The Beatles Song Too Challenging for George Martin To Play (And How They Fixed It)

Part of the paradoxical allure of the Beatles is that despite being largely self-taught musicians, some of their music is so challenging that a traditionally taught musician like George Martin struggled to keep up. The fact that these homegrown Liverpudlians could hold their own among the music world’s best seemed indicative of whatever otherworldly star power they possessed to make them one of the greatest and most enduring bands of all time.

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Interestingly, the Beatles song too challenging for George Martin was also one that John Lennon called his “first real, major piece of work.”

This Beatles Song Was Too Difficult For George Martin To Play Along To

The Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul was one of the clearest examples of the band’s creative range thus far in their career. From the moody “Girl” to the parlor-style “Michelle” to the rocking “Drive My Car,” the Fab Four explored genre and subject matter in a way they had only dabbled with in previous records. One of the tracks that stands out the most on that iconic album is the sentimental “In My Life,” a heartfelt and retrospective ballad about remembering lovers and friends I still can recall.

During the recording process, the band ended up with a 12-bar instrumental section with nothing to put into it. Producer and honorary fifth Beatle George Martin came to the rescue, coming up with a melodic piano part to fill the space. The only problem, of course, was when he was playing along to the tape, he realized he wrote far too intricate of a piano part for that tempo. A more proficient pianist could have done it, but they didn’t have one on hand. So, Martin devised a clever workaround: record the piano part to tape at half-speed, then speed it up in post to match the overall tempo.

The results were highly effective, giving the piano a Baroque harpsichord tone that seemed to add to the song’s timelessness. Martin tracked the piano part while the Beatles were on break, and when they returned to the studio, they quickly approved of Martin’s work. “George Martin had a very great musical knowledge and background,” John Lennon recalled in Anthology. “He’d come up with amazing technical things.”

John Lennon Called The Song His First Major Work

Although the entire band undoubtedly played a part in approving George Martin’s Baroque pseudo-harpsichord part, John Lennon’s opinion was arguably the most important, as he was the one who wrote “In My Life.” Moreover, he was incredibly fond of that track, calling it “my first real, major piece of work” in Anthology. “Up until then, it had all been glib and throw-away. I had one mind that wrote books and another mind that churned out things about “I love you and you love me” because that’s how Paul and I did it. I’d always tried to make some sense of the words. But I never really cared.”

“It was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously, about my life,” Lennon continued. “It was sparked by a remark a journalist and writer in England made after In His Own Write came out. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you put some of the way you write in the book in the songs? Or why don’t you put something about your childhood into the songs?’ It started out as a bus journey from my house on 251 Menlove Avenue to town. I had a complete set of lyrics, naming every sight. It became “In My Life,” a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past.”

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