Martha My Dear

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Oct 1968
Length	2:28
Key	E♭
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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"Martha My Dear" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles. Credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song was written solely by Paul, and was named after his Old English Sheepdog, Martha.

Martha My Dear is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul and led on vocal by Paul. About Paul's Old English Sheepdog; Paul plays nearly every instrument. Within the catalogue, its piano thread connects it to Not a Second Time, You Like Me Too Much, Good Day Sunshine. Paul's piano-based composition was inspired by his sheepdog Martha, transformed into an elegant musical meditation blending domestic affection with sophisticated harmonic development. The track featured solo Paul vocal with orchestral string arrangement by George Martin, representing Paul's classical-music aspirations within the pop-song context. The song exemplified the White Album's structural diversity and Paul's refusal to be confined by rock-and-roll conventions. Martha My Dear exemplifies Paul's sophisticated approach to intimate composition, appearing in Beatles discography indexes alongside other Paul originals. (Kozinn 1995, p.231)

The session work falls within the band's The White Album (1968) period, recorded 4 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.159 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). Recorded at Trident Studios with Paul's vocal and piano establishing the song's foundation, followed by orchestral string overdubs conducted by George Martin. The arrangement's sophistication required careful microphone placement and precise level management during mixing. Paul's vocal phrasing emphasized the song's emotional restraint and musical maturity, with string accompaniment enhancing rather than overwhelming the delicate vocal presentation. Geoff Emerick recalls that Paul once brought Martha to Studio Three, not at a Beatles session but during the Mary Hopkin tracks Paul was producing for Apple in 1968, after Emerick had left the White Album; he calls her “the very same dog who was immortalized in his song”, and says Paul “never brought her by again”. (Emerick 2006, p.677)³ Martha My Dear showcases Paul's multi-instrumental solo arrangement: double-tracked vocal, piano, bass, lead guitar, and orchestral strings. (MacDonald 1994, p.136)

One afternoon, Paul brought his sheepdog, Martha, with him—the very same dog who was immortalized in his song “Martha My Dear.” As she padded around Studio Three, I became quite concerned that she would get a paw caught in one of the electrical extension cords lying on the floor and receive a nasty shock.— Geoff Emerick, Emerick 2006, p.677³

What’s distinctive

Recorded, overdubbed and mixed in two evenings at Trident Studios in Soho, and one of only two songs on The Beatles whose released mono and stereo are the Trident mixes themselves rather than later Abbey Road remixes.^1,2 Take count: 1 — the guide track, the fourteen-piece orchestra, the replaced vocal and Paul’s bass and guitars all sit on take 1 of the Trident eight-track, and both mixes were made from it.¹

Recording

Two evenings in Soho. Martha My Dear was recorded at Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, off Wardour Street, on Friday 4 October 1968, in a session that ran from 4.00pm to 4.30 the next morning, and it was finished there on the Saturday evening. George Martin produced and Barry Sheffield engineered; the second engineer is not on record. The move was not forced by equipment. Abbey Road by then “also had eight-track facilities”, and the group went back to Trident “for no other reason than a week’s change of scenery”. The same week there produced Honey Pie and Savoy Truffle.^1,2
A score before the song. George Martin came to the session with the orchestral parts already written. Since he “had a score prepared”, “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 inference runs from the order of events: the arrangement existed before a note of the song had been recorded, so it can only have been written from something Paul supplied beforehand.¹
Built for the orchestra to follow. The first thing on tape was a guide: a vocal line, piano and drums, recorded “as the basic track for the recruited musicians to follow”. The strings and brass went on between 9.00pm and midnight. After midnight Paul replaced the guide vocal with the one on the record and added handclaps, and on the Saturday he overdubbed bass and electric guitars. All of it went onto a single take number, take 1.¹
Perhaps a one-man record. Who played what, beyond the orchestra, is not fully settled. “It is difficult to say for sure, even by referring to the master eight-track recording”, but excepting “the strings and horns overdub” the song “may well have been another one-man Paul McCartney recording”. Every part that is attributed belongs to Paul: the replacement vocal, the handclaps, and the “bass and electric guitars”, “both played by Paul”. The hedge stands as it is here; the page does not firm it up.¹
Mixed where it was made. On 5 October, once the last overdub was on, the song was mixed at Trident for mono and for stereo, remix 1 of each, both from take 1. Four songs for the album were recorded at Trident and “three of the four were actually mixed there”, but only two kept their Trident mixes on the record: this one and Honey Pie. Dear Prudence and Savoy Truffle were given final mixes at Abbey Road instead.^1,2
Two tape standards. 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”. The Trident mixes of this song and Honey Pie therefore “had to be ‘converted’ from NAB to CCIR at Abbey Road”. That was done in Studio Two on Monday 7 October, when both mixes of both songs were copied (see Studio Notes).^1,2

Equipment

Studio	Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, Soho (recording and mixing, 4–5 Oct 1968); EMI Studio Two, Abbey Road (tape copying, 7 Oct 1968)¹
Tape machine	Ampex 440 eight-track (Trident), chosen over 3M’s M23; Trident also had mono and stereo Ampex MR-70 recorders²
Console	Sound Techniques, custom-made, 20 inputs and eight outputs, acquired September 1967; linear EMT faders on the inputs, Painton quadrant faders on the groups²
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; ADT on the replaced lead vocal^1,2
Keyboards	Trident’s house piano was an 1898 Bechstein grand; the piano on the basic track is not individually recorded²
Orchestra	Four violins, two violas, two cellos, three trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba; flugelhorn by Leon Calvert¹
Guitars / bass	Bass and electric guitars overdubbed by Paul, 5 Oct 1968; instrument models not recorded¹
Monitoring	Two Lockwood cabinets per side with Tannoy Red drivers (Trident)²

Recording Timeline

4 October 1968 (Friday) — recording, take 1 and overdubs, Trident Studios, 4.00pm–4.30am. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. The session opened with the basic track, a vocal line, piano and drums laid down as a guide. Between 6.00 and 9.00pm the room went to the reed section for Honey Pie; “between 9.00pm and midnight 14 musicians did likewise for ‘Martha My Dear’”: 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). “Leon Calvert also contributed a flugelhorn part.” Between midnight and the 4.30am finish Paul wiped the guide vocal and sang a new one, “later applied with ADT”, “adding handclaps at the same time”, before he turned to Honey Pie again.¹
5 October 1968 (Saturday) — overdub and mixing, Trident Studios, 6.00pm–1.00am. P: George Martin. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. Paul overdubbed bass and electric guitars onto take 1, in a session that also put an ADT’d lead vocal from George onto Savoy Truffle. The song was then mixed: mono remix 1 and stereo remix 1, both from take 1, in a block that also mixed Honey Pie for mono and stereo and made a Trident mono of Dear Prudence. These two mixes are the ones on every release of the song until 2018.^1,4
7 October 1968 (Monday) — tape copying, EMI Studio Two, 2.30pm–7.00am. P: George Martin. E: Ken Scott. 2E: Mike Sheady. Both Trident mixes were copied, “of remix mono 1 and of remix stereo 1”, for this song and for Honey Pie alike. This was the conversion: the mixes were “copied from the NAB equalisation system of recording preferred at Trident to the CCIR method favoured at EMI”, played on one of EMI’s “few NAB-capable machines” and re-recorded. The copying opened a 16½-hour session that 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. Martha My Dear opens side B of the first disc, ahead of I’m So Tired and Blackbird, with both of its Trident mixes in their converted form.^1,4
25 November 1968 (Monday) — US release. Apple [Capitol] SWBO-101, issued in stereo only. The American album carries the Trident stereo mix, the same mix as the British stereo LP; there was no American mono edition for the Trident mono to appear on, so in the United States the song was heard only in its stereo form.^1,4

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.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

One take, many passes. The session sheets log a single take for the whole song, and that reflects the way Trident sessions were logged rather than how few attempts were made. At Trident “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. On this song the one take number covers a guide track, a fourteen-piece overdub, a replacement vocal, handclaps and a second day of bass and guitar parts. The figure in Quick Facts is accurate as a take count. It is not a measure of how much playing went into the record.¹
Guide first, orchestra second, voice last. The order of work on 4 October is the order of a session built around a score. A vocal line, piano and drums went down first, so that the fourteen players had something to play against. The orchestra followed between 9.00pm and midnight, and only then did Paul sing the lead that is on the record, over a track that already carried the strings and brass. The section was mixed rather than a string group: four violins, two violas and two cellos alongside three trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba, with Leon Calvert adding flugelhorn. That is why the song’s own account speaks of “the strings and horns overdub”.¹
The replaced vocal and its ADT. The guide vocal did not survive. Between midnight and the end of the session Paul wiped it and sang again, the new vocal “(later applied with ADT)”, with handclaps added “at the same time”. Where the ADT was put on is not stated, and the word “later” leaves room for it to have come at the mix the next evening rather than that night. Trident’s own facilities for this kind of work were “two EMT 140 plates with remotes, as well as any required tape delays offered by the Ampex machines”. Which of them, if any, treated this vocal is not on record, and the page does not guess.^1,2
The room: Ampex, Sound Techniques and a Bechstein. Trident had “mono and stereo Ampex MR-70 recorders” and Ampex 440 machines in four- and eight-track form. Choosing the eight-track, the Sheffield brothers had looked at 3M’s M23, “the same model” EMI acquired in 1968, and chose the Ampex, “certainly the most popular eight-track machine in America at the time”. The desk was a “Sound Techniques console, acquired in September of 1967”, custom-made with 20 inputs and eight outputs “as Trident was the first working eight-track studio in London”. Its “20 input channels had linear EMT faders”, while the group faders used “the distinctive Painton quadrant faders EMI used on their own desks”. The house piano was “an 1898 Bechstein grand piano” hired “from Jacques Samuels”. Which piano is on this basic track is not individually recorded.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 microphone was “the Neumann U67, most commonly used on vocals and pianos”, the two sounds this record opens with. On drums the studio commonly set “U67 or AKG 451 as overheads”, and “the preferred compressors at the studio were Universal Audio” models. None of this is logged for Martha My Dear itself. It describes Trident’s standing kit, the frame in which the orchestra and the vocal were captured, and it is offered as that and nothing more.²
Why the mix had to travel. The two tape standards mattered because the album was assembled at EMI. Trident’s machines were American, and mixes made on them were NAB; EMI worked in CCIR, and “a mixture of NAB and CCIR was not acceptable”. For Dear Prudence and Savoy Truffle the answer was to mix again at Abbey Road. For this song and Honey Pie it was to keep the Trident mixes and convert them. At Abbey Road the Trident quarter-inch tapes were played on “one of their few NAB-capable machines” and “the mixes were re-recorded”, “copied from the NAB equalisation system of recording preferred at Trident to the CCIR method favoured at EMI”. The released mono and stereo are those 7 October copies.^1,2
Monitors that flattered. Mixing at Trident carried a second hazard, the listening room. Its monitors were Lockwood cabinets, two per side, fitted with Tannoy Red drivers, with “more High Frequency response” “than the Altec monitors” at Abbey Road. The effect had first shown itself with Hey Jude, on “taking the final mix of ‘Hey Jude’ back to” Abbey Road: a Trident mix that “sounded fine” there did not sound the same on other systems. Martha My Dear was mixed through the same monitors on 5 October, and those mixes are the ones on the record. Whether they were corrected at Abbey Road beyond the tape conversion is not recorded.²

Releases

Two mixes, both made at Trident on 5 October 1968, account for every release of the song for fifty years; the 2018 remix is the first made anywhere else.

1968 UK mono LP — The Beatles (22 November 1968, Apple [Parlophone] PMC 7067, side B track 1) — the Trident mono, heard as copied to EMI’s tape standard two days later: vocal, orchestra, handclaps, bass and guitars folded into 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 7067, side B track 1) — 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).
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 orchestra, the ADT-treated vocal and Paul’s overdubs 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.
Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 676–77.
Joseph Brennan, Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations (rev. edn.), “Martha My Dear”.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Martha My Dear?

Paul. It was “a one-man composition, a typical McCartney ballad”, and like all their joint catalogue it is credited Lennon/McCartney.¹

Is Martha My Dear about Paul’s sheepdog?

Only in its title. Paul “may have got the title from his canine friend”, but the song is “not about Paul’s sheepdog of the same name”.¹

Who plays on Martha My Dear?

Fourteen orchestral players, and quite possibly Paul alone besides them: excepting “the strings and horns overdub”, the song “may well have been another one-man Paul McCartney recording”. Paul sang the lead, added the handclaps and overdubbed the bass and electric guitars.¹

When was Martha My Dear recorded?

On 4 and 5 October 1968 at Trident Studios in Soho: the basic track, the orchestra and the lead vocal on the 4th, bass and electric guitars and the mono and stereo mixes on the 5th. Both mixes were copied to EMI’s tape standard at Abbey Road on 7 October.^1,2

How many takes did Martha My Dear require?

One. Everything on the record, orchestra and replacement vocal included, sits on take 1, and both 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