All language subtitles for Soundbreaking E02 Painting with Sound

♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 1

[ The Beatles's "Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band" plays ]

-We were driving to a gig
in an old Zephyr 4,

when "Sgt. Pepper" was played
for the first time on the radio.

And I remember, we pulled off
into a lay-by

and sat there and listened.

-♪ Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band ♪

♪ We hope you will enjoy
the show ♪

-And I remember we just looked
at each other, "...me!"

-The way George Martin had
musically put that together,

I thought,
"Where do we go from here?"

-All right here we go.
-Okay, Richard?

-Yeah...
[ Speaks indistinctly ]

-It's the birth of
a new art form.

They were starting to make music
that you couldn't actually play.

It couldn't exist outside of
a recording studio.

-They did it first.

It revolutionized the way that
people worked in studios.

You could say that from then on,
it's like the rule book's

out the window because you're
no longer trying to represent

something as it was.

-♪ I

♪ I love the colorful
clothes she wears ♪

♪ And the way the sunlight
plays upon her hair ♪

♪ I hear the sound of a...

-In the '60s, multitrack
recording began to redefine

what music could be

and turned the studio
into a sonic laboratory.

-♪ I'm picking up
good vibrations ♪

♪ She's giving me excitations

-It was like a strange place,

full of like, crazy scientists,

electricians, madmen.

-Just having the time to
experiment in the studio

was a radical change.

90 hours working on one song.

Everyone thought
that was insanity.

-As recording technology
evolved,

a sense of limitless possibility
led some bands astray.

-It reached the point where,

the ability to stay in
the studio as long as you want

and spend as much money
as you want,

may not necessarily have been
an entirely good thing.

[ Radiohead's "Bodysnatchers"
playing ]

-You know,
you can produce a band

that will play their songs
perfectly in a room,

and your job as a producer
will be to recreate that.

-♪ It is the 21st century

♪ It is
the 21st century ♪

♪ You can fight like a dog

-Or you can use the studio as
a musical instrument.

That's an art form.

♪

♪ I've seen it coming

-You know, anything is possible,
anything is right.

And that's what's exciting.

♪

♪

-Okay, then. Okay.

-It'll be an F for you.

-Here we go.

Just one more time.

-Right after I say,
"Are you sure?"

Da da da -- yeah.

-Oh.

-Hal, here's how I want
to do it. Takes like this.

-All right, it's fun time.
Fun time.

-Here we go.

-Oh, really?
-17, take one.

-This will be the keeper.
-[Laughs]

♪

♪

[ Boston's "More Than A Feeling"
playing ]

-♪ I looked out this morning,
and the sun was gone ♪

♪ Turned on some music
to start my day ♪

-In 1976, a band named Boston

had a hit single called
"More Than a Feeling."

What no one knew was that Boston
really wasn't a band at all.

♪

-Boston was a result of me
tinkering in a basement

with my multitrack
recording studio.

-♪ It's more than a feeling

-♪ More than a feeling

-♪ When I hear that old song
they used to play ♪

-♪ More than a feeling

-It was a really personal
endeavor.

I worked in my own space,
my own time,

put a rhythm guitar part on,
and then another one,

and then a bass track,
keyboards.

And then I called Brad Delp
to see if he wanted

to sing the vocals,
which, thankfully, he did.

-♪ Ah

♪ ah

♪

-So I basically threw
a band together

to be able to play
the songs live.

Not only didn't
the record company --

not only were they not aware

that I was making a record
in my basement,

but they never became aware
that the record

that they were selling millions
of copies of

was made in a basement.

♪

Multitracking allowed you

to put music together
and change it.

And the reason it was cool is
because this gave you basically

a whole new medium.

At one point,
someone explained to me,

older than I was,
that this whole process

of recording
on multitrack recorders

was invented by this guy
Les Paul

and I said,
"Wow, what a coincidence,

there's a guitar
that's named a Les Paul."

And he says, "Yeah,
there's a good reason for that."

♪

-Les Paul not only designed
some guitars that made

new and incredible sounds,

but had this vision
for recording studios.

He invented
multitrack recording.

I mean that --
that changed everything.

[ playing
"How High the Moon" ]

-♪ Somewhere there's music

♪ How faint the tune

♪ Somewhere there's heaven

♪ How high the moon

-The records I heard by Les Paul
and Mary Ford, in the '50s,

I was even aware then that --
without any knowledge of, um,

of recording techniques,

that they were doing
something revolutionary.

-Uh, you turn
the tape machines on.

They're just a standard,
regular, uh, Ampex tape machine.

-Mm-hmm.

As I recall, there are, uh,
about a dozen

or 20 voices come in there.

Now, where --
whose are the voices?

-That's Mary.

-You mean they're all
Mary's voices?

-♪ Somewhere there's music,
how faint the tune ♪

♪ Somewhere there's heaven,
how high the moon ♪

Now, I'll add a tenor part
to that.

-All right.
-Wait a minute.

-[ voices doubled, harmonizing ]
♪ Somewhere there's music

♪ How faint the tune

♪ Somewhere there's heaven,
how high the moon ♪

-Well, how long can this go on
without getting awfully confused

in your head?

-[ Laughs ]
It's pretty confusing.

-Or being cued by your husband?

-Well, uh, would you like to
hear the third part?

-Yes.

-♪ Somewhere there's music,
how faint the tune ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh

♪ Somewhere there's heaven,
how high the moon ♪

♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

-Les Paul, I mean,

he made sounds no one had
ever heard before.

I remember my mom saying that

you shouldn't listen
to this music. It's fake.

She said, "It's one guy
tricking us."

So I said, "That's it!
That's the music for me."

Because it enabled me to be
rebellious, you know, as well.

And I enjoyed the sound.

I don't think you can beat that.

I mean the way that those
records sound,

is it's still exciting.

-♪ How high the moon

[ Song ends ]

[ Applause ]

[ Beeping ]
-Now come on. Give it to me,

Let me hear that, the whistle
and the sax, once more, ready?

That's right.

♪

-Before magnetic tape, an artist
would come into the studio

and they would be recorded live.

What they would do is literally
etch the grooves

into the disc as the session
was being recorded.

You had to start from
the beginning and go to the end.

If you made any mistakes,

too bad, or you had to
start over.

♪

Magnetic tape -- it just changed
music completely.

It gave you the possibility to
record in fidelity that was

better than anyone had ever
even come close to,

so you can make
a more accurate document.

At the same time,
it lets you manipulate sounds,

so it didn't sound
lifelike at all

because now you can edit.

You can overdub,
you could cut and splice.

Once the technology came out,

it very quickly became
the standard format.

♪

[ Music changes ]

-When I walked into
Abbey Road Studios

for the first time in 1950,

I was astonished at how
primitive it was.

They were still recording on
discs that were cut by a lathe.

From 1950 on, I just worked away
and I had various ideas.

I was experimenting
with the newfangled tape,

and I was able to learn what you
could do to manipulate sound.

You can cut, you can edit.

Obviously, you can slow down
or speed up your tape.

You can put in backwards stuff.

And this is the kind of thing
you can do on recording that you

obviously couldn't
possibly do live,

because it is, in fact,
making up music as you go along.

[ Click ]

-Fleet 1, uh, take 6.

-How could I dance?
She'll really dance.

I'll never dance.

♪

-When I first met The Beatles,

I had so little time with them
in the studio because

they were incredibly busy
all the time.

I would have maybe
a day and a half here,

and a couple of days there.

As a result of that,
the songs that they produced,

which were marvelous,
were still fairly basic.

-2, 3, 4...

[ The Beatles's "I Saw Her
Standing There" playing ]

-♪ Well, she was just 17

-The first album
only took us 12 hours.

I mean, we all knew
those songs so well

because that was our live show.

We were just in there
doing the gig, really.

-♪ So how could I dance
with another? ♪

♪ Oh

♪ When I saw her
standing there ♪

♪

-The old approach was that
the band rehearsed,

went into the studio,

stood in front of some
microphones and played them.

And the job of the producer was
maybe to mix them well

or put a bit of reverb
or echo on them.

But essentially the music
wasn't transformed.

-♪ Whoo, and I saw her...

-The Beatles were over
that phase by about 1966.

With the help of George Martin,
they were starting to

make music that you couldn't
actually play.

It couldn't exist outside
of a recording studio.

It's very difficult to imagine
what The Beatles would have

sounded like without
George Martin.

[ The Beatles's "Rain" playing ]

What's wonderful about this
moment in time

is that 4-track recording
opened up the possibilities

to use the studio
in the creative palette.

So The Beatles's transition
from a garage band group

that's standing around the mic,

playing and singing
"Please Please Me"

and "I Saw Her Standing There,"
into a decisive recording group.

-♪ Rain

♪

♪ I don't mind

♪

♪ Shine

♪ The weather's fine

-They start to use technology to
create sounds and sonic textures

that had never been heard
in rock music.

-The Beatles revolutionized

the way that people worked
in studios.

You know, on "Rain,"

it's the first time there's
anything backwards on a record.

And you can say that, like,
from that moment on,

it's like, oh, the rule book's
out the window

because you're no longer trying

to represent something
as it was.

You're...you're trying to
break it,

break your perception of
this band, you know,

there's this band
playing in a room.

♪

[ "Rain" plays backwards ]

It's more fun in the record if
there's a few sounds that you

don't really know what they are,

and really they're just
instruments,

only something happens on here.

You know,
I couldn't tell you what,

'cause we have a special man

who sits here
and goes like this.

And the guitar turns into
a piano or something, you know.

And then you may say,
"Why don't you use a piano?"

Because the piano sounds
like a guitar.

[ The Spencer Davis Group's
"Gimme Some Lovin'" plays]

-♪ Well,
my temperature's rising ♪

♪ Got my feet on the floor

♪ Crazy people rocking
'cause they want some more ♪

-We were all on this ship
in the '60s, our generation,

and we were part of it
and we went somewhere.

-♪ So glad you made it

♪ So glad you...

-There was a great upsurge of
energy and consciousness.

And so there was a lot of
excitement on the street.

There was a lot of people who
were all trying to go on

the same trip together.

♪

-On "Revolver," The Beatles
wanted to make the music that

was going on in their heads.

The first song they worked on
was a song of John's.

It had the mysterious title
"Mark I,"

which of course becomes
"Tomorrow Never Knows."

-That's me in my Tibetan
Book of the Dead period.

I gave it a throwaway title
because I was a bit

self-conscious about the lyrics
of "Tomorrow Never Knows,"

so I took one of Ringo's
malapropisms,

which was like
"Hard Day's Night."

-"Tomorrow Never Knows,"
that's a song

that pretty vividly depicts
what you're hearing in your head

when you consume some
psychedelics.

The Beatles laid that out
for everybody to hear.

-"Tomorrow Never Knows"
was a very weird song.

The tune had virtually
no harmonies,

it was based on
a continuous drone of sound.

[ "Tomorrow Never Knows"
playing ]

-"Tomorrow Never Knows" started
with a backing track,

recorded here
at Abbey Road studios.

That's Paul on bass
and Ringo on drums,

creating a sort of loopy,
mesmeric effect.

♪

To this, John added his vocal,
with George playing tambura.

-♪ Turn off your mind

♪ Relax and float downstream

♪ It is not dying

♪ It is not dying

-Late in the song, John's voice
gets very unusual-sounding,

especially at the time it was.

-John wanted to sound like
the Dalai Lama chanting

from the top of a mountain.

And he suggested that the way
that they record that would be

to put him in a harness,

to hoist him high
above the studio,

give him a shove, and he'd --

he'd sing every time
he came around,

the mic would capture
a few beats of it.

-Which wasn't the most
practical idea.

But the engineer, Geoff Emerick,
had the great idea of

plugging it into a revolving
speaker, called a Leslie.

So when it goes fast,
it creates one sound,

and when it slows down,
it creates another.

-♪ That you may see
the meaning of within ♪

-In the early part of the song,

John's voice is pretty
straightforward.

Then, after about 1 1/2 minutes,

the Leslie speaker effect
kicks in.

-[ Hollow sound ] ♪ That love is
all and love is everyone ♪

♪ It is knowing

♪ It is knowing

-The Beatles always looked for
other sounds in their records,

and they all had tape machines,

which they used
for recording demos.

And they found that
by making tape loops,

they could create sounds that
people had never heard before.

One of the most recognizable
loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows"

is the sound of -- well, it
sounds like seagulls squawking.

It's actually the sound of,
I think, Paul laughing.

Um, and speeding himself up,
which is this.

[ Squeaking sounds ]

-Another loop is just made up
of guitars being recorded

over and over again, again,
sped up and slowed down,

turned backwards
and they sound like trumpets.

[ High-pitched trumpeting ]

And then,
early days of sampling,

Paul actually recorded
an orchestra off a vinyl record

and created a chord here.

[ Orchestral music playing ]

[ Rock plays ]

-I had a bit of a problem.

How were we going to use
the collection of sounds?

I devised a way of playing
five loops at the same time,

and if you brought up
the faders,

it was like bringing up
an organ stop.

Each one had a different
tape loop playing all the time,

so you could make your sound
as you wished.

-And these tape loops were
running and running and running,

and The Beatles and my dad

and Geoff Emerick
performed on the desk.

♪

Pushing up faders
at the right time

in order to create
the instrument sounds

they wanted for the mix.

[ Trumpeting ]

So, the actual mix of
"Tomorrow Never Knows"

is a performance;
it can't be recreated.

-♪ It is being

♪ It is being

♪

-If you look at everything
that's happening

in that recording,

it's like a prophecy
of pop music in one song.

With the sampling and the loops,
there's so much happening there

that will be active for
the next four or five decades.

-♪ It is knowing

-You can look at hip-hop
and using samples

or scratching in music,

The Beatles were doing that
on "Tomorrow Never Knows."

That song makes you rethink
what music is.

It's that profound.

-♪ Or play the game

♪ Existence to the end

♪ Of the beginning

♪ Of the beginning

-This was the dawn of creating
a new kind of magic.

This was really fantasy stuff.

♪

-Okay,
"Wouldn't It Be Nice," take 5.

[ Drumsticks clacking ]

[ The Beach Boys's
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" playing ]

♪

-I think that kind
of friendly competition

between The Beatles
and the Beach Boys

really advanced the cause of
popular music.

Brian Wilson heard "Rubber Soul"
and understood that there was

a whole other place where you
could take rock and roll,

that that was an elevated
musical consciousness at play.

-Brian was listening to what
The Beatles were doing

in the studio, and he was
completely knocked out.

Hearing that made him realize
that he had to up the ante

on his next album,
which was "Pet Sounds."

-♪ You know it's gonna make it
that much better ♪

♪ When we can say goodnight
and stay together ♪

-He told me that he and Carl
used to pray before each session

that they would make a record
that would be warmer

and more inspirational
than "Rubber Soul."

-None of those big pickups --
♪ Ba, ba

Just uh, just like uh...

♪ Doo-do, doo-do

-Brian pre-imagined everything
that he did.

He heard all of the vocal parts,
all of the instrumental parts,

even before anyone set foot
in the studio.

Brian was the mastermind.

-I'd like to start it out now
this time with the, uh,

organ and the Fender bass,
and then the bongos will come in

at the second half
like everything else.

All right, here we go.

-1, rolling...

-1, 2.
1, 2, 3...

-Ironically, the only song
from the "Pet Sounds" sessions

that reached number one
was recorded

after the album was released
and it was the result

of an unprecedented number
of hours in the studio.

-Time was nothing
to Brian Wilson.

I remember we all got to sit
there for about 3 1/2 hours

when he was running his finger
up that thing going...

[ Imitates
distorted instrument playing ]

-♪ I'm picking up
good vibrations ♪

♪ She's giving me excitations

♪ Ooh, bop, bop

♪ Good vibrations, bop, bop

♪ Excitation

♪ Good, good, good,
good vibrations ♪

♪ Excitation

♪ Good, good, good,
good vibrations ♪

♪ She's bop bop,
excitation ♪

♪ Close my eyes

-Just having the time
to experiment in the studio

was a radical change.

When he made "Good Vibrations,"

Brian reportedly spent
90 hours recording it.

Everyone thought that was
insanity, you know, like,

he's gone mad; he spent 90 hours
working on one song.

You know, to me, that's nothing.

-The session that we did on
"Good Vibrations"

is not one session.

It was many, many,
many sessions.

-Take after take after take.

My fingers were almost
bleeding, you know.

It's like "Come on, Brian,
fade us out; fade us out."

-♪ I don't know where,
but she sends me there ♪

♪ Oh, my, my,
what a sensation ♪

♪ Oh, my my, what elation

♪ Oh, my my, what

[ Organ plays ]

♪ Gotta keep those
loving good vibrations ♪

♪ Happening with her

♪ Gotta keep those
loving good vibrations ♪

♪ Happening with her

-Brian's, you know,
a very deep guy.

You know, so he wanted to move
beyond songs

about summer and -- and surfing.

♪

Just saying something like,
"God only knows

what I'd be without you"
in a rock 'n' roll song

and then create this wonderful
music that enables the listener,

50 years later, to put it on and
to feel what they were feeling.

That's great art.

-♪ I may not always love you

-The way he layered
and added different vocal parts

created that wonderful
celestial resonance.

Overdub over overdub
over overdub until

on "God Only Knows," he ended up
with 7 tracks of vocal overdubs.

And that's how come
you hear this heavenly choir.

-♪ God only knows
what I'd be without you ♪

♪ God only knows what I'd be
without you ♪

♪ God only knows
what I'd be without you ♪

♪ God only knows what I'd be
-We loved the Beach Boys.

And it was a bit of
a competition across the pond.

When they did "Pet Sounds,"

I played it to everyone
and said... "[ Gasps ]

Listen -- listen to what
they're doing here," you know.

So we did "Sgt. Pepper."

[ The Beatles's
"Within Without You" playing ]

♪

[ Crowd screaming ]

-What happened to us
was that while we were touring,

we were regressing as musicians
because the noise

of the audience
was louder than the band.

I'm watching the feet,
I'm watching their arses,

I'm watching
the bobbing heads -- Whoo!

Oh, it's that part --

to stay in some sort of time.

-The last gig
was Candlestick Park,

and by then
we were just so fed up.

And we got loaded
into a meat wagon.

♪

It was like a surrealist film.

It's gone downhill, performance.

'Cause we can't develop
when no one can hear us.

You know what I mean? So for us
to perform, it's difficult.

It gets difficult each time.

-We can't do a tour like
we've been doing all these years

because -- because
our music's progressed,

we've used more instruments.

It'd be soft, us going onstage,
the four of us, and trying to do

the records we've made
with orchestras and, you know,

bands and things.

♪

-♪ Try to realize
it's all within yourself ♪

♪ No one else
can make you change ♪

-The Beatles achieved a quantum
leap when they stopped touring.

That gave us an opportunity
which we hadn't had before.

We were no longer were under
pressure to complete a song

within a day or two days.

We could spend as much time
as we liked on it.

-The boundaries were being moved
so far forward

from the early mono days.

Now, we were asking for things
like a symphony orchestra

for "A Day in the Life."

You know, lunatics had taken
over the asylum.

[ The Beatles's
"A Day in the Life" playing ]

-♪ I read the news today,
oh, boy ♪

♪ About a lucky man
who made the grade ♪

♪ And though the news
was rather sad ♪

♪ Well, I just had to laugh

♪ I saw the photograph

-Like many of John's songs,

"A Day In The Life"
began quite simply,

based on the odd
newspaper cutting.

Paul had written a scrap
of a song,

"Woke up, fell out of bed."
You know the one.

-♪ Dragged a comb
across my head ♪

-But when we laid down
the track,

Paul came up with the idea
of giant crescendo,

a kind of immense
musical orgasm.

♪ Ah

♪ Ah

-"Don't listen to the man
next to you,"

I said to the orchestra.

"Make your own way up
the sliding passage.

If you're playing the same note
as your companion,

you're playing the wrong one."

Well, the orchestra
hooted with laughter.

All their lives they'd tried
to play as one man.

And it only took a few minutes
for The Beatles

to change all that.

-We were taking so long
making "Sgt. Pepper."

I remember in one of
the music papers, they said,

"Oh, The Beatles have dried up."

And we were like... "[Snickers]
No, we haven't."

[ Crescendo plays ]

[ Final chord plays ]

-We were on the road driving
to a gig in an old Zephyr 4

when "Sgt. Pepper" was played
for the first time on the radio.

And I remember, we pulled off
into a lay-by and sat there

and listened to the whole thing
from start to finish.

And I remember we just looked at
each other and went, "...me!"

That's just...

You know, I couldn't wait to
hear the songs again.

Suddenly, here was an album

that was like
a theatrical construction,

but it was also rooted in songs
that were about

all our hopes and fears,
and so, in -- in that sense,

that album opened Pandora's box
for everybody.

[ Playing
Pink Floyd's "Breathe" ]

-"Dark Side of the Moon" started
in a rehearsal room

in Bermondsey, I think,

that belonged
to the Rolling Stones,

where we did some, um,
sort of jamming, writing.

♪

-With "Dark Side," I had
a strong and compelling notion

that we could make an album
that was about life

and about feelings

and the human condition
and things that impinge upon us.

Can I put this down?

-Just a second -- we're just...

I still have to find...
-It's on the other track.

-Okay.

-How do we make, you know,
with a recording desk

and a couple of little old
synthesizers and stuff,

how do you make that sound?

And you have to throw yourself

and your imagination
into creating.

I just plugged this up

and started playing
one sequence on it,

and, uh, Roger immediately
pricked up his ears

and thought
that sounded good,

and came out and we started
mucking with it together.

-A series of notes played
in slowly...

[ Playing notes slowly ]

...triggering a noise
generator and oscillators,

and then just speed it up,
you know.

[ Speed of music increases,
playing rapidly ]

-Now you've got it, basically.

♪

[ Frequency rises ]

-Well, recording changed
with the technology.

When 16-track came in,

we could overdub almost
to our heart's content.

♪

-I think the analogy of painting
is very relevant in terms

of making records, because you
can paint over a whole bit,

or erase a whole section,
and say, "Well, I like that bit

of the painting,
but let's start again here."

♪

-I actually like being able to
sit back and listen to it,

and then go and say well maybe
if we just add something here.

-♪ All that you touch

♪ And all that you see

♪ All that you taste

♪ All you feel

-That was very freeing.

But you could say
maybe it was destructive

in some ways as well, 'cause it
meant you didn't have to

make that simple brush stroke
that meant something.

You know, you could go
blah, blah, blah!

We'll sort it out later.

-♪ Beg, borrow, or steal

♪ And all you create

♪ And all you destroy

-That record to me is...
it's mind-blowing.

The way that that still sounds,
like, I mean, the tape loops,

the mixing, the depth --

no one has come close to that,
probably to this day.

I can clearly remember that
moment of sitting and listening

to the whole mix all the way
through. I'm thinking,

"My God, we've really done
something fantastic here."

♪

-There was an explosion of
creativity in the '60s

to the mid '70s of music
that will never, I don't think,

be matched in pop music again.

[ Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion"
playing ]

-Technology was certainly
enabling people

to experiment more as musicians.

-Multitracking came in and then
we had three tracks.

And then we got four tracks.

And then I remember all
the studios got eight tracks.

And then all of a sudden
we got 16 tracks,

and we were all looking
at one another, saying,

"What the hell are we gonna do
with 16 tracks?"

Before anybody really learned
how to use one of those,

here comes a 24-track.

And the next thing you know,
it's multi-forever. [ Chuckles ]

-♪ Sweet...

♪ Emotion

-In the '70s, people
were spending

more and more and more money
on these gigantic studios.

-Technology has helped us
enormously but it has had also

a damaging effect, because
it's allowed too much freedom.

I've known groups who will
concentrate on

getting a bassline on one song,
and spending five days doing it.

Music suffers from
overproduction.

You don't gain.
You think you're gaining

'cause everybody
wants to play with toys.

And when another 16 tracks
arrive that you can play with,

you have to play with them,
because they're there,

like a kid with a new toybox.

But I thought once you got
past 16, it was a waste of time.

It became a bit self-indulgent.

And it allowed records to go on
forever in the studio.

♪

-And the album of the year is...
Fleetwood Mac!

-The success of "Rumors" was
such a disproportionate thing.

You have so much pressure
from the outside,

wanting you to repeat the
formula that is embodied

in an album like "Rumors."

But there was no formula
to "Rumors."

We were just responding
to what was going on

in our personal lives,
so, no matter what we did,

we couldn't have repeated
the authenticity of that.

♪ Loving you

♪ Isn't the right thing to do

Every song on that album
is a cross-dialogue

between one member and another.

♪

-♪ You can go your own way

-You can't hear
"Go Your Own Way" in any way

other than, you know,
me talking to Stevie.

-♪ Another lonely day

-Making the left turn that
we made on "Tusk,"

it was all about how do we not
paint ourselves into a corner?

And so I said to the band,

"Look, let's try something
a little different."

And they were sort of like,
"Well...okay."

-♪ Why don't you tell me
what's goin' on? ♪

-I had a small studio
in the back of my house,

and I just wheeled
a 24-track in,

and I just started
putting stuff down.

Basically what I'm trying to do
is take a track that we cut

in the studio,
mic the bathroom,

which is right across the hall,
which has an amazing sound.

I mean, 1927 bathrooms are
rock 'n' roll all the way.

And, uh, record it back
onto some empty tracks.

[ Drum beating ]

Working at home alone allows you
to sort of go into the void

and to find all sorts of
mysterious things.

And that was something
I wanted to explore,

and then bring back
and share with the band.

Sing the melody for a second.

-We were recording at
Village Recorders

in Santa Monica,
and we were recording

six days a week,
and it was really horrible.

It's like,
Lindsey with a microphone

on the tile floor, going
ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh.

And we're just all like,

"Okay, that was great.
Take two." [ Chuckles ]

And now -- and he's like...

♪ Ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

♪ Ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Okay, take three."

And then he's taking
the whole thing

and then he's slowing it down,
and then he's recording that.

And then he's speeding it
back up,

and then he's putting it
through a Leslie,

and it was just hard
for the rest of us,

because we kind of...
we weren't always involved.

♪

-The title track, "Tusk,"

typifies the spirit
of the album.

I wanted Mick to play,
like, jungle drums,

so we got him going,
and then we made a loop of it,

and everything else
got added in after that.

♪ Why don't you tell me
who's on the phone? ♪

Mick had the idea
to put the marching band on

and that was sort of the
coup de grace on that song

and it really pushed it
over the top.

-♪ Why don't you ask him
the list on this rove? ♪

♪ Oh oh-oh, oh oh-oh, oh

♪ Don't say that you love me

-Obviously, it reached the point
where the ability to stay

in the studio
as long as you want

and spend as much money
as you want

may not necessarily have been
an entirely good thing.

They were actually
in the studio 24 hours.

Lindsey and whoever would
come in in the daytime,

record stuff with one engineer,
which Mick would come in

at night, dislike,
erase, and replace.

So, in theory, they could have
actually gone on forever

and ever and ever.

And of course, you know,
prodigious amounts of cocaine

were involved in the process,

which added a certain piquancy
to the whole thing.

♪

The Warner Bros. people never
really took much stock

of what we were doing, but, when
we delivered that album to them,

that would've been a funny
moment to be a fly on the wall

because I know they were
probably looking at each other

and going "What is this?"

-♪ Tusk!

-There was a kind of a backlash,

there was a kind of
a negativity to it.

I remember Mick coming to me
and saying, "You know, Lindsey,

we're -- we're not gonna
do that again."

And I was like, "Okay."

♪

It did take many years for that
album to rise to the surface,

to where now
everyone else loves it

and I think a whole generation,
especially indie band types,

seem to really get it.

It was, uh, a ballsy thing
to do,

but it was just the need
to experiment

and the need to be an artist.

[ Eurythmics's "Who's That Girl"
playing ]

-Annie and I saw ourselves
more like performance artists.

I would sit on a chair,
and Annie would have a suit

and sing,
and I wouldn't do anything.

-♪ The language of love

♪ Slips from
my lover's tongue ♪

We always liked everything
to be quite reduced.

And at the time that we were
forming Eurythmics,

there was a fantastic evolution
in the kind of equipment

that you could get access to
in terms of recording.

♪ Who's that girl

♪ Running around with you?

♪ Tell me, who's that girl

♪ Running around with you?

It was the beginning
of that kind of

bedroom recording studio.

You know,
being the technological person

that he was, Dave was
very clued in with this.

-I'd went out and bought a thing
called a Caterpillar

which went with the Wasp.

[ Playing notes ]

-And I had this new drum machine
that was a prototype.

In fact the outside
of the computer was wood.

And it had a tiny little screen
that was black and white

almost like early
"Space Invaders"

or ping-pong, you know?

And I had a TEAC Portastudio.

So with these things,
I'd worked out how to sort of

make a little sequence like...
[ imitating notes playing ]

And that was the beginning
of Eurythmics.

[ "Love Is a Stranger" playing ]

-We didn't like
big, intimidating studios.

You go in there, and it's all,
you know, big desks,

and it's very glossy

and it's like -- it's like
a big Rolls-Royce

as opposed to like
a little Volkswagen.

We liked the Volkswagen.

We didn't go
for the Rolls-Royce.

♪ Love is a stranger
in an open car ♪

♪ Tempt you in
and drive you far away ♪

We didn't care for
the status quo.

What we referred to at the time
as like prehistoric dinosaur

big rock bands, you know.

So we wanted to do it in a very
different way -- our own way.

♪ And drive you far away

So we knew someone who had this
massive picture framing factory,

and at the very, very top,
there was a kind of attic room,

so the roof was like that.

And there was lots of little
cables, and we'd sit for hours,

and he would be noodling,
and I would be like this.

-I was programming it, and Annie
kind of woke up and went,

"Whoa, what the hell is that?"

And she got sort of really
excited about it,

put some weird
harmonies on it.

We really went all the way out
in experimenting,

nothing to do with pop music.

-♪ And I want you

♪ And I want you

♪ And I want you so
it's an obsession ♪

And that was where
we first started

with Eurythmics songs,
Eurythmics recordings:

"Sweet Dreams,"
"Love Is a Stranger,"

all the early stuff;
that's where we recorded.

♪ An obsessio...n

-This is like 1982, and it was
kind of the beginning of loads

of artists going, "Whoa, hang on
a second. I can do that."

And all of this music started
to come out

that wasn't made
in big commercial studios,

and it was kinda made
in people's bedrooms,

and...and it was cool.

[ Beck's "Loser" playing ]

♪ In the time of chimpanzees,
I was a monkey ♪

♪ Butane in my veins
so I'm out to cut the junkie ♪

The first few albums I did were
all done at someone's house

who just had a little setup.

They weren't in real studios.

There was maybe
a 3- or 4-hour window.

He's like,
"Yeah, you can come by

and then my girlfriend's
coming home,

and then we can't
record after that because, uh,

the microphone's set up
in the kitchen."

And then halfway through
singing it,

shoes are flying
at the engineer.

His girlfriend has had it,
you know,

of living in a recording studio.

♪Soy un perdedor ♪

♪ I'm a loser, baby

♪ So why don't you kill me?

-Home studios of the analog era,
they were basically

miniature versions of the
existing recording studio

in your home and you had four
tracks, and you made records.

What digital technology did
in a way

is get rid of the studio
entirely,

and now the recording studio was
your computer,

and you could make music
anywhere.

[ Bon Iver's "Flume" plays ]

-♪ I am my mother's only one

When I made "For Emma,"

this was up
at my dad's hunting lodge.

All I had was my old
big block G4 computer

and a Pro Tools interface.

It's funny to think it
was Mac OS 9,

which seems so bizarre
to some people now. Me, too.

Um, but that's all I had.

♪ Only love is all maroon

Pro Tools has been
my musical voice.

I mean, it's my way of
understanding songs.

It's my tool of songwriting now,
where it's like,

I enjoy so much being able to
open up a session, blank tape,

so to speak, and just create
an environment.

With a guitar, it used to be
really exciting to me

to sit down at a desk

and use the room that I was in
and sing and play, and...

But when I'm looking to write
a new song now,

I'm waiting for
an environment to sort of be

created accidentally, so then
I can kind of step into it,

just like when somebody
picks up a guitar,

and there's a chord they play,

they're instantly writing
a song.

-I was right around
the first generation of kids

who were making music alone
in their bedrooms on a computer.

That's really how I started
to make music.

It wasn't really in bands
or in relation to other people.

It was very much this insular,
layering method of making music.

[ Clicking ]

♪

-It takes me a while to find
even where I am sometimes,

'cause there are so many tracks.

♪

♪

♪

-♪ For the lover

♪ For the love

-These are all the tracks
down here.

They are all the violin
and French-horn tracks

that we had to mix down to
a smaller amount of tracks.

You have an infinite amount of
layers that you can add.

So you have
a billion more variables

on where a song could go.

-Being a recording artist means,
you know, push --

pushing and stretching all these
limits and boundaries

of what music can sound like.

[ Singing various notes ]

When I discovered that I could
use a looping pedal to

create this multitrack sound
live in front of people,

that was awesome.

Let's do this thing. All right?

What I do onstage is
that I stamp with my foot

on the looping pedal
and that starts the recording

-Whoo!
[Cheering]

If I press the pedal again,

it will give me another layer
on top of that.

It's looping and looping
and looping and I can stack

layers and layers
upon each other, of sound.

[ Previous drumbeat plays ]

-You know the worlds of sound

that I had been hearing
my whole life and what drew me

to recorded music suddenly were
at my -- not my fingertips --

my toe tips.

♪ Ah

[ Singing various notes ]

It's an organic sound being put
into a digital device

played by a human.

And so there's all these weird,
like, ew, what -- you know,

what is that?
What's happening here?

But that to me is really --
that's where we're living now

is that, you know, in that
"in between" space.

♪ What's the bizness, yeah?

♪ Don't take my life away,
don't take my life away ♪

♪ From a distance, yeah

♪ Don't take my life away,
don't take my life away ♪

♪ Ah, oh

There are no limitations
these days.

Because we are multitracking,
because we're overdubbing,

you know, it's --
it's completely limitless.

-That's where you going, yeah.

♪

-There's so much more technology
around nowadays that,

as a producer, you have to
manage all of that technology

that's available to you.

[ Radiohead's "Lotus Flower"
playing ]

And if you have the discipline
to sort of compartmentalize

what you're doing,
then you benefit.

♪ I will shape myself
into your pocket ♪

♪ Invisible

♪ Do what you want

But the way that I personally
deal with that is by just

ignoring a lot of it.

Because I know that
it's of no value to me.

It's like, "No, I'm not going to
use Pro Tools to record."

You know, use a tape machine
where it will be easier

to just like,
put it in the computer

and take the good bits.

Use a razor blade.

Select things with a pencil,
and cut them with a razor blade

and stick them back together
with tape.

I still do it, because it's sort
of a meditation of some sort.

In the process, you have time to
think about what you're doing,

and that works better
a lot of times.

Things sound better
for some reason.

An edit done on tape
sounds better

than an edit done
in the computer.

It just does.

-I love the idea that we're in
the position now to be able to

pick and choose the different
recording practices

from the different eras.

And sometimes you put one
something, you know,

you put something
that's quite retro

on top of something very modern,

and you create
something very new.

[ Laughter,
indistinct conversation ]

-When the drums come in,
just the drums.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♪

[ Drum beating, birds calling ]

[ Button clicks ]

[ Birds continue calling,
drum continues beating ]

[ Playing "Give Up the Ghost" ]

-One of the underlying stories
of rock music is this constant

experimentation with sound.

Because of multitracking,

you really make the music
during the mixing.

And you can create drama
in the music.

You could make things that were
not musically feasible before.

You could make things that

didn't really belong
to performances.

-♪ Don't haunt me

♪ Don't haunt me

♪ Don't haunt me

♪ Don't haunt me

♪ Gather up

♪ The lost and sold

-All eras of recording are
happening simultaneously.

I have a lot of musician friends
who only record on tape,

some who only record
on their laptop,

on a program that comes free
with your computer.

And, uh, they all have big
records that people listen to.

-♪ Don't haunt me

♪ I think I should

♪ give up the ghost

♪ Into your arms

-You know, when I first came
into the record business,

the ideal for any
recording engineer in a studio

was to make the most lifelike
sound you could possibly do,

to make a photograph that was
absolutely accurate.

Well, the studio
changed all that

and certainly
what we were doing,

because instead of taking
a great photograph,

we could start
painting a picture.

By overdubbing,
by different kind of speeds,

you are painting
with sound.

-♪ Into your arms

♪ Into your arms

♪ Into your arms

♪ Into your arms

Please tell me
that sounded all right.

♪

-"Soundbreaking"
is available on DVD.

The companion book is also
available.

To order, visit shopPBS.org
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.