Harrison added an Indian tambura part to the final verse, which further accentuates this impact. These heavily accented and repetitive lines cause the song to sound as if it is based on a drone. George Martin plays Pianet and piano, on the latter bypassing the keyboard and directly striking the strings. It moves forward by way of regular chords, produced by Lennon and George Harrison's electric guitar. There is a happy ending for Dick James, he offered to publish Please, Please Me and became the Beatles song publisher – forming Northern Songs especially for the band.The song has been said to be musically reminiscent of the Beatles' hit single " Penny Lane". Dick James recalled getting a phone call from Martin which started “You know that song the Beatles *were* going to release?”
George Martin, to his credit, let them record their own song.
The Beatles offered up Please, Please Me instead. He had given a song (How Do You Do It?) to George Martin for the Beatles, which the Beatles hated. The aforementioned Dick James became a music publisher when baldness ended his singing career. A year later, he was one of the most famous producers in the world. So, when Please, Please Me was being recorded Martin was the most junior producer in EMI (he was the youngest, and Parlophone, Martin’s label, was the smallest). Before that his only “hit” had been the Robin Hood theme tune, sung by Dick James. His highest placed record, before Please, Please Me was Love Me Do – but that only reached number 17. George Martin was known as a producer of comedy and novelty records. A big moment for the Beatles, but also for George Martin himself.
To this day, the effect is called flanging – some people claim that it is named after pressing the flange wheel on a reel to reel tape deck, but if you tried that on a professional tape deck, you’d lose a finger!Īfter recording Please, Please Me, Martin was able to tell the Beatles, “Congratulations Gentlemen, you have recorded your first number one”. George Martin gave him a pseudoscientific explanation (“There’s feedback on the sploshing flange”) and after that, Lennon started calling the affect “Ken’s Flanger” and said in interview that “Every track on Sgt Pepper had flanging, it’s great!” Lennon loved the effect but not being in the least bit technical, had no chance of understanding the technique involved. The singer would sing the part once, and then a copy made and played along side the original with a slight, varying delay – the affect was double tracked vocals without having to sing the part twice. With this in mind, Ken Townsend – EMI engineer “had an idea” driving home after such a session. Lennon, in particular, didn’t like singing the same thing twice – it was obviously important that exactly the same words and phrasing were used, making such sessions tedious and tiring. Double tracked vocals (where the singer sings the same part twice) became popular when 4 track recording arrived – quite late at Abbey Road, around 1964. In fact, it was almost certainly the first track anywhere to deliberately use the effect. Tomorrow Never Knows was the first Beatles track to use artificial double tracking (ADT).