Martha My Dear

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Overview

Background

Pattern analysis

Recording

Mix variants & recording techniques (V12-C)

Documented mix variants (5 mix lineages)

• 1968 UK mono — Apple/Parlophone PMC 7067/8 (22 November 1968) — The released-master mono is the 5 October 1968 mono remix 1 of Martha My Dear made at Trident Studios from take 1 (per Lewisohn p. 159 session header). The Trident master was subsequently “converted” from the NAB equalisation standard to the CCIR equalisation standard at Abbey Road on or after 7 October 1968 (per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim + K/R p. 335 verbatim). The released UK mono is therefore two generations removed from the original Trident eight-track multi-track tape: (i) Trident eight-track multi-track → (ii) Trident 5 October mono remix 1 from take 1 (NAB equalisation, 1/4” tape) → (iii) Abbey Road CCIR re-recording onto a BTR machine.
• 1968 UK stereo — Apple/Parlophone PCS 7067/8 (22 November 1968) — The released-master stereo is the 5 October 1968 stereo remix 1 of Martha My Dear made at Trident Studios from take 1 (per Lewisohn p. 159 session header). Same NAB-to-CCIR conversion structural lineage as the mono per K/R p. 335 verbatim: the 7 October EMI Studio Two tape-copy session produced the CCIR-equalised master tape for the “banded” LP master compilation.
• 1968 US mono and stereo — Apple/Capitol SWBO-101 (25 November 1968) — Continues the same Trident 5 October mono and stereo remix 1 lineages onto the US Capitol pressing. Both UK and US issues derive from the same NAB-to-CCIR-converted master tapes per K/R p. 335 framing of the conversion-then-banded-master workflow.
• 2009 Stereo Remasters (Apple/EMI, 9 September 2009) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke remastering team. Per §1, this release sits outside the Lewisohn 1988 / K/R 2006 primary-source canon — technical provenance is documented in the 2009 box’s liner notes rather than in the Tier-1 sources; the remastering is from the existing CCIR-equalised stereo master rather than a fresh derivation from the Trident eight-track.
• 2018 The Beatles 50th Anniversary (Apple/UMe, 9 November 2018) — Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix series. The 50th-anniversary box returns to the Trident eight-track multi-track tape and re-derives stereo, bypassing both the 5 October 1968 Trident stereo remix and the 7 October Abbey Road NAB-to-CCIR conversion. Per §1, this release sits outside the Lewisohn 1988 / K/R 2006 primary-source canon; the technical remix approach (analogue tape return, demixing-assisted stem separation per the 2018 box’s published notes) is documented in the 2018 release liner notes.

Recording techniques (10 bullets, primary-source-verified)

• Trident’s Ampex 440 eight-track — central editorial spine (K/R p. 333 verbatim) — Per K/R p. 333 verbatim, Trident’s tape-machine room held “mono and stereo Ampex MR-70 recorders, as well as four-track and eight-track versions of the newer Ampex 440 model.” The Sheffield brothers had auditioned 3M’s M23 8-track (the same model EMI acquired in 1968) but chose the Ampex eight-track, “certainly the most popular eight-track machine in America at the time.” Per K/R p. 333 verbatim, this machine became “a significant selling point for the studio, as they could then rightfully claim to be ‘the first eight-track studio in London’.” The Martha My Dear basic track (4 October) and all SI overdubs (4–5 October) were committed to this Ampex 440 eight-track. EMI’s own 3M M23 eight-track had been installed at Abbey Road in 1968 but per K/R p. 334 verbatim the Beatles “were forbidden to use them until necessary modifications had been carried out” — the reason the group had first decamped to Trident on 31 July 1968 for Hey Jude.
• NAB-to-CCIR equalisation conversion at Abbey Road — the Martha-and-Honey-Pie-only White Album case (K/R p. 335 verbatim) — Per K/R p. 335 verbatim, “Trident used American machines, any mixes recorded on them used the American NAB EQ standard, rather than the European CCIR standard. In and of itself, this was not a problem, as Abbey Road regularly dealt with tapes sent from America and had certain machines specially equipped to play back NAB tapes. The real problem lay in the fact that a ‘banded’ master would eventually have to be compiled of all the songs, and this master would have to conform entirely to the CCIR standard; a mixture of NAB and CCIR was not acceptable. As such, the Trident mixes of ‘Martha My Dear’ and ‘Honey Pie’ had to be ‘converted’ from NAB to CCIR at Abbey Road.” Per K/R p. 335 verbatim the conversion process: “Whilst playing the Trident 1/4” tapes on one of their few NAB-capable machines, the mixes were re-recorded onto one of the studio’s CCIR BTR machines. The final versions of these two songs, therefore, were two generations removed from the multi-tracks, as was the final mix of ‘Hey Jude.’ (This may or may not account for the increased tape hiss audible in these tracks).” Of the four 1968 White Album Trident tracks, Martha My Dear and Honey Pie are the only two that retained their Trident-derived mixes onto the released master; Dear Prudence and Savoy Truffle were re-mixed at Abbey Road on native CCIR machines and so escaped the conversion (per K/R p. 335 verbatim “three of the four were actually mixed there. Final mixes of ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Savoy Truffle’ would eventually be carried out at Abbey Road, but the Trident stereo and mono mixes of ‘Martha My Dear’ and ‘Honey Pie’ actually made it onto the album”).
• Trident’s 20-input 8-output Sound Techniques console — first eight-track desk in London (K/R p. 334 verbatim) — Per K/R p. 334 verbatim the Martha My Dear sessions ran through Trident’s “Sound Techniques console, acquired in September of 1967. The 20-input, eight-output console was custom-made, as Trident was the first working eight-track studio in London. It was enormous for the time and was considered to be of excellent sound quality.” Per K/R p. 334 verbatim Sound Techniques designer Geoff Frost on the desks’ circuitry: “In essence, all our desks were made to the same internal design. We had a standard transistor amplifier, used for mic and line. Transformer input and output, so there were no DC or earth loops. We used to wind our own output transformers, using Radio Metal cores for a low and gentle on-come of distortion. I suspect our desks were popular because of, not only the low distortion, but also the gentle way they went into distortion when over-driven.” Per K/R p. 334 the curious fader split: “the 20 input channels had linear EMT faders; the eight group faders in the centre of the desk instead made use of the distinctive Painton quadrant faders EMI used on their own desks.” This is the same console Hey Jude was tracked through in July–August 1968, and the same console that captured Dear Prudence (28–30 August 1968), Honey Pie (1, 2, 4, 5 October 1968) and Savoy Truffle (3, 5 October 1968).
• The 14-musician orchestra session 9.00pm–midnight 4 October 1968 (Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim) — Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, the 14 musicians for Martha My Dear’s brass, woodwind and string overdub were: Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Sofier and Les Maddox (violins); Leo Birnbaum and Henry Myerscough (violas); Reginald Kilbey and Frederick Alexander (cellos); Leon Calvert, Stanley Reynolds and Ronnie Hughes (trumpets); Tony Tunstall (French horn); Ted Barker (trombone) and Alf Reece (tuba). Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, “Leon Calvert also contributed a flugelhorn part.” The orchestral ensemble totals 4 violins + 2 violas + 2 cellos = 8 strings, plus 3 trumpets + 1 French horn + 1 trombone + 1 tuba = 6 brass (plus the Calvert flugelhorn doubled by one of the trumpeters). Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim “between 6.00 and 9.00pm seven musicians recorded their parts for ‘Honey Pie’; between 9.00pm and midnight 14 musicians did likewise for ‘Martha My Dear’” — the same six-hour Trident overdub block split as 3 hours per song with twice the players for Martha My Dear.
• Post-midnight ADT vocal wipe + handclaps (Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim) — Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, “The period between midnight and the 4.30 end of session saw Paul wipe the existing ‘Martha My Dear’ vocal track with a new one (later applied with ADT), adding handclaps at the same time.” Two operations were performed in this 4.5-hour post-midnight stretch on 4 October: (a) the original vocal track was wiped and replaced with a new vocal that would be ADT-treated, and (b) handclaps were added at the same time. This is one of the rare documented Lewisohn-confirmed single-session vocal-wipe-and-replace operations in the canon; the more common pattern is a delayed vocal replacement on a later date.
• One-man Paul McCartney recording — basic track + bass + electric guitar (Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim) — Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, “It is difficult to say for sure, even by referring to the master eight-track recording, but ‘Martha My Dear’ — excepting the strings and horns overdub — may well have been another one-man Paul McCartney recording.” And per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim the 5 October Trident SI session added “bass and electric guitars — both played by Paul — onto ‘Martha My Dear’.” Martha My Dear sits in the McCartney-solo-recording subset of the canon alongside Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, Mother Nature’s Son, and Why Don’t We Do It In The Road — songs where only Paul appears in the basic-track + SI multi-track layout. Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain: the Lewisohn p. 159 hedge (“may well have been”) is preserved — the master eight-track does not unambiguously enumerate each track’s performer, so the one-man-Paul attribution covers vocals + piano + drums + bass + electric guitar but does not certify zero contribution from any other Beatle on any track.
• George Martin pre-prepared arrangement from a McCartney home demo (Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim Note) — Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, “Since George Martin had a score prepared — and musicians booked — for this first recording session of ‘Martha My Dear’, one must deduce that he had been given a home-recorded McCartney demo tape of the song in advance with which to devise his arrangement.” The 14-musician booking required at least several days’ advance notice through a Musicians’ Union fixer; the score itself required compositional time. The Lewisohn-deduced existence of a home-recorded demo of Martha My Dear circulating between McCartney and Martin in late September 1968 is one of the few documented cases where a White Album track had a pre-EMI / pre-Trident demo for arrangement purposes (the more famous parallel case is the May 1968 Esher demos for The Beatles (White Album), but that batch does not survive a complete Martha My Dear demo).
• Trident’s Bechstein 1898 grand piano — hired from Jacques Samuels (K/R p. 334 verbatim) — Per K/R p. 334 verbatim, “Also available at Trident was an 1898 Bechstein grand piano, which had been hired from Jacques Samuels, a classic London piano dealer. The Trident Bechstein (admired for its superb sound) thus became the prominent ‘Hey Jude’ piano and subsequently appeared on numerous hits by other artists recorded at the studio, including Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, ‘Rocket Man’ and ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, David Bowie’s ‘Changes’, and all early Queen recordings.” This is the same instrument McCartney played for Hey Jude two months earlier and the same instrument Honey Pie was tracked on during the same 4 October 1968 12.5-hour Trident session. Per K/R p. 334 verbatim the Trident microphone-on-piano convention used “the Neumann U67, most commonly used on vocals and pianos” — the same mic Paul’s vocal would have been captured on. (Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain: K/R p. 334 verbatim notes “The specific mics used on the Beatles’ sessions were not written down, but Trident had typical favourites” — so the Bechstein/U67 mic combination is the documented Trident default rather than a confirmed Martha My Dear mic-list.)
• UA LA-2A compressors + EMT 140 plate reverbs — Trident outboard chain (K/R p. 334 verbatim) — Per K/R p. 334 verbatim, “The preferred compressors at the studio were Universal Audio LA-2As, still a popular valve compressor to this day. There were two EMT 140 plates with remotes, as well as any required tape delays offered by the Ampex machines.” The post-midnight ADT-treated vocal on Martha My Dear (per Lewisohn p. 159 above) would have routed through Trident’s house tape-delay setup rather than EMI’s in-house ADT system (introduced at Abbey Road in 1966 per K/R Ch 9). Trident’s preferred monitor system, per K/R p. 334, was “two Lockwood cabinets per side, with Tannoy ‘Red’ drivers inside,” driven by 60-watt Radford amplifiers — significantly brighter than Abbey Road’s Altec monitors per K/R p. 335 verbatim, which is one of the documented reasons the 5 October Trident stereo mix sounded different at Abbey Road and required follow-up post-conversion work.
• The “not about the sheepdog” primary-source clarification (Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim) — Per Lewisohn p. 159 verbatim, “What is certain is that ‘Martha My Dear’ was a one-man composition, a typical McCartney ballad, melodious and sentimental. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not about Paul’s sheepdog of the same name. He may have got the title from his canine friend but that was where the association ended.” The persistent popular interpretation of Martha My Dear as a song addressed to McCartney’s Old English Sheepdog Martha is contradicted by the canonical Tier-1 source. Per Lewisohn the title-name shared the dog’s name but the lyrical subject is not the dog. (Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain: Lewisohn does not propose an alternative lyrical subject; the page records Lewisohn’s debunking rather than substituting a fresh interpretation.)

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

• 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 (sheepdog, paul-mostly-solo, piano, brass)

Other songs led by the same vocalist

Other songs from this era

sheepdogpaul-mostly-solopianobrass

Cultural appearances

Related songs