“Aching so much”: The Beatles song that hurt Paul McCartney to record
Not every recording session is meant to be the most pleasurable experience. When everything is gelling well, it can be the best place for any creative person to be, but when it starts to feel more like a job with each passing take, it starts to become like torture trying to squeeze something that resembles music out of every instrument. Paul McCartney didn’t normally need to worry about that kind of trouble when working with The Beatles, but every now and again, he would get thrown a curveball that would leave him on his ass.
But throughout the Fab Four’s tenure, Macca was always one to stay the course whenever they went to record. He tended to be somewhat of a perfectionist when working on every one of his songs, and even Ringo Starr recalled later in his career that he would dread getting the call from McCartney to go back to the studio when he was having a lovely day at home.
That’s because McCartney always lived to create. He has developed the kind of demeanour that makes him feel like the human incarnation of music, but when it came time for everyone to record The White Album, all semblance of fun went out the window. None of them were on the same creative page, and hearing them desperately try to add something to songs they wanted nothing to do with must have been excruciating.
While John Lennon had made numerous putdowns of McCartney’s ‘granny music’ on the album like ‘Honey Pie’ and ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’, not every one of his songs was easy to listen to, either. ‘Dear Prudence’ might be pure beauty distilled into a song, but given how much real estate ‘Revolution 9’ has on the final version of the record, it’s a wonder why no one had the foresight to tell Lennon to save it for an experimental project.
Outside of his ballads, though, Lennon let his raucous side out more than ever on the band’s double record. ‘Yer Blues’ is still one of his fiercest rockers, and listening to ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey,’ he was on the cusp of modern rock, taking that stripped-down version of blues and putting a lot of energy behind it that people like Jack White would make their wheelhouse in the 2000s.
McCartney may have been relegated to handbell throughout the song, but he was bound to give it everything he had, even if it hurt him to do. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, McCartney was physically in pain after playing the tune for so long, saying, “Rather than play bass on the backing track, he stood next to Ringo, ringing a fireman’s bell, egging his drummer on. There was no microphone on him because the thing was so loud it bled on all the mics anyway. Physically, it was very difficult to pull off–Paul had to take a break after each take because his shoulders were aching so much.”
Then again, McCartney may have simply had the same determination of his bandmates when making a song. After all, if Lennon could spend the better part of an hour shouting his brains out to get the right take on ‘Twist and Shout’ back in the day, the least McCartney could do was ring a bell for a little while.
But chances are none of The Beatles would consider this kind of thing suffering for their art. Sure, it might have hurt like hell and left a few strains on their muscles, but if someone counted in the tune, they needed to give it everything.
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