Paul McCartney; Ryan and Kehew list it among “Paul’s traditional” Trident songs. Like all the Lennon–McCartney catalogue it is credited Lennon/McCartney (Ryan & Kehew p.332).

Honey Pie

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Oct 1968
Length	2:41
Key	G
Noted Takes	1
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Barry Sheffield

Originally released on

The Beatles (White Album)

Apple [Parlophone] — PMC 7067/8

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"Honey Pie" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their 1968 double album The Beatles. The song was written entirely by Paul and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership.

Honey Pie is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul and led on vocal by Paul. 1920s pastiche complete with shellac scratch; brass arrangement by George Martin. Within the catalogue, its brass thread connects it to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Good Morning Good Morning, Magical Mystery Tour. Paul's music-hall pastiche employed orchestral arrangement, vintage recording techniques, and theatrical vocal delivery to create 1920s-inflected novelty number that celebrated pre-rock popular music traditions. The track's elaborate orchestration and retro aesthetic represented deliberate stylistic pastiche, with Paul's sophisticated appreciation for jazz-age songwriting and popular-music history. The song demonstrated the White Album's stylistic eclecticism and Paul's compositional range. Paul's Honey Pie captured the sound of the 1920s, a music-hall pastiche of Hollywood starlet fantasies and period-accurate stylization. (Kozinn 1995, p.183)

The session work falls within the band's The White Album (1968) period, recorded 1 Oct 1968 at EMI Studios + Trident Studios (Soho). George Martin (with Chris Thomas covering) produced; Ken Scott (early), Geoff Emerick walked off — replaced engineered. For session-by-session detail, see Mark Lewisohn's account on p.150 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). Recorded with substantial orchestral arrangement arranged by George Martin, 'Honey Pie' featured Paul's vocals supported by large ensemble instrumentation including brass, woodwinds, and rhythmic accompaniment. Multiple recording sessions allowed for careful orchestral overdubs and vocal refinements, with careful microphone technique necessary to capture ensemble tonal qualities. Vintage recording techniques were employed to achieve period-appropriate sonic character. Large ensemble instrumentation required careful microphone technique and precise level management during multiple recording sessions to capture tonal qualities without distortion. (Emerick 2006) Honey Pie's orchestral arrangement, arranged by George Martin, employs brass, woodwinds, and rhythmic accompaniment with vintage recording techniques for period-appropriate 1920s sonic character. (MacDonald 1994, p.136)

captured the sound of the 1920s, music-hall pastiche.- Kozinn, Phaidon 1995, p.183

The tape was taken away and I've never heard of it since." Nor has anyone else, for unless the song resurfaced later with different lyrics, it is certainly unreleased to this day. The second off-the-cuff McCartney recording was included in The Beatles: a ditty titled `Wild Honey Pie'. In October Paul would record…— Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, p.150

What’s distinctive

A 1920s pastiche that takes part of its period sound from a studio trick: one vocal line was heavily limited and laid over the sound of a scratchy phonograph to make it sound like “a very early and worn 78 rpm record”. It is one of only two songs on The Beatles whose released mono and stereo are the Trident mixes themselves.^1,2 Take count: 1 — the basic track, Paul’s vocal and guitar, the seven-piece reed section and the 78 rpm line all sit on take 1 of the Trident eight-track.¹

Recording

The first song of a week at Trident. Honey Pie opened the Beatles’ return to Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, off Wardour Street, on Tuesday 1 October 1968. It was not a move made for equipment: Abbey Road by then “also had eight-track facilities”, and the group went back “for no other reason than a week’s change of scenery”. The song was worked on four times that week, on 1, 2, 4 and 5 October, with George Martin producing and Barry Sheffield engineering, and the same days produced Savoy Truffle and Martha My Dear. It is one of “Paul’s traditional” pair from those sessions.^1,2
Four Beatles on the basic track. The basic track was taped in a night-time session whose start and finish times are not known: “piano (Paul), bass (George)”, drums from Ringo and “electric guitar (John)”. That is a group performance with an unusual layout, George on bass and John on guitar, and it sets the song apart from Martha My Dear, recorded three days later, which may have been almost entirely Paul’s own work beyond the orchestra.¹
A rough mix for the arranger. The arrangement was written from the band’s own performance. The same night a rough mono was made “for, and taken away by, George Martin”, “in order that he could write the brass and woodwind arrangement”. Three days later it was in the studio as a part for five saxophones and two clarinets, played between 6.00 and 9.00pm on 4 October.¹
Paul’s vocal and lead guitar. On Wednesday 2 October, in a session from 4.00pm to 3.30am, the overdubs were “lead vocal and lead guitar, both the work of Paul McCartney”. The finished track therefore carries two guitar parts from two players, John’s electric on the basic track and Paul’s lead added a day later.¹
The 78 rpm line. After midnight on 4 October, once he had re-sung Martha My Dear, Paul “turned his attention to ‘Honey Pie’”, “recording a quaint touch”. The line “now she’s hit the big time!” was “heavily limited, chopping off the signals at both ends of the frequency range”, and “superimposed with the sound of a scratchy old phonograph”. It is the one moment where the song’s period dress is supplied by the engineering rather than the arrangement (see Studio Notes).¹
Mixed at Trident, converted at Abbey Road. On 5 October the song was mixed at Trident, mono remix 1 and stereo remix 1, both from take 1. Of the four songs for the album recorded at Trident, “three of the four were actually mixed there”, and only this one and Martha My Dear kept their Trident mixes on the record. Because Trident’s machines recorded to the American NAB standard and EMI worked to CCIR, those mixes “had to be ‘converted’ from NAB to CCIR at Abbey Road”, which was done in Studio Two on 7 October.^1,2

Equipment

Studio	Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, Soho (recording and mixing, 1, 2, 4 and 5 Oct 1968); EMI Studio Two, Abbey Road (tape copying, 7 Oct 1968)¹
Tape machine	Ampex 440 eight-track (Trident); Trident also had mono and stereo Ampex MR-70 recorders²
Console	Sound Techniques, custom-made, 20 inputs and eight outputs, acquired September 1967; transformer input and output²
Microphones	Not written down for the Beatles’ Trident sessions; the studio’s primary microphone was the Neumann U67, most commonly used on vocals and pianos²
Outboard / effects	Universal Audio compressors; two EMT 140 plates; tape delays from the Ampex machines; heavy limiting and a phonograph-noise overdub on the “big time” line^1,2
Keyboards	Piano by Paul on the basic track; Trident’s house piano was an 1898 Bechstein grand, but the instrument used is not individually recorded^1,2
Reeds	Five saxophones and two clarinets, 4 Oct 1968¹
Guitars / bass	Electric guitar by John and bass by George on the basic track; lead guitar by Paul, 2 Oct 1968; instrument models not recorded¹
Monitoring	Two Lockwood cabinets per side with Tannoy Red drivers (Trident)²

Recording Timeline

1 October 1968 (Tuesday) — recording, take 1, and a rough mono, Trident Studios, time unknown. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. The basic track, with Paul on piano, George on bass, Ringo on drums and John on electric guitar, recorded “during this night-time session”. It was followed on the spot by mono mixing: an “unnumbered rough remix, from take 1”, made for George Martin to take away and score from. It is the only mix of the song logged before the arrangement existed.¹
2 October 1968 (Wednesday) — overdubs, Trident Studios, 4.00pm–3.30am. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. Lead vocal and lead guitar, both by Paul, onto take 1. The vocal on the record dates from this session; the one line that sounds different, “now she’s hit the big time!”, was recorded separately two days later. The next day’s session at Trident went to Savoy Truffle.¹
4 October 1968 (Friday) — reed overdub and the 78 rpm line, Trident Studios, 4.00pm–4.30am. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. “Between 6.00 and 9.00pm seven musicians recorded their parts for ‘Honey Pie’”: Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chester, Rex Morris and Harry Klein (saxophones), Raymond Newman and David Smith (clarinets). The evening then went to the fourteen strings and brass for Martha My Dear and to Paul’s replacement vocal on that song. After it, he came back to Honey Pie for the limited, phonograph-laden “big time” line.¹
5 October 1968 (Saturday) — mixing, Trident Studios, 6.00pm–1.00am. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. Mono remix 1 and stereo remix 1, both from take 1, in a block that also mixed Martha My Dear for mono and stereo and made a Trident mono of Dear Prudence. The session had begun with overdubs for Savoy Truffle and Martha My Dear. These two mixes are the ones on every release of the finished song until 2018.^1,3
7 October 1968 (Monday) — tape copying, EMI Studio Two, 2.30pm–7.00am. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: Mike Sheady. “Tape copying: ‘Honey Pie’ (of remix mono 1 and of remix stereo 1)”, with Martha My Dear copied the same way. The copies were the conversion, “from the NAB equalisation system of recording preferred at Trident to the CCIR method favoured at EMI”. The session went on to record Long Long Long in 67 takes.^1,2
22 November 1968 (Friday) — UK release. The Beatles was first issued as a double album, Apple [Parlophone] PMC 7067–7068 in mono and PCS 7067–7068 in stereo. Honey Pie is the second song on side D, between Revolution 1 and Savoy Truffle, with both of its Trident mixes in their converted form.^1,3
25 November 1968 (Monday) — US release. Apple [Capitol] SWBO-101, issued in stereo only. The American album carries the Trident stereo mix, the same one as the British stereo LP. With no American mono edition, the Trident mono was a British record only.^1,3

‘Honey Pie’ is a hot 1920s-style jazzy number, with a lovely melody and blissful saxophones and clarinets, as scored by George Martin.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

How the 78 rpm sound was made. Two things were done to one line. It was “heavily limited, chopping off the signals at both ends of the frequency range”: the top and the bottom of the voice were cut away, leaving only its middle. Then it was “superimposed with the sound of a scratchy old phonograph”, so that surface noise runs under the words. The purpose was “to make the end product like a vocal from a very early and worn 78 rpm record”, a narrow voice over crackle. The treatment is confined to a single line, “now she’s hit the big time!”, and it was a separate recording made after midnight on 4 October, not a process applied to the whole vocal.¹
A score written from the band, not the other way round. The order of work on this song reverses the order on Martha My Dear, cut in the same week. There, George Martin arrived with “a score prepared” and the song was built around it. Here the Beatles recorded first, and the rough mono of 1 October went away with the producer “in order that he could write the brass and woodwind arrangement”. What came back three days later was a section of five saxophones and two clarinets, reeds rather than the brass the arrangement had first been described as including. The Beatles’ own performance, with its piano lead and George on bass, was the brief the arranger wrote to.¹
One take across four sessions. Everything on the record sits on take 1, over four days of work. That is how Trident sessions were logged: “the final version of a Beatles recording at Trident was a ‘take one’”, “though it should be stressed that there would certainly have been rehearsal takes too”, and those were wiped before the overdubbing began. The single take number here covers a four-man basic track, Paul’s vocal and lead guitar, the reed section and the 78 rpm line. Both of the released mixes, mono and stereo, were made from it on 5 October.¹
The desk and the room. Trident’s eight-track was an Ampex 440, which the Sheffield brothers chose over 3M’s M23 as “certainly the most popular eight-track machine in America at the time”. It fed a “Sound Techniques console, acquired in September of 1967”. Its designer, Geoff Frost, described its circuitry as “Transformer input and output, so there were no DC or earth loops”, and credited its popularity to “not only the low distortion, but also the gentle way they went into distortion when over-driven”. The house piano was “an 1898 Bechstein grand piano”. Paul’s piano on the basic track is not identified by instrument, so the page leaves the Bechstein as the studio’s piano rather than this song’s.²
Microphones and dynamics, as the studio kept them. “The specific mics used on the Beatles’ sessions were not written down, but Trident had typical favourites.” The primary one was “the Neumann U67, most commonly used on vocals and pianos”, the two sounds that carry this song’s verses. Reverb came from “two EMT 140 plates with remotes”, delay from “any required tape delays offered by the Ampex machines”, and “the preferred compressors at the studio were Universal Audio” units. None of this is logged for Honey Pie itself, and none of it is the 78 rpm line’s limiter by name. It is Trident’s standing kit, offered as the frame within which the song was recorded.²
Why the mix had to travel. Trident’s tape machines were American, so “any mixes recorded on them used the American NAB EQ standard, rather than the European CCIR standard” that EMI worked to, and “a mixture of NAB and CCIR was not acceptable”. Two of the four Trident songs were remixed at Abbey Road instead. This one kept its Trident mixes, which were converted: at Abbey Road the tapes were played on “one of their few NAB-capable machines” and “the mixes were re-recorded”. Trident’s monitors, Tannoy Red drivers in Lockwood cabinets, had “more High Frequency response” “than the Altec monitors” at Abbey Road, a difference first felt with Hey Jude. Whether the Honey Pie mixes were adjusted at Abbey Road beyond the tape conversion is not recorded.^1,2

Releases

Two Trident mixes from 5 October 1968 carry the finished song for fifty years; the Esher demo shows it before any of that work, and the 2018 remix is the first made from the session tape anywhere else.

1968 UK mono LP — The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple [Parlophone] PMC 7068, side D track 2) — the Trident mono, heard as copied to EMI’s tape standard two days later: piano, reeds, both guitars and the 78 rpm line in one channel. The same mono is on the album’s 2009 CD issue (Apple 84957-2).
1968 UK stereo LP — The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple [Parlophone] PCS 7068, side D track 2) — the Trident stereo, made the same evening from the same take and converted the same way (see Studio Notes). No difference of content between the mono and the stereo is documented.
1968 US LP — The Beatles (25 November 1968, Apple [Capitol] SWBO-101) — stereo only, carrying the Trident stereo, the same mix as the British stereo LP. It is also the mix on the album’s first CD (EMI CDP 7 46443 2, 1987).
1996 — Anthology 3 (Apple CDP 8 34451 2) — the demo taped in May 1968 at George’s home in Esher, on a four-track master and issued in stereo. It is the song as the group brought it to the sessions: no reed section, no Trident, and no 78 rpm trick.
2018 new stereo mix — The Beatles (“White Album”) anniversary editions (9 November 2018) — newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell from the original session tapes rather than from the Trident mixes, so the reeds, the guitars and the treated vocal line are balanced afresh from the eight-track. The Super Deluxe edition adds a 5.1 mix.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 158–159, 200–201.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 332–35.
Joseph Brennan, Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations (rev. edn.), “Honey Pie” and “Honey Pie [demo]”.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Honey Pie?

Paul. It is one of “Paul’s traditional” pair from the Trident sessions, and like all their joint catalogue it is credited Lennon/McCartney.²

Who plays on Honey Pie?

All four Beatles on the basic track: Paul on piano, George on bass, Ringo on drums and John on electric guitar. Paul added the lead vocal and lead guitar, and seven session players added five saxophones and two clarinets.¹

How was the old-record sound on “now she’s hit the big time” made?

That one line was recorded separately, heavily limited so that the top and bottom of the frequency range were cut away, and laid over the sound of a scratchy old phonograph, to sound like a vocal from a worn 78 rpm record.¹

When was Honey Pie recorded?

At Trident Studios in Soho on 1, 2 and 4 October 1968, and mixed there for mono and stereo on 5 October. Both mixes were copied to EMI’s tape standard at Abbey Road on 7 October.^1,2

How many takes did Honey Pie require?

One. Everything on the record sits on take 1, and both released mixes were made from it.¹

On this page

Story Section status: Outdated

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked