“The film 'The Girl Can't Help It' was on television, an old rock film,” Paul explained in 1968.
It was all done in a day!” From this explanation we can deduce that Paul probably began writing the song “Birthday” as inspired by his excitement at seeing “The Girl Can't Help It” a little later that day. We had the backing track down by about 8:30, popped around to watch the film as arranged and then came back and actually finished the whole song.
Eventually the others arrived, by which time Paul had literally written the song, right there in the studio. So on the day Paul was the first one in, and he was playing the 'Birthday' riff.
#The beatles birthday song movie#
September 18th, 1968, was the first time this movie was shown on British television, being broadcast on BBC2 between 9:05 and 10:40 pm in the series called “The Hollywood Musical." And since almost no one at that time had any means of recording a television program, this 1968 broadcast was an unmissable event!Ĭhris Thomas continues: “The idea was to start the session earlier than usual, about five o'clock in the afternoon, and then all nip around the corner to Paul's house in Cavendish Avenue, watch the film and go back to work. One of these heroes was Eddie Cochran, whose song "Twenty Flight Rock" was perfectly performed by Paul in July of 1957 to impress John, this event leading to their working as a musical team. This Jayne Mansfield and Tom Ewell film was highly influential for the young future Beatles especially because of its inclusion of various performances by their rock 'n' roll heroes, many of which they had never seen in the flesh before. But with Paul's new song inspiration, a decision was made to forego their original plan for the day and develop this song instead.īut why was the recording session bumped up to 5 o'clock instead of the usual 7 o'clock? Chris Thomas, who was filling in as producer for the vacationing George Martin, explains: “I had mentioned to Paul a couple of days earlier about ' The Girl Can't Help It' being on television during this evening.” The classic 1956 musical comedy “The Girl Can't Help It” was seen by The Beatles individually during its original seven week screening at the Scala Cinema in Liverpool in March and April, 1957. Since there were a good amount of newly written songs that The Beatles demoed at George's 'Kinfauns' home that they hadn't officially recorded yet for their album, they probably had one of those songs in mind to be recorded on this day. On September 18th, 1968, Paul arrived early at EMI Studio Two for a recording session, at 5 pm, and decided to sit down at the upright piano and begin to formulate a new song to bide his time. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.” But in the case of the song “Birthday,” The Beatles broke new ground in being experimental: A single day spent recording a new song created out of thin air! However this November 4th, 1965 recording for consideration for the “ Rubber Soul” album didn't amount to anything “original” at all and can be considered an aborted attempt at an “instantaneous” song.)Įxperimentation was something that they had been known for throughout most of their career, culminating in 1967's masterpiece album “ Sgt.
(Their attempt at an instrumental they tentatively called “12-Bar Original” could be considered an early try at writing and recording a song at the same time. But to enter into the studio and write a song from scratch and record it that very day while it was being written was unheard of for The Beatles up to that point. A usual habit may have been to finish some lyrics during the recording process or alter a chord pattern or melody line here or there, or to define exactly what arrangement would be used on a particular song. The Beatles had always entered the recording studio with at least a partially written if not completely written song. There is also a track on the album that fits into a very unique category a song that was written instantaneously in the studio the day it was recorded. While this is mostly true, there were songs contained on the album that took shape before their India trip (" Piggies") as well as after (" Martha My Dear"). It's an established fact, known by many, that the songs that made up The Beatles " White Album" were written during their prolonged spring 1968 trip to India to study and practice Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi.
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