Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. For this week I have assembled a collection of home demos and fragments of early versions of the White Album John Lennon classic, Cry Baby Cry. Proper recording of the song was not begun until July 16, 1968, but there are some recorded demos that date as early as December 1967, some of which I can share with you now. The sound clip presented here can be broken down into 5 separate demos by time, as follows:

1) 0:00 – 1:40: John at his Kenwwood home’s music room, mainly going over the chord structure of the verses on piano, sometime around December 1967. He is singing here, but it is “off mike” and difficult to make out. Although “…king was in the parlor playing piano for the children of the queen” seems to be discernible, where the role of the king and queen are reversed from the finalized lyrics.

2) 1:41 – 2:22: This is still a piano demo recorded at John’s home, likely from the same session, around December 1967. This begins with a more uptempo section (possibly a middle eight that was later discarded?) that John is vocalizing over before returning to the verses. John is still singing “off mike.”

3) 2:23 – 2:33: This 10-second fragment has John on piano and then supplementing, with Mellotron strings, the melody of the “jai guru deva” section of Across The Universe. A complete recording of this has it going into the chorus of Cry Baby Cry, which means it could have initially been part of the same song. This was likely recorded around December 1967, during the same session as the above two entries.

4) 2:34 – 3:27: A brief fragment on guitar where John is singing Cry Baby Cry with the original “make your mother buy” lyric and trying to work out a chorus, before moving into playing the chord structure. This dates around December 1967 or January 1968.

5) 3:28 – 5:55: During mid-February to mid-April 1968, The Beatles spent time in Rishikesh, India, and studied Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They wrote most of the music that was to appear on the White Album during this time, and John finished working out the lyrics and chord structure of Cry Baby Cry. In late May, 1968, The Beatles reconvened at George Harrison’s home in Esher (his Kinfauns bungalow) and also at John’s Kenwood estate, to go over what songs they had to record. Finally, from these sessions is a complete demo of Cry Baby Cry with finalized lyrics.

The Beatles Anthology 3 CD set gives us the first studio quality recording of Cry Baby Cry (Take 1), which is a beautiful account, featuring John on acoustic guitar and vocal, then from the second verse onward, he’s joined by Paul McCartney on bass and Ringo Starr on drums. This take was recorded live without overdubs on July 16, 1968. Most work on the master was completed that day, except for some overdubs, done two days later. The master also features George Martin on harmonium (it comes in right after John sings “make your mother sigh” the first time). George used the same harmonium he had played on the Rubber Soul track, The Word, and John had played on We Can Work it Out.

John Lennon, White Album insert photo, 1968

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) The White Album (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1968 double album on 2 CDs, featuring the stereo master of Cry Baby Cry.

2) Anthology 3 1996 2-CD set covering out-takes and previously unreleased tracks from the Beatles during 1968-69. Includes a beautiful take 1 version of Cry Baby Cry recorded live without overdubs.

3) Additional Amazon links for your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

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