In the studio
The Beatles began recording Lady Madonna on 3 February 1968. They began by recording three takes of the basic rhythm track, with McCartney on piano and Starr playing the drums with brushes.
McCartney added a bass part that evening, and Lennon and Harrison both played fuzz-toned guitars through the same amplifier. Starr also added another drum track.
During the same session McCartney added his vocals, which were later double tracked, and Lennon and Harrison provided backing vocals.
Good piano lick, but the song never really went anywhere. Maybe I helped him on some of the lyrics, but I'm not proud of them either way.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The Beatles returned to the song three days later. McCartney added his second vocal and another piano track, and all Beatles contributed handclaps. McCartney, Lennon and Harrison also recorded their "See how they run" vocals, and the vocalised imitation brass during the middle eight.
That evening four sax players were contacted to complete the song. They were called in at the last minute, without any prepared music, and their lines were largely improvised.
Paul went through the song on the piano and we were each given a scrap of manuscript paper and a pencil to write out some notes. Had there been music we would have been in and out in about 10 minutes. As it was, it took most of the evening, recording it in A major pitch with the rhythm track playing in our headphones.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
The saxophone solo was played by Ronnie Scott, although much of it was removed or buried in the mix. Scott was reportedly unhappy about this, but The Beatles and George Martin were free to do as they pleased.
The Beatles briefly and informally returned to Lady Madonna at Abbey Road on 5 September 1968, while working on the arrangement for George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Only available on bootlegs, this off-the-cuff version mainly featured Paul McCartney on organ and vocals, with minimal input from the other Beatles.
The group performed Lady Madonna once more – on 31 January 1969, the final day of recording for the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. It was a somewhat shambolic rendition which contained the improvised lines "Lord and Lady Docker, in your private yacht, all the people wonder why you have such a lot."
A new edit of Lady Madonna, comprising elements from takes three, four and five, was included on the Anthology 2 album. It restored the extended sax break from Ronnie Scott, and an extra solo flourish from him at the close of the song.
A remixed version of Lady Madonna was included on the 2006 album Love. Notable features were a drums and percussion introduction, the sax solo heard on Anthology 2, a segue into the riff from Hey Bulldog for the guitar solo, and Hammond organ from I Want You (She's So Heavy). The drum introduction was taken from Why Don't We Do It In The Road, and the guitar solo by Eric Clapton was from While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Promotional films
The Beatles filmed two promotional sequences for Lady Madonna on 11 February 1968, both for worldwide syndication to television companies. The single was to be released while the group was in Rishikesh, India, so they would be unable to make any personal appearances to promote it, should they have wished to.
Possibly to avoid the Musicians' Union issues with miming which meant the films for Hello, Goodbye went largely unseen in the UK, the Lady Madonna promos merely consisted of shots of The Beatles recording in Abbey Road.
The Beatles made little attempt to perform Lady Madonna during the filming; instead, they used the studio time to record a new song, Hey Bulldog. In 1999 Apple re-edited the footage to create, for the first time, a promo film for Hey Bulldog synced to the group's performance.
I spent a few days coming up with ideas for Lady Madonna, [but] when The Beatles wanted to get on with recording Hey Bulldog, all that went out the window!
Mojo magazine
NEMS Enterprises distributed the two clips to British and US television stations. The BBC broadcast one of the clips on four occasions, in black and white and on BBC. In America the first showing for one of the clips was in colour, on ABC's The Hollywood Palace on 30 March.
Was it recorded with an Eight-Track recorder?
Lady Madonna was recorded on 4-track, they did not start recording on 8-track until later that year.
Does anone know when – and for that matter why! – Paul started singing “Did you know that money was heaven sent” instead of “Did you think…” in live performances?
Don’t forget John Lennon suggested the “See How They Run” Part. The line “see how they run” was included after Lennon’s suggestion (and was a theme that had been used in the previous year’s “I Am the Walrus”).
A Great Paul song with some great Lennon additions …
Great point. I daresay that with many a Lennon/McCartney song, a suggestion from the non-primary-writer elevated the song from “really cool” to “great.” See also “Come Together” and McCartney’s bass line and “Hey Jude” and the famous “Leave it in!” remark from John about “The movement you need is on your shoulder.”
Isn’t the intro from the Love version the intro from “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”?
This song could’va had a beter guitar part. But still, a beastly wicked awesome song from Les Beatles!
I’m pretty sure it was Joe Meek who produced “Bad Penny Blues”
It was apparently produced by Denis Preston, and engineered by Meek. George Martin was the head of A&R at Parlophone at the time. I’ve amended the article – thanks for pointing this out.
I love the way they mixed this one (stereo). You can hear Ringo playing snare brush drums on the left and Paul’s Piano, and heavy drums on the right with the fuzzy guitars..
Does anyone know whose idea it was to use brushes?
The snare part, with brushes, comes directly from Humphrey Lyttleton’s 1956 “Bad Penny Blues” (as does the general feel of the piano part, as Joe mentions). You can hear it here.
If you mention the used parts of the “Love” version you could complete them by saying that the drum intro is from “Why don’t we do it in the road” and the guitar solo is Clapton from “While my guitar gently weeps”.
Anybody hear a click in the middle of the song somewhere?
Boys, before pantihose, most women wore nylon stockings, which would often tear or ‘run’, and be repaired with needle & thread.
‘See how they run’ was a pun on ‘your stockings needed mending’ AND ‘Three Blind Mice’.
Precisely! Which disconnects the ‘Walrus’ reference.
Years later, Paul wrote about female stockings in his solo hit “Another Day”.
Doesn’t disconnect it at all. It just means there are several layers of punning/word play/self-referencing going on here.
Was a Kazoo used or was it a comb and tissue?
Do you know who played the part with Kazoo or comb with tissue?
Neither. The imitation brass vocals were by McCartney, Lennon and Harrison. See the In the studio section.
Is there a way to tell which guitar parts are played by Lennon or Harrison?
I have the original US release single, The Inner Light on side B. Both sides suffer from either bad transfer or disc pressing.
Again, does anyone know why McCartney in current live performances of LADY MADONNA uses the word ‘KNOW’ as opposed to the original ‘THINK’ in that one lyric line?
..It contradicts the original ‘THINK’ (vs ‘know’), in that money really is sent this way, which it isn’t…
I asked exactly the same question in December 2009 (see above), and no one replied! Maybe this time they will…
It’s nearly 50 years since the song was written…the perspective of the author has changed. To him, 50 years later, money IS heaven sent, so there’s no reason for Lady Madonna to “think” it is.
Sarcasm noted JT, but McCartney was certainly already pretty well off by 1968.
Perhaps McCartney wanted to soften the lyric as he is later quoted as saying that the song is a “tribute to women.” The phrase “Did you THINK that money was heaven sent?” sounds a little bit derogatory.
Most likely he is just forgotten how that wording goes in the original.
No reason to mythologize everything. 😉
He’s older and he wants to. Really, it’s not a big deal at all.
I thought Brian Jones of the Stones did the sax.
That was You Know My Name (Look Up The Number).
Nope. But Brian Jones did do some sax in “You Know My Name, Look Up My Number”. 🙂
I think it’s one of the beatles slighter efforts singles wise personally. Much like “i am the walrus” should have been a single before “hello goodbye” i think “across the universe” or “hey bulldog” should have been an a-side before this.
I keep seeing that the Beatles mid-’68 onwards releases were “released on Apple”. Well, in reality, ALL Beatles releases were (and are) owned by EMI (parent to Parlophone and Capital). Basically, the allowed the Apple label to be used to keep the Beatles happy.
I love this McCartney number. First obtained it when I got the “Hey Jude” album. Great piano.Loved hearing this on the radio as a kid. I do though agree with another contributor, “Across The Universe” and “Hey Bulldog” would have made great singles as well.Both epitomize contrasting examples of the John Lennon genius.
Brilliant Paul McCartney vocals. A touch of Elvis or Fats Domino.
There is nothing bluesy about this song. It is a pop song.
You bet, poached. You know better than the Beatles.
Didn’t Fats Domino record this?
I have never heard anyone mention this but was the line “Tuesday afternoon is never ending” a direct reference to the Moody Blues’ song “Tuesday Afternoon” aka “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” The timing of the release of the songs suggest it could be, as the Moody Blues piece came out in October, 1967 and this Beatles song was, as listed above Feburary/March 1968.
And “Wednesday morning…” was a direct reference to Simon and Garfunkel…. we could go on and on.
He’s singing about what she does each day and uses words that fit the metre of the song. I seriously doubt it means much more than that.
Well, no. There is nothing from “Wednesday Morning, 3AM” that relates back to the line used in “Lady Madonna,” which is why I didn’t ask about that. Your opinion wasn’t what was sought; I was hoping someone on this board would actually KNOW.
I’m on the board, I have a right to respond. Point being: You can make references between almost any 2 songs if you want. Unless the writer says something about it, it’s pointless and – IMO- silly.
I’ve wondered the same thing – the Moody Blues song is interminable! Tuesday Afternoon is…never ending. Great song, of course, but I’m wondering if Paul or John did a subtle dig at it.
What no one has stated thus far is that Lady Madonna has a tremendous hook, grabs the listener right off the start with its upfront upbeat tempo and doesn’t let up until the Lennon line “See how they run”… That is dynamic songwriting – period. The lyrics are damn good, clever even, no matter what John says.
Yes, I think the lyrics are excellent. It’s perhaps my most consistant favorite of the Beatles’ catalog.
I never understood Lennon’s remarks about so many songs: “doesn’t go anywhere”, “doesn’t resolve itself”. They aren’t novels, for chrissakes, and aren’t supposed to be.
JL hadn’t caught the dragon that day.