George Martin

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a musician. A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, he began his career as a professional oboist, but soon moved from playing to producing.

Presenter0:40

He joined EMI where in nineteen sixty two he made a decision which was to change his and many other people's lives. He signed up a group called The Beatles, and went on to produce every record they made until they disbanded eight years later.

Presenter0:55

The Beatles may no longer be in business, but Mike Castaway certainly is. In the twenty five years since he's written the music for many films and produced recordings with performers as diverse as Sting, Jose Carreras, and Stan Goetz.

Presenter1:08

Rock and roll, he says, has the same function as classical music, to make sounds that are appealing to a mass of people and are of some worth. Here's George Martin.

Presenter1:19

How do you judge the worth of a piece of music, George? Surely it's it's a completely subjective business.

George Martin1:25

Oh, absolutely. Everyone's got their own ideas about what's good and bad.

Presenter1:29

But do you know when you hear a piece of of pop music, can you uh listen to it today and say that's really good, that's good quality, or that's a load of old rubbish?

George Martin1:37

I can, but of course one of the problems of getting old is you get slightly less tolerant of um of of bad stuff, so I don't honestly hear an awful lot of good stuff. I think technology's made things a bit worse, too. It it's a little bit too easy to make sounds now. I use synthesizers and computers as well as everybody else. And at my home, on a on a very small amount of apparatus, I can actually make orchestral sounds. I think that's terribly unfair. I don't think should, you know, someone who spends their entire life learning how to play the oboe or or the violin suddenly find themselves supplanted by a sampler.

Presenter2:12

But can you hear the difference?

George Martin2:14

Oh yes, of course they're not they're not as good as the real thing, never are, but uh but nevertheless, I mean, young people can use these sounds and cook up demos of music that is really very, very presentable, but doesn't have a great deal of intrinsic worth.

Presenter2:29

So when you were creating, shall we say, Sergeant Pepper, and and and John Lennon said he wanted to smell the sawdust, you went out and found a hurdy gurdy or a steam organ. You needed you had to have the real thing, is that what you're saying? And that although you could recreate it with a synthesizer today, it wouldn't be the same.

George Martin2:46

Well, in the case of Pepper it's a different thing because in fact that was synthesized stuff anyway and my hurdy-gurdy sounds were in fact uh the forerunner of today's samplers because all I was doing was taking existing recorded sounds and chopping them up and using them for my own purpose.

Presenter3:01

You'd disappoint me. I I had you in my mind walking round fairgrounds looking for the right czar.

George Martin3:06

Well, do you know I did that? And I I really wanted to find a steam calliope, but it would have taken about three years to program the damn thing, so I gave up that idea.

Presenter3:13

So what was the difference between then and now in that case, if you were actually reproducing sounds then, rather than getting the real thing?

George Martin3:21

I think probably the quality of the material, the song. If you're a classical composer, you've still got you've got to have a grand plan, but you've got to have the ability to to write

George Martin3:31

good themes and good contrapuntal work with those themes and and good structures and form. Similarly, in in rock and roll and pop music, you should have the ability to write a very good tune and great lyrics and put them together in a form that is very presentable.

Speaker 23:37

But

George Martin3:47

That isn't done now. You know, if you listen to a rap record, you can hardly say they're great lyrics. And a lot of the tunes you hear are very, very tiny and very fragmented and rather monotonous.

Presenter3:59

But we expect nothing but quality music on this desert island. George, after after all that, tell me about the first record.

George Martin4:05

Well, the first record is by Ravel, Daphnis and Clary, and I've chosen this because he could conjure up sounds with the orchestra better than anybody of his time. He was an Impressionist in music. He painted a wonderful picture. If you listen to Daphnis and Clary,

George Martin4:22

In shut your eyes.

George Martin4:23

you will see a picture, and it's very beautiful.

Presenter5:27

Part of Revelle's Daphnis and Chloe, played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Mortu.

Presenter5:33

You must have told it a million times, George, but I've never heard it from your lips. So tell me about that morning in june, nineteen sixty two, when the Beatles walked into what, studio number three, Abbey Road?

George Martin5:44

Well, I brought them down from Liverpool because I wasn't too impressed with the tape Brian Epstein had played me. I said there was something there, but I couldn't find out whether it was worthwhile or not. I said I'd have to meet them and brought them down. And of course, when I met them, I wasn't very impressed with their music still, and I couldn't really make out for myself what I was listening for, because I was so conditioned to a solo singer with a backing group. But here I had four people who were all doing all sorts of things. And it wasn't Cliff Richards and the Shadows, that was for sure. But they did have tremendous charisma. They were the kind of people that they still are. They're the kind of people that when you're with them, you are.

George Martin6:31

All the better for being with them and when they leave you you feel a loss.

Presenter6:35

So it was them that you fell for, rather than their sound, in the beginning?

George Martin6:38

It was yeah, them. I fell in love with them. It's as simple as that.

Presenter6:40

Bruh.

Presenter6:41

But you must have heard something in that tape in order to invite them down, because other record producers had turned them down, hadn't they?

George Martin6:47

Every label in the country had turned them down. I think perhaps if I'd known that, I might have turned them down too. But I didn't.

Presenter6:54

There's a kind of destiny to it though, isn't there? Because you were looking for a a permanent recording star, as I understand. You were jealous of of Cliff Richard and Norrie Paramore having him, weren't you?

George Martin7:03

Yes, well I had had a a hit record with Jim Dale. We had a number two record with a song called Be My Girl. And I'd had a previous number one, but not with a rock group, with a group called The Temperance Seven. And I always envied Noray Paramore with Cliff Richard because it seemed much easier to make a record with a rock and roll artist than it did with comedy people. With comedy people you had to find a great new piece of material every time. You know, if you were recording with Charlie Drake or Bernard Cribbins or Rolf Harris, the song itself had to be absolutely right.

George Martin7:36

With a rock and roll star, it almost seemed I mean this is an exaggeration and not true but it almost seemed that you'd give them God Save the Queen and you would make a hit record.

Presenter7:41

This one

Presenter7:44

Hmm.

Presenter7:45

So they came into number three studio, as we say, and they began to play. Did you know in that moment when you met them and you heard them and you put the whole thing together, did you think this could be the start of something big?

George Martin7:59

No. I did think that they had the potential to make a hit record, if I could only find the right song.

George Martin8:07

and I I looked amongst what they all the stuff they had. The best I could find was Love Me Do, and we recorded that and we issued it. I knew it wasn't a number one, but I I thought it would have enough

George Martin8:18

meet in it, to call some attention to the group.

Presenter8:22

Record number two, I think.

George Martin8:24

Well, it of course is the Beatles. And this is after we've made our success. And they were appearing in Olympia, Paris, for the first time. And while they were there, I went over to make a rec recording with them in German, because the German market said they wouldn't be able to sell the Beatles unless they spoke their language, which the Beatles thought was absolutely ridiculous. But we sort of went along with the Germans and I made them record this. So they recorded Sie Liebdich, yah ya ya and come give me a meine dine hand. It was all rather silly, really. But during that time, the most amazing thing was that in the middle of it all, we had a call from America saying

George Martin9:08

Your version of I Want to Hold Your Hand has hit number one in America.

George Martin9:13

And for the first time we knew we'd made it big.

Speaker 39:22

Oh yeah

Speaker 39:24

Tell you something.

Speaker 39:26

I think you'll understand.

Speaker 39:30

Can I say that something?

Speaker 39:33

I wanna hold a ha

Presenter9:44

The Beatles, and I want to hold your hand.

Presenter9:46

But you mentioned that before then, before the Beatles, you'd been recording making these comedy records. Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, I think, was goodness gracious me, or something.

George Martin9:55

That's right, yes. I did most of Peter Seller's stuff, all of it in those days. The recording with Sophia Loren came around because um he was appearing in a film with her.

George Martin10:04

And he fell madly in love with her, of course, although I don't think he ever got anywhere. But he tried. And Herbie Kretzmer and Dave Lee wrote a song which was related to the film they were making, The Millionaires, about an Indian doctor and a patient. And it was a terrific song.

Presenter10:08

But he tried.

Speaker 210:21

Yeah.

Speaker 310:21

Yeah.

George Martin10:23

And I suggested it to both Peter and Sophia, and they went for it. We recorded it in Abbey Road number one, and I took it along to the film producer, and I said, you know.

George Martin10:32

And this would make a great title song for your film, The Millionaires, you know.

George Martin10:37

He said, My dear chap, who is George Bernard Shaw?

George Martin10:40

Can't play liberties with Shaw, you know.

George Martin10:43

So he didn't put it in the film, and of course when the film came out, everybody said where's the because by this time the record was a hit. Where's the record? And he he'd act actually had the good grace to admit afterwards he was wrong.

Presenter10:53

And Wright said Fred was one of yours as well, wasn't it?

George Martin10:55

Yes, Bernard Cribbins, who is a dear friend and a marvellous performer of all sorts.

Presenter11:00

But, you know, if ever anybody says, What does a record producer do? surely that's a brilliant example, isn't it? Because all of those sounds on there, the whole thing, the bringing together of the script in the first place, and and the right artist, and then all of the effects on it, it really you know, there's a

George Martin11:14

Oh yes, we had enormous fun doing those kind of things. I mean that was really what I liked so much about making comedy records. Again, you see it was painting pictures and sound.

Presenter11:14

Perfect.

Speaker 311:15

Uh

Presenter11:20

Akim

George Martin11:23

Uh

Presenter11:23

Yeah

George Martin11:23

And it was a jolly good apprenticeship for what I did later with the Beatles, certainly.

Presenter11:26

And with with pepper, as you say, in particular.

George Martin11:28

Yes, indeed.

Presenter11:29

But why don't why aren't there any of s of those records around any more? We don't have them in the hip parade any more. Are we so sophisticated that we don't like a good giggle?

George Martin11:37

Well, people don't have an oral imagination any more. They like to see things. They don't like to hear things and imagine what they might be. So comedy records, per se, are bound to die. Videos would be a different thing. Comedy video I mean, Monty Python and and uh Forty Towers have supplanted Peter Sellers and um all those early records.

Presenter11:57

Next piece of music.

Presenter11:59

Oh, it isn't music.

George Martin12:00

Well, my next record is from Beyond the Fringe, which was one of my favourite comedy albums. I went up to Cambridge and and recorded five nights with the with the group before they came to London, and we had a wonderful time. It was during that time that I learnt I had my first number one record with the Temblin Seven. So that's the kind of memory. And the recording that we had included this this little excerpt, which I think is a send-up of the war, which really

George Martin12:27

sums up the complete and utter futility of war, but it was so well done.

Speaker 312:33

War's a psychological thing, Perkins. Yes, sir. Rather like a game of football. Yes, sir. You know how in a game of football ten men often play better than eleven? Yes sir. Perkins, we're asking you to be that one man.

Speaker 312:50

I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage.

Speaker 312:59

It'll raise the whole tone of the wall.

Presenter13:03

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and that sketch from Beyond the Fringe. Let's wind backwards again, George Martin, because as I said at the beginning, your musical background was classical.

Presenter13:15

You'd studied at the Guild Hall, and you'd played the oboe professionally. In the L C C Parks, I read. Is that right?

George Martin13:21

Well, I wasn't good enough for the London Symphony Orchestra, that's that's sure. And of course it wasn't my main subject. You know, I I I studied composition and conducting an orchestration at at the college, and I took up the oboe, really, to earn a bit of a living. And I didn't earn a great one, but it did keep the wolf and the dog.

Presenter13:38

But but you ran and played in and and recorded, eventually, a Baroque group, didn't you?

George Martin13:43

I never actually uh played with the London Baroque Ensemble, which is the group that I I recorded with Parlophone. It was run by a chap called Doctor Karl Haas, and he was a musicologist, and um he would dig up old manuscripts of things and say we ought to record them, as well as stuff that was well known, like Mozart and Vorjac serenades and so on.

Presenter14:04

And Peter Rustinoff was involved as well, wasn't he?

George Martin14:06

Ustinov. Peter Yustinoff was a uh has a great knowledge of music and he did he was very keen on the Brokh period and knew an awful lot about it and was interested enough to become president of the London Baroque Society, a very grand title. Um we used to have little meetings, we used to have lunches or dinners with Harl Haas and Peter and myself, planning our repertoire on what we were going to record next. And um it was then that I had the idea of recording Peter Yustinov, doing his party piece of sort of uh mock operas, you know, and um I made a record with him and it sold extraordinarily well.

Presenter14:43

So was that how you got into comedy records then? It it w it was kind of led from the Baroque by Ustinov?

George Martin14:43

Yeah.

George Martin14:50

Well kind of. I mean, i wi with our little label we had to compete against the big chaps and, you know, with all the big stuff coming from America, like Frank Sinata and Guy Mitchell and Frankie Lane and all those kind of people. And comedy seemed to be the outlet and

George Martin15:04

I wanted to make an album with Yustinoff, but he he was terribly difficult to pin down and I had to look elsewhere for the album. And I found it in the shape of Peter Sellers, who when I first met him was really a stooge to Ted Ray with Ray the Laugh. And the goons came out of that. And we started making records together, I think with Boiled Beef and Carrots, Harry Champion's song, and I'm Endering the Eighth I Am and things like that.

Presenter15:33

But you ended up as head of Parlophone at quite a a young age, didn't you? Twenty-nine?

George Martin15:37

When I was twenty nine, yes. No one was more surprised than I when I was given the job.

George Martin15:41

Sir Joe Lockwood was the head of EMI at that time and he said he had been made manager at that same age and um he looked upon me to make Parlophone a great label. I think his confidence was uh at that time a little bit hyperbolic. I di I don't think he really believed it himself. But of course in fact with the Beatles Parlophone did become a great label.

Presenter16:04

Record number four.

George Martin16:06

My fourth choice is um an oboe piece, and this is the oboe quartet by Mozart, and it's one of my favorite pieces, and it's the fast movement from it.

Presenter17:05

Yeah.

Presenter17:07

Part of the third movement of Mozart's Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello, K three seven O, played by the Nash Ensemble.

Presenter17:15

Let me wind the clock back even further, George Martin, and ask you about your life before you went to music school, because you might never have got there, as I understand it. Your parents couldn't afford music lessons for you, could they?

George Martin17:27

No, well, you see, it wasn't just a matter of not affording. I don't think my parents really ever thought that music could be a career. My father was a wonderful man, but he'd been had a great terrible time during the Thirties Depression. He was out of work for a long time. And I think that must have coloured his judgment. He wanted me to be a civil servant. My mother, on the other hand, knew that I was talented in drawing and in mathematics, and she thought I ought to be an architect. They both wanted me to have a safe job.

George Martin17:59

And I never considered music as a career. I I was actually wa I really wanted to be an aircraft designer. And music was a great hobby. And I had my own band, which I used to earn money from when I was fifteen or sixteen. And um I'd earned enough money to play for music lessons and so I I went to a pian team.

Presenter18:19

So you you paid for your own?

George Martin18:20

Yes. Uh I ran I started I wanted to learn Beethoven's sonatas and Chopin and that kind of thing, and um I had a few lessons there, but uh before I knew where I was I was in in the war was still on, and I was in the theatre arm, and um all music lessons had to go by the board.

Presenter18:36

But the family was pretty poor, I understand. You were brought up above the sunlight laundry in in Highbury.

George Martin18:41

Not above the Sunlight Laundry, but certainly opposite it, yes, in in Drayton Park in Holloway. Um yes, we we were poor, but we were very happy. I mean my father was a a carpenter and um I was sent to good schools and I had got scholarships and so on. And my mother was um very hardworking and uh she looked after my sister and myself extraordinarily well. It was a very happy childhood. I have very fond memories of my childhood.

Presenter19:03

Please

Presenter19:07

And you went into the fleet air arm, as you said, in in the war, but after that you went into music school, which you didn't expect to do. There there was a there was a fairy godfather here, wasn't there?

George Martin19:17

Sidney Harrison, a marvellous man. He was a professor at the Guildhall, and I I was introduced to him by another Harrison who was not a relation, Eric Harrison, who heard me playing one of my compositions once, and said I should send it to Sidney Harrison, who was on the Committee for the Promotion of New Music. And I did this, and that began a correspondence which lasted right through the war. And when the war ended, I met him for the first time.

George Martin19:45

And he said, You really must take up music as a career. I said, But how can I? I have no training.

George Martin19:51

And he said, You will get training. You will get a government grant. You will come to the Guild Hall. You will play your compositions to the principal of the Guild Hall, and he will be as impressed as I am, and you will get a three-year course. And he was absolutely right. I did all of those things. And later on, it was as a result of Sidney Harrison that I was given the job at Abbey Road, EMI, because through another friend of his who was an opera producer, the word got round that uh they needed a a young man to help in music production. And Sidney said, I know just that fellow.

George Martin20:23

So he was a marvellous man.

Presenter20:25

Record number five.

George Martin20:27

I've always had a tremendous admiration for Benjamin Britton, and um in my sort of formative years I would listen to most of the stuff he did. And his settings of folk songs I think were so imaginative and so super. And the most popular one, of course, is The Foggy, Foggy Dew. In the days when he actually wrote that, it was considered rather risque. But it's of course it's very mild stuff now.

Speaker 320:53

I was a bachelor, I lived all alone, And worked at the weaver's trade.

George Martin20:54

Pause.

George Martin20:59

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 321:03

And the only, only thing I ever did wrong was to woo a fair young maid.

George Martin21:10

Yeah.

Speaker 321:14

I would hurt in the winter time And in the summer too

George Martin21:16

But in the winter time

George Martin21:20

And in the summer.

Speaker 321:25

And the only, only thing I ever did wrong was to keep up from the foggy fog

Speaker 321:40

One night she came to my bedside when I lay fast asleep.

Presenter21:46

Yeah.

Presenter21:50

The Foggy Foggy Dew sung by Peter Pears, accompanied by Benjamin Britton.

Presenter21:55

How would it work with you and the Beatles, George? W w would one of them come to you, John, say, with an idea for Strawberry Fields, or would they present as a group, or would he come along and have it completed? Or you know?

George Martin22:07

Well, we worked together for almost a decade and it it the role changed somewhat. I mean, to begin with, I was the master and they were the pupils. At the end, I think I was the pupil and they were the masters. During the Pepper period it was m my function was really was to

George Martin22:24

try and extract from them the maximum of their talent and try and find out what they wanted to hear.

George Martin22:31

In the case of Paul, he was very articulate and always had a very good idea of what he wanted, and had very good ideas too. In John's case he had marvellous ideas, but they were a little bit difficult to realize. He wasn't a very practical man, he couldn't change a fuse, you know, and he certainly didn't know the the the instruments that could be used, so he would come to me and describe the sound that he would want, and I would then try and give him what he wanted.

Presenter22:55

But how would he he have described strawberry fields, for example?

George Martin22:59

Well, in the case of Strawberry Fields we started off with just the Beatles doing it. And then he came back to me and said, I it's not quite what I imagined. He said, you know, I'd like to do it again. Could you write a score? I'd like to use some locellos and some brass, maybe some trumpets and things. So I said, Okay. And we I said I spent some time with him. I I talked through with him what we could do, and then went away and wrote a score. But in other cases he would say it this to me is an orange sound, or something of that sort. You say he would be um very poetic, but not terribly accurate in his description.

Presenter23:34

But then you would deliver something and maybe he wouldn't like it, so you'd have to go and find a different way of doing it.

George Martin23:38

Absolutely. Well, in fact, you know, before he died I spent an evening with him in New York and we were chatting about old times. And he came up with a remark which shook me. He said, you know, I'd love to re re record everything.

George Martin23:49

I said, John, you can't really mean that. Everything we've ever done you'd like to re re-record. Come on. He said, No, really I mean it.

George Martin23:56

And I said, What about strawberry fields? And we said, Oh, especially strawberry fields.

George Martin24:01

And he I realized he was never really satisfied with anything he'd done, because his dream world was always better real life wasn't half as much fun.

Presenter24:11

And he was never really grateful to you, was he, for?

George Martin24:15

Oh, I wouldn't say that. Um John and I were I I'm very fond of John. It I think he was grateful, but he he still I I think he f always felt that things could be better. He never got them better, and he actually said to me afterwards, I wish you'd done such and such when he worked with somebody else. So I think he was appreciative.

Presenter24:31

And was he jealous of your relationship with Paul, for example? You and you obviously had an easier relationship with him.

George Martin24:37

I don't think so, and I I really wasn't aware that I was closer to Paul than to John.

Presenter24:42

But did you just work together with them, or did you spend a lot of social time with them as well?

George Martin24:47

Well, as much time as we could. I mean, I went on holiday with John once, and we went skiing together. But, um, you know, they were so damn busy, and of course so was I, and it was difficult to find time together. John Lennon

Presenter24:59

John Lennon on skis is quite a thought. Could he do it?

George Martin25:03

Well, in fact, it was the first time John had ever been skiing. It was when he was still with Sin, and we went to St. Morrit's. It was it was jolly good fun, though.

Presenter25:12

Record number six.

George Martin25:15

I'm being cheeky here and I'm putting in something that I wrote, but not just because of that, but because I also admire enormously the people playing it. And here we have a chap who is one well, the best guitar player in the world, I think, from a classical point of view, John Williams. And he plays a piece that I wrote. I wrote a suite for him of three pieces, which was really my attempt to sort of paint a picture of America. And this is the middle movement called Old Boston.

Presenter26:47

Part of Old Boston, played by John Williams and the Medici Quartet, and composed by my castaway, George Martin. So you're a composer in your own right, George, and you conduct as well, you you guest with the L S O.

George Martin26:59

Jack of all trades, master of numb.

Presenter27:01

But you enjoyed that?

George Martin27:02

The

Presenter27:02

Of a source.

George Martin27:05

I'm afraid I'm still working, yes, and um I don't intend to work quite so hard next year, because there's so many things to do. You know, I I do enjoy my life, and I want to spend a bit more time.

George Martin27:15

Sailing boats and and going places and building things and

Presenter27:19

Going to desert islands. Are you going to be all right when you get there?

George Martin27:22

I think so, I hope so. I I do like islands. I've I've had lots of islands in my life. I built a recording studio on one, which wasn't a desert island, Montserrat.

George Martin27:31

And we have a place on Alderney, which is the smallest of the Channel Islands, or one of the smallest.

George Martin27:37

I like islands.

Presenter27:37

So you're gonna be in your element in many ways?

George Martin27:40

Well, except for the fact that I am I don't like being by myself.

George Martin27:45

Um I do actually like the enjoy the company of people.

Presenter27:48

But you work, as I say, still very hard and you're sixty nine years old. Um you obviously don't work for the money, you don't need the money. Um you made enough, but not out of the Beatles, interestingly.

George Martin27:59

Well no, I mean the curious thing is that once the Beatles finished I made far more money because um people seemed to think that I had something to offer them and um

Presenter28:07

But you weren't on a cut with the Beatles, or you weren't on a passage.

George Martin28:09

So I was, but but only after a time. Uh when I left EMI I was certainly when I worked for EMI I wasn't and uh when I left EMI I managed to squeeze a tiny bit out of them, which actually paid for the building of the studios that we did.

Presenter28:22

But do you kick yourself that you didn't say to them in the beginning, Look, you know, give me one per cent?

George Martin28:26

I've been awfully lucky. You can't look back and say you shouldn't have done that or you should have done that, you know. You have to take it as a whole. And as a whole, I've had a wonderful life. I've been I've met the most wonderful people, worked with the greatest of artists. I've been very fortunate. I've got no but no gripes at all.

Presenter28:44

I'm glad to hear it. Next piece of music.

George Martin28:47

I love George Gershwin, and I made a record of George Gershwin's songs last year, and Willard White, in fact, was on that record. But here we have him singing, I think, one of Gershwin's greatest works, Porgy and Bess, a marvellous opera. And here we have Bess, You Is My Woman Now, a beautiful aria.

Speaker 329:11

Cause you is my woman now. You is

Speaker 329:20

And you must laugh and sing and that's what two ministers

George Martin29:23

That's

Speaker 329:45

Cause the sorrow of the past is o'erdone.

Speaker 329:53

Yes.

Speaker 329:56

But your real happiness is just me.

Presenter30:09

Willard White singing Bess You Is My Woman Now from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lauren Marzell.

Presenter30:16

At least once a year the story is run that the Beatles are getting back together again. But it's kind of true this time, isn't it? Because the the the three have now recorded, I think, a backing track to a a vocal that John left behind to

George Martin30:36

It was just a demo tape. I mean, it was the kind of thing that where John would put a cassette on top of his piano and sing and play. And it was fairly crude stuff. But it did have John's voice on it, and it was also the beginnings of a song. And Paul and George and Ringo got together on it and contributed more material, more lyrics, and altered the song a little bit, added bass, drums, guitar, and voices. And it's absolutely marvellous. Is it? It really is terrific. I when I heard it I thought, you know, I was a bit uneasy about it when I heard they were going to do it. But of course Paul said to me, It's the only way the Beatles can make a new record. And it's absolutely true. And the result is everything you would expect if John had been alive. They would have made this record.

Presenter31:23

It's that good, is it? Although it began on a cassette tape on top of the piano. Absolutely.

George Martin31:23

Yeah.

George Martin31:26

Absolutely.

George Martin31:29

They've had very good technical help, and I think it's superb. What era do they?

Presenter31:33

What era do the songs come from?

George Martin31:36

Well, just before John died he wrote Free as a Bird, about a year before, I think, and uh it lay in his store. You know, he was something he was going to do something with at some time, and never did.

Presenter31:47

Of course what it means the fact that Yoko handed these tapes over to Paul is that they are now reconciled, that this sort of protracted era of bitterness and argument between them ha has has come to an end.

Presenter32:00

What do you feel was the w was the reason behind that? Do you think it was the difficulty of coming to terms with that sudden fame, with that everything? Do you think that it's it just has had a lasting effect?

George Martin32:11

Well, it it's a very complicated story. There have been so many differences, and of course money gets in the way of things. Um I think it was Gracio Marx who said that when money comes in the door, love goes innuendo.

George Martin32:24

Um I think that uh you know there's bound to be differences when you have so many so much money involved. And it was more than that. It was a question of control too. And I think that um

George Martin32:36

Now happily everything has been resolved.

Presenter32:39

Do you approve of calls for the three remaining Beatles to get together again on the stage?

George Martin32:44

I think that if the right charity idea came along they might be persuaded to get back together again. But they're not looking for it. I know that. You know, they enjoyed working together within the studio very much, and they they do enjoy each other's company. They they really do love each other. But as for going on getting back on the stage, well, as a one off it might be possible, but I don't see any more than that.

Presenter33:04

Perhaps they shouldn't. Perhaps they should just now leave it to history.

George Martin33:08

Well, we had such great times and we have such a great past that I think it's an awful you know, it's an awful risk to spoil it.

Presenter33:15

Last record.

George Martin33:17

Tschaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Everture.

George Martin33:20

is one of the most beautiful pieces of love music, I think, that's ever been written. It's an outpouring of longing and frustration in music, and the love theme is I think extraordinary. It's quite inexplicable. You can't look at it and analyze the notes and say, how does it work? It just is an enormous emotion.

Presenter34:23

Part of Tchaikovsky's overture to Romeo and Juliet, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hermann Scherchen.

Presenter34:30

Um, if you could only take one of those records, George.

George Martin34:33

One record.

Presenter34:34

Hmm.

George Martin34:35

I think it's got to be Gershwin. I think it's got to be Best She's my woman now.

Presenter34:38

So even you would leave the Beatles behind, would you, on it, Desertino?

George Martin34:42

Well, if you hear I want to hold your hand every day of your life on a desert island, I think you might get a bit bored with it after all.

Presenter34:49

What about your book?

George Martin34:51

And I'd like a book on on boats, because I think I'd like to build a boat and try and escape. And I'd like a book on design, if you like.

Presenter34:59

Well, y you can study the design, you can build the boat, as long as you promise not to escape in it. I think that's what.

Presenter35:07

And your luxury.

George Martin35:08

I think a musical instrument. I mean, if I've got a record player on the island, that means I've got some kind of electricity, doesn't it?

Presenter35:16

Yes, unless it's solar powered, of course.

George Martin35:19

Well, I think the solar panel might be able to charge my little synthesizer. I'll have an electric keyboard, which if I could have a little computer that goes with it even better. But um certainly uh something I can make music on would be very nice indeed.

Presenter35:33

George Martin, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

George Martin35:36

Thank you.

Speaker 235:45

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.