The practice of re-recording hits has got out of control in the last decade, now even the surviving Beatles are getting in on the act. But at least this one has a purpose, as Paul and Ringo announced at a press conference last night.
The surviving members of the biggest band of all-time are re-recording their 1967 classic “Strawberry Fields Forever” with some lyrical revisions and releasing it as “Strawberry Milkshake Forever”.
“It just felt right really,” Paul McCartney explained. “I don’t like to have a go at people willy-nilly, but when this guy threw a strawberry milkshake in the face of that hatemongering little . . . you-know-what, I just cheered, strawberry milkshake forever! And then I thought of the song. So I called Ringo, and he was in full agreement with me that we should use it to spread a message of peace and love in the 21st century. I had to call Yoko for approval too as she handles John’s estate, but she was in full agreement too – it’s probably the most we’ve ever been in the same mind about anything ever!”
The original recording of this song was the embodiment of psychedelia in the late 1960s, and is still regularly voted one of the group’s finest songs. It took a lot of man hours to record back then, although with the technology available today the re-recording would take much less time.
“We’re doing it a little more straight this time,” Ringo Starr added. “There’s no need to try to break the same ground again, and it’ll help us get it recorded faster. But it’ll still have the same old Beatles vibe to it.”
Also helping them to get it recorded faster are Julian Lennon and Dhani Harrison, sons of their deceased bandmates, both will be contributing guitars and backing vocals.
“It was strange for us,” Julian says, “they kept calling us John and George, we both thought they might have been going a little bit gaga at first but then we realised they were just thinking of it as a Beatles project and they were just using their names out of sheer force of habit, and you know that they would have all done it together anyway if they’d all been alive, and they didn’t mean any harm, so we just shrugged and got on with it.”
Also keeping it in the family is the producer of the record, Giles Martin, son of original producer George Martin.
“It was an easy job for me,” he explains. “All I had to do was record them. They knew what they were doing, there weren’t many overdubs, they cut the basic track in about half an hour, just the four of them on the usual instruments, Julian & Dhani on guitars, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums, then Paul overdubbed some piano and keyboard parts, then they did the vocals, Paul on lead, the kids singing backing vocals, with Ringo putting in an extra little backwards part for the coda.
The backwards part is in tribute to the old stories about certain records containing hidden backwards messages. As for what Ringo said on this, they’re not revealing anything, so we’ll have to buy the record to find out.
The record will be released on May 10th, and the proceeds will be given to a selection of charities set up to help refugees from around the world.