Blackbird

Story

Recording

• Recorded entirely solo by Paul McCartney. Blackbird is the canonical Beatles solo-acoustic recording — vocal, acoustic guitar (a Martin D-28) and percussive foot-tapping, cut live at EMI Studio Two on the evening of 11 June 1968 with George Martin producing, Geoff Emerick engineering and Phil McDonald as 2E. George Harrison and Ringo Starr had flown to the USA on 7 June; Lennon was in the building but working a separate session. It is one of the Lewisohn-flagged trio of Paul-solo White Album tracks, alongside Mother Nature’s Son and Why Don’t We Do It In The Road.¹
• Thirty-two takes, live four-track, no reductions. “It was a straightforward recording — no reductions necessary — and was perfected by the 32nd run through, just 11 of which were complete.” Each pass captured a complete four-track snapshot — vocal, guitar, foot-tapping and room ambience — so any imperfection on any channel meant restarting the whole performance rather than punching in. Take 32 was “best”; Paul then double-tracked his vocal in places onto Track 4, wiping the room mic in the process.¹²
• The “metronome” that wasn’t, and a library blackbird flown in. The ticking under the guitar has long been called a metronome, but Ryan & Kehew show it is Paul’s feet, separately mic’d, tapping the studio floor. Four months later, on 13 October 1968, a chirruping-blackbird sound effect from EMI’s “Volume Seven: Birds of Feather” library tape was flown in during the final mix.¹²

Equipment

Recording Timeline

• 11 June 1968 (Tue) — takes 1–32 live four-track + double-tracked-vocal SI + mono remixes 1–6, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 6.30pm–12.15am. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. “Paul started and finished the recording of ‘Blackbird’, a lovely new composition which featured his own lead vocal, double-tracked in places via an overdub, accompanied by his acoustic guitar and a metronome gently ticking away in the background.” Take 32 four-track layout: T1 = Paul’s foot tapping (separately mic’d by Emerick); T2 = acoustic guitar; T3 = lead vocal (Neumann KM56); T4 = a Studio Two room mic, subsequently wiped during the take-32 SI when Paul double-tracked himself in places. Mono remixes 1–6 were made the same evening (pre-bird).¹²
• 22 August 1968 (Thu) — tape copy of mono remix 6, EMI Studio Two — Studio Two control room only. A tape copy of Blackbird’s mono remix 6 (the 11 June “best” mono) was made on the editing day, confirming that mono remix 6 was the working pre-bird mono throughout the summer of 1968 — until the 13 October session added the bird and produced the final mono remix 10.¹
• 13 October 1968 (Sun) — stereo remix 1 + mono remix 10 + chirruping-blackbird SI, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 7.00pm–6.00am. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. Stereo remix 1 and mono remix 10 from take 32, with the chirruping-blackbird sound effect flown in from EMI’s library: “chirruping blackbirds, courtesy of ‘Volume Seven: Birds of Feather’, from the Abbey Road taped sound effects collection.” The bird recording was made by EMI Technical Engineer Stuart Eltham: “I taped that on one of the first portable EMI tape-recorders, in my back garden in Ickenham, about 1965.”¹

Studio Notes

• Solo Paul McCartney — central editorial spine. Blackbird is the canonical Beatles “no other Beatles” recording from the White Album sessions. In the context of Paul’s solo Mother Nature’s Son session, Lewisohn records that “the song was to feature no other Beatles, the same as ‘Blackbird’, already taped, and one other to follow” (Why Don’t We Do It In The Road). Cross-references for the “sparse / few-or-no-Beatles” pattern: For No One (Paul + Ringo + Alan Civil horn, 1966); Yesterday (Paul + hired string quartet, 1965); Eleanor Rigby (no Beatles instruments at all, 1966); Mother Nature’s Son (Paul + brass overdub, 1968).¹
• Live four-track basic — no reductions, no overdubs across the 32 takes. “It would take Paul 32 attempts to record the song successfully. Each live pass was recorded to all four tracks of the tape: one track for Paul’s voice (recorded with a KM56); one track for his guitar; and another for the tapping of his feet on the studio floor, which were separately mic’d by Geoff Emerick… A room mic was recorded on the fourth track, picking up the ambience of Studio Two.” The 32-take count is unusually high for a Paul-solo acoustic performance — the live-pass discipline meant any imperfection on any of the four channels required restarting the whole take. Of the 32 attempts only 11 were complete.¹²
• The metronome-versus-foot-tapping source conflict (§1). Lewisohn reports a “metronome gently ticking away in the background.” Ryan & Kehew correct this: “The tapping has been incorrectly identified as a metronome in the past; it would have been the world’s worst metronome, as the tapping randomly fluctuates between 89 and 94 bpm over the course of the song.” Their case rests on direct measurement of the released master (a fluctuating rate is inconsistent with a mechanical metronome) and on the separately-mic’d track at Paul’s feet. The page follows the Ryan & Kehew correction as the stronger evidentiary case while preserving Lewisohn’s original attribution for the record.¹²
• Take 32 double-tracking + room-mic erase. “Take 32 was deemed ‘best’, and Paul double-tracked himself in places on Track 4, wiping the room mic in the process.” The released vocal therefore comprises Paul’s T3 live take-32 lead plus the T4 double-tracking added afterward — the double-tracking is “in places” rather than continuous, so the released vocal alternates between single- and double-tracked sections.²
• The thrush-versus-blackbird mix-day catch. Per Ken Scott, when the bird overdub was added, Tape Op John Smith fetched a tape stacked with bird calls separated by leaders; the mix was completed before someone from the amp room asked why a song called “Blackbird” used a thrush. Ken Townsend, “a country lad”, had spotted it: “That sounds great, but I think it is a thrush.” A miscounted leader was corrected and the right call found. Ryan & Kehew add: “the authors consulted several bird-call experts who independently confirmed that the bird heard at the end of the song was indeed the European Blackbird, Turdus merula.”²
• George Martin’s overruled arrangement suggestion. Surviving film-crew audio from the 11 June session preserves an arrangement discussion in which George Martin proposed “something coming from the distance… a bit of decoration that you’ve got on the back of a painting,” and Lennon suggested “a very nice little bit of brass band… in the distance.” “In the end, George Martin was overruled, and no additional instruments would be added to the song.” The decision to keep the arrangement bare distinguishes Blackbird from the contemporary Mother Nature’s Son, which received the brass overdub Martin had unsuccessfully proposed here.²
• Split-studio context — Paul in Studio Two, John in Studio Three. “It is only a short walk from the control room of Abbey Road studio two to studio three. Because that’s what George Martin, Geoff Emerick and Phil McDonald had to do throughout this evening, in keeping an eye on John Lennon in studio three and Paul McCartney in studio two, both busy on separate ideas for the ‘White Album’.” The same evening produced Paul’s 32-take Blackbird basic and the first sound-effects takes of Revolution 9 — both raiding the same green-cabinet sound-effects library that Blackbird’s October bird overdub would later draw on.¹

Releases

• 1968 UK mono LP — The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple PMC 7067–8, side B track 3) — The released mono master is the 13 October 1968 mono remix 10 from take 32, the version that incorporates the chirruping-blackbird SI. The earlier mono remixes 1–6 from 11 June are pre-overdub mixes without the bird; a tape copy of mono remix 6 made on 22 August confirms it was the working pre-bird mono until 13 October.¹
• 1968 UK stereo LP — The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple PCS 7067–8, side B track 3) — The released stereo master is the 13 October 1968 stereo remix 1 from take 32 — the first stereo remix, with the bird overdub present from inception (no earlier stereo mix exists).¹²
• 1968 US mono / stereo LP — The Beatles (25 November 1968, Apple SWBO-101) — Continues the UK mono and stereo masters onto the US Capitol/Apple pressing; the bird overdub and the take-32 double-tracked vocal are preserved unchanged.
• 2009 Stereo Remasters — The Beatles (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1968 stereo master. The take-32 layout (foot-tapping + acoustic + double-tracked vocal + bird overdub) is preserved unchanged. (Per §1: Apple/EMI metadata; outside the Tier-1 canon.)
• 2018 The Beatles (White Album) Special Edition (Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix, 9 November 2018, Apple/UMe) — Post-Lewisohn 50th-anniversary remix returning to the take-32 four-track master rather than the 1968 stereo master. The deluxe box also includes the “Esher Demo” (May 1968, Kinfauns) on Disc 3 — an earlier acoustic-guitar-and-vocal version recorded a month before the EMI session, distinct from the released master. (Per §1: Apple/UMe metadata; outside the Tier-1 canon.)

Sources

1. Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (London: Hamlyn, 1988), pp. 137, 147, 151, 161.
2. Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), p. 484.

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