George Harrison Started a Fire While Recording This Beatles Song
The Beatles have hundreds of fascinating stories involving how they recorded their music. The band had many innovative recording techniques but also did some weird tricks to boost the studio’s atmosphere. During a recording session for one of The Beatles’ more hardcore songs, George Harrison started a fire and ran around the room.
Paul McCartney was inspired to make ‘Helter Skelter’ after comments by The Who
“Helter Skelter” is one of the most hardcore songs by The Beatles. Many consider this song from The White Album to be one of the earliest examples of heavy metal. However, it was a change of pace for The Beatles, who often made calmer and lighter rock music. In an interview with GQ, Paul McCartney said he made “Helter Skelter” after reading comments by Pete Townshend of The Who.
“I can see why people would think it was the precursor of heavy metal,” McCartney said. “How it came about was I had read in a music paper that The Who had done a really heavy track, and Pete Townshend of The Who was quoted saying, ‘We’ve just made the dirtiest, loudest, filthiest song ever.’ So, I was kind of jealous. I didn’t hear their song. I still don’t know what song he was referring to, but I went in the studio, and I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to do a song that’s dirtier and filthier and louder than The Who.’”
George Harrison started a fire while recording The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’
The Beatles recorded “Helter Skelter” on Sept. 10, 1968, at Abbey Road Studios with Ken Scott as the engineer and Chris Thomas as the producer. According to many witnesses, the environment in the room while recording this song was complete chaos. In The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn, Thomas said George Harrison had set an ashtray on fire and started running around the room.
“While Paul was doing his vocal, George Harrison had set fire to an ashtray and was running around the studio with it above his head, doing an Arthur Brown! All in all, a pretty undisciplined session, you could say!”
In a few of the multitrack versions of the song, McCartney can be heard saying, “Are you comin’, son? I saw you do that, you little bugger. Pop yer bloody hands on yer ’ead, come on!” This may have been in response to what Harrison was doing.
Ringo Starr called the session ‘total madness’
Ringo Starr had a tough time performing the drums for “Helter Skelter”, leading him to shout, “I got blisters on me fingers” at the end of the track. The Beatles’ drummer also saw what was happening with George Harrison and Paul McCartney and admitted the scene was “total madness.”
“‘Helter Skelter’ was a track we did in total madness and hysterics in the studio,” Starr said in Anthology. “Sometimes you just had to shake out the jams, and with that song – Paul’s bass line and my drums – Paul started screaming and shouting and made it up on the spot.”
The Beatles often did many experimental things in the recording studio, but George Harrison went overboard by starting a fire
