1998 Article on the recording of The Beatles 'Real Love' and 'Now & Then'

From Good Day Sunshine magazine, #83.

Regarding the edits and sequencing of "Real Love," Jeff Lynne was the producer. We made decisions together and presented them to The Beatles. If they liked them, they were kept; if they wanted changes, they were made. "Real Love" was really a "quick afterthought" (i.e. we worked on preparing "Now & Then" for two weeks and then were just doing "Real Love" for the last 2 1/2 days before Jeff went to England; it was just "try a second one"). With "Now & Then," we were creating the method and trying to see what could be done with the material and technology we had.

As for the pitch, as Jeff Lynne says: "The Beatles VSO'd (Variable Speed Operation) all the time for specific effect - they were the original tape manipulators." Also the universe provided us with the cassette as it was. We cleaned it up and arranged it, and it seemed to work really well. We did try changing pitch and it made the song seem less "bright." And as pitch is a relative thing, it didn't really seem to matter if it was at a concert frequency. Most people don't notice and don't care. What you do hear is the character and tone of the vocal and the music around it. And the pitch was not a whole step sharper. It was in between, maybe a quarter tone up.

In short, yes, they liked it the way it was, and as Paul and George had their instruments tuned up a bit, they liked the sound and were very excited about the song. Paul liked how his vocal blended in with the "prepared vocal," and George could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the song. On playback after they recorded a run through, Ringo said "It sounds like The Beatles..."

As for how "Now & Then" sounds, well, think of a White Album cut blended with Abbey Road type orchestra, a bit of added drums for a beat, stronger piano, acoustic guitar in spots, and a mockup sample orchestra. And by the way, one of the things that takes so much time is on this one we kept the Lennon piano between phrases, and clocked the whole thing to a steady beat - each vocal phrase, and each piano phrase, which was slightly manipulated to match a solid tempo - which is one of the things that keeps "Real Love" sounding good too.

As for John Lennon's intentions, that's a whole philosophical area that can be discussed forever. Did he ever intend the world to hear these at all? If he had, would he have recorded them better? With an in-tune piano? I think he would be pleased with "Real Love" as it was released on Anthology 2, and i'm grateful to have been a part of helping make that happen.

Maybe someday "Now & Then" will see the light of day. I hope so, since I'd love to hear it completed as well. and in the light of the passing of Linda McCartney recently, hearing Paul sing the chorus along with John would be very moving:

"Now and then, I miss you......"

Marc Mann

 

Interesting read, thanks! Has any of the work they did on 'Now & Then (or 10)' ever surface? Also, I recall they scraped work on this because of they couldn't get rid of a bad buzzing tone from the core cassette recording.

Todd

P.S. It would've been nice of Yoko to have maybe given them some studio tapes of some of his work but maybe she was saving stuff for the Lennon Anthology. I wouldn't have minded if they revamped some of the stuff from that was used on 'Milk and Honey' or anything else...

 

I think it would have been great if they had done a Threetles/John Lennon version of 'Nobody Told Me' if John's version of this song hadn't been released, because it does sound quite 'Beatley', more so than FAAB and Real Love anyway.

 

Yeah! I heard that Free As A Bird and Real Love were taken from third generation cassette dubs.

 

Mandrake, I agree. I guess time and what had since been released dictated a lot of these things... Or maybe they could've contacted Fred Seaman for other tons of unreleased stuff he most likely stole. The stories I've heard about how all the theives & vultures snatched things from their home shortly after his death is just so sad and unfortunate. I feel very bad for Yoko for what so must have been going through during those times. I think sometimes people forget that "they" were just people who had very interesting lives. God, that must have been such an awful and painful time for her...

 

I thought the same thing mandrake. The released version was never finished anyway. It could've been killer with Paul, George and Ringo polishing it off.

But, I'm guilty of triple fantasy here.

 

I've had a copy of 'Now and Then' since the 80's (Off of Lost Lennon Tapes) but when I read in the 90's the Threetles were going to do the ala Buddy Holly work on it, I kept thinking of the Elvis "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" recording. I knew they meant the Lennon demo but I kept hearing Lennon & McCartney doing the vocals in baritone in my head (The "Now & then" section). Memories....

Todd

 

Really? I wonder why Yoko didn't give them the lowest generation tapes? It would have made Lynne's job a lot easier and the audio quality of John's vocals would obviously have been much better.

 

I'll check my facts but I remember thinking exactly the same thing you said. It's possible that John made copies for himself and the originals got lost.

I'm remembering now - Jeff Lynne guessed that they were copies because there was more hiss and distortion present than he would have expected from the original cassette.

 

A lot of cassettes were stolen after John's death. The famous one is another version of 'Grow Old With Me' that I think Yoko has said was a better home recording performance.

If I remember that story correctly, Yoko slipped Paul the cassettes at the Waldorf during the Hall of Fame inductions (I think) in '94. I read somewhere that Paul was very grateful for the tapes but seriuosly questioned the quality of them and was not very, very clear about Yoko's intentions (a little suspicious). Those two (McCartney & Yoko) "love" each other...

Todd

 

I would "imagine"(Lennon pun there)that Yoko, after having lost so many of John's private recordings, did not want to take any chance, even with John's oldest collaborators.

So, she had dubs made and didn't tell them she had done that. Simpl.

 

I think Paul knew he was getting copies. Do you think she handed him 3 or 4 vintage 1980 audio cassetes with John's handwritting and peanut butter & Jelly stains on the labels and other stuff recorded before and after the songs on these tapes. Can you "imagine", Paul, Ringo, George, Jeff Lynne, Geoff, gathered together in a studio (with a candle lit) and hit play. Tape 1 is John saying (and also singing/talking like Sinatra) "Okay, I need to go to remember to stop at the supermarket before picking up some new strings, burp! Damn, I just spilled my wine on the white carpet, Y will be pissed, where did I leave my keys?? Damn, I got to take a crap.". Tape 2: John is doing a Dylan impersonation (oh we heard that on a later release). Tape 3: John is making farting noises with his hands, the cat is clawing the little microphone, Sean is crying, Thunder can be heard in the background, John is ready to play 'Real Love', "Okay, Real Love take 3 or 4, All the little girls and boyz, playing with their little... wait a minute? What time is it? It's 4:30, People's Court...."

Todd