The Guardian - Friday, 8 September 1995
Help was recorded on Monday, mixed on Tuesday, pressed
on Wednesday,
delivered on Thursday and released on Friday. not bad!
Paolo Hewitt was at Abbey Road . . .
Pop's pilgrimage to the Abbey
On September 4, 1962 four young and very nervous musicians from Liverpool
entered Abbey Road studios to cut their debut single. For the next eight
years they would record all their major works here. On thisoccasion, they
are gathered in Studio Two where, under the guidance of producer George
Martin, they cut two songs, How Do You Do It? and Love MeDo. A month later,
the latter was released as a single. It entered the charts at No. 1. A
year later, the Beatles were the biggest group in theworld.
Exactly 33 years on from that historic day, Paul Weller, nerves racing,
pulled up outside Abbey Road to fulfill three lifetime ambitions. The first
was to run up the stairs of the studio, just as John Lennon had at the
start of recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (the first Beatles
record that a 10-year-old Weller purchased). The second was to cut a track
at Abbey Road, the studio that has become synonymous with the Beatles.
Weller had conceived the idea many years ago but the studio's high cost
(ú1,700 a day) had proved prohibitive. So when Tony Crean of Go!
Discs asked him to record a song for the Help album, all the royalties
of which are to go to the War Child charity to help children caught in
the current Bosnian war, Weller saw his chance. He told Crean he wanted
to record the Beatle's Come Together, in Studio Two.
His third ambition was to work with Paul McCartney. To that end, Weller
had written him a letter: "We'd all love you to come down, even better
if you fancy doing the track with us... I'd love to do a track with yourself."
Then he crossed his fingers and waited.
At 11:14am four nervous musicians, (Weller, Steve White on drums, Steve
Craddock on guitar and Damon Minchella on bass) struck up the opening chords
of Come Together. Under producer Brendan Lynch's guidance, they had chosen
to cut the song live. As they played, a bevvy of cameras swung into action;
Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp looked on.
At midday, Weller was called to the phone. It was McCartney. He would be
there in two hours. As the hour approached, Weller admitted to still feeling
hugely nervous. "Just to be in this studio is doing my head in."
After about eight run throughs, Lynch was satisfied. The group assembled
in the control room for a playback. Paul suggested that take three was
the one to work on; then, suddenly, standing next to him, was a smiling
Paul McCartney - fit, youthful and relaxed. Behind him were his two daughters,
Stella and Mary; they had done much to persuade him to attend. McCartney
was just back from a month's holiday, part of which he had spent in Liverpool.
"Do you still have relations there?" Weller asked him. "Yeah, just about
everybody who lives there. You walk out and everyone's your relation. They
all go, 'All right Paul?' "
McCartney then strode over to the control rooms window and explained how
they had once locked the composer John Barry inside. Then he announced
that the day before, with his mind focused on this Bosnian album, he had
written a song for possible inclusion. "I mean, if we have got time and
you and the rest of the guys fancy doing a version of it, then we could.
But I don't want to impose myself," he said. Weller looked on in near disbelief,
as if saying "You're asking us if its alright to play on one of your new
songs?"
Someone mentioned to McCartney that 33 years ago to the day he had cut
Love Me Do. He laughed. "They're always coming up with anniversaries here."
Later on he would tell Weller, "The thing was we were all really nervous
that day. To us, this was the place where Cliff Richard recorded. And we
were really aware of Gerry and the Pacemakers. They were the ones to beat.
Later on, it was the Dave Clark Five." "I think," Weller replied, a small
grin on his face, "you might just have managed to do that."
McCartney said that he had heard Stanley Road, Weller's last album, and
had been impressed. He also admired the commitment shown by all the groups
working on the album. Better still, he said with evident pride, it was
the Beatles, that were now inspiring so many of them. "You're talking about
music that was made 30-odd years ago so it means a real lot." But, he added,
he couldn't help thinking on the way over, how back in the sixties they
had watched American friends of theirs being sent to Vietnam. Twenty five
years on the world hadn't changed.
Fifteen minutes later McCartney sat down at the keyboard (he thought it
was the one he used on Come Together) and started playing. "I can't believe
that I'm watching this," Kate Moss said. "It's absolutely mental." Johnny
Depp sat in silence.
McCartney's playing was fresh, firm and lively. Then he moved on to the
guitar and conjured up a stinging solo. When he finished, everyone burst
into applause. Meanwhile, in the control room, Stella McCartney and Weller
were leafing through Mark Lewisohns definitive book, The Beatles, Recording
Sessions. "He's a Gemini and so are you," noted Stella. "Yeah," said Weller,
"and he's got a chipped front tooth like me. He did it in 1966 falling
off a moped. When I was a kid I took it as a sign, the both of us being
Geminis and the tooth. I know it sounds strange, but I did."
At five o'clock Noel Gallagher sat down in the control room and started
up his guitar. He, like Weller, was visibly affected by McCartney's presence.
"I know what's going on here," Stella later remarked. "You're all trying
hard not to show it, aren't you? It's cool but dad's loving this. It's
good for him to know how much he's appreciated."
The only one who couldn't contain their excitement was singer Carleen Anderson.
Only three weeks before, with Weller at her side, she had cut a version
of McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed. Later on, under Weller's insistence, they
played him the song. His response was, "You've really made it go."
Now she was walking into the studio unaware that he had shown up. She greeted
a few friends, turned around and saw him. "Oh my God!!" she said, clasping
her hand to her mouth.
"Now then, you," McCartney cheerily said, "I don't want any trouble from
you." Then he stepped over and hugged her tight. When they parted, Carleen
almost curtsied. An hour later, she sat on the stairs outside, refusing
to come into the studio until she had composed herself. Brendan Lynch came
out and said, "Time to do your duet with Paul."
"I'd rather have my tooth pulled out," Carleen said, walking unsteadily
into Studio Two to sing backing vocals with the man.
By now, the control room was crowded out with Go! Discs personnel, friends,
employees and well-wishers. Weller was in the control room. "Look," he
said over the system, "could you try it like you did the first time?" Paul
Weller was directing Paul McCartney in Abbey Road. Bizarre. "Today has
been so unreal," Weller said later. "It's like being in a dream."
What had also been impressive was the level of commitment shown by all
those involved. That morning Kate Moss had persuaded a gang of supermodels
to appear on The Big Breakfast and auctioned off various items.
Meanwhile Oasis had worked until six in the morning on their track. Then
Noel did a Big Breakfast phone interview, came to Abbey Road to play guitar,
went over to Radio One and then returned to Abbey Road, just in case he
was needed.
McCartney was the same. He agreed to every interview and photo opportunity.
He made it clear that he would play as much as was needed for the record.
At 8:30pm McCartney assembled Paul and his group and for the next two hours
they worked solidly on his new composition. Unfortunately, time ran out
and McCartney's song (he'd written it the night before) was left unrecorded.
The mix of Come Together had to be ready to be flown to Blackburn by nine
the next morning.
At midnight, after spending 10 hours in the studio, Paul McCartney announced
his departure. Weller took him aside and told him everything he had felt
since his childhood about Macca's work. He told him about his music and
what it had meant to him. McCartney thanked him, shook hands and was gone.
Two hours later, the mix was finished. Weller was still downstairs in Studio
Two playing the McCartney composition, The Long And Winding Road, on the
piano.
An hour later, he sat on the steps of Abbey Road waiting for a cab, reflecting
on a day of history and memory, a day when generations of musicians met
for a common cause.
Then Weller thought about the famous zebra crossing just yards away from
where he was sitting, and suddenly he had a vision of him crossing it and
being flattened by a truck.
"But I really wouldn't mind," he said, thinking about everything that had
just gone down. "I would die a happy man."
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