I Call Your Name

(Lennon–McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	John
Lead Vocal	John
Recorded	Mar 1964
Length	2:09
Key	E
Noted Takes	7
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

Long Tall Sally EP

Parlophone — GEP 8913

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Story

“I Call Your Name” is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first given to Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas, who released it as the B-side of their August 1963 single “Bad To Me.” The Beatles subsequently recorded their own version. [Wikipedia]

I Call Your Name is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon (credited Lennon–McCartney) and led on vocal by John Lennon. Within the catalogue, its songwriter-thread connects it to Bad To Me and I’m In Love as Lennon compositions given to other artists before the Beatles recorded them. Its ska-influenced middle eight anticipates later genre experiments. Lennon originally wrote the song and gave it to Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas. The Beatles’ own version features a notable middle eight with an unusual rhythmic guitar departure (Lewisohn 1988, p. 42).

The session work falls within the band’s Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 1 Mar 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. Takes 1–7 were recorded, only three of them complete. Take 7 was judged best, with an additional vocal overdub from Lennon and cowbell from Ringo. In the final remix stages, the guitar solo from take 5 was edited into the body of take 7 — an early example of cross-take editing in the Beatles’ recording practice (Lewisohn 1988, pp. 41–42).

What’s distinctive

At 2:09 it sits in the bottom quarter by length. One of 99 songs led primarily by John. A Lennon–McCartney original — one of the 180 originals in the canon. Take count: 7, with the released master assembled from two takes (take 7 body + take 5 guitar solo edited in at the remix stage). The middle eight features what Lennon later described as “an early attempt at ska.”¹

Recording

I Call Your Name was the last of three songs recorded during the Beatles’ first Sunday session at EMI Studios on 1 March 1964. The session ran from 10.00am to 1.30pm in Studio Two; George Martin produced, Norman Smith engineered, and Richard Langham served as second engineer. The three songs were taped in order: I’m Happy Just to Dance with You (four takes), Long Tall Sally (one take), and I Call Your Name (seven takes).¹
Seven takes were recorded, only three of which were complete. Take 7 was selected as the best basic track. Lennon then overdubbed an additional vocal, and Ringo added cowbell. However, the guitar solo from take 5’s middle eight was judged superior to that on take 7, and was spliced in during the final remix stages — making the released master a composite of two takes. This cross-take editing technique was still relatively unusual in early 1964; K/R describes the “edit piece” procedure: the tape was “mark[ed] with the pencil” at the edit point, cut with hand-held scissors (not razor blades), and the two pieces joined with splicing tape in a plastic editing block.^1,2
Lennon had originally written the song and given it to Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas for the B-side of their August 1963 number one “Bad To Me.” Both songs had been recorded at Abbey Road on 27 June 1963 with Paul McCartney in attendance. Lennon’s talkback during the 1 March session acknowledged the song’s history: “Do you think it’s a bit much doing Billy J.’s intro and solo? ’Cos it’s our song anyroad, innit?”¹
Lewisohn describes the finished recording as “a very interesting recording for 1964, its unusual structure being underpinned by a strange middle eight guitar solo, later revealed by Lennon to be an early attempt at ska.” The ska-inflected rhythm in the middle eight is among the earliest documented genre experiments in the Beatles’ studio catalogue, predating the more self-conscious genre borrowings of the Rubber Soul and Revolver periods by over a year.¹
The recording was made on the REDD.51 mixing console and the Telefunken M-10/T9U four-track tape machine, both installed in Studio Two from January 1964. The fourth track enabled the vocal overdub and cowbell to be added without bouncing — a straightforward procedure on four-track that would have required a generation-loss bounce on the twin-track machines the Beatles had used through 1963.²
I Call Your Name was one of three songs on the Long Tall Sally EP that were double-tracked. K/R notes that “most of the songs double-tracked were new compositions, whereas those not double-tracked were older songs the band had been playing for years.” As the only Lennon–McCartney original on the EP, I Call Your Name fits the pattern of new compositions receiving the double-tracking treatment.²

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two
Tape machine	Telefunken M-10/T9U four-track²
Console	REDD.51 (installed Studio Two, January 1964)²
Microphones	STC 4038 (drum overhead), STC 4033-A (bass drum, bass amp); Neumann U47 (guitar amps), U47/U48 (vocals)²
Outboard / effects	RS124 compressor (Altec 436B modification) on Main Faders I & II; Fairchild 660 limiters on Main Faders III & IV (from early 1964); echo chamber added at mix²
Guitars	Rickenbacker 325 (Lennon), Gretsch Country Gentleman (Harrison), Höfner 500/1 violin bass (McCartney), Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl kit + cowbell (Starr)
Amplifiers	Vox AC50 Super Twin (Lennon, Harrison)²

Recording Timeline

1 March 1964 (Sun) — recording, takes 1–7, Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road — 10.00am–1.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Recording: I Call Your Name (takes 1–7). The third and final song of the session. Seven takes were attempted, only three complete. Take 7 was selected as the best basic track; Lennon overdubbed an additional vocal and Ringo added cowbell. Lennon’s talkback: “Do you think it’s a bit much doing Billy J.’s intro and solo? ’Cos it’s our song anyroad, innit?”¹
3 March 1964 (Tue) — mono mix for United Artists, Studio Two — P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. Mono mixing: I Call Your Name (from take 7). This early mono mix was prepared for the US market (United Artists). It preceded the definitive remix by three months.¹
4 March 1964 (Wed) — experimental mono mix, Studio Two — Mono mixing: I Call Your Name (from take 7). An experimental mono remix that was never used.¹
10 March 1964 (Tue) — experimental stereo mix, Studio Two — 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. Stereo mixing: I Call Your Name (from take 7). Like the Long Tall Sally stereo mix attempted the same day, this was done on the REDD.51 console in Studio Two and was never released. The REDD.51’s stereo results were “clearly unacceptable,” leading all pre-August 1964 stereo mixes to be carried out in Studio One on the modified REDD.37.^1,2
4 June 1964 (Thu) — released mono mix (edit piece), Studio Two — 2.30–7.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Mono mixing: I Call Your Name — remixes 1 and 2, from takes 5 and 7, edited together. The guitar solo from take 5’s middle eight was spliced into the body of take 7 to create the released mono master.¹
22 June 1964 (Mon) — released stereo mix (edit piece), Studio One — 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. Stereo mixing: I Call Your Name — remixes 1 and 2, from takes 5 and 7, edited together. Carried out in Studio One on the REDD.37 console (modified with independent panning on channels 1, 2, 7 and 8). The same take 5/take 7 edit-piece structure used in the mono master was replicated for the stereo version.^1,2

“A very interesting recording for 1964, its unusual structure being underpinned by a strange middle eight guitar solo, later revealed by Lennon to be an early attempt at ska.”— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Cross-take edit piece (take 5 → take 7) — The released master of I Call Your Name is a composite: the body is take 7 with its overdubbed vocal and cowbell, while the middle eight guitar solo comes from take 5, spliced in during the final remix session on 4 June 1964. Both the mono and stereo masters (4 June and 22 June respectively) carry the same physical edit. K/R describes the general edit-piece technique: the engineer would “mark it with the pencil” at the edit point and “make the cut with the scissors” — razor blades were explicitly not used for ¼-inch tape editing at Abbey Road; the two pieces were then joined with splicing tape in a plastic editing block. The edit had to be cut cleanly enough that the splice would be inaudible on playback — a demanding skill with four-track tape running at 15 ips.^1,2
Ska middle eight — Lennon’s early genre experiment — Lennon later revealed that the “strange middle eight guitar solo” was “an early attempt at ska.” In March 1964, Jamaican ska was just beginning to register in the British charts (Millie Small’s “My Boy Lollipop” would reach number two in May). Lennon’s absorption of the off-beat rhythm into a Merseybeat framework is one of the earliest documented genre borrowings in the Beatles’ studio catalogue. The v1 draft page incorrectly attributed the ska element to George Martin; it is Lennon’s own description of his guitar writing.¹
Billy J. Kramer provenance — Lennon wrote I Call Your Name before the Beatles recorded it. He gave the song to Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas for the B-side of their August 1963 number one single “Bad To Me” (also a Lennon composition). Both Kramer tracks were recorded at Abbey Road on 27 June 1963, with Paul McCartney in attendance. When the Beatles came to record their own version eight months later, Lennon’s talkback acknowledged the lineage — the “Billy J.’s intro and solo” he mentioned were the arrangement features Kramer’s version had established. I Call Your Name is the only Lennon–McCartney original on the Long Tall Sally EP.¹
Double-tracking — Three of the four tracks on the Long Tall Sally EP were double-tracked, and I Call Your Name — as the only new composition on the EP — is the most likely candidate. K/R observes that “most of the songs double-tracked were new compositions, whereas those not double-tracked were older songs the band had been playing for years.” This pattern suggests the double-tracking served a creative rather than corrective purpose: the newer, less road-tested songs benefited from the thickened vocal texture that double-tracking provided.²
Echo chamber — dry recording, chamber at mix — From the start of 1964, Norman Smith ceased printing the echo chamber to tape during recording: “everything was recorded to tape dry, and chamber was added during the mix.” This practice applied to all three songs from the 1 March session, including I Call Your Name. The change gave the mix engineer control over reverb depth independently of the recorded performance — a flexibility that would have been particularly useful for the edit-piece assembly, where matching reverb across the take 5/take 7 splice required consistent treatment at mix rather than baked-in chamber from recording.²
No headphones during recording — The Beatles did not use headphones during the first half of their Abbey Road career. For overdubs (here, the additional vocal and cowbell), the pre-recorded backing was played through an RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker in the studio, with the recording microphone positioned so that its dead side faced the speaker to minimise leakage. The absence of headphones meant Lennon was overdubbing his vocal while listening to the backing track acoustically in the room.²
REDD.51 console and stereo-mix limitations — The recording was made on the REDD.51, installed in Studio Two in January 1964, but the 10 March experimental stereo mix on that same console was abandoned as “clearly unacceptable.” The released stereo master (22 June) was mixed in Studio One on the older REDD.37, which had been modified with independent panning on channels 1, 2, 7 and 8. This split — recording on the REDD.51, stereo mixing on the REDD.37 — applied to every Beatles four-track recording before August 1964.²

Releases

3 March 1964 — early mono mix for United Artists (US) — From take 7, mixed in Studio Two. Prepared for the US market before the definitive remix. This mix does not incorporate the take 5 guitar-solo edit.¹
4 March 1964 — experimental mono mix (never used) — From take 7, mixed in Studio Two. An unreleased experimental remix.¹
10 March 1964 — experimental stereo mix (never released) — From take 7, mixed in Studio Two on the REDD.51 console. Results “clearly unacceptable”; the stereo remix was reattempted three months later on the REDD.37 in Studio One.^1,2
4 June 1964 — released mono mix (edit piece: takes 5 + 7) — Remixes 1 and 2, from takes 5 and 7, edited together. Mixed in Studio Two. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. The guitar solo from take 5 was physically spliced into the take 7 master at the middle eight. This is the definitive mono master issued on the Long Tall Sally EP.¹
22 June 1964 — released stereo mix (edit piece: takes 5 + 7) — Remixes 1 and 2, from takes 5 and 7, edited together. Mixed in Studio One on the REDD.37 console. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. The same take 5/take 7 edit structure as the mono master, applied to the stereo mixdown.^1,2
19 June 1964 — Long Tall Sally EP (Parlophone GEP 8913) — Side A: Long Tall Sally; I Call Your Name. Side B: Slow Down; Matchbox. I Call Your Name was the only Lennon–McCartney original among the EP’s four tracks. The EP was the Beatles’ “first EP to feature unreleased material” and Lewisohn judges it “arguably the greatest ever EP release by any artist or group.”^1,2

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), pp. 41–42, 45–46.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), pp. 366, 369, 371, 374, 376, 380–83.

Frequently asked

Who wrote I Call Your Name?

“I Call Your Name” was written by John Lennon (credited Lennon–McCartney). Lennon originally gave the song to Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas for the B-side of their August 1963 number one “Bad To Me.”¹

What is unusual about the middle eight of I Call Your Name?

The middle eight features what Lennon later described as “an early attempt at ska” — an unusual rhythmic departure for a 1964 Beatles recording. Lewisohn calls it “a very interesting recording for 1964, its unusual structure being underpinned by a strange middle eight guitar solo.”¹

How many takes did I Call Your Name require?

Seven takes were recorded, only three of which were complete. Take 7 was selected as the best, with the guitar solo from take 5 later edited in during the final remix stages.¹

When was I Call Your Name recorded?

“I Call Your Name” was recorded on 1 March 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two, during the same session as Long Tall Sally and I’m Happy Just to Dance with You.¹

On this page

Story

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked