For No One

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Recording

• Two Beatles and a horn player. Recording began in Studio Two on Monday 9 May 1966, 7.00–11.00pm, with George Martin producing, Geoff Emerick engineering and Phil McDonald assisting. Ten takes of the piano-and-drums rhythm track came first, Paul at the piano and Ringo on the kit. “There was no role for either John or George in the recording of ‘For No One’.” Everything else was built on the tenth take over the next ten days: a clavichord and extra percussion that same night, Paul’s lead vocal on 16 May, and on 19 May a French horn from Alan Civil, then Paul’s bass and Ringo’s tambourine.^1,2
• A voice sped up on replay. Paul sang his lead onto take 10 on 16 May, “recorded at 47½ cycles to make it faster on replay”. With the tape running slow while he sang, the vocal comes back at normal speed “more than a semitone” higher than he sang it. That same evening the four-track tape was reduced, take 10 into takes 13 and 14, to make room for what was still to come.^1,2
• The drums that went missing. Take 10 carried “particularly prominent drums” on a track of their own. In the reduction the piano, clavichord, maracas and hi-hat were combined on one track and the vocal on another, and “Ringo’s original drum track (perhaps deemed a bit too heavy-handed) was mixed completely out.” The kit heard on the first ten takes is not on the finished record. What remains of Ringo is the maracas and hi-hat folded in with the keyboards, and the tambourine he added on 19 May.²
• A solo made up in the studio. Alan Civil, a principal orchestral horn player (the sources name different orchestras; see Studio Notes), was called by George Martin and played to the track as it stood. Paul’s brief was loose: “We want something there. Can you play something that fits in?” Civil invented a baroque-style part in the middle register on the spot. Geoff Emerick remembers that “Alan was under a lot of pressure doing that overdub”, because the high note in the solo was so hard to hit.^1,3
• Mixed twice, never edited. The song was mixed to mono on 6 June (remixes 1–6) and again on 21 June (remixes 7 and 8), and to stereo on 21 June (remix 1), every time from take 14. Taxman and Doctor Robert, mixed in the same Studio Three afternoon, both needed editing; For No One did not. Revolver came out in Britain on 5 August 1966 with the song third on side two.^1,4

Equipment

Recording Timeline

• 9 May 1966 (Monday) — recording, Studio Two, 7.00–11.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. Takes 1–10. “The first nine consisted of the rhythm track only, Paul playing piano and Ringo the drums.” Take 10, judged the best, had the drums on track 1 and the piano on track 2. On track 3 Paul then added a clavichord, “hired, at a cost of five guineas, from George Martin’s AIR company”, and Ringo more percussion. Which percussion is a small conflict: “cymbals and maraca” in Lewisohn, “maracas and hi-hat” in Kehew and Ryan.^1,2
• 16 May 1966 (Monday) — vocal overdub and tape reduction, Studio Two, 2.30pm–1.30am. Same producer and engineers. Recording: SI onto take 10, “tape reduction take 10 into takes 13 and 14”. Paul’s lead vocal went on track 4 with the machine running at 47.5 cycles a second. The reduction then mixed the drums out and freed two tracks; no takes 11 or 12 appear on the sheet. The same long session gave Taxman its “One, two, three, four” count-in and made tape copies of Love You To (still called Granny Smith) and Tomorrow Never Knows (still Mark I).^1,2
• 19 May 1966 (Thursday) — overdubs, Studio Three, 7.00–11.00pm. Same producer and engineers. Recording: SI onto take 14. Three days after the reduction, Alan Civil’s horn went onto one of the two free tracks; then “Paul and Ringo then returned to the song, recording bass and tambourine on the remaining track.” The Beatles had spent most of the day in the much larger Studio One, shooting promotional film clips for the next single, Paperback Writer and Rain.^1,2
• 6 June 1966 (Monday) — mono mixing, Studio Three control room, 7.00pm–midnight. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. Mono remixes 1–6 from take 14, in an evening that also mixed And Your Bird Can Sing, I’m Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows and made a tape copy of I Want To Tell You. None of these six mixes is the one on the album; the released mono dates from 21 June.^1,4
• 21 June 1966 (Tuesday) — mono and stereo mixing, Studio Three control room, 2.30–6.30pm. Same producer and engineers. Mono remixes 7 and 8 and stereo remix 1, all from take 14, in an afternoon shared with Doctor Robert and Taxman. The only editing logged that afternoon was for those two songs. Both released 1966 mixes of For No One were made here, though which of the two mono remixes became the master is not on record.^1,4

Studio Notes

• A record made around two absences. Nobody but Paul, Ringo and Alan Civil plays on For No One: “There was no role for either John or George in the recording”. It was “recorded fairly simply over three recording” sessions. The second absence came later and on purpose: the drum kit, which carried the first ten takes, was taken out at the reduction. The finished track is a keyboard bed, a voice, a horn and a bass, with only light percussion holding the time, and that sparseness is a decision made on 16 May, not the way the song was first played.^1,2
• Four tracks into two. Reduction mixes became routine in 1966: “14 of the 18 songs recorded that year were at some point bounced to a second four-track tape.” For No One is one of three songs, with Yellow Submarine and I Want To Tell You, that “all had their four full tracks bounced down to two before receiving another round” of overdubs. Here that meant four tracks (drums, piano, clavichord and percussion, vocal) going to two, with the drums dropped on the way. Every later mix starts from take 14, so no mix of the song can restore them.²
• Varispeed on the vocal. The vocal was taped at 47.5 cycles a second, a little slower than the machine’s normal running speed, so that on playback it comes out faster and higher, by more than a semitone. A table of the group’s varispeed use lists the For No One lead vocal at 47.5 among the Revolver examples. As the technical engineer Graham Kirkby explained the technique, it can give sounds “that are still perfectly recognisable, yet somehow different”, which is the point of using it on a voice: the singer is still plainly Paul, but the tone has shifted. No other part of the song is recorded as varispeeded, and the vocal was taped before the reduction, so the speed change is fixed into take 14.^1,2
• In the cracks. Civil was played a track “which was complete”, and found its pitch awkward. It was, he says, “in the cracks”, “neither B-flat nor B-major. This posed a certain difficulty in tuning my instrument.” So he had to pitch his part to a backing that did not lie on either key. He did not even have the title right: “I thought the song was called ‘For Number One’”. Civil does not say why the track sat between keys; the sheets record the varispeed on the vocal, and nothing about the speed of the backing.¹
• Each take erased the last. Civil’s solo was not assembled from the best moments of several passes. “I played it several times, each take wiping out the previous attempt”, so what is on the record is simply his last attempt, recorded straight onto one of the two tracks the reduction had freed. Geoff Emerick’s memory of the overdub fits that method: Civil was under real pressure, “because it was so hard to hit the high note in the solo”, and with each new take overwriting the old one, a cracked note meant starting again rather than keeping a safe version in reserve.^1,3
• Which orchestra. The two accounts of Alan Civil disagree about where he played. Lewisohn calls him the principal horn player in the Philharmonia; Emerick has him “formerly of the London Philharmonic and then the principal horn player of the BBC Symphony Orchestra”. Both agree he was a principal horn player with a classical background, brought in for one evening to add a single solo. The page gives both readings and does not choose between them, since neither source dates his appointments.^1,3
• A dry record with a touch of chamber. Geoff Emerick “made very little use of the studio’s echo chambers” on Revolver, and “On the whole, Revolver was an extremely dry album”. For No One is one of the exceptions: it is named with Here, There And Everywhere, Yellow Submarine and Good Day Sunshine as one of only a few tracks on the album with any appreciable chamber applied to the vocals. So the reverb on Paul’s voice stands out against the album’s otherwise close, dry sound.²
• Music left and right, voice in the middle. “Many of Emerick’s 1966 stereo mixes followed the standard music-Left-and-Right/vocals-Centre approach that Norman Smith had been so fond of before Rubber Soul”, and For No One is one of the songs named as following it. In the 21 June stereo the instruments are split to the two sides with the voice between them. The mono of the same afternoon puts everything in one place, which suits a track with so few parts. Both mixes come from take 14, so neither has drums.²

Releases

Every released mix of For No One comes from take 14, so none of them has the drum kit that was mixed out in the reduction. The two 1966 mixes were made on the same afternoon; the 2022 edition added the first new mix and the backing of take 10.

• 1966 UK mono LP — Revolver (5 August 1966, Parlophone PMC 7009, side B track 3) — piano, clavichord, horn, bass and voice in one centred image, with a little chamber on the voice; mixed on 21 June. The sparseness of the track comes through most directly here.
• 1966 UK stereo LP — Revolver (5 August 1966, Parlophone PCS 7009, side B track 3) — instruments split to the two sides with Paul’s voice in the middle, made the same afternoon as the mono (see Studio Notes).
• 1966 US LP — Revolver (8 August 1966, Capitol T-2576 mono / ST-2576 stereo, side B track 2) — the same two 1966 mixes. The shorter American album moves the song up to second on side two.
• 1987 CD — Revolver (EMI CDP 7 46441 2) — the 1966 stereo, the first digital issue of the song.
• 2009 CD — Revolver (Parlophone 99458 2) — the 1966 mono back in print, the centred mix of 21 June.
• 2022 — Revolver Special Edition (28 October 2022, Apple) — a new stereo and Dolby Atmos mix by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, using de-mixing technology developed by Emile de la Rey’s team at Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films; the original mono master is included. The sessions disc adds “For No One (Take 10) – Backing track”, the tape from before the reduction (see Recording Timeline).

Sources

1. Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 78–79, 82, 84, 200–201.
2. Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 293, 422, 426, 429–31.
3. Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), ch. 7.
4. Joseph Brennan, Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations (rev. edn.), “For No One” entries.

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