Things We Said Today

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Jun 1964
Length	2:35
Key	Am
Noted Takes	3
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

A Hard Day's Night (single B-side)

A Hard Day's Night

Parlophone — R 5160 / PMC 1230

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Story

“Things We Said Today” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), it was released as the B-side of the single “A Hard Day’s Night” and also appeared on the album of the same name. [Wikipedia]

Things We Said Today is a song by The Beatles, written by McCartney and led on vocal by Paul McCartney. Within the catalogue, its introspective thread connects it to And I Love Her, Yesterday, For No One.

The session work falls within the band’s Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 2 Jun 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. The song was recorded in three takes during the afternoon session. The first was a false start, the second was complete (vocals and rhythm), and the third saw Paul double-track his vocal, Ringo add a tambourine and John add piano. The recording sheets indicate that the piano was to be omitted from the remix, but because the piano had not been fully separated from the other instruments a little of its sound leaked across into the other microphones, so it can be heard on the finished song after all.

What’s distinctive

One of 72 songs led primarily by Paul. Recorded in just three takes on the afternoon of 2 June 1964 — a remarkably efficient session alongside Any Time at All. The piano overdub intended for omission leaked through adjacent microphones onto the released master — a textbook illustration of the acoustic crosstalk inherent in the White Elephant speaker overdub method. Take count: 3 — false start, complete performance, then overdubs (double-tracked vocal, tambourine, piano).¹

Recording

Things We Said Today was recorded on Tuesday 2 June 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two, during the afternoon session (2.30–5.30pm) that also produced seven takes of Any Time at All. “The next number, ‘Things We Said Today’, was recorded in three takes. The first was a false start, the second was complete, vocals and rhythm, and the third saw Paul double-track his vocal, Ringo add a tambourine and John add piano.” The complete performance on take 2 captured the full band live — vocals and rhythm together in a single pass, consistent with the 1964 practice where the group often laid down a usable vocal performance during the basic-track recording.¹
The piano overdub and its unintended leakage is the most notable production detail on the released master. John added piano on take 3, but “the recording sheets indicate that the piano was to be omitted from the remix, a decision illustrating the luxury of multi-track recording over basic two-track, but because the piano had not been fully separated from the other instruments a little of its sound leaked across into the other microphones, so it can be heard on the finished song after all.” The leakage is a textbook example of the acoustic crosstalk inherent in the White Elephant speaker overdub method: with no headphones available, the pre-recorded tracks played out loud through the RLS10 speaker in the studio, and the piano sound bled into adjacent open microphones during the overdub pass.^1,2
The three-take economy is striking by 1964 standards. While the concurrent Any Time at All required eleven takes across two sessions (the middle eight was incomplete), Things We Said Today needed only three — one false start, one complete performance, one overdub pass. This efficiency matches the broader pattern for Paul’s compositions during the A Hard Day’s Night sessions: the songs arrived more fully formed, often requiring fewer takes for the basic track than John’s more spontaneously assembled pieces.¹
All recording used the Telefunken four-track through the REDD.51 console in Studio Two, following the standard 1964 track-allocation convention: “Drums, bass, and rhythm guitar were on one track, lead guitar on another; the voices on a third. The fourth track was reserved for any little extras, like piano overdubs or backing voices.” John’s piano overdub on take 3 would have occupied the fourth track, consistent with this layout. Paul’s double-tracked vocal and Ringo’s tambourine were also added on take 3, likely sharing the fourth track or replacing the vocal on the third.^1,2
The song was released as the B-side of the ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ single (Parlophone R 5160, 10 July 1964) and on the LP of the same name (PMC 1230 / PCS 3058, same date). “One splendid single and one splendid LP, to tie in with one splendid film. Sales of both formats were vast, on a global scale, and it’s worth noting that the LP is comprised entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions, the only such occurrence in the Beatles’ career.”¹

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Two (recording, 2 Jun 1964); Studio Three control room (mono remix, 9 Jun 1964); Studio One control room (stereo mixing + tape copying, 22 Jun 1964)
Tape machine	Telefunken four-track (M-10 / T9U)²
Console	REDD.51²
Microphones	Neumann U47/U48 (modified to identical spec, early 1964), AKG D19 (drums), STC 4038 (overhead)²
Outboard / effects	EMI RS124 compressor, EMT 140 plate reverb, STEED tape echo
Guitars	Rickenbacker 325 (Lennon), Rickenbacker 360/12 (Harrison), Höfner 500/1 violin bass (McCartney)
Amplifiers	Vox AC50 Super Twin (Lennon & Harrison, from Feb 1964)²

Recording Timeline

2 June 1964 (Tue) — recording in three takes, afternoon, Studio Two — Studio Two, 2.30–5.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Recording: Any Time at All (takes 1–7); Things We Said Today (takes 1–3). “The next number, ‘Things We Said Today’, was recorded in three takes. The first was a false start, the second was complete, vocals and rhythm, and the third saw Paul double-track his vocal, Ringo add a tambourine and John add piano.” The piano was to be omitted from the remix but leaked through adjacent microphones onto the released master.¹
9 June 1964 (Tue) — mono remix, Studio Three — Studio Three (control room only), 2.00–5.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Mono mixing: Things We Said Today (from take 3). The session also produced mono tape copies of eight soundtrack songs for Capitol Records and United Artists, plus a further remix of A Hard Day’s Night with an extended ending for the film track.¹
22 June 1964 (Mon) — stereo mixing + tape copy, Studio One & Studio Two — Studio One (control room only), 2.30–5.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. Stereo mixing: Things We Said Today (from take 3). Studio Two (control room only), 5.45–9.00pm: tape copying of the 22 June stereo remix. The same exhaustive day produced stereo mixes for most of the A Hard Day’s Night LP. “The Beatles themselves could not have been further away from the action — they were in Wellington, New Zealand, at the time.”¹
10 July 1964 (Fri) — single and LP release — Single release: A Hard Day’s Night / Things We Said Today, Parlophone R 5160. LP release: A Hard Day’s Night, Parlophone PMC 1230 (mono) / PCS 3058 (stereo). Things We Said Today appears on the LP as side B track 3 and as the single’s B-side. “One splendid single and one splendid LP, to tie in with one splendid film.”¹

The recording sheets indicate that the piano was to be omitted from the remix, a decision illustrating the luxury of multi-track recording over basic two-track, but because the piano had not been fully separated from the other instruments a little of its sound leaked across into the other microphones, so it can be heard on the finished song after all.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Tea towel on the snare — Things We Said Today is one of the earliest songs to bear the audible signature of Norman Smith’s practice of covering Ringo’s snare with a tea towel. “Occasionally, I would ask Ringo to put a tea towel over his snare. A tea towel is a lightweight cloth common in UK kitchen and tea services. Covering the snare with one of these cloths kept it from ringing out and created a thicker and shorter snare sound.” The practice dates to 1963–64: “‘Things We Said Today’ also bears the distinctive sound of a towel on the snare.” Smith’s aesthetic goal was a “fruitcake” sound — “a solid cake of fruit mixture, but on the top you’d have a thin icing. That icing, of course, would be the top frequencies.”²
White Elephant speaker overdub method — the piano leakage mechanism — The piano leakage on the released master illustrates the acoustic limitations of the 1964 overdub process. With no headphones available, the backing track played out loud through the RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker in the studio while John played the piano overdub. “The amount [of leakage] was very small, but if multiple overdubs took place, the leakage ‘stacked up’ and was accentuated.” The Neumann microphone was positioned in figure-of-eight with its dead side to the speaker, but the piano’s acoustic presence in the room meant its sound bled into the backing-track and vocal microphones during the take-3 overdub pass. The decision to omit the piano at remix could not fully reverse this leakage — a limitation that multi-track recording (putting the piano on a dedicated track) was designed to solve, but that acoustic crosstalk between open microphones in a live room undermined.²
Double-tracking — Paul’s vocal on take 3 — Paul’s double-tracked vocal on Things We Said Today is consistent with the universal 1964 practice: “every single song on A Hard Day’s Night featured double-tracked vocals at some point, as did every single [song] the group released that year.” The available fourth track “proved impossible to resist, and it made double-tracking a more instantly accessible procedure than it had been with Twin-Track.” On this song, the double-tracking was applied during the single overdub pass (take 3) rather than as a separate session, reflecting the three-take efficiency of the recording.^1,2
U47–U48 microphone conversion (early 1964) — By the June 1964 sessions, Abbey Road’s Neumann U47 microphones had been sent to Berlin for modification to behave as U48s. “The engraved names of the U47s had even been altered by Neumann to reflect their new capabilities; instead of ‘U47’, their labels read ‘U47/8’ or ‘U47/48’.” Both U47 and U48 mics were used interchangeably for vocals from this point on, “with U47 and U48 vocal mics often used side-by-side.”²
Live vs overdubbed vocals — performance captured live — The complete take 2 captured Paul’s lead vocal live with the rhythm track, consistent with George Martin’s preference: “I was out to get performance — the excitement of the actual live action — and technical things like that didn’t worry me too much.” The vocal was then double-tracked on take 3 as an overdub, but the primary vocal performance was a live capture — the four-track format made it practical to keep a strong live vocal and supplement it with a double-tracked layer later.^1,2
REDD.51 console and four-track layout — The REDD.51’s channel architecture directly influenced the track allocation on Things We Said Today. The four-track layout convention was “not arbitrarily chosen, but was directly influenced by a peculiarity of the REDD.51 mixing console during stereo mixing.” On the 22 June stereo mix (without the band present), this layout determined the stereo image — vocals centred, rhythm and guitar panned — a mix the Beatles never heard during preparation.²
Echo chamber — dry-to-tape from 1964 — Norman Smith’s 1964 practice shift meant all reverb on Things We Said Today was applied at the remix stage, not during recording: “At the start of 1964, Norman Smith finally stopped printing the chamber to tape during recording. Instead, everything was recorded to tape dry, and chamber was added during the mix.” The reverb character on the released master therefore reflects the 9 June and 22 June remix sessions, not the 2 June recording.²
Vox AC50 Super Twin amplifiers — By February 1964, John and George had switched from the Vox AC30 to the Vox AC50 Super Twin, with Paul’s bass rig upgraded to a Vox AC100. Session photographs from the 27 February 1964 session show “John and George’s new A.C.50 Super Twin rigs mic’d with Neumann U47 microphones.” These amplifiers define the guitar sound across the entire A Hard Day’s Night album, including Things We Said Today.²

Releases

1964 UK single B-side A Hard Day’s Night / Things We Said Today (10 July 1964, Parlophone R 5160) — Released mono master from the 9 June 1964 remix (from take 3). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. The first release of the song, as the B-side of the Beatles’ seventh UK single.¹
1964 UK mono LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PMC 1230, side B track 3) — Same mono master as the single release (9 June remix from take 3). Released the same day as the single. “It’s worth noting that the LP is comprised entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions, the only such occurrence in the Beatles’ career.”¹
1964 UK stereo LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PCS 3058, side B track 3) — Stereo master mixed 22 June 1964 from take 3. Prepared without the band present (they were in New Zealand). A tape copy of this stereo remix was also made the same day (Studio Two, 5.45–9.00pm).¹
1964 UK EP Extracts from the album A Hard Day’s Night (6 November 1964, Parlophone GEP 8924) — Mono EP release using the same 9 June mono master.¹
2009 Stereo Remasters — A Hard Day’s Night (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1964 stereo master. Mono Masters companion carries the 1964 mono master with no documented remix.
2014 US Mono Box — A Hard Day’s Night (The Beatles in Mono, 8 September 2014, Apple/Capitol) — Vinyl and CD reissue of the 1964 UK mono master.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 44–46.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 372, 374, 376–79, 385.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Things We Said Today?

“Things We Said Today” is credited to Paul McCartney (Lennon–McCartney).

Who sings lead on Things We Said Today?

The lead vocal on “Things We Said Today” is by Paul McCartney.

When was Things We Said Today recorded?

“Things We Said Today” was recorded on 2 June 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road (Studio Two), in three takes during the afternoon session (2.30–5.30pm). Take 2 was the complete performance; take 3 added Paul’s double-tracked vocal, Ringo’s tambourine and John’s piano.¹

How many takes did Things We Said Today require?

Three — the first a false start, the second a complete performance (vocals and rhythm), and the third adding Paul’s double-tracked vocal, Ringo’s tambourine and John’s piano.¹