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BEATLES SONGS CORNER

DR ROBERT (Lennon & McCartney)

By PJVillanueva

When Lennon wrote this song and was recorded (April 1966)
LSD 25 was still legal in the USA. Synthesised by swiss
chemist Albert Hoffman on November, 16th, 1938, after
studying a substance used by midwives for centuries, rye
ergot. Its hallucinogenic properties, though, were not
discovered until some years later when, working again on
it, he accidentally absorbed a small quantity, which led
him to try a few more times with larger doses.
LSD and Psilocybin were supplied to scientists by Sandoz
for a long time under the Delisyd name, until October,
6th 1966.
It was used by a lot of psychiatrists for the treatment of
schizofrenic and alcoholic subjects with very good results.
The substance was also tried in the 1950's by the CIA on a
number of its employees, military personnel and government
agents, many times without their knowing, which led to many
undesirable and even deadly episodes, until "Mkultra"
project, as it was named, was reported to the US Congress.

Robert Freymann was a New York german born physician, just
one among many, who administered their famous clients shots
with a mixture of vitamins and methedrine or LSD, as we've
seen, legal at that time, although not for long. The fact
that he lost his licence in 1968 and was also separated
from N Y Medical Society in 1975 both suggest that he kept
his 48th Street, NY "practicing" long after LSD was banned.
He died in 1987.

The Beatles, though, had a similar experience, not with NY
Dr Robert Freymann, but with George's dentist in London, who
unadvertedly poured a lacing of LSD on their coffee -"take a
drink from his special cup, Doctor Robert"- and so generously
gave Patty, Cynthia, George and John an awful lot of trouble
and a bad first trip, in which George drove for hours without
the slightest hint on where their home might be. Of course
they were terrified having such an initiation, although both
John and George would soon have frequent acid experiences.

Dr Robert is presented in the song , with raw irony, as an
altruist, while anyone can realise that his shots (cups)
are necessarily a source of addiction. Someone described
his practice as leading to it since people soon ended
feeling down and needed more and more shots each time until
they could end shooting themselves. However, John's message
looks extremely ambiguous, given the fact of his, only too
well known, usual tendency to excess and his final surrender
to eroin addiction, surely induced by Yoko Ono, who ended
showing at every Beatles recording session, something that
from the start had always been denied to Beatles wives or
friends and which must have been the ultimate and maybe the
main Beatles' break up reason.

SONG'S INSTRUMENTS

Experimenting with sound had become a first rate issue in
this phase of their career. Geoff Emerick, a young and more
agressive engineer replaced Norman Smith as chief recording
engineer and began trying, among other things, the above
mentioned bass drum stuffing and snare drum clothing to get
a softer drum sound, which could better contrast the bright
guitar sounds he was getting by bringing the mikes close up
to the amps' speakers and smart mixing. The Beatles were
also using the above mentioned new guitars, amps & effects,
which contributed a lot to suitably dress up their blooming
ideas.

All the instruments in the bacing track were recorded on
April, 17th, 1966 with George Martin as producer and Geoff
Emerick and Phil McDonald as 1st and 2nd engineers. It
seems that rhythm guitar, drums, bass, piano and maracas
were reduced to one track and placed center and then they
recorded John's harmonium on a second track and George's
guitar on a third, later splitting it to both sides. The
vocal parts by John and Paul were recorded on a fourth
track and also split to both sides on April, 19th, 1966.

Some people suggested John could have used his Gretsch
Nashville 6120, but I'm pretty sure he used his Epiphone
Casino through a Vox 7120 amp with a distorsion effect
(previously modified for them) along with other effects
already built into it. Here he gets just the same guitar
tonal quality of Rain, where he lets it ring, but here he
sharply cuts the sound on the second beat giving the song
its characteristic puch. John's guitar is placed center in
the stereo spectrum.

It is known that George used his Sonic Blue Fender Strat
too on the album, but for this song he surely used his
Gibson SG Standard through a Leslie rotating speaker
cabinet, profusely used on REVOLVER album (TOMORROW NEVER
KNOWS voices) for instance, and Vox 7120 amp. This guitar
part was first placed to the right of the stereo spectrum,
but the signal was split to both sides by ADT (Artificial
Double Tracking, a very slight delay (probably just a few
milliseconds) on one of the two separated signals).

Paul used his new Rickenbacker 4001 S Bass through a Vox
4120 bass amp sounding center. The mix offers us a soft
low register tone, more present than in old recordings,
although not so much as in the PAPERBACK WRITER / RAIN
single, mostly because of the higher trotting tempo and
the more conventional way of fifths picking it imposed,
but I must say too that Paul is making here an austere,
almost absent minded effort.

Ringo, as usual, plays his Ludwig drum kit sounding center
, with a new 22 inch bass drum. Oddly enough, there's not
a trace of a hi hat or a crash or ride cymbal in the whole
number.

Harmonium was played by Lennon in the Middle eights and it
sounds to the right.

Maracas were played by George (Surely there were quite a
few "punch ins"). They sound center all along the track,
except on the middle eights.

An almost inaudible piano part was played too by Paul on
the middle eights and placed also center.

As we've seen before, John and Paul's vocals were recorded
the last and later split to both sides by ADT.

SONG STRUCTURE

In order to study it, we can divide the song in four parts
for the sake of clarity, although the transition cadence
(E, F#) to B before the second verse and the two middle
eights can't really be considered as such. We'll call them
A, B, C and D:

A - Four bar Intro and Verse 1 Tonic A (I)

B - Submediant F# (VI) (00:17)

C - Transition cadence E, F# Dominant, Submediant (V, VI)
(00:26-00:28) to two B bars Supertonic (II) leading to the
second verse ...

A - Verse 2 - Tonic A (I) (00:32).

B - Submediant F# (IV) (00:43)

C - Transition cadence E, F# Dominant, Submediant (V, VI)
(00:52-00:54) to two B bars Supertonic (II) with George's
solo guitar leading to ...

D - Middle eight 1 - B Supertonic (II) (00:58-01:09).
The blissful choral carol-like middle eight, as the rest
of the song, mocks the benefactor, his addicted clientele
and their own stoned-like beatitude state. Resting on
George's Leslied Gibson SG Standard syncopated drone and
John's two chord (B, E) harmonium bed. It looks like a
second song Tonic, which abruptly gives way again to the
hard edge overdriven Casino a whole step down to the real
one.

A - Verse 3 - Tonic A (I) (01:10), now with the dialoging
Leslied Gibson played by George, while Paul's bass mostly
sticks to the tonic and fifth with very few ornaments.

B - F# Submediant (VI) (01:24)

C - Transition cadence E, F# Dominant, Submediant (V, VI)
(00:52-00:54) to two B bars (Supertonic - II) leading to..

D - Middle eight 2 - B Supertonic (II) (01:39-01:50) and a
step down to ...

A - Coda - Tonic A (I) (01:54)

From the very beginning, with an intro of just four bars
on the tonic (A) and a medium tempo, the song kicks a
sudden high and soon rushes into John's verse in which he
sounds a little bit stoned in his singing.
Whatever critics may have said, it is one of the edgiest
rhytmic tracks the Beatles ever recorded. It's so catchy
that you hardly can avoid nodding to it instantly. There
is a certain orgiastic quality in the profuse repetition
of those flat sevenths on every third beat from the mixed
two track rhythm guitar by John, which sharp sound even
overpowers Ringo's apparently attenuated drum sound (they
had begun stuffing some clothing into the bass drum and
possibly they even softened the snare drum sound with
some baize whenever they wanted to get a warmer drum
sound).
I think no one has ever mentioned John's rhytm guitar
being two different mixed tracks sounding center,
everyone referring just to John's distorted Casino. I
myself had, for a long time, some doubts about that fact,
although I'd always suspected it, and even had tabbed the
song as one guitar part. It always shocked me because I
found it very difficult to play at first and thought it
would be really difficult recording that part without any
overdubbings. But after a lot of careful listening, while
working on an update for the tab in which I had already
worked some years ago, I saw that there is no room for any
doubt and it's all too plain to see. Anyone can listen to
that second part distinctly with some B/C# slides leading
to the flat sevenths (E) on the F# chord (00:19), which
would indeed prove impossible to play in just one take.
Also while in B, before the second verse (00:31) and all
through the rest of the song.

Recorded the very next day Rain was finished, the song's
powerful and biting sound is a great achievement. The whole
Revolver album is, but DR ROBERT, like SHE SAID SHE SAID and
AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING are most contagious. Specially DR
ROBERT has a kind of alluring, magic quality to it, which
transmits an unstoppable enthusiasm. But, being one of the
first album songs to be recorded, I think it's just a pity
it wasn't given a cuter ending instead of that short rushing
fade that some say had the purpose of cutting off an ensuing
jam of about forty seconds (it seems that the song was 2'56"
long and was cut down to 2'11" in some remixing sessions).

Bibliography:

The Quiet One. A Life Of George Harrison
by Alan Clayson
Sidgdwick & Jackson Ltd., London, 1990.

The Beatles As Musicians. Revolver Through The Anthology
by Walter Everett
Oxford University Press, 1999.

Revolution In The Head. The Beatles Records And The Sixties.
by Ian Macdonald
Fouth Estate Ltd., London 1994

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions
by Mark Lewisohn
The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., London, 1988

MY FIRST BEATLES RECORD:
AN EARLY BASS PLAYING IMPRINTING

I saw my first Beatles record on a "Three Wise Men day", thanks
to a little girl, some months older than myself, who happened to be
my own cousin and was, like millions of girls of all ages all around
the world, insanely in love with Paul at that time, If that was possible,
given her age. I remember I began joking about it, but the moment
she showed me one of her Epiphany's day presents, that cool
japanese garden EP cover from the photo session they held when
they were in Tokyo for their Budokan Hall concerts, with Ringo on
the left, sitting in lotus position on a stone pedestal, George with
what seems to be his SG Standard & John and Paul both with
their colourful sunburst Epiphone Casino & Hofner 500-1
respectively, all except George wearing dark sunglasses & she
played the record repeatedly for me, I was caught right away &
it was forever.

Here in Spain that was the ELEANOR RIGBY, GOT TO GET
YOU INTO MY LIFE, DR ROBERT & I WANT TO TELL YOU EP
cover. (In the UK that record cover was the one for NOWHERE
MAN, DRIVE MY CAR, MICHELLE & YOU WON'T SEE ME EP).
All four tracks made a great impression on me, although not so
much ELEANOR RIGBY, which seemed "the thing" with its
impressive string arrangement, as the other three, mostly DR
ROBERT (One of my all time favorites in spite of its detractors)
with Lennon's magic voice and its fine and sharp guitars, GOT
TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE with the also great vocal part from
Paul and its strong brass score & I WANT TO TELL YOU with
its enigmatic guitar riff, but all of them for their superb bass
parts.

Had it been the british EP the one to come first into my hands it
would not have made any difference because all four tracks too
have really great bass parts. It's very clear now that The Beatles
were at their sweetest moment from RUBBER SOUL to SGT.
PEPPER'S albums & that McCartney's bass Playing was just
swell.

It was my father who bought for me my first Beatles record a
couple of days later, PAPERBACK WRITER/RAIN single. I was
then on my early teens & even more that the above mentioned
record, it reached my tender soul at once. It was the finest &
most potent pop record I'd ever come across &, of course,
talking about bass playing, I just thought (I still do now) that RAIN,
was simply one of the greatest tracks ever & its bass track had
a lot to do with it, Wouldn't you all agree with that?

Maybe the records had been released about a couple of years
before and I already knew, although very vaguely, some of their
first hits such as PLEASE PLEASE ME, I WANT TO HOLD
YOUR HAND, SHE LOVES YOU & maybe some more, but they
were very rarely played on Franco's ultra fascist Radio Nacional
& I was then perhaps too busy running around & jumping like a
crazy cat. So, for me, those first two records through my father's
huge compact Telefunken radio and record player, where you
could pile a little lot of 45's, were the very beginning of it all.

Although I would later play mostly lead guitar, I got first imprinted
with bass playing, so I kept after Paul like a little duck after an
alien mother and whenever I could I borrowed a bass for a while
to play a few songs like HELP, THE NIGHT BEFORE, TELL ME
WHY, I'M HAPPY JUST TO DANCE WITH YOU & others, just to
show off a little, you know.

Of course, I had already begun collecting everything I could find,
old or new & always, each one of the records (for me it was all
just EP's & singles then ;albums, books and the rest came only
later) was a very pleasing surprise. When I bought a new single,
let's say PENNY LANE /STRAWBERRY FIELDS, HELLO
GOODBYE /I AM THE WALRUS or any of those I hadn't known
before (each & every one of them) with my little money
assignment, it was as if I was actually buying some delightful
chocolate boxes, only these could last for ages.
That was simply the greatest time in my life & it plunged me with
a vice into english language and also guitar playing when I was
hardly beginning to unveil my teens.