Beatlesfest: 'Two of Us' by cuthbert & henwrench

[cuthbert]

Well, the end of Beatlesfest is nearly upon us, and I've really enjoyed it (both as a listener and a contributor). Although I was able to get a couple of my favorites in, there were a few more that I planned on doing, but never got around to finishing. So when henwrench asked me if I was interested doing 'Two of Us' for the fest, I jumped on it, and quick!

This one is my favorite song from Let It Be - an album that I otherwise have pretty mixed feelings about. The Beatles had trouble working together on Let It Be (originally entitled Get Back), actually recording it before Abbey Road but keeping it on the shelf until after that album was released. Much to Paul's dismay, John Lennon hired Phil Spector to produce and finish Let It Be, and the reviews were mixed, especially about some of the Spector additions such as lush strings and choirs. But 'Two of Us' was quite different from the other songs on the album - more folky, and seemed like a genuine appreciation of the friendship shared by John & Paul, considering the rough patches the Beatles were hitting at that time. In fact, the song was written almost entirely by Paul, and was about the adventures of himself and Linda Eastman (his future wife) traveling the English countryside.

This one wasn't as easy to finish as my last two Beatlesfest contributions. It started easy enough by sketching it out on ukulele, then adding guitar and voice and sending it off to henwrench for his excellent bass (very Macca!) and voice (very henwrench!) contributions. It got tougher when I tried to program the drums 'Ringo-style' in Hydrogen, which worked well for 'She Said She Said'. Hydrogen was something of a nightmare to use for this song: it took multiple takes to get right, and I ended up chucking about one-third of the finished drum track and manually beating the 'galloping' percussion parts out on the body of my acoustic guitar (double-tracked, of course).

Once the percussion was done, I sent the whole mess back to henwrench for his whistling at the end, and then wrapped it up with some more overdubs and a few sound effects. Overall, this was really a joy to do, and henwrench is a great pleasure to work with - a total pro!

Thanks for listening.

Two Of Us
Lennon/McCartney

henwrench: vocals, bass, whistling, and taking it all home
cuthbert: vocals, ukulele, acoustic guitar, Hydrogen drum programming, acoustic guitar body smacks, poor harmony whistling, and sound effects

recorder: recorded and mixed with Boss Micro BR, final-mixed and mastered in Audition.

[reverbnation]5616777[/reverbnation]

[Geir]

Two of my favourite songcrafters covering one of my favourite Let it be tracks !!

Great performance, fantastic sound !!!

LOVE THIS FEST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! voff !!

piPod bound !!!

[Bluesberry]

Fine finale for the greatest fest we have had so far.  How do we top this one.  I have no words to describe the joy I am feeling right now listening to this beauty.  Joy and pride, I feel damn proud to be part of a site that has folks like yourselves making music like this.  Happy, proud and soon to be drunk, I feel so great from this song I am going to get a few red ales going in your honour, good sirs.  I toast the two of you.

[Gritter]

WoW fantastic collab boys! top shelf production...ukele = sweet! and some fine whistling to boot!!

Worthy of a Golden Gould.

[64Guitars]

Great job guys. Loved the bass and ukulele. And, despite the difficulty you had with Hydrogen, I think the percussion turned out quite good. Great mix too. I like the ping-pong panning of the ukulele. Or did you double it and pan one left and one right with one channel time-shifted slightly?

Was that baby henwrench at the beginning? And whose dog was that at the end. Or was it a downloaded sample?

[Bluesberry]

A golden Gould, that is the top prize for sure.

[Oldrottenhead]

wow yeah yeah yeah wow

by the fab duo furthermore known as "Her New Butch Trench" (cuthbert henwrench anagram)

[lg]

Simply beautiful cover Guys!
WOW. Vox excellent, and music is perfect.
What can I say?    Piepod.

LG

[fenderbender]

 nice one guys

great vocals and great recording

[cuthbert]

Thanks Geir - your Beatlesfest contributions have been the stuff of legend! I wish I had just a small part of your talent and energy. Thanks for helping make this such a great fest.

Thanks Dave, I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. This place has helped me in immeasurable ways - great community, and I am so happy to be here. I had a glass of really good red wine in your honor last night.

Thanks Sandy - I'm honored to receive along with henwrench the (first?) Golden Gould award! Henwrench, you can have the sweater and matching socks if you want, but I call dibs on the trousers and wingtips.

I like the ping-pong panning of the ukulele. Or did you double it and pan one left and one right with one channel time-shifted slightly?

Was that baby henwrench at the beginning? And whose dog was that at the end.

Thanks, 64G! Nope, cuthbert doubles the old-fashioned way: that's two separate ukulele takes, panned hard-left and hard-right. Excellent bass playing from henwrench ties them together nicely, if I do say so myself.

Want to hear a funny story about the sound effects? Uncle cuthbert climbs up on a soapbox and begins reciting "I dig a pygmy, by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf-Aids..." when baby henwrench (no doubt egged on by papa h. & gringo) comes by and unceremoniously kicks the soapbox out from under him... 

Nah, not really.  Funny, I mean...

I think the whole sound effects thing started early on when I kicked off the coda with "...take it home, henwrench". Well after that, henwrench took old cuthbert out for his walkies, and so I looked for a barking dog sound effect (at freesound.org, a great place to find audio snippets of any kind), and one thing led to another. I'd recorded the "I dig a pygmy..." part myself earlier, but didn't intend to use it, so the idea of introducing and then ending it abruptly with some implied aural violence seemed like fun. I was looking for a laughter track on freesound after that, and the baby laughing sounded cute and funny, so I went with it.

"Her New Butch Trench" - thanks, Jim! Gotta use that someplace... 

LG and Tommy - thanks guys!

And special thanks to everybody who contributed to, listened to, and commented on the Beatlesfest. What a great one it has been!