Off The Beatle Track

Geoff Emerick’s memoir, Here, There and Everywhere was published in 2006. Emerick began his career as the assistant to the assistant of Beatles’ engineer Norman Smith,* then took over as the Beatles’ engineer in 1966.**

If you’ve read, or even heard of, Emerick’s book, you’re likely aware that he admired Paul a great deal. George, not so much. (You’ll notice that he didn’t call his book It’s All Too Much or If I Needed Someone.)

As I’ve said before, I wasn’t there. I’m sure that, like the rest of us, the four Beatles had good days and bad. I’d be embarrassed, probably even ashamed, if a colleague who saw me on my worst days later wrote a book about working with me.

But Emerick did write a book, which I encourage you to read. This passage from the book is a long, but it describes his attitude towards George:

George Harrison was always kind of a mystery to me. Although he was kind and generous with many of my EMI colleagues throughout the years, he and I just didn’t have good chemistry together. He struck me as a dour, humorless man who complained a lot, and he always seemed suspicious of everyone outside of the Beatle’s inner circle. He didn’t interact or converse with me very much, even when we were working on one of his songs. He didn’t know anything about technicalities, either–he’d just focus on the musical aspects, and discuss them with the others, or with George Martin. . . . He generally wouldn’t join in on the joking and clowning that occurred between takes. . . . Paul sometimes actually seemed a bit embarrassed by Harrison’s musical limitations; certainly there were many instances of eye-rolling when poor George was wrestling unsuccessfully with a solo or lead part. I imagine in those circumstances that Paul was frustrated, probably thinking that he could have mastered the part faster and played it better.

Whew! There’s a lot there. I distrust absolute statements, so I don’t put much stock in Emerick’s saying that George was “humorless” or that he “always seemed suspicious” of outsiders or that he “didn’t know anything” about the technical aspects of recording. We know, for example, that George could be very funny. Two of my favorite lines from the Christmas discs are both from George: “Thank you, Ringo. We’ll phone you” and “Copyright, Johnny!”***

But it’s the last part, “Harrison’s musical limitations,” that I want to focus on here. (Not actually here. I’ll need a part 2 to get to the point I wanted to make.) I don’t deny that even Beatles have musical limitations, though I think you’d agree that The Beatles have fewer musical limitations than the rest of us. You might believe, for example, as I do, that George’s solo on All You Need Is Love doesn’t represent his best work. But that might be the result of a bad day at the office, not necessarily a “musical limitation.” He certainly knew how to construct and play guitar solos, but some were better than others.

Also, I want to annotate the last two sentences: “Paul sometimes actually seemed a bit embarrassed [Check out all the hedging words: “sometimes,” “actually,” “seemed,” “a bit”] by Harrison’s musical limitations; certainly there were many instances of eye-rolling [Eye-rolling by whom? Note how careful he is not to ascribe the eye-rolling to Paul or anyone specific] when poor George [WOW! is the phrase “poor George” condescending] was wrestling unsuccessfully with a solo or lead part. I imagine in those circumstances that Paul was frustrated [Based on what would he imagine that?], probably [Another hedging word] thinking that he could have mastered the part faster and played it better.

Anyway, that’s a long preamble to set up one very brief story that Emerick tells . . . which I’ll finally get around to in part 2.

If you’ve read Emerick’s book, or have thoughts about his attitude towards George, email me at beatletrack@gmail.com.

*Before Norman Smith was known professionally as Hurricane Smith, John called him “Normal.”

**At the age of 20! He was 16 when The Beatles recorded Love Me Do.

***Plus the quip to Brian about Paul being very late but very clean and not liking George Martin’s tie.