The Beatles song that took the longest to record

The Beatles were magicians that seemingly had spells for every foreseeable problem which could possibly occur while they were in the recording studio. Together, they produced more music of note in eight years than any other band has done in eight decades, but even the Fab Four ran into the occasional spot of trouble and endured nightmare sessions throughout their career.

When The Beatles got in their groove, they were an unstoppable force and operated at a level nobody else could reach. Not only were they prolific, but largely, there was a high-quality control of their material. While in the early days, the band struggled to keep up with the demand from the general public and would release almost anything as album tracks, their approach changed as the years progressed.

During the recording process of their fifth album, Beatles For Sale, on October 18th, 1964, The Beatles astonishingly successfully laid down eight tracks in one day. Typically, most bands would be elated to record one song in that timespan, yet, the Fab Four operated in a league of their own.

However, it wasn’t always so straightforward, and The White Album proved to be a particularly challenging period for the group. With high tensions and significant infighting between the band, at one stage, Ringo Starr briefly quit The Beatles because the situation became so toxic.

A difficult point during the making of The White Album was ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, which took 42 hours to record, the longest process in Beatles history. Paul McCartney and Starr began the process on July 3rd, which was relatively successful, but McCartney had a strict vision for the track he wanted to honour.

The following day, George Harrison and John Lennon assisted him in the process, with the latter taking things into his own hands. Another session followed on July 5th, but it was a waste of time as they decided to start again from scratch on July 8th.

Progress was slowly made from this stage, and ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ was finally completed on July 11th. Although it was briefly scrapped before they returned to complete their first remake, which is the version that made The White Album, and after 42 hours in the studio, they had a song. A few years earlier, The Beatles could have recorded an entire album in that same period.

Engineer Richard Lush later recalled the ordeal to Mark Lewisohn, stating: “John Lennon came to the session really stoned, totally out of it on something or other, and he said, ‘All right, we’re gonna do ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’. He went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they’d done it before, and said, ‘This is it! Come on!’ He was really aggravated. That was the version they ended up using.”

Somehow, The Beatles found a way to get to the finish line despite the convoluted recording process. The story of ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ also shows The Beatles were starting to lean into different musical directions, which made it difficult, whereas, in the early days, they shared the same vision.

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