Cirque du Soleil

In June 2006 the show "Love" opened to a wonderful reception in the Mirage in Las Vegas. Years before, the original idea was born in the most unlikely of places. George Harrison and Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, were both enormous fans of motor racing and when they met they became firm friends. As a consequence a unique collaboration was formed between the fantastic world of Cirque du Soleil and the brilliance of Beatles music. Guy discussed the concept with Gilles St-Croix, his Head of Creation, and plans were laid, negotiations commenced and eventually I was approached to work on the music. My brief was to create a soundscape of around one and a half hour's length using any sound I needed from the original Beatles multi-track recordings. It was an offer one could hardly refuse, and I asked my son Giles if he would work with me on this project.

So we embarked on a unique odyssey, travelling with some great artistes and designers from Cirque du Soleil. A gifted director, Dominic Champagne, was appointed, heading a team of prodigious creativity. Giles and I were lucky; not only were they all talented in their respective roles, they were extremely nice people to work with and we all became firm friends. We started as we meant to continue by pushing the musical boundaries. It was a risky strategy considering the material we were experimenting with, but it started to pay dividends immediately. It was Giles who suggested that we utilise that marvellous and hypnotic drum beat from Ringo to combine 'Within You Without You" with "Tomorrow Never Knows." It worked brilliantly and set us on our way.

It took over two years for us to bring the rest of our work to its final form, but it proved to be a fascinating journey for Dominic, Giles and me. Our collaboration worked well. Dominic would listen to our experimental mixes and design his scenes around them and conversely he would describe an idea he had and ask us for a particular realisation of a song. It was a two-way creation and for us similar to writing music for a film.

Listening again to all these great tracks in such detail you can't help but be knocked out by the band's writing and performances. “Come Together” is such a simple song but it stands out because of the sheer brilliance of the performers. Paul's bass riff makes a fantastic foundation for Ringo's imaginative drumming, and John's vocal with heavy tape echo has a marvellous effect when he claps his hand and hisses into the microphone. George's guitar is equally distinctive, and altogether I believe this is one of the Beatles greatest tracks.

We agonised over the inclusion of “Yesterday” in the show. It is such a famous song, the icon of an era, but had it been heard too much? The story of the addition of the original string quartet is well known, however few people know how limited the recording was technically, and so the case for not including it was strong, but how could anyone ignore such a marvellous work? We introduce it with some of Paul's guitar work from “Blackbird” and hearing it now, I know that it was right to include it. Its simplicity is so direct; it tugs at the heartstrings.

During the process I was asked to write a string score for an early take of George's poignant “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” I was aware of such a responsibility, but thankfully everyone approved of the result. “Yesterday” was the first score I had written for a Beatle song way back in 1965 and this score, forty-one years later, is the last. It wraps up an incredible period of my life with those four amazing men who changed the world.

Of course, nothing could happen without the endorsement of Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia, and we would arrange for them to hear what we were doing as we went along. Their support, advice and encouragement was invaluable and a marvellous spur to our efforts.

- George Martin.

Our work for the music in 'Love' first started in 2003. Apple decided from the outset that this was to be a project where all the music heard was to be from original Beatles recordings.

We began by producing a demo behind closed doors in a small room above Studio 1 at Abbey Road. As soon as I heard the original master tapes I realised I had been given the best job in the world, the energy of a young band burst out of the speakers. From then on it was obvious that there was no need to be retrospective in our approach. All the music was so well recorded by the EMI engineers that the attitude and the passion were frozen in time. Had the music not been so familiar, the tapes sounded like they'd recorded yesterday. The guitar sound on 'Revolution' for example rips your head off, even today it defines the word 'distortion'. Tape after tape, I was expecting hiss and crackle and all I heard was the energy of a group of twenty year olds at the top of their game.

Everything they had done was recorded live, without a click and often all on one track, so the best approach was to recreate a performance that had only happened in the studio but present it to an audience as though it were live. A good start would be using a drum solo, so the band could come in one at a time. Apparently Ringo hated during solos but the one he played on “The End” sounds great, and it's in stereo! I found that the solo was the same spead as “Get Back” and so that became the song that started the show, it was really was as simple as that. As the drum solo comes from a section of a song we had to disguise the cut so we used the opening chord from “A Hard Days Night” to hide the edit. And working backwards, to built into the chords we turned around the end piano from “A Day in the Life.” I guess we thought that as it made such a great ending, turned around it was bound to make a great beginning.

So in true Beatle tradition, tracks were reversed, sped up and slowed down. Early on in the project I had turned the cymbal backwards on “Sun King” for an effect for “Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows” and I realised I'd turned the vocals around as well. My dad loved the melody line that this created and said that it's exactly yhe sort of thing that John would have gone for. From this “Gnik Nus” was born!

The only new recordings are the strings on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” I was surprised to find that my dad was apprehensive about doing it, there's no one in the world better at this kind of thing, and even after all this time he still arranges with the same vitality and empathy that has made his work legendary.

At the beginning of the project, I knew that no one would ever hear my mistakes as we'd been secretibely shut away, so I thouht I'd start trying to combine a few tracks to see what the result would be. Feeling like I was painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa I started work mixing the bass and drums of “Tomorrow Never Knows” with George's track “Within You Without You.” The end result is what you hear on the album today, and it is the Beatles open-mindedness and support combined with my dad's great musical insight that has made “Love” possible.

- Giles Martin