Savoy Truffle

(Harrison)

Quick Facts

Lead Vocal	George
Recorded	Oct 1968
Length	2:54
Key	E
Noted Takes	1
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Barry Sheffield (Trident); Ken Scott (EMI)

Originally released on

The Beatles (White Album) (LP)

Apple [Parlophone] — PMC 7067/8

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Story

"Savoy Truffle" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 album The Beatles. The song was written by George Harrison and inspired by his friend Eric Clapton's fondness for chocolate. The lyrics list the various flavours offered in Mackintosh's Good News chocolates and serve as a warning to Clapton about the detrimental effect that his gorging would have on his teeth. [Wikipedia]

Savoy Truffle is a song by The Beatles, written by Harrison and led on vocal by George Harrison. About Eric Clapton's chocolate addiction; lyrics list Mackintosh's flavours. Within the catalogue, its brass thread connects it to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Good Morning Good Morning, Magical Mystery Tour; its george-original thread connects it to Don't Bother Me, I Need You, You Like Me Too Much. George Harrison's sophisticated composition employed string arrangement and lyrical references to candy flavors from a familiar commercial product, blending simple narrative structure with orchestral sophistication. The track's satirical approach to consumerism and popular-culture imagery reflected Harrison's witty songwriting approach, with sophisticated harmonic development supporting seemingly simple subject matter. The song demonstrated Harrison's facility with orchestral arrangement and ironic pop commentary. Savoy Truffle is basically a good-natured tribute to a friend's sweet tooth, a tongue-in-cheek warning about chocolate indulgence consequences. (Kozinn 1995, p.184)

The session work falls within the band's The White Album (1968) period, recorded 3 Oct 1968 at EMI Studios + Trident Studios (Soho). George Martin (with Chris Thomas covering) produced; Ken Scott (early), Geoff Emerick walked off — replaced engineered. For session-by-session detail, see Mark Lewisohn's account on p.155 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). Recorded with George Harrison's lead vocal supported by substantial string arrangement arranged by George Martin, 'Savoy Truffle' featured multiple recording sessions allowing for careful orchestral overdubs and vocal refinements. Engineer Ken Scott's work captured the string ensemble's tonal qualities and Harrison's vocal with precision, with careful microphone technique and level management necessary to balance ensemble and vocal elements. Ken Scott captured string ensemble tonal qualities with precision during Harrison's vocal sessions, requiring careful microphone technique and level management for balanced orchestration. (Emerick 2006, p.not cited) Savoy Truffle stands as Harrison's most exuberant expression of jaunty personality since Penny Lane, though lacking that song's satirical point of view. (MacDonald 1994, p.136)

good-natured tribute to a friend's sweet tooth.- Kozinn, Phaidon 1995, p.184

What's distinctive

At 2:54 it sits in the upper-middle of the canon by length. One of 28 songs led primarily by George, and one of 22 solely Harrison-credited compositions. Carries the unique tag 'clapton-chocolate' — no other song shares it. Take count: 1 — the basic track went to take 1 only at Trident (the eight-track Ampex 440 made EMI’s four-track reduction-mix chain unnecessary), and every overdub across the next eleven days — the ADT’d lead vocal, the deliberately RS61-distorted six-sax brass, the closing guitar/organ/percussion — was layered onto that single take. The inherited “68” was a templated chart artefact (it is “I Will”’s take number, logged on the same 14 October session page).¹

Recording

Savoy Truffle is the canonical Beatles example of the cross-studio recording-and-mixing workflow — recorded at Trident (3 + 5 October 1968), brass overdubbed at EMI Studio Two (11 October), final mono and stereo masters mixed at EMI Studio Two (14 October), with the eight-track tape physically migrated between studios: “Final mixes of ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Savoy Truffle’ would eventually be carried out at Abbey Road, but the Trident stereo and mono mixes of ‘Martha My Dear’ and ‘Honey Pie’ actually made it onto the album.” The four 1968 Trident-recorded White Album songs (Dear Prudence + Honey Pie + Martha My Dear + Savoy Truffle) — preceded by the Hey Jude single recorded at Trident 31 July–2 August — split two-and-two on final-mix location: Honey Pie + Martha My Dear as Trident mixes (Sound Techniques 20/8 desk + Tannoy Red monitoring + NAB EQ standard), Dear Prudence + Savoy Truffle mixed back at EMI Studio Two (Altec monitoring + CCIR EQ standard) to escape the Tannoy/Altec brightness discrepancy that bit Hey Jude (“the Tannoy ‘Red’ speakers used by Trident had significantly more High Frequency response than the Altec monitors used by Abbey Road”).²
The piece is the fourth canonical 1968 ADT hard-L/R panning case alongside Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Dear Prudence, and Birthday — and the only one in that group where the ADT treatment is on the brass overdub rather than handclaps-and-vocals. On the 1968 ADT-versus-double-tracking treatment: “On ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, ‘Dear Prudence’, and ‘Birthday’, handclaps and vocals were treated with the effect, with the original signal panned hard to one side and the delayed ADT signal panned hard to the other in the stereo mixes... the same approach was taken with the brass on ‘Savoy Truffle’. When spread across the stereo picture this way, the double-tracking effect was incredibly convincing.” An ADT examples table independently lists Savoy Truffle as “brass” on The Beatles (“White Album”), and the chapter narrative singles out Savoy Truffle as the illustration of the effect: “A listen to the brass in ‘Savoy Truffle’ illustrates this nicely; with the original signal panned to one side and the delayed signal panned to the other, the illusion of two separately overdubbed parts was remarkable.”²
Savoy Truffle is also the canonical Beatles example of deliberate creative distortion of a recorded brass section. Brian Gibson and Ken Scott set up the six session saxophonists in Studio Two on 11 October, with each instrument carefully mic’d, only for George Harrison to ask after the first playback “Right, I want to distort it.” The brass signal was patched out to Room 47, sent through two EMI RS61 amplifiers in series (Brian Gibson: “If they wanted some really dirty distortion, we used to put two RS61s in series. You could really overdrive something and get some nice distortion going”), and returned to the desk for recording to the eight-track tape. The RS61 module — a clean, low-gain booster amp from EMI’s 1952 console era — was being deliberately repurposed as an overdrive stage decades before Mesa Boogie or Marshall consciously productised the idea. Harrison’s apology to the session players: “Before you listen I’ve got to apologise for what I’ve done to your beautiful sound. Please forgive me — but it’s the way I want it!”^1,2
The session is also a quietly notable three-Beatle recording: “The eight-track tape does not reveal any role for John Lennon on ‘Savoy Truffle’ at any stage in its recording.” George Harrison composed the song (its title and much of its lyric derived from a Mackintosh’s Good News chocolate box, reaching out to Eric Clapton’s chocolate habit), played lead guitar, and ADT-double-tracked his lead vocal on the 5 October overdub. Paul McCartney played bass. Ringo Starr played drums. The 11 October brass overdub was the work of six session saxophonists. The 14 October closing-day overdubs (second electric guitar + organ + tambourine + bongos) were also Beatles overdubs without Lennon participation. This makes Savoy Truffle, alongside “Long, Long, Long” and Harrison’s lead-vocal contribution to While My Guitar Gently Weeps, one of the late-1968 White Album sessions that ran without Lennon attendance.¹

Equipment

Studio	Trident Studios, Soho (3 + 5 October — basic track + lead vocal) → EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two (11 + 14 October — brass overdub, closing overdubs + final mono/stereo mixes)^1,2
Tape machine	Ampex AG-440 eight-track (Trident) / 3M M23 eight-track (EMI Studio Two) — everything overdubbed onto the single take-1 multitrack^1,2
Console	Sound Techniques 20/8 (Trident) / EMI REDD.51 (Studio Two)²
Microphones	U47/U48, AKG C12, U67 introduced
Outboard / effects	EMI RS124, EMI RS61 (paired in series for the brass overdrive), EMT 140 & 250, Fairchild 660, ADT
Keyboards / guitars	Epiphone Casino, Fender Strat (Rocky), Gibson J-200 acoustic, Martin D-28, Fender Telecaster Bass, organ
Amplifiers	Fender Twin Reverb, Fender Bassman, Vox UL730

Recording Timeline

3 October 1968 (Thu) — basic track at Trident Studios — Trident Studios, Trident House, St Anne’s Court, Wardour Street, London W1, time unknown. Recording: Savoy Truffle (take 1). P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. “a basic track of drums, bass and lead guitars was recorded. The eight-track tape does not reveal any role for John Lennon on ‘Savoy Truffle’ at any stage in its recording.” The basic track went to take 1 only — Trident’s eight-track Ampex 440 made the reduction-mix chain of EMI’s J37 four-track unnecessary, so the entire Savoy Truffle recording lives across overdubs onto take 1 over the next eleven days. On the song’s composition: “Much of its lyric — indeed its title — came out of Mackintosh’s Good News chocolates. George has since revealed that it was Eric Clapton’s virtual chocolate addiction which led him to reach out for the Good News with one hand and the guitar with the other!”¹
5 October 1968 (Sat) — ADT’d lead vocal overdub at Trident — Trident, 6.00pm–1.00am. Recording: SI onto take 1. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. “Overdubbing of an ADT’d George Harrison lead vocal onto ‘Savoy Truffle’.” This 5 October vocal overdub is the Harrison lead vocal that survives on the released master; the ADT here is a separate application from the 14 October brass ADT (the vocal ADT is recorded into the eight-track at the overdub stage; the brass ADT is applied at the 14 October stereo mix). The same 5 October session also covered overdubs onto Martha My Dear and the Trident mono and stereo mixes of Honey Pie + Martha My Dear + the Trident mono mix of Dear Prudence that would later be superseded by the 13 October EMI remix.¹
11 October 1968 (Fri) — brass overdub session at EMI Studio Two with deliberate RS61-pair distortion — EMI Studio Two, 3.00–6.00pm. Recording: SI onto take 1 (brass overdub). P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. Chris Thomas wrote the brass arrangement at George Martin’s direction: “George Martin suggested that I score ‘Savoy Truffle’ for saxophones,” says Chris Thomas. “I must say that I found it a real chore.” Six session saxophonists performed the overdub — two baritone players (Ronald Ross + Bernard George) and four tenor players (Art Ellefson + Danny Moss + Harry Klein + Derek Collins). Brian Gibson: “The session men were playing really well — there’s nothing like a good brass section letting rip — and it sounded fantastic. But having got this really nice sound George turned to Ken Scott and said ‘Right, I want to distort it’.” The EMI side: “If they wanted some really dirty distortion, we used to put two [RS61s] in series. You could really overdrive something and get some nice distortion going.” “The best example of such use occurred in the fall of 1968, during sessions for ‘Savoy Truffle’... The brass signal had been sent to Room 47, patched through two RS61s in the Echo Racks, distorted, and returned to the desk, before being recorded to the eight-track tape.” The deliberate RS61-pair overdrive is the canonical 1968 example of EMI engineers repurposing a 1952 clean booster module as an overdrive stage — decades before Marshall or Mesa Boogie productised the concept as a guitar amp effect.^1,2
14 October 1968 (Mon) — closing overdubs + mono mixing + stereo mixing at EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 7.00pm–7.30am. Recording: SI onto take 1 (second electric guitar + organ + tambourine + bongos). Mono mixing: Savoy Truffle (remixes 1–6, from take 1). Stereo mixing: Savoy Truffle (remixes 1 and 2, from take 1). P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. “The final recording for The Beatles took place during this session, with overdubs for ‘Savoy Truffle’: a second electric guitar, an organ, tambourine and bongos. These recorded, the song joined the remixing queue, with several songs still requiring stereo mixes.” Six mono mix passes were made (only remix 1 was used as the LP master); two stereo mix passes were made (only remix 1 was used). This session was the closing recording session for the entire White Album.¹

Before you listen I’ve got to apologise for what I’ve done to your beautiful sound. Please forgive me — but it’s the way I want it!— George Harrison¹

Studio Notes

ADT hard-L/R panning treatment on the 1968 stereo brass — “the same approach was taken with the brass on ‘Savoy Truffle’. When spread across the stereo picture this way, the double-tracking effect was incredibly convincing. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that the delayed signal was not an exact duplicate of the original signal… There were slight, but noticeable, EQ differences between the two signals which added to the effect.” An ADT examples table independently lists Savoy Truffle as “brass” on The Beatles (“White Album”). The chapter narrative singles out Savoy Truffle: “A listen to the brass in ‘Savoy Truffle’ illustrates this nicely; with the original signal panned to one side and the delayed signal panned to the other, the illusion of two separately overdubbed parts was remarkable.” This makes Savoy Truffle the canonical illustration of the 1968 hard-L/R ADT technique — the example reached for when illustrating the effect for an unfamiliar reader.²
RS61 in series as the brass overdrive stage — The EMI RS61 module was a clean, low-gain booster amplifier from EMI’s 1952 console era, originally designed to make up for the gain loss in the Echo Rack signal chain. Two RS61s were patched in series in Room 47, with the brass signal sent out from the desk through the cascaded pair, deliberately overdriven, and returned to the desk for recording. The narrative names Savoy Truffle as the canonical 1968 example: “The best example of such use occurred in the fall of 1968, during sessions for ‘Savoy Truffle’.” The RS61-pair distortion is preserved at the recording stage on the eight-track tape, so the distortion survives identically across the 1968 mono and stereo masters, the 2009 Mono Masters / Stereo Remasters reissues, and the 2018 Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix — the distortion is not a mix-stage effect but a recorded-signal characteristic.²
Extreme-EQ release-master treble setting — Ken Scott: “The classic story is when we were mixing ‘Savoy Truffle’. This was right towards the end, and I was doing it with George Harrison. We were halfway through the mix when George Martin came in, and he said, ‘Wow, now isn’t that too trebly?’ And George [Harrison] turned around and said to him, ‘Yeah, I like it like that,’ and just immediately turned [it back up].” The 14 October stereo remix 1 thus carries an EQ profile that George Martin had flagged as excessive on the mixing-desk monitors but that George Harrison overrode. The full-treble + full-bass approach Ken Scott describes elsewhere (“Towards the end of the White Album, we’d go for a mix and it would just be instantaneous full-Treble, full-Bass on every channel — all eight of them!”) sat within the relatively gentle EMI desk EQ range, but Harrison’s push past Martin’s caution is preserved in the LP cut.²
Final-mix cross-studio routing — “Four tracks from ‘The White Album’ were recorded there [at Trident], and three of the four were actually mixed there. Final mixes of ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Savoy Truffle’ would eventually be carried out at Abbey Road, but the Trident stereo and mono mixes of ‘Martha My Dear’ and ‘Honey Pie’ actually made it onto the album.” The motivating concern was the Tannoy/Altec brightness discrepancy that had bit Hey Jude — “the Tannoy ‘Red’ speakers used by Trident had significantly more High Frequency response than the Altec monitors used by Abbey Road. They tended to ‘flatter’ sound more.” By mixing Savoy Truffle back at EMI, the band ensured the released master was calibrated to the Altec monitoring environment that the LP-cutting room used. (This is the same motivation behind the 13 October EMI re-mix of Dear Prudence superseding the 5 October Trident mono. Hey Jude avoided the issue by way of Ken Scott’s UTC Curve Bender high-end restoration at EMI.)²
NAB/CCIR tape-EQ standard conversion at the banding stage — “Trident used American machines, any mixes recorded on them used the American NAB EQ standard, rather than the European CCIR standard.” The 5 October Trident mono and stereo mixes of Savoy Truffle overdubs were on NAB-standard tape; by the time the eight-track moved back to EMI for the 11 + 14 October overdubs and mixing, the final 14 October mixes were cut to CCIR-standard tape ready for the LP-master compilation. The related issue on Dear Prudence (anticipating the 13 October EMI re-mix): “[the stereo] too would be changed back at Abbey Road and copied from the NAB equalisation system of recording preferred at Trident to the CCIR method favoured at EMI.” Savoy Truffle’s 14 October mono and stereo mixes were direct EMI/CCIR products, avoiding the NAB-to-CCIR tape-copy step.^1,2
Three-Beatle session arc — no Lennon participation — “The eight-track tape does not reveal any role for John Lennon on ‘Savoy Truffle’ at any stage in its recording.” This is unusually direct framing — ordinarily session sheets are reported without absent-personnel commentary — and reflects the late-1968 trajectory of Lennon increasingly absenting himself from Harrison-led sessions (also seen on Long, Long, Long, 7 October). The three-Beatle nature of the session sits inside the broader White Album fragmentation pattern: Ringo’s 22 August walk-out (rejoined 4 September) and Lennon’s drift away from Harrison’s and McCartney’s individual sessions are part of the same late-1968 shift toward what the 1968 Overview characterised as “in many ways, the members simply filled the role of ‘backing band’ for whomever composed the song”.^1,2
Cross-studio engineering hand-off — Savoy Truffle appears among the “Tracks Recorded by Ken Scott” for 1968 — though this references the 11 + 14 October EMI sessions only, since the 3 + 5 October Trident basic-track and lead-vocal sessions were engineered by Barry Sheffield (Trident house engineer). The cross-studio engineering hand-off is therefore a real characteristic of the song: the basic track, lead guitar, and lead vocal were captured under Barry Sheffield at Trident on the Ampex AG-440 eight-track + Sound Techniques 20/8 desk + Trident’s Lockwood/Tannoy Red monitoring, while the brass + closing overdubs + final mixes were captured and mixed under Ken Scott at EMI on the 3M M23 eight-track + REDD.51 desk + Altec monitoring.^1,2
Frequency Control / varispeed context — absent for Savoy Truffle — “one of the biggest reasons for the lack of varispeed recording was the fact that the 3M eight-track machine had no varispeed capability... varispeed simply wasn’t an option.” The 3 + 5 October Trident basic-and-vocal sessions on the Ampex AG-440 did retain varispeed capability via Trident’s Mains-varispeed amplifier installed after Hey Jude (“we later installed a very elaborate high-powered amplifier that drove the motor via an oscillator in order to supply the motor with 50Hz”), but no varispeed application is documented on Savoy Truffle. The 11 + 14 October EMI overdubs on the 3M M23 carry no varispeed treatment. The released master is therefore at-tape-speed throughout.²

Releases

1968 UK mono LP The Beatles (“White Album”) (22 November 1968, Apple [Parlophone] PMC 7068, side D track 4) — Released mono master, mono remix 1 from take 1 at EMI Studio Two on Monday 14 October 1968. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. The 14 October session built mono remixes 1–6 from take 1; remix 1 became the released mono master. Distinctive 1968 mono characteristics: the ADT brass treatment sums to centre (no hard-L/R panning audible in the mono), so the “two separately overdubbed parts” illusion that is cited as the canonical illustration is collapsed to one. The RS61-pair-distorted brass remains audibly distorted in both mixes; the mono just plants it dead centre with the drums and bass.^1,2
1968 UK stereo LP The Beatles (“White Album”) (22 November 1968, Apple [Parlophone] PCS 7068, side D track 4) — Released stereo master, stereo remix 1 from take 1 at EMI Studio Two on 14 October 1968. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. The hard-L/R ADT panning treatment of the brass is the single most audible mono/stereo difference on the released masters — the brass overdub is split hard L/R, the original signal panned hard to one side and the delayed ADT signal panned hard to the other (“with the original signal panned to one side and the delayed signal panned to the other, the illusion of two separately overdubbed parts was remarkable”). The 14 October mix went for an extreme top-end treble setting at George Harrison’s insistence: “The classic story is when we were mixing ‘Savoy Truffle’... George Martin came in, and he said, ‘Wow, now isn’t that too trebly?’ And George [Harrison] turned around and said to him, ‘Yeah, I like it like that.’” The release-master high-frequency content is therefore a documented Harrison-vs-Martin disagreement preserved in the LP cut.^1,2
1968 US Apple LP The Beatles (“White Album”) (25 November 1968, Apple SWBO 101, side D track 4) — US Capitol-pressed stereo LP from the same 1968 stereo master, but with a Capitol mastering-chain rather than the EMI cutting chain. George Harrison personally objected to what Capitol’s mastering had done to the LP (over-compression flattening the dynamics on Harrison-noted tracks including “Long, Long, Long”) and took the tape back from Capitol to rework the master himself before pressing. Mal Evans recalled: “If George had not heard it in time, taken the tape away to work on it himself, and returned it the way it should be, the American LP records might have been a bit of a mess! It was a lot of work for George but worthwhile.” A limited number of pre-correction Capitol pressings reached pressing plants before Harrison’s recall — “these pressings rank amongst the rarest of Beatles albums”. The differences between the pre-correction and post-correction Capitol versions are subtle but documented.²
2009 Stereo Remasters — The Beatles (Stereo Box) (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI 5099969 9447 2) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1968 stereo master, with the original hard-L/R ADT panning of the brass preserved unchanged. The 2009 Mono Masters companion (released same day) carries the 1968 mono master with the same centred-brass treatment of the 1968 mono LP. Post-Lewisohn; documented in the remaster project’s liner notes rather than in the primary-source canon; flagged here for completeness.²
2018 White Album 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe (Giles Martin / Sam Okell stereo remix) (9 November 2018, Apple/Capitol 0602567572015, disc 1 track 19) — New stereo remix prepared from the original 3 + 5 October Trident eight-track tape rather than from the 1968 stereo master. The Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix preserves the RS61-pair distortion of the brass (the distortion is on the eight-track at the recording stage, not at the 14 October mix) but restructures the stereo image: the hard-L/R ADT panning of the 1968 stereo brass is replaced with a less polarised distribution that surfaces the underlying parts of the saxophone arrangement. The 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe also includes the Esher demo bundle (May 1968, Kinfauns) — Savoy Truffle is one of the songs that does have an Esher demo, recorded by George Harrison solo at Kinfauns ahead of the May 1968 group sessions. Post-Lewisohn; flagged here for completeness.^1,2

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 158–59, 161–62.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 275–76, 296–97, 334–35, 486, 490, 494, 500, 503.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Savoy Truffle?

“Savoy Truffle” was written by George Harrison — its title and lyric drawn from a Mackintosh's Good News chocolate box, as a nod to Eric Clapton's sweet tooth.

Who sings lead on Savoy Truffle?

The lead vocal on “Savoy Truffle” is by George Harrison, double-tracked with ADT on the 5 October 1968 overdub.¹

When was Savoy Truffle recorded?

“Savoy Truffle” was recorded across 3, 5, 11 and 14 October 1968 — the basic track and lead vocal at Trident Studios, the brass overdub and final mixes at EMI Studios, Abbey Road (Studio Two).¹

How many takes did Savoy Truffle require?

Just one — the basic track went to take 1 only at Trident, and everything else was overdubbed onto it. (The inherited “68” was a templated chart artefact.)¹