Helter Skelter

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Overview

Background

Pattern analysis

Recording

Mix variants & recording techniques

Documented mix variants

• 1968 UK mono LP The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple/Parlophone PMC 7067–7068) — Mono remix 1 from take 21, made 17 September 1968 in Studio Two by P: Chris Thomas, E: Ken Scott, 2E: Mike Sheady (Lewisohn 1988, p. 155). Duration 3:36. The song is simply faded out at the end — no fade-back-in, no Ringo “blisters” outburst (Lewisohn p. 154 explicit note; Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497). The Repeat Echo on Ringo’s overdubbed snare track is “quite audible” on the mono, with both drum tracks mixed forward, and the John Lennon saxophone / Mal Evans trumpet track is “more prominent in the mono mix” than in the stereo (Kehew & Ryan, printed p. 497).
• 1968 UK stereo LP The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple/Parlophone PCS 7067–7068) — Stereo remix made on 12 October 1968 (Lewisohn 1988, p. 154 explicit note). Duration 4:29 — “nearly a full minute longer than the mono mix” (Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497). “The length was extended to 4:29 by fading the song back in after the fade out (much like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’). As a result, only the stereo mix features Ringo’s shouted complaint” (Kehew & Ryan, printed p. 497). On the stereo mix, the drum track with Repeat Echo on the snare is “mixed almost completely out and can just barely be heard panned hard-Left” (Kehew & Ryan, same page). The line “you may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer” at 1:12 has Repeat Echo applied to the vocal “just for that one line” in the stereo, prompted by Paul’s subtle Elvis impression on the line (Kehew & Ryan, same page).
• Anthology 3 (28 October 1996, Apple) — Post-Lewisohn release. Per the site’s less-specific-when-uncertain principle (Lewisohn’s 1988 text predates Anthology 3 by eight years), this entry flags the variant’s existence without making claims beyond what the compilation’s own liner notes establish.
• 2009 Stereo Remasters and The Beatles 50th-Anniversary edition (9 November 2018, Apple) — Post-Lewisohn variants. The 2018 Giles Martin / Sam Okell stereo remix returns to the original 9 September 1968 eight-track tape and rebalances the drums, vocals, and sax/trumpet relative to the 1968 mix. Documented in the album’s official liner notes rather than in the primary-source canon; flagged here for completeness.

Recording techniques

• 18 July 1968 — first session, three extended takes — Studio Two, 10.30pm–3.30am. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: Richard Lush. Three takes recorded: take 1 lasted 10′40″, take 2 12′35″, take 3 “an epic 27′11″, the longest ever Beatles recording” (Lewisohn 1988, p. 143, quoted directly). “All three versions were similar: drums, bass, lead and rhythm guitars played live, positively no overdubs, with a very heavy drum sound, heavy guitars and a magnificent vocal delivery by Paul, with — surprisingly — all but identical lyrics to the re-made version” (Lewisohn p. 143). One of the takes developed into a jam that went into and back out of a bizarre version of Blue Moon. These three takes remain unreleased — Lewisohn describes them as “essentially rehearsals” for a song that ultimately did not need their length.
• 18 July 1968 — live tape echo and the “bllllrrrrippppp” rewind — Technical engineer Brian Gibson on the session: “They recorded the long versions of ‘Helter Skelter’ with live tape echo. Echo would normally be added at remix stage otherwise it can’t be altered, but this time they wanted it live. One of the versions of ‘Helter Skelter’ developed into a jam which went into and then back out of a somewhat bizarre version of ‘Blue Moon’. The problem was, although we were recording them at 15 ips — which meant that we’d get roughly half an hour of time on the tape — the machine we were running for the tape echo was going at 30 ips, in other words 15 minutes. We were sitting up there in the control room … looking at this tape echo about to run out. The Beatles were jamming away, completely oblivious to the world and we didn’t know what to do because they all had foldback in their headphones so that they could hear the echo. We knew that if we stopped it they would notice. In the end we decided that the best thing to do was stop the tape echo machine and rewind it. So at one point the echo suddenly stopped and you could hear bllllrrrrippppp as it was spooled back. This prompted Paul to put in some kind of clever vocal improvisation based around the chattering sound!” (Brian Gibson, Lewisohn 1988, p. 143, quoted directly).
• 9 September 1968 — the released-version re-make — Studio Two, 7.00pm–2.30am. P: Chris Thomas. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. Recording: ‘Helter Skelter’ [re-make] (takes 4–21) (Lewisohn 1988, p. 154). George Martin was on holiday; his assistant Chris Thomas filled in. Eighteen takes of the basic track at the standard 3–4 minute length, with Ringo on drums, John on bass, and Paul and George on electric guitars (Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497). Take 21 was selected as “best”.
• 9 September 1968 — the “mad session” — Lewisohn p. 154 records Brian Gibson’s account: “The version on the album was out of control. They were completely out of their heads that night. But, as usual, a blind eye was turned to what the Beatles did in the studio.” Chris Thomas adds (Lewisohn p. 154): “While Paul was doing his vocal, George Harrison had set fire to an ashtray and was running around the studio with it above his head, doing an Arthur Brown! All in all, a pretty undisciplined session, you could say!” (Both quotes verbatim.) Lewisohn describes the released-version line-up bluntly (p. 154): “a song in which John played bass guitar and, of all things, a decidedly unskilled saxophone, Mal Evans played an equally amateurish trumpet, there were two lead guitars, heavy drums, a piano, built-in distortion and feedback, backing vocals from John and George, various mutterings and — the icing on the cake — a supremely raucous Paul McCartney lead vocal.”
• 10 September 1968 — overdubs onto take 21 — Studio Two, 7.00pm–3.00am. P: Chris Thomas. E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith. Recording: ‘Helter Skelter’ (SI onto take 21). Paul recorded his “scorching lead vocal” on one track; group backing vocals were recorded onto another; Ringo recorded a second drum performance with Repeat Echo applied to the snare; George’s original electric guitar track was wiped and replaced with new guitar including the descending part heard after each time Paul sings the words “Helter Skelter” during the choruses, “likely played simultaneously by Paul and George on two guitars”; recorded along with these guitars was a snare overdub on the off-beats; George’s lead-guitar solo was also recorded onto this track but without the snare overdub continuing through (Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497, quoted directly). John’s unproficient saxophone and Mal Evans’s amateurish trumpet were overdubbed onto a single track: the saxophone first appears briefly at 1:31, with both sax and trumpet most clearly audible at 3:24 (Kehew & Ryan, same page). A spot of piano was overdubbed on the same track (audible only on the stereo mix) and more trumpet was layered onto the backing vocal track.
• 10 September 1968 — Ringo’s “blisters on my fingers” outburst — At the end of the trumpet overdub, close listening reveals a bit of laughter followed by a voice (possibly John’s) asking, “How’s that?”; this is immediately followed on the drum track by Ringo screaming “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” (Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497). Lewisohn p. 154 frames the moment as the song’s arrival point: “Having drummed as if his life depended on it, his ‘I’ve got blisters on my fingers!’ scream was preserved as the song’s great climax” (verbatim). The outburst is preserved only on the stereo mix; the mono fades out before the fade-back-in passage that carries Ringo’s shout.
• Eight-track tape layout of take 21 after overdubs — Kehew & Ryan 2006 (A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497) records the layout as: T1 Bass; T2 Drums; T3 Electric Guitar; T4 Electric Guitar (with Snare Overdub and Guitar Solo); T5 Lead Vocal; T6 Backing Vocals (with Trumpet); T7 Drum Overdub; T8 Trumpet, Saxophone, and Piano. The session was the second Beatles song recorded onto EMI’s newly installed 3M M23 eight-track machine (after While My Guitar Gently Weeps) — Lewisohn p. 153 dates the 8-track liberation to 3 September 1968.
• 17 September 1968 — mono remix (the 3:36 version) — Studio Two, 7.00pm–5.00am. P: Chris Thomas. E: Ken Scott. 2E: Mike Sheady. Mono mixing: ‘Helter Skelter’ (remix 1, from take 21) (Lewisohn 1988, p. 155). Lewisohn p. 155 makes the session’s outcome explicit: “‘Helter Skelter’ was remixed for mono on this day in the aforementioned manner of ending the song at 3′36″ rather than the full length 4′29″” (verbatim). The mono remix is the released mono LP version — Lewisohn’s wording (“aforementioned manner”) refers back to the p. 154 mono/stereo divergence note attached to the 9 September session.
• 12 October 1968 — stereo remix (the 4:29 version with fade-back-in) — Studio Two (control room only), 7.00pm–5.45am. Stereo mixing: ‘Helter Skelter’ (remixes 1–5, from take 21). P: George Martin (back from holiday). E: Ken Scott. 2E: John Smith (Lewisohn 1988, p. 161 session header; cf. p. 154 explicit divergence-note dating the stereo remix to 12 October 1968). The stereo remix preserves the full 4:29 length by fading the song back in after the apparent fade-out — the structural quotation Kehew & Ryan compare to Strawberry Fields Forever’s coda (Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497). The two competing engineering recollections of the decision are preserved as parallel accounts per §1 source-conflict discipline.
• Ken Scott’s recollection of the stereo fade-back-in — “I remember mixing it with Paul, and at the end he was saying, ‘OK, down, down, down…’ I got it down, then he said, ‘OK, now bring it up again!’ Then, afterwards, I was saying, ‘But that’s the same as the mono’, because I was used to doing the mixes as close to the mono as possible. He said, ‘No, we like to mix them up a bit, because then fans will buy both the mono and the stereo, because they love to let us know how they’re different!’” (Ken Scott, Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497, quoted directly).
• Chris Thomas’s alternative recollection — “When we were sequencing the album right at the end, it had to be mixed again. I was listening to the running orders with John while Paul was in there remixing the song with Ken Scott as engineer. Ken came in and said, ‘Paul’s gone to sleep. You’ve got to come and help me.’ And when we did the mix, we faded out and just faded it back up again and sort of left it. Then we said, ‘Yeah, it’s all right. That goes on.’” (Chris Thomas, Kehew & Ryan 2006, A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497, quoted directly). The Ken Scott and Chris Thomas accounts are not directly compatible — one has Paul awake and directing the fade-back-in as a deliberate mono/stereo differentiator, the other has Paul asleep mid-remix and Thomas arriving as a substitute. Per §1, both are presented; the page does not pick a side.
• The Repeat Echo asymmetry on the drums — Kehew & Ryan 2006 (A Closer Look: 9 September 1968, printed p. 497) is explicit on a non-length difference: “In the stereo mix, the drum track that had been recorded with Repeat Echo on the snare is mixed almost completely out and can just barely be heard panned hard-Left. On the mono mix, both drum tracks are mixed forward, and the Repeat Echo on the snare is quite audible.” The saxophone/trumpet track is also “more prominent in the mono mix.” A subtler stereo-only detail: the line “you may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer” at 1:12 has Repeat Echo applied to the vocal for that one line in the stereo — per K/R p. 497 this “may have been prompted by the subtle Elvis impression Paul does on that line (the echo being reminiscent of the famous slap-back echo used on many of Presley’s early albums)” (speculative framing in K/R preserved per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain).

Legacy & release history

Mono & stereo

• Both mono and stereo mixes were prepared; the UK mono White Album (PMC 7067/8) has many distinct edits, mixes and effects vs. the stereo (PCS 7067/8) — collectors prize the mono.

Documented alternate versions

• Anthology 3 (1996) — alternate take or demo
• Mono Masters (2009 box) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey remaster
• White Album 50th Anniversary (2018) — Giles Martin stereo remix

Released on

• The Beatles (White Album) — LP, 22 November 1968

Cross-references

Other songs sharing themes (proto-metal, blisters, manson-misappropriation, outrock-the-who)

Other songs led by the same vocalist

Other songs from this era

proto-metalblistersmanson-misappropriationoutrock-the-who

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