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"George really hit a personal best as a guitarist, as well. He played a guitar solo, but a few days later he decided be wanted to redo it. By that point we only had one track left and that was for orchestral overdubs. George cut a new solo live with the orchestra. It was a gamble, but he did it in one take, and it was beautiful."

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

"There were two struggles going on with this song: Paul and John fighting over whether it should even exist! [laughs] John called it 'more of Paul's granny music.' But there was my own struggle coming up with the sounds that should go on it.

"For the hammer bits, we actually had to rent a proper blacksmith's anvil. The thing weighed a ton, as did the hammer used to strike it. Ringo tried but he just couldn't hoist the hammer in a way that allowed him to hit the anvil with the correct timing, so Mal Evans [one of The Beatles' roadies], who was a large man, he wound up doing it.

"The other thing was the Moog synthesizer solos in the middle and end, which sound almost like a Theremin. The Moog was a fascinating new instrument for everybody - George, in particular, loved working with it - but Paul played these solos. He tinkered around until he got a really incredible, spacey sound that worked quite well."

Oh! Darling

[EMI engineer] "Phil MacDonald worked on this one. I remember hearing that Paul kept rehearsing the vocal lying on his back, and that he used to come to the studio quite early, before any of the other guys were supposed to be there, just so he could do it over and over again. He was searching for something, a Little Richard vibe perhaps.

"Artists are artists - you never know what drives them to do what they do, but you can't deny the end result, which is one of his most powerful vocals. He cut the final take standing up, I believe. It's something John could have probably knocked out in a couple of passes, but Paul had to work himself up for it."

Octopus's Garden

"George worked a bit on this song with Ringo, but I'm not sure how much he contributed. Ringo always felt shy about showing any of his songs to the other guys, but George was very keen on this number, so that helped. And it was a really good song - one of Ringo's best."

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