Below is an interesting video of The Beatles recording one of their biggest and most iconic songs, “Hey Jude.”
The video was shot for a BBC television show called most appropriately Music.
Take note about 2:22 where you’ll see engineer Ken Scott (in the fashionable pink shirt), George Harrison and producer George Martin together in Abbey Road (actually it was still called EMI Studios at the time) Studio 2.
The real story is that what you hear on the video was almost the basic track to the song, but not quite. The film company, doing what film people do (“Don’t worry, you won’t even know we’re here”), put everyone on edge, causing Paul McCartney and George Harrison to get into a row (which is why George is in the control room instead of playing).
The next day the band took what they thought was the basic track to Trident Studios because it was the only studio in London that had an 8-track tape machine at the time, and the band wanted the extra tracks for the various overdubs to come. It seems that they had a difficult time transferring what they did at Abbey Road to 8 track, so they wound up re-cutting “Hey Jude” again and then finishing it at Trident.
There’s a lot more to the story, including how the song had to be saved at the last minute due to a giant problem, but you’ll have to wait until Ken’s memoirs are published.
The book is titled Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and will be available for pre-order soon (publish date is June 6). In the meantime, you can read a lot more about the book by going to the Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust website.
Bobby Owsinski is an author, producer, music industry veteran and technical consultant who has written numerous books covering all aspects of audio recording. For more information be sure to check out his website and blog.
