In 1968, the increasingly distant Beatles dragged themselves into the studio to record the Paul McCartney song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” The band was growing tired of working together, and they didn’t exactly hide the fact that they disliked the song. In short, it was a miserable day in the studio, and tempers grew short. Engineer Geoff Emerick watched as McCartney and producer George Martin began shouting at each other. He was so disgusted with the fight that he quit.
Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick quit working for the band when Paul McCartney fought George Martin
While recording the vocals for “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” Emerick noticed with sadness that the frosty dynamic between the band members was nothing like the public image they put forth.
“The public still believed The Beatles were a band, that John and Paul still wrote together, that the four lads from Liverpool were making a group album,” he wrote in his book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. “Nothing, in fact, could have been further from the truth. Not only were they working separately at the time, they were barely speaking to one another.”
Martin, who Emerick viewed as a mentor, asked McCartney to try “rephrasing the last line of each verse.” The musician didn’t respond kindly to the suggestion.
“If you think you can do it better, why don’t you f***ing come down here and sing it yourself?” McCartney said.
Emerick said Martin shouted back at McCartney to “bloody sing it again,” the first time he’d ever heard the producer raise his voice in the studio. Right then, Emerick decided to quit.
“That was it for me,” he wrote. “I took one last glance down at the studio, where McCartney was standing defiantly, arms crossed, and decided that this just wasn’t worth it. I had to leave; I simply had to escape the pressure cooker.”
He returned to work with The Beatles despite his frustration with Paul McCartney
Though Emerick felt he couldn’t take working with the band anymore, he returned to the studio with them. McCartney’s angry words had disgusted him, but he remained on good terms with him. The Beatle convinced him to quit EMI and begin working at Apple Corps. He also returned to the studio with the band to record Abbey Road because McCartney promised the band would be less argumentative.
“Yes, I did take him at his word,” Emerick told Music Radar. “And John said the same thing to George Martin. In the back of my head I might have had some reservations, like, ‘Well, we’ll see…’ But I was surprised and pleased at how everybody got along.”
He added that he would have regretted not being there for the recording of Abbey Road.
“I’m glad I came back for the final bow,” he said. “To have missed being a part of the Abbey Road album, I’d still be kicking myself.”
Geoff Emerick worked on Paul McCartney’s solo career
After The Beatles broke up, Emerick worked on a number of McCartney’s solo projects, including Band on the Run and Flaming Pie. They remained friendly for years, and after Emerick’s death, McCartney offered a touching tribute to him.
“I’ll always remember him with great fondness, and I know his work will be long remembered by connoisseurs of sound,” McCartney wrote at the end of a statement on his website. “Lots of love Geoff, it was a privilege to know you.”
