A Day in the Life Blog

The Beatles strolling in a Paris park on June 23 1965 in Paris France

Broadcast of `Londra Ultima Ora', Italian radio programme, with interview to the Beatles (recorded 18 June 1965).

The Beatles arrived for their concert at the Palais D'Hiver on June 22, 1965 in Lyon, France.

Following their two performances the previous day at the Palais des Sports in Paris, The Beatles had a rest day before travelling to Lyon for their next engagement.

It wasn't all rest, however - from inside their hotel, the George V, the group gave an interview to Chris Denning for Radio Luxembourg's weekly show 'The Beatles'. Denning invited them to dedicate songs: John Lennon's was for Harold Wilson; Paul McCartney's were for writers Bernard Levin, Donald Zec and Wolf Mankowitz; George Harrison dedicated a song to the miners of Scunthorpe, in reaction to Ringo Starr's dedication for the Liverpool dockers. Starr also dedicated tunes to writers Don Short and Judith Simons, and for their fan club secretary Freda Kelly.

In the evening The Beatles returned once again to the Castel nightclub on 15 Rue Princesse, where they had partied the night before.

The Beatles' set throughout the European tour comprised 12 songs: Twist and Shout, She's a Woman, I'm a Loser, Can't Buy Me Love, Baby's in Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Everybody's Trying to be My Baby, Rock and Roll Music, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride and Long Tall Sally.

The Beatles' final European tour opened with a concert at the Palais des Sports in Paris.

While leaving London Airport the group learned that fans had been turned away by airport authorities, who had claimed that The Beatles has asked them to stay away. This was later denied by the group and Brian Epstein.

The Beatles and their entourage arrived at the Paris-Orly airport at 9.55am and were taken to the George V hotel. Around 50 fans were waiting at the hotel, far fewer than on their previous visit.

They played two concerts at the Palais des Sports, at 3pm and 9pm, each of which was seen by 6,000 people. Also on the bill were The Yardbirds. Both were recorded by French radio station Europe 1; the first was broadcast from 1pm on 27 June, and the second was transmitted live.

The evening performance was also filmed by television channel 2, and was shown on 31 October from 7.30pm.

At night they were visited at their hotel by popular French singer Françoise Hardy, before The Beatles went to the Castel nightclub on 15 Rue Princesse, where they partied until the early hours.

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A combination of mono and stereo mixes were made today of songs like "I've Just Seen A Face', 'I'm Down', 'It's Only Love', 'Act Naturally', 'Wait', 'Help!', and 'Yesterday'.

A separate afternoon was solely dedicated to the song 'Help!'. The end result was that its mono and stereo mixes appear to have been produced from a different take. But this is not so - both the mono (used for the single and the monaral album) and the stereo (heard on the stereo album) do come from the same take.

Set to appear in Italy for the first time a few days hence, the Beatles consented to record a 15-minute interview with the BBC's Italian language service, part of the Corporation's European Service. After the Italian Service interview, John travelled across London to the BBC's Lime grove studios for rehearsals and a live appearance on the last-ever edition of the television programme Tonight. In an interview with Kenneth Allsop he promoted the publication of A Spaniard In The Works, and also read extracts from two pieces.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

'Yesterday' was fully completed this day. The string quartet included: Tony Gilbert (first violin), Sidney Sax (second violin), Francisco Gabarro (cello) and Kenneth Essex (viola). Complete now in its stunning simplicity, the song was mixed into mono.

The rejection of 'If You've Got Trouble', recorded on February 18, meant that Ringo had still to record a lead vocal for the now almost completed Help! album. Being a country western fan, he plumped for a cover of 'Act Naturally' by Buck Owens and the Beatles recorded it in 13 rhythm track takes. George played acoustic guitar, Paul provided harmony and Ringo overdubbed his vocal.

The Beatles recorded a new Lennon-McCartney song called 'Wait'. It was left unissued until in urgent need of one more sons, the Beatles pulled the tape from the library shelf, polished it up and included it on Rubber Soul.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Twickenham Film Studios, St. Margaret's, Twickenham and NEMS Enterprises, Sutherland House, Argyll St. London

More post-sync work at Twickenham for the Help! soundtrack. With this, the Beatles' contribution to their second feature-film was complete. Like its predecessor, Help! was given a royal world premiere at the London Pavillion cinema on Piccadilly Circus, in central London, on Thursday 29 July 1965.

With his second book of prose and verse, A Spaniard In The Works, set for publication on June 24th, it was also time for John to do the publicity rounds once again. Between 8:00 and 8:30 this evening in the NEMS office in central London he was interviewd by Wilfred De'Ath for an insert into the Saturday June 3rd edition of the somewhat austere weekly BBC Home Service programme The World of Books. These were paricularly interesting interviews for John Lennon.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Studio Two, EMI Studios, London

The second of three mid-June recording sessions at Abbey Road, competing the non-soundtrack side of the forthcoming Help! album. On this day, working a 2:30-6:15 afternoon session, the Beatles began and completed (in six takes) John's mainly acoustic ballad 'It's Only Love'.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

A remarkable day's work at Abbey Road, dominated by Paul and perfectly illustrating this young man's mastery of three different styles of musical composition and singing. It was on this day that he continued recording 'Yesterday', the song which, by public acclaim, will always rank among his best.

But it was more than just a great tune. It was also trendsetting recording (June 17) employment of a string quartet for the first time on a Beatles record introducing a new era: the group would continue to utilise strings and orchestras on a regular basis to the end. Typifying their working relationship, Paul assisted George Martin with his score, adding little touches here and there.

Two takes of 'Yesterday' were recorded by Paul alone, acoustic guitar and vocal, between 7:00 and 10:30 pm and then the four-track tape was set aside for completion on the 17th. (Newspaper of the time made a fuss of the factthat none of the other Beatles played on the recording, and that they weren't even present in the studio, but the session tape reveals that George, if not John and Ringo, were certainly there.)

What makes Paul's recording of 'Yesterday', the supreme melodic ballad, all the more remarkable, is that it directly followed the taping of 'I'm Down', a quasi-soul/rock and roll song delivered by Paul in the most larynx-tearing, cord-shredding style. This was started and completed in seven takes during a 2:30-5:30 afternoon session along with the first song to be taped this day, Paul's folk-rock 'I've Just Seen A Face', begun and finished in six takes.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn