Rolling Stone The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs

89
Good Day Sunshine
“Good Day Sunshine” was McCartney’s attempt, one hot summer afternoon, to write a song in the vein of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s idyllic, old-fashioned “Daydream.” “That was our favorite record of theirs;’ McCartney said.

The song benefits from one of George Martin’s ingenious studio devices: recording specific parts at different tape speeds. Though McCartney handles the piano chords on “Good Day Sunshine,” Martin—an accomplished keyboardist who contributed to a number of Beatle recordings—is responsible for the slowed-down honky-tonk piano solo that follows the abbreviated second verse.

The result is a peppy break that sounds organic even though it’s the product of tape-manipulation trickery. Martin’s nuanced approach to recording technology—using it to serve the music, not as a gimmick—is arguably his biggest contribution to Revolver and everything that followed. “George Martin [was] quite experimental for who he was, a grown-up,” said McCartney.
Appears on Revolver