Free As A Bird

[Whyte Ice]

I have heard that for the song "Free As A Bird" they took an old piano demo of John Lennon's and used it as the base track for the beatles reunion song that was featured on Anthology.

I have an old piano demo of Lennon's Free As A Bird and it is in very horrible quality but if its the same demo I have that they used on the Anthology version, how'd they touch it up so well? What kind of NR did they use? Are there any articles on how this process was done?

 

[jmorris]

I have heard a lot of different version of Beatles songs. I would think that maybe a better version was used. Yes it was from a demo from the Dakota. Jeff Lynn of ELO I believe handled the project. As far as noise reduction. The Lennon vocal,piano and drum machine is so far back in the mix,I wonder if much was used. Im a big Beatles nut,I ve heard tons of bootleg recordings and many versions of songs.

 

[jmorris]

Oh I forgot, the "old piano" was a Steinway console that was just auctioned a year or 2 ago for like 2 million. I think George Micheal bought it? If Im incorrect someone please correct me, Jim

 

[Whyte Ice]

Originally posted by jmorris
Oh I forgot, the "old piano" was a Steinway console that was just auctioned a year or 2 ago for like 2 million. I think George Micheal bought it? If Im incorrect someone please correct me, Jim

Yea, I heard about this but I think it was the piano John Lennon used on "Imagine" that George Micheal bought.

 

[jmorris]

If you see the movie "Imagine" John is playing a console piano that is the same as photos of him at the Dakota. I think he wrote imagine on the cosole Steinway,but recorded it on the white grand you see in the video.. hey who knows, but thats what I recall,Jim

 

[A Reel Person]

I have that piano demo, too. I think it's the same one used on the studio track.

They obviously processed the livin' daylights out of it, to where only John's voice calls out from the ether, really processed and thin sounding. I don't think you can hear the original piano, at all. McCartney overdubbed piano in the studio, to 'beef up' the piano sound, but it makes the original piano part completely inaudible.

Free As A Bird, the studio cut, is a textbook example of using just about every effect in the book. In a way, they had to process the hell out of it, since the original demo was a cassette.

Free As A Bird. The studio cut is good, and the original demo tape is good too, in it's own way. There was tons of hiss on the original demo tape. They had to minimize that, somehow. I think if you search for old '96 interviews of Jeff Lynn, he may talk a little about producing the Beatles, on the Free As A Bird sessions.

Free As A Bird. The posthumous reunion of The Beatles. In the end result, John's part is barely audible. That's heavy irony, isn't it?

 

[jmorris]

Hey good info reel person. I love Free as a bird 'cause Im a Beatles fan, but I always wondered why did they not use another song that was studio quality but unused. I figure if Lennon wanted to use Free as A Bird he would have used it on the 1980 Starting Over album...right? He is way back in the mix. The piano I hear I always thought was Lennon,it is so cheezy sounding like recording with a cheap mic. Seems it would be a fairly easy task to add to the demo tape right? Must be not as simple as it seems,Jim

 

[Whyte Ice]

Originally posted by jmorris
I love Free as a bird 'cause Im a Beatles fan, but I always wondered why did they not use another song that was studio quality but unused. I figure if Lennon wanted to use Free as A Bird he would have used it on the 1980 Starting Over album...right?

They did also do "Real Love" and the original demo I've heard was in very good quality and must of been alot easier to work with.

John was writing alot of stuff around that time but he didn't get a chance to release it all to make way for Yoko's crap. They did release another album called "Milk & Honey" after John's death that was supposed to be the follow up to "Double Fantasy" but if you put together john's songs from those two albums, you pretty much get one album of john songs.

Free As A Bird, Real Love, Now & Then and other such home recordings were just a few of what John recorded. He had so much stuff coming in and too little time to release all of it.

Originally posted by jmorris
He is way back in the mix. The piano I hear I always thought was Lennon,it is so cheezy sounding like recording with a cheap mic. Seems it would be a fairly easy task to add to the demo tape right? Must be not as simple as it seems

Keep in mind that these recordings were done on a little recorder John had on top of his piano. And for such a crappy quality original tape they were working with, they did a good job improving it.

 

[A Reel Person]

Ok, I'll listen to Free As A Bird and Real Love again.

I think the Real Love original tape was a lot better quality than Free As A Bird. In Real Love, Lennon's piano part can be heard plainly, but I'm not quite so sure about on Free As A Bird. Lennon is really back in the mix, but like you said, they're both pretty good final recordings, considering what they had to work with.

Anyway, I'll listen to both cuts, again. They are both good songs.

For the truly great Lennon demo stuff, check out the LENNON "Wonsaponatime" box set. Also, "Menlove Avenue" is a disc of demos and second-offs. That's where the really strong demo stuff is. Yoko already put it out on CD.

Now, I'm not saying that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, with Free As A Bird and Real Love, but, these original demos may have not been the strongest Lennon demo material ever, but they were the ones that had never been produced or fleshed out by John,... however, they were shelved.

Anyway, as usual, that's my 2c worth of opinion on that subject.

It does make me want to listen to those recordings again, Free As A Bird and Real Love. I will, and report back, if I hear anything new in there.