Bibek Acharya
There are hardly any mistakes to be found amongst The Beatles’ catalogue in most fans’ eyes. Although no band could be considered perfect from back to front, some of the less impressive moments by the Fab Four are at the very least interesting to listen to because they make up more of the full picture when discussing their time together. But if they hadn’t had George Martin at the helm when they started, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be talking about them in such hallowed terms today.
While Martin was far from the only reason the band made it big, he was their biggest musical coach in their early days. They had a lot of musical intuition to work off of when writing their original tunes, but Martin was the one adding the subtle touches that made them work, like bringing in the string quartet on the song ‘Yesterday’ or doing something as simple to kicking up the tempo when they were playing ‘Please Please Me’ at their first album session.
And once the band left touring behind, the studio became a new workplace. No longer a stop gap in between tours any more, the band could use whatever sonic trickery they wanted to when making their songs, and with Martin acting as the advisor, nothing was off the table, whether that was feeding John Lennon’s voice through a Leslie speaker on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ or creating the sonic version of chaos when working on the back half of ‘A Day in the Life’.
A lot of what they pioneered could be done on someone’s laptop nowadays, but the only reason we have that technology is Martin’s ingenuity. And looking at how they were pushing themselves forward, Abbey Road was the first time technology had finally caught up to them in many regards. No one wanted to hear the primitive stereo mixes of what they did on their classics, but hearing tracks like ‘Something’ and the entire back half of the record saw them finally reaching their artistic peak.
Considering how much the band weren’t on good terms at this point, the fact that they were able to make something that cohesive is honestly a miracle. None of the band members were content being in a band together any more, but even if they wanted to do their own things, ‘Come Together’ is a perfect example of all of them playing to their strengths, with Lennon setting the scene, Paul McCartney coming in with a swampy bass line, and George Harrison and Ringo Starr adding the final brushstrokes to make it a masterpiece.
Since everything was going right in the studio, Martin always felt he could have helped take them even further if he had the chance, saying, “One of the regrets I have is that we didn’t progress any of the music we were developing in The Beatle days. I think we were going somewhere. Sgt Pepper was a kind of landmark, and Let It Be led somewhat, and Abbey Road certainly led somewhere. I think we were establishing a style of music that was different from anything that had gone before. Nothing that any of them has done individually has ever been as good.”
It’s not like Martin doesn’t have a bit of a point. While he has returned behind the producer’s chair to work on specific songs in both Lennon and McCartney’s solo careers, it always feels slightly bittersweet knowing that they could never find a way to break through to something even more extravagant later.
Then again, Martin’s work with other legends like Jeff Beck may have been his way of trying to determine the next movement in rock and roll. There was more to life than working with The Beatles, but there’s something about those few years together that will forever be etched in people’s minds.
