dubbed the fifth Beatle, and when you better understand his impact on the band, it’s easy to see why.
The Beatles were never short of ideas, but if their ambitious nature had been put in lesser hands, they wouldn’t have ended up sounding like the classics we know and love today. His knowledge of music and recording meant he was capable of taking these brain-expanding ideas and putting together something magnificent.
Naturally, The Beatles ambition frustrated Martin at times. For instance, when John Lennon had the idea for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and asked Martin to make it up of two completely separate takes, Martin told Lennon that his idea was too far out and would never work. However, as was so often the case with Martin, he found a way.
“[John] looked at me over his specs and said, ‘I’m sure you can fix it’, and I said, ‘You devil. You expect miracles as a standard’,” recalled Martin, “I looked at it, and I thought about it, and, of course, God was helping me in a way because the faster one was also the sharper one.”
When George Martin passed away, it rocked the music industry to its core. He was equally as influential as The Beatles, and the band wouldn’t have been able to have the impact they did without someone like Martin at the helm. As such, when he died, some of the music industry’s big names came together to put together a tribute album for him.
One of these artists was Jeff Beck, who performed a beautiful rendition of The Beatles song ‘A Day In The Life’. The whole thing was instrumental, but because of the complex vocal melodies on display throughout the track, there is plenty for Beck to work with, and it all comes together wonderfully.
It turns out that the song wasn’t the result of careful strategic planning, though. Instead, the whole thing came together because Beck was late to a rehearsal and had to decide on the spot which track he would perform. If not for being put on the spot, the song might never have come to fruition.
“Yeah that was another fluke, choice wise. I got stuck in traffic on the way to meeting Paul [McCartney] and George [Harrison] to talk about the tribute for George, and I hadn’t prepared at all, as usual, had too much going on. I eventually arrived at Abby Road about an hour late and sweating and stuff, I hadn’t thought about what I’m going to do, and it wasn’t until George said to me ‘What have you chosen’, [I said] ‘A Day In The Life’. It just came out because I suddenly thought in a millisecond that is one of the nicest tunes [of] The Beatles.”
