175. Savoy Truffle
George's return to rock and roll, and a stepping stone toward some of his greatest work
I like Savoy Truffle, but it’s not so much that I like it for itself. Instead, my fondness mostly operates as a sort of backwards echo from my love for George’s solo work. Because you can hear the seeds being planted here for some of the monster songs that he would be releasing a couple years later. The crunchy guitars, the soul references, and (most importantly) the enthusiastic brass section, which has this wonderful messy sound thanks to some extreme compression.1 Once he got all the ingredients in perfect balance, it made for some truly special songs. He just hasn’t quite nailed it yet on this one.
Which means Savoy Truffle is more of a road marker along the path. Behind it lies songs like Think For Yourself or Taxman. Soon to come will be Awaiting on You All or What is Life. But here in the middle, it’s not quite sorted yet.
More than anything, I just wish it sounded a bit bigger. It’s got plenty of action in the treble, but not nearly enough in the lower registers. It’s a song that seems to want you to feel your bones rumbling, but you just don’t quite feel it.
I’m actually not sure why the bass is so muted—whether that was an intentional choice on George’s part, a lack of interest from Paul, or something that happened in mixing. But one possible answer is found here:
Taking out the sax reveals that’s there’s actually quite a bit more locomotion underneath in the rhythm section than I always assumed. I guess it just gets drowned out by the horns in the final cut. And in fact, I actually might like this version more? Which is bizarre because my favorite element in the song is the horns! But this take just solves so many of my problems with the original that I find myself wanting to listen to it and then just add the horns back in my head.
As an alternative, I can always just go to the remaster, which doesn’t quite get the same heftiness from the bass, but which definitely does sound better than the 1968 version. As I’ve commented before, I’m not usually one for the remasters—my usual complaint is that they mistake audio clarity for richness and end up exposing individual elements that are actually supposed to sound blurry. But in the case of Savoy Truffle, there really is a better audio balance, and I think that’s worth it.
My other issue with the song comes down to its subject matter. Like many White Album tracks, its topic is a bit ridiculous. And I’m rather temperamental in how I approach these tracks. I mentioned with Bungalow Bill that I’m quite glad they included such a silly track. And I (probably disproportionately) love some of the other silly stuff like Rocky Raccoon and Piggies. So it’s not that I specifically have an objection to a song about candy. I suppose I just struggle to find the joy in this particular song about candy.
One lyrical bit that I do love is “we all know ob-la-di-bla-da” which is funny for several reasons. The first level is that the original listeners absolutely did not know ob-la-di-bla-da, except in the sense that they had just heard it 45 minutes ago when they listened to the first disc. The second level is a reference to the Beatles’ own experience with the album, and the famously excruciating sessions where Paul made them play his song over and over (and over and over). That was three months earlier, since Savoy Truffle was one of the final tracks recorded for the album. So in his mind, those horrible sessions are certainly unforgettable. But then there’s a third level, where modern listeners reside. For whom it’s exceptionally likely that they do in fact know ob-la-di-bla-da, since it’s about fifty times more famous than Savoy Truffle.
Chris Thomas, a studio assistant, tells the story of the recording session with the brass section:
The session men were playing really well – there’s nothing like a good brass section letting rip – and it sounded fantastic. But having got this really nice sound George turned to Ken Scott and said, ‘Right, I want to distort it.’ So I had to plug-up two high-gain amplifiers which overloaded and deliberately introduced a lot of distortion, completely tearing the sound to pieces and making it dirty.
The musicians came up to the control room to listen to a playback and George said to them, ‘Before you listen I’ve got to apologise for what I’ve done to your beautiful sound. Please forgive me – but it’s the way I want it!’ I don’t think they particularly enjoyed hearing their magnificent sound screwed up quite so much but they realised that this was what George wanted, and that it was their job to provide it.