| Title: | Baby's In Black |  |
| Credits: | John Lennon - Paul McCartney | |
| Recorded | EMI Studios, London, 11th August, 1964, Abbey Road 2 | |
| Line- up | Lennon vocal, acoustic rhythm guitar; McCartney vocal, bass; Harrison lead guitar; Starr drums | |
| Producer | George Martin | |
| Engineer | Norman Smith | |
| Location | Beatles For Sale - track 3 | |
| UK release | 4th December 1964 (LP: Beatles For Sale) | |
| US release | 15th December 1964 (LP: Beatles '65) |
Song information:
Scarcely had the sessions for A Hard Day's Night finished than The Beatles set off on an ambitious sequence of foreign tours. It was during this exhausting itinerary that Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the unusually despondent songs that make up the bulk of the group's fourth album, Beatles For Sale. Scheduled for Christmas, the LP was begun in August, a mere week after A Hard Day's Night had topped the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
The songs for the second side of A Hard Day's Night had explored a more introspective manner and, along with other influences, this injection of novelty spread to affect the technical range of Lennon and McCartney's writing. Written in a hotel room, BABY'S IN BLACK bears just such signs of conscious experiment. Probably they began by joking around with sea shanties and nursery rhymes before arriving at a variation of 'Johnny's So Long At The Fair'. Lyrically, though, the effect is spoiled by the inane rhyme of 'only a whim' with 'she thinks of him', a miscalculation that shows how little Lennon and McCartney considered the words they were then using. (This may have been a careless carry-over from the ear-catching lyric of When I Get Home, with its ostentatious blend of articulacy - the rhyme 'trivialities' - and vernacular clich & 'till the cows come home' (1))
Recorded in fourteen disorganised takes, BABY'S IN BLACK took an entire evening, largely because of trouble with Harrison's guitar part (uncharacteristic in its dissonant angularity and hence probably worked out by one of the others, presumably McCartney). Though the group seem to have been cool about the result, the performance, courtesy of Starr, swings infectiously, and the song's folk-ballad overtones charmed their fans enough to keep it in The Beatles' act for the next three years.
(1) Perhaps borrowed from The Searchers' 'Farmer John' (issued on Meet The Searchers in August 1963) which includes the line 'I'm gonna love her till the cows come home'.
Recording information:
The Beatles recorded 'Baby's In Black' on August 11, 1964 for release on their fourth LP "Beatles For Sale." The song took 14 takes to perfect; only five of which were complete. Take 14 was used for release. The song was given a rough mono mix on August 14, but this was improved upon on October 26, 1964. The stereo mix was completed November 4. When Capitol Records released this track on December 15, 1964 on the US LP "Beatles '65" the stereo version was reprocessed with echo and reverb added. On February 26, 1987 the album, "Beatles For Sale" was released in both the US and the UK on the CD format. Originally, a new stereo mix was prepared for this release; however, George Martin later remixed the album in mono. It is the new mono mix, which is found on the CD release of the album "Beatles For Sale."
The Beatles performed several live concerts during 1965, including two shows at the Palais des Sports in Paris (June 20), the Teatro Adriano in Rome (June 27), Shea Stadium (August 15), Atlanta Stadium (August 18), two shows at the Sam Houston Coliseum (August 19) and the Hollywood Bowl (August 29). This song was performed at each of the concerts all of which have been bootlegged.
The Beatles also performed this song at their August 30, 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert. This performance - with the intro from the August 29 show - was issued as a bonus track on The Beatles' 'Real Love' CD single released in March 1996.
The Beatles appeared at the "New Musical Express" 1964 - 1965 Annual Poll-Winner's Concert on April 11, 1965, which aired April 18. 'Baby's In Black was performed at this concert and has been bootlegged.
The Beatles also performed 'Baby's In Black' during their live concerts in 1966 including the Circus-Krone-Bau in Munich, Germany (June 24), Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan (one show June 30 and July 1) and their final concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco (August 29). All of these performances are available on several different bootlegs.