Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
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Image:MrKitePoster.jpg "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is the title of a 1967 song from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Though attributed to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it was largely the work of Lennon.
Lennon wrote the song taking inspiration from a late 19th century circus poster which he purchased in an antique shop in January or February of 1967, while filming the promotional video for the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" in Kent. One of the more musically complex songs on Sgt. Pepper, it was recorded on Febuary 17, 1967 with overdubs on Febuary 20 (organ sound effects), March 28 (harmonica, organ, guitar), March 29 (more organ sound effects), and March 31 (glockenspiel).
Lennon wanted the track to have a "carnival atmosphere" - he is even said to have told producer George Martin that he wanted the song to smell like sawdust. In the middle eight bars, multiple recordings of fairground organs, calliope, and steam organ music were spliced together to attempt to produce this request; after a great deal of unsuccessful experimentation, George Martin is said to have literally chopped the tape into pieces with scissors and then spliced it randomly together.
Although Lennon originally stated of the song that he "wasn't proud of that", in 1980, he described it as "pure, like a painting, a pure watercolour."
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