on monday 18 october 1965 the beatles recorded john lennon’s “in my life” at emi’s studio two, in three takes, and left the middle open: they hadn’t decided what to put there. the first take has no solo.
their producer was george martin. he had studied counterpoint at the guildhall school of music, and recorded baroque music at parlophone. “there was a gap in the song,” he said. “i said, ‘we need a solo here.’ they went away and had their tea, and i thought it would be rather nice to have something fairly quaint or fairly baroque in this piece. so while they were out at tea, i wrote something, like a bach invention, and played it, then recorded it.”
first, he tried a hammond organ. not right. the solo on the record was made on friday 22 october, in a one-hour morning session: he played it on a piano at half the speed, and the tape was played back at double speed, an octave up and twice as fast. it was an old trick of his, from 1963: he called it “the wind-up piano”.
“i played it back to them when they returned, and they said, ‘that’s great. that’s fantastic. we don’t need more. that’s it.’” rubber soul’s sleeve, in 1965, says “george martin on piano.”
the solo here is his side of the stereo mix, taken out of the song (the 2009 stereo remaster): alone on its side, it’s his piano with nothing else. the strip is its notes, measured from the record; the lines are octaves apart. the organ try is from the extract with the unused organ solo, first released on 2 october 2026 on the super deluxe rubber soul special edition.
