Day Fifty Three : Wednesday 27th July 2005
Today followed a similar pattern as yesterday. Vocal comp on ‘Something’s Got To Give’, then some last guitar overdubs and then onto the mix. The main thing to worry about is about having backing vocals or not. ‘B.V.’s’ as they are known, can make a track sound soft and as this is a hard beast we decided to leave it alone. The mix all came together about 4.30 p.m. James cames back from London after the mix was put down and he wasn’t too happy about the mix of the guitars and some of the last minute overdubs. We all thought it sounded great but James was pretty forthright about it so we are going to try and make up some time so that we can revisit the track by the end of Friday. John Leckie called by and regaled us with stories of his sessions with the Stone Roses and recording ‘Ernie’ (He Drove The Fastest Milk Cart In The West) with Benny Hill! Very funny. We moved onto ‘Be Still’ in the evening and while George and Martin went for a meal, James and I worked out all the guitar parts and even recorded some while they were away. When they came back from the restaurant, we only had to fix a few little things. I keep pouring over the lyrics. as there has been one line added from the bond version I have been working up an extra line, very difficult. I’ve got two ideas, one is a blues take on the lyric which means repeating the second line at the fourth phrase. Tthe other is a new line all together. We shall see. When I got to the mic position. I started to sing the song and even on the first run through it all started to come together. I even sang a final line to the verse that just came out of me as I couldn’t remember / see what I was supposed to be singing. George encouraged me to sing the high part of the vocal in falsetto. It all started to work really well. We added a few harmonies to the outro of the song and then we had the job of comping the vocals. I leave it to George and Martin, I had sang the song through a number of times and their job is to choose the best lines for phrasing and tuning. It is a job that can take quite a while and is often quite laborious. I like to leave this job to others and then have a listen to a complete take and if there is a line I don’t like then I will either re-sing it or choose a line from an earlier take.
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