“Doesn’t appeal to me”: The Beatles album George Martin didn’t want to revisit
Through every facet of The Beatles’ career, it’s hard not to see George Martin as the maestro in the background. Although many have earned the title of ‘The Fifth Beatle’ throughout their career, Martin was always the one most worthy of the title, having had a hand in turning their songs from standard rock and roll into sophisticated masterpieces. The band did have the final say in everything that they were working on, and that meant Martin had to deal with tunes he either didn’t understand or were a chore to put together.
But despite having his doubts about a few songs, Martin never tried to overrule the band’s creativity. The whole process John Lennon had for making a tune like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ would have had any other producer putting him in his place about what he could or couldn’t do, but Martin was as adventurous as the rest of the Fab Four at the best of times, normally seeing what he could get away with when making their classics.
That’s not to say that there weren’t some times when he had had enough. Even though a song like ‘I Am The Walrus’ took a little while to win him over, his thoughts on The White Album was a mess wasn’t lost on the band, with Martin remembering only signing on to produce Abbey Road if he was able to produce like he used to.
Even back in those old days of producing, not everything was smooth sailing. You have to remember that the group had been playing around the world to everyone they could, and that meant there were times in the studio when they would have rather been doing anything else than working. And nowhere is that fatigue more apparent than on Beatles For Sale.
If it wasn’t abundantly clear by their vacant expressions on the cover, this was the first time a Beatles project felt like a rush job, putting together a handful of originals and covers from their live set to fill out the track listing. While it’s impossible to call anything with Martin’s production subpar, the producer never felt the need to listen to the record again once he had everything finished.
Despite working the album into decent shape, Martin felt that most of the record lacked the kind of spark he had on other Beatles records, saying, “They were rather war-weary during Beatles for Sale. One must remember that they’d been battered like mad throughout 1964 and much of 1963. Success is a wonderful thing, but it is very, very tiring. They were always on the go. Beatles For Sale doesn’t appeal to me very much now, it’s not one of their most memorable ones. They perked up again after that.”
Granted, there are still some stellar moments on the project. Even though tracks like ‘Mr Moonlight’ deserve to be forgotten in their time, hearing John Lennon grow into his Bob Dylan period on ‘I’m A Loser’, and Paul McCartney start writing decent deep cuts like ‘What You’re Doing’ and ‘Every Little Thing’ marked the first time that they started putting together their records as a complete package rather than a variety of singles.
However, if you look at this as the awaited follow-up to something like A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale was always going to look tame by comparison. The band had had a blockbuster year, but this was the laid-back version of themselves that should be one of the last that any prospective Beatles fanatic should delve into.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.