I'm Only Sleeping - Lennon/McCartney

Reviewed by Geoff Emerick, in Here, there, and everywhere:

p. 124: Some days, of course, were better than others. There was one especially tedious session where we all wished we had never come up with the concept of backwards sounds. The song was "I'm Only Sleeping" and George Harrison was determined to play a backwards guitar solo on it. At the best of times, he had trouble playing solos all the way through forwards, so it was with great trepidation that we all settled in for what turned out to be an interminable day of listening to the same eight bars played backwards over and over and over again. Phil McDonald told me later that his arms were sore for days afterward from having to repeatedly lift the heavy tape reels off the machine and turn them over. I can still picture George - and later, Paul, who joined him to play the backwards outro in a bizarre duet - hunched over his guitar for hours on end, headphones clamped on, brows furrowed in concentration. George Martin conducted them from the window of the control room, using grease pencil marks I had put on the back of the tape on each beat as a reference. To borrow Ringo's phrase, that nine-hour session certainly was one hard day's night!


Gepost op: 7 dec 2008