This song was one of ten songs recorded on February 11, 1963. The third and final session that day was held from 7:45 pm to 10:45 pm inside EMI’s studio two. Six songs were rushed together – the third one being “Boys”.
This one was actually the only song the group did that day that was recorded in a single take. The band was already pretty familiar with it as they had been performing it since shortly after the original version’s release in late 1960. McCartney was quoted as saying it was a “fan favorite” during their early live performances.
At around 8:45 pm, single take of Boys was recorded and that was it! No overdubs or edits were needed. The fadeout was added on February 25, 1963 in studio one at EMI by producer George Martin as well as his engineers Norman Smith and A.B. Lincoln
THE GUITAR PARTS:
John Lennon used his 1958 Rickenbacker 325 (SN V81). His part is something you really have to listen closely to the record for. Contrary to what a lot of people believe (including myself at one point), Lennon isn’t just strumming through the chords in the verses. Instead it sounds like he’s mimicking the “bop-shoo-wop”s like the backing vocals are doing. During the bridges, Lennon copies the bass line however, he changes over to the A chord a little too early, as demonstrated by this video.
George Harrison played his 1957 Gretsch Duo Jet (SN 21179). His part is fairly uniform actually. Notice how at 0:10, Harrison lets the G and B strings ring out in that E chord. At 0:46, instead of hammering on from a G to a G#, George just plays the open G string. It sounds like this only happens once in the song. At 0:56, instead of playing notes C# to A, it gets switched up to E to C#. Again, another instance of this happening once in the song.
Not much to say about the solo. It’s simple, yet effective.
At 1:32, George plays an E9. This happens again at 1:38. From 2:04 to the end, Harrison plays a completely new set of guitar phrases that differs from the rest of the song. The main lick he’s playing in the outro is done by playing a note on the E string and finding the note a whole step below it on the B string. After that you bend up a full step. Everything else that’s not mentioned here is demonstrated in the video.
That about covers it!
My videos are made for more experienced guitarists who want to improve the way they play songs from The Beatles catalog. I’m definitely not a teacher so this is the best way I can share my knowledge on how to play them!
