What You’re Doing

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Sep–Oct 1964
Length	2:30
Key	D
Noted Takes	19
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

Beatles for Sale

Parlophone — PMC 1240

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Story

“What You’re Doing” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their album Beatles for Sale, released in December 1964. It was written by Paul McCartney, although credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song was one of eight original compositions on Beatles for Sale. [Wikipedia]

What You’re Doing is a song by The Beatles, written by McCartney and led on vocal by Paul McCartney. A studio-experimental composition featuring an unusual backwards-feeling drum intro that creates a disorientating temporal anchor for the listener. The song is notable as one of the few Beatles for Sale originals to undergo a full re-make — the initial recording on 29–30 September 1964 was abandoned in favour of a fresh start on 26 October, suggesting that George Martin and the Beatles perceived inadequacy in the original version. This was a rare scenario during the album’s compressed schedule. McCartney’s composition stands out on the album for its jangly guitar textures and production sophistication, elements that would be refined further on Rubber Soul.

The session work spans the 29 September to 26 October 1964 period, with George Martin producing and Norman Smith engineering throughout. The recording sat within the context of an album made under extreme pressure: the group had been touring constantly throughout 1964, and the Beatles for Sale sessions were crammed into rest days between concert dates. The multiple takes and the decision to completely re-make the song rather than overdub corrections onto the existing take 11 demonstrate a commitment to getting the arrangement right — an attitude more commonly associated with the group’s later, more studio-focused period. Within the catalogue, the song’s jangle thread connects it to And Your Bird Can Sing.

What’s distinctive

One of 65 songs led primarily by Paul. Penultimate track on Beatles for Sale (track 13 of 14), positioned between Every Little Thing and Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby. Carries the tag ‘studio-experiment’ — a unique classification in the catalogue, reflecting the unusual backwards-feeling drum intro and the song’s structural complexity. One of only a handful of Beatles for Sale originals to undergo a full re-make rather than simply receiving overdubs or additional takes on the existing backing. Take count: 19 — accumulated across three sessions and a full re-make, with only three of the final seven takes (13–19) being complete run-throughs; take 19 from the 26 October re-make became the released master.¹ The tea-towel snare sound from the original 30 September session persists in the re-made version: “the final recording still bears the sound of the towel.”²

Recording

What You’re Doing was the most protracted recording on Beatles for Sale, requiring three separate tracking sessions across two dates and a full re-make before its master was approved. The initial session on 29 September 1964 (takes 1–7) produced only a rhythm track, with take 7 documented as ‘best’. The following evening, 30 September (takes 8–12), produced take 11 as the new ‘best’ — but “the entire song was later re-made.” The re-make came on 26 October (takes 13–19), where “only three of those seven were complete, and 19 was ‘best’.” This three-session trajectory contrasts sharply with its cluster partner No Reply, which was started and completed in a single evening session on 30 September. The difficulty reflects the song’s experimental nature — the unusual drum intro and structural complexity demanded more studio refinement than the more straightforward No Reply.¹
The pre-remake version differed significantly from the released take 19. Lewisohn documents three specific differences between the take-11 version (marked ‘best’ on 30 September) and the final version: “its breaks between choruses were less tight, the middle eight instrumental break was performed an octave above the vocals and it had a 1½ second pause preceding a reprise instrumental coda.” The re-make therefore tightened the chorus transitions, brought the middle-eight instrumental down an octave to sit beneath the vocal register, and eliminated the pause before the coda — each change streamlining the arrangement and increasing its rhythmic drive. That three specific structural issues were identified and corrected suggests a deliberate production decision rather than a simple dissatisfaction with performance quality.¹
Beatles for Sale recording context — the “stage show” album under tour pressure. The album was recorded in seven tracking sessions across August–October 1964, sandwiched between concert commitments. “The Beatles had begun a UK concert tour on 9 October so were having to cram in recording sessions on infrequent days off.” Paul McCartney recalled: “Basically it was our stage show, with some new songs.” George Martin: “They were rather war weary during Beatles For Sale. One must remember that they’d been battered like mad throughout 1964, and much of 1963. Success is a wonderful thing but it is very, very tiring.” Against this backdrop of exhaustion and reliance on covers, the decision to invest three sessions and a full re-make in What You’re Doing is remarkable — it signals that Martin and the Beatles recognised the song’s studio-experimental potential even when time was scarce.¹
The 26 October re-make session doubled as the first time the Beatles attended their own mono mix sessions. The re-make (takes 13–19, 7.30–10.00pm) followed an afternoon of mono mixing in which the group was present: “Aside from attending all of the mix sessions — perhaps one of the first times they did this — they also recorded the final batch of songs for the LP.” Before the re-make, the group recorded Honey Don’t (takes 1–5, Carl Perkins cover with Ringo on lead vocal) and then the second Official Fan Club Christmas flexi-disc. The re-make of What You’re Doing was therefore the last original Beatles composition tracked for Beatles for Sale — every session after this date was mixing or editing only.¹
Microphone transition — retirement of the STC microphones on Ringo’s drum kit. The 29–30 September sessions that produced the initial What You’re Doing takes (and No Reply, Every Little Thing, and I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party) saw the permanent replacement of the STC overhead and bass-drum microphones. “Smith had retired the STC4033-A on bass drum as well. In its place was an AKG D20, a dynamic microphone that he had used at least once in 1963 during the session for ‘From Me To You’. While its use in 1963 was temporary, that would not be the case in 1964; the switch to D20 was for good.” The overhead STC 4038 was replaced by an AKG D19c: “likely the fact that the D19c was significantly brighter than the STC 4038, requiring less onboard EQ. The cardioid pattern of the D19c was also tighter than the figure-of-eight STC and picked up only the sound directly in front of — or in this case, below — the microphone. It was a much ‘deader’ microphone overall and likely allowed Smith to compress the drums more heavily without simultaneously compressing — and therefore accentuating — the bass and electric guitar leakage.”²
Tea towel on Ringo’s snare drum — the sound that survived the re-make. Session photographs from 30 September 1964 show a tea towel draped over Ringo’s snare. Norman Smith: “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.” K/R notes that “subjective listening to those songs reveals the short, dry snare sound that results from a towel on the snare” and, crucially, that “‘What You’re Doing’ would be re-recorded almost a month later, but the final recording still bears the sound of the towel.” This means the tea-towel technique was used again at the 26 October re-make session, not just at the original 30 September date — an indication that Smith considered the towel sound integral to the song’s character rather than an incidental one-off decision.²
Four-track layout deduced from the stereo-mix panning conventions: Track 1 — Drums, Bass; Track 2 — Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar; Track 3 — Vocals; Track 4 — Vocals, Piano, Electric Guitar. This layout is “determined solely by applying the known tape layout vs. panning ‘formula’ to the stereo mixes — not by access to tape boxes or other studio documentation. However, they are likely quite accurate.” The layout differs from No Reply’s (which has Acoustic Guitar on Track 1 with the rhythm section, and Piano on Track 2 with a drum overdub). On What You’re Doing, the guitars are isolated on Track 2, and piano shares Track 4 with additional vocals and an electric guitar overdub — a busier fourth track that accounts for the song’s denser arrangement in the right channel of the stereo mix.²
The 29 September rhythm track — a foundation that proved insufficient. The first session produced only a backing track (drums, bass, guitars) without vocals. This rhythm-track-only approach was standard four-track procedure for songs requiring careful vocal arrangement, but the fact that the rhythm track was set aside for vocal overdubs that never materialised on this tape — the entire song being re-made from scratch on 26 October — suggests the problem lay in the rhythm arrangement itself, not just in vocal performance. Lewisohn’s description of the pre-remake differences (loose chorus breaks, high middle-eight, coda pause) all concern rhythmic and structural elements rather than vocal issues. The re-make therefore represents one of the earliest documented cases of the Beatles starting a song completely over because of arrangement dissatisfaction — a practice that became more common from Rubber Soul onwards.¹
Tape Op isolation during the three tracking sessions. The four-track tape machines were not yet housed in the control room; they were located in remote machine rooms. “The life of a Tape Op in these early four-track days was a lonely one. Being isolated in the small machine room, away from the rest of the session, was not unlike solitary confinement.” The Tape Op received instructions via a column speaker and could communicate back using an STC microphone. “You listened to one track at a time,” recalled Peter Vince. “You never heard a mix — you could only listen to one of the four tracks.” Ken Scott, who served as 2E on the 29–30 September sessions, described the arrangement: “On a normal session, you’d be sitting there, and when they were not doing anything — which was frequent — you’d just walk up to Number Two until they were ready to do something again, and then you’d go back down to the tape machine.”²
Repeat Echo — not applied to What You’re Doing — Although Beatles for Sale introduced the Abbey Road “Repeat Echo” effect to Beatles recordings, it was applied only to the album’s rock-and-roll covers: “Beatles For Sale featured two tracks with Repeat Echo: ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’ and ‘Rock and Roll Music’. The use of the effect here was likely inspired by its similarity to the ‘slapback echo’ heard on many of the Beatles’ favourite records by American ‘rock-a-billy’ and R&B artists.” The originals on the album — including What You’re Doing — used conventional plate or chamber echo, applied during the mixing sessions rather than printed to tape.²
Source comparison. Lewisohn and K/R agree on the September–October session dates, Norman Smith engineering, and George Martin producing. Lewisohn provides the detailed take-by-take narrative: the take-7 rhythm track, the take-11 ‘best’ that was abandoned, the three specific differences between the pre-remake and final versions (chorus breaks, middle-eight register, coda pause), and the re-make to take 19. K/R independently contributes the microphone-transition context (D19c/D20 replacing STC), the tea-towel documentation with the crucial observation that the towel sound survived the re-make, the U47/U48 vocal-microphone unification, the four-track layout, and the White Elephant speaker overdub technique. The sources complement without conflict: Lewisohn explains what was recorded and why it was re-made; K/R explains how it was recorded and what the equipment choices meant sonically.^1,2

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road (recording, 29–30 Sep + 26 Oct 1964); Studio Two control room (mono + stereo mixing, 27 Oct)
Tape machine	Telefunken M10 / T9U four-track (recording); EMI BTR2 1/4″ (mono mixdown); EMI BTR3 1/4″ (stereo mixdown)²
Console	REDD.51 (Studio Two)²
Microphones	AKG D19c (drum overhead), AKG D20 (bass drum + bass amp), Neumann U47/U48 (electric guitars, acoustic guitar, vocals, piano)²
Outboard / effects	RS124 compressor (Altec 436B mod, Main Faders I–II), Fairchild 660 limiter (Main Faders III–IV), EMT 140 plate reverb²
Guitars	Rickenbacker 325 (Lennon), Gretsch 6122 Country Gentleman (Harrison), Höfner 500/1 violin bass (McCartney), Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl kit — 20″/12″/14″/14″ snare (Starr)²
Amplifiers	Vox AC100 Super De-Luxe (John + George, by September 1964); Vox AC100 bass rig (Paul)²
Monitoring	RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker (studio overdub playback)²

Recording Timeline

29 September 1964 (Tue) — initial recording, EMI Studios, Studio Two — Studio Two: 7.00–10.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott / Mike Stone. Recording: What You’re Doing (takes 1–7). The evening session followed the afternoon’s work on Every Little Thing (takes 1–4, 2.30–6.30pm) and the start of I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party (takes 1–7, then takes 8–19 in the evening). On this initial session “the group taped only the rhythm track, take seven being documented as ‘best’.” The song was already proving “somewhat problematical” — Lewisohn notes it “was to prove a somewhat problematical song and was later re-made.” The rhythm-track-only approach indicates that the group intended to overdub vocals later, a standard four-track procedure for songs requiring careful vocal arrangement. The session mic setup (documented by K/R from photographs of 30 September, applicable to both dates) shows the AKG D19c as drum overhead and AKG D20 on bass drum, with a tea towel over Ringo’s snare.^1,2
30 September 1964 (Wed) — continuation, EMI Studios, Studio Two — Studio Two: 6.30–10.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott / Mike Stone. Recording: What You’re Doing (takes 8–12); No Reply (takes 1–8). After concluding Every Little Thing in the afternoon (takes 5–9), “the Beatles resurrected ‘What You’re Doing’. Take 11 was documented as being the new ‘best’ although the entire song was later re-made. At this stage it differed from the final version in that its breaks between choruses were less tight, the middle eight instrumental break was performed an octave above the vocals and it had a 1½ second pause preceding a reprise instrumental coda.” These three documented differences between the take-11 version and the final version provide an unusually detailed picture of how the arrangement evolved. The session then moved on to No Reply, which was completed in a single sitting (takes 1–8).¹
26 October 1964 (Mon) — re-make, EMI Studios, Studio Two — Studio Two: 7.30–10.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: A.B. Lincoln. Recording: What You’re Doing [re-make] (takes 13–19). The re-make session came after an afternoon of mono mixing (10.00am–12.45pm) and a stereo mixing session (12.45–1.05pm) that the Beatles attended — “perhaps one of the first times they did this.” The group also recorded Honey Don’t (takes 1–5, 4.30–6.30pm) before turning to the What You’re Doing re-make. “Only three of those seven [takes] were complete, and 19 was ‘best’.” Following the re-make, the Beatles recorded their second Official Fan Club Christmas flexi-disc (“Another Beatles Christmas Record”, takes 1–5). This was the last original composition tracked for Beatles for Sale; all subsequent sessions were mixing or editing only. Note the change in 2E: A.B. Lincoln replaced Ken Scott / Mike Stone from the September sessions.¹
27 October 1964 (Tue) — mono + stereo mixing, EMI Studios, Studio Two (control room only) — Studio Two (control room only): 10.00am–12.30pm (mono); 12.30–1.00pm (stereo). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Mono mixing: What You’re Doing (from take 19) among six songs mixed in the morning session. Stereo mixing: What You’re Doing (from take 19) among five songs mixed in just thirty minutes. “There can’t be many albums released today containing five songs remixed for stereo in half an hour! By comparison with the time spent on the mono mixes it is clear which format was considered the most important in 1964.” Both mono and stereo mixes derive from take 19, the re-make master. The stereo mix follows the standard REDD.51 panning formula: Track 3 predominantly left, Track 4 predominantly right.^1,2
4 December 1964 (Fri) — LP release: Beatles for Sale — Parlophone PMC 1240 (mono) / PCS 3062 (stereo). What You’re Doing as track 13, side B. “The Beatles’ fourth LP in 21 months, and, of course, a top seller worldwide. While no one would classify the album as weak — no Beatles album could be appended with that particular label — it is generally regarded as their weakest piece of work, although perhaps this was not entirely their fault.”¹

“What You’re Doing” was to prove a somewhat problematical song and was later re-made. On this day the group taped only the rhythm track, take seven being documented as ‘best’.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Tea towel on Ringo’s snare — the technique that bridged original and re-make — Norman Smith’s practice of asking Ringo to drape a tea towel over his snare drum is photographically documented at the 30 September 1964 session. Smith described his sonic rationale: “I’ve always thought of sound in terms of colours and pictures. So, when I imagine the snare sound, I see it as a fruitcake, where you have 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. So, the overall sound would be a fairly thick sound with a nice crisp top. Think of it like that, and that’s the sound I wanted to try to get.” The technique was first documented on Beatles recordings “all the way back to 1963 and 1964” rather than the later period with which it is usually associated. For What You’re Doing, the towel sound is uniquely significant because it survived the re-make: “the final recording still bears the sound of the towel.” This means Smith requested or Ringo maintained the tea-towel setup at the 26 October re-make session nearly a month later, confirming it was considered part of the song’s identity.²
AKG D19c as drum overhead — the switch that lasted the rest of the Beatles’ career — The D19c was “an inexpensive dynamic microphone and was, incidentally, the very same model installed as the talkback mic on the new REDD.51 desk.” Its tighter cardioid pattern and brighter response relative to the STC 4038’s figure-of-eight “likely allowed Smith to compress the drums more heavily without simultaneously compressing — and therefore accentuating — the bass and electric guitar leakage. Whatever the motive behind the change, it was clearly a good choice.” The September 1964 sessions are the watershed: “the D19c would remain in constant use as a drum microphone for the remainder of the Beatles’ days at the studio.” Every drum recording from Rubber Soul through Abbey Road and Let It Be uses the D19c/D20 combination first established as permanent on the sessions that produced What You’re Doing.²
AKG D20 on bass drum — permanent replacement for the STC 4033-A — The D20 was also placed on Paul’s bass rig at this session. Smith “had used [the D20] at least once in 1963 during the session for ‘From Me To You’”, but the 1963 use was temporary. The 1964 switch was “for good, and — like the D19c — it would remain the preferred mic for recording bass drum for the remainder of the Beatles’ career.”²
U47/U48 vocal microphone unification — By September 1964, Abbey Road’s U47 microphones had been modified by Neumann 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’.” Photos from the 11 August 1964 Baby’s In Black session “show them using the newly-modified mics in this very way.” “For all intents and purposes, the U47s and U48s had become essentially the same microphones. Eventually, the balance engineers didn’t draw much distinction between the two either.”²
White Elephant speaker overdub technique — no headphones — “The Beatles never recorded with headphones during the first half of their recording career at Abbey Road.” Pre-recorded tracks were played through an RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker. “Norman Smith called again upon the figure-of-eight pattern of the Neumann microphones. By positioning the U47 or U48 so that its ‘dead’ side faced the speaker, a minimum of direct speaker sound was picked up by the mic.” For What You’re Doing, this technique was used during vocal overdubs onto Tracks 3 and 4 at both the original sessions and the re-make. The four-track layout shows vocals on Track 3 and vocals/piano/electric guitar on Track 4, indicating at least two overdub passes through the White Elephant monitoring chain. “If multiple overdubs took place, the leakage ‘stacked up’ and was accentuated” — the three-layer Track 4 (vocals + piano + electric guitar) would carry more cumulative speaker leakage than the vocal-only Track 3.²
Signal-chain routing — REDD.51 compressor/limiter assignment — “Each of the four Main Fader channels on the REDD.51 desk had an item of outboard gear inserted into it: Main Faders I and II always had RS124 Altec compressors inserted; III and IV always used the Fairchild 660 limiters.” On What You’re Doing, the deduced layout places drums and bass on Track 1 and guitars on Track 2 (both through RS124 compression), with vocals on Tracks 3–4 (through Fairchild 660 limiting). “Altecs were preferred for recording drums, bass and guitar, and since these instruments were usually recorded on Tracks 1 and 2, the Altecs were inserted into Main Faders I and II. The Fairchilds, on the other hand, were preferred for vocal recording, and since the vocals were usually recorded onto Tracks 3 and 4, the Fairchilds were inserted into Main Faders III and IV.”²
Echo chamber — dry recording established as standard practice in 1964 — “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.” For What You’re Doing, this dry-recording practice meant that the echo treatment heard on the released version was applied during the 27 October mixing session, not during any of the three tracking dates. The separation of recording and mixing gave Martin and Smith the flexibility to adjust echo levels independently for the mono and stereo mixes — a capability that proved especially useful for a song that had undergone such a long gestation, since echo decisions could be made with the benefit of hearing the final take 19 arrangement in context.²
Four-track era recording methodology — vocals overdubbed or live — “Whether vocals were recorded live or overdubbed seems to have been determined by the difficulty of the music and the band’s familiarity with the song; within a single session, the group might record live vocals for one song, but overdub vocals onto a backing track for another.” For What You’re Doing, the 29 September session’s rhythm-track-only approach and the four-track layout (vocals on Tracks 3 and 4, separate from instruments on Tracks 1 and 2) confirms that vocals were overdubbed after the backing track was laid down. This contrasts with some simpler songs recorded the same week where live vocals were captured alongside the backing. The overdub approach gave greater control over the vocal balance but required the White Elephant speaker playback system and its attendant leakage management. Ringo recalled the era: “Most of our early recordings were on three tracks, because we kept one track for overdubs. That also kept us together as a band — we played and played and played.”²
Double-tracking on Beatles for Sale originals — “Beatles For Sale only featured double-tracked vocals on half of its tracks. It is worth noting, though, 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.” The presence of vocals on both Tracks 3 and 4 of the What You’re Doing layout is consistent with double-tracked or harmony vocals — the arrangement may use a lead vocal on Track 3 with a double-tracked vocal and additional instruments on Track 4. The decision to include piano and electric guitar on Track 4 alongside vocals meant that the double-tracking and instrumental overdubs would be inseparable at mixdown, requiring careful balance decisions during the 27 October mixing session.²
Stereo-mix panning conventions — the Track 3/Track 4 formula — For Beatles for Sale stereo mixes prepared on the REDD.51, “the signal heard on the Left can usually be attributed to Track 3 and the sound on the Right to Track 4.” On the released stereo version of What You’re Doing, this places the lead vocal (Track 3) predominantly left and the backing vocals/piano/electric guitar overdub (Track 4) predominantly right. The denser Track 4 content means the right channel carries more instrumental variety than the left, giving the stereo mix an asymmetric character that differs from the centred-vocal mono.²
Four-track mixing — Norman Smith on the creative flexibility — “What [four-track] meant was that subsequently you could mix to whatever balance you wanted to finish up with. It gave you the flexibility to change — or for the producer at least — to change his mind afterwards as to how far forward, for instance, he would like the vocals to be, or any particular instrument. One could put Tone Control on afterwards… It was a great transitional period.” For What You’re Doing, this flexibility was critical: the re-make on 26 October could be mixed the very next day (27 October) with full control over the balance between drums/bass (Track 1), guitars (Track 2), lead vocal (Track 3), and the complex Track 4 blend — adjustments that would have been impossible on the twin-track recordings of 1963.²

Releases

1964 UK mono LP Beatles for Sale (4 December 1964, Parlophone PMC 1240, side B track 6 / overall track 13) — Released mono master from the 27 October 1964 mixing session (from take 19), mixed in Studio Two control room (P: George Martin, E: Norman Smith, 2E: Ken Scott). The mono mix was prepared as part of a batch of six songs in a single morning session. “While no one would classify the album as weak — no Beatles album could be appended with that particular label — it is generally regarded as their weakest piece of work, although perhaps this was not entirely their fault.” The penultimate track on the album, What You’re Doing sits between Every Little Thing and Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby (the album closer). George Harrison recalled the album’s reliance on familiar material: “For this album we rehearsed only the new ones. Songs like ‘Honey Don’t’ and ‘Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby’, we’d played live so often that we only had to get a sound on them and do them.” K/R contextualises the album’s critical reception: “Considered by many to be their ‘weakest’ LP, this is a criticism due in large part to the album’s reliance on a number of older rock-and-roll covers. Though the Beatles’ first two LPs also had their fair share of covers, the use of them here might have been viewed as a bit of a letdown in light of A Hard Day’s Night’s wealth of originals.”^1,2
1964 UK stereo LP Beatles for Sale (4 December 1964, Parlophone PCS 3062, side B track 6 / overall track 13) — Stereo master from take 19, mixed 27 October 1964 in Studio Two control room as part of a batch of five songs mixed in just thirty minutes. The stereo image follows the standard 1964 panning convention: “the signal heard on the Left can usually be attributed to Track 3 [lead vocal] and the sound on the Right to Track 4 [backing vocals, piano, electric guitar].” “There can’t be many albums released today containing five songs remixed for stereo in half an hour! By comparison with the time spent on the mono mixes it is clear which format was considered the most important in 1964.”^1,2
1965 UK EP Beatles for Sale (No. 2) (4 June 1965, Parlophone GEP 8938) — Four-track EP featuring I’ll Follow the Sun, Baby’s in Black, Words of Love, and Every Little Thing. What You’re Doing was not included on either Beatles for Sale EP — it appeared exclusively on the LP until the 2009 Remasters. The track’s omission from the EPs (which selected commercially accessible tracks) may reflect the song’s relatively experimental character within the album.¹
2009 Stereo Remasters — Beatles for Sale (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1964 stereo master, with the original Track-3-left / Track-4-right panning conventions preserved. The companion Mono Masters release carries the 1964 mono master. No documented remix for either 2009 release — the original 1964 masters were transferred flat.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 49, 51–53.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 370, 373–74, 376–77, 380–81, 384–85, 389.

Frequently asked

Who wrote What You’re Doing?

“What You’re Doing” is credited to Paul McCartney (Lennon–McCartney).

Who sings lead on What You’re Doing?

The lead vocal on “What You’re Doing” is by Paul McCartney.

When was What You’re Doing recorded?

“What You’re Doing” was recorded across three sessions: 29 September 1964 (takes 1–7), 30 September 1964 (takes 8–12), and a re-make on 26 October 1964 (takes 13–19). The mono and stereo mixes were prepared on 27 October 1964.¹

How many takes did What You’re Doing require?

Nineteen — Lewisohn’s session log documents takes 1–19 across three sessions, with take 19 (from the 26 October re-make) as the released master.¹

On this page

Story

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked