ON THIS DAY (February 11, 1994) - First Beatles' "Reunion" Session

The historic first Beatles reunion session, when they began work on Free As A Bird, takes place on this day at Paul McCartney’s Mill Studios in Sussex, England. (The Mill is a converted windmill on a hill, overlooking English farmland and the English Channel.)

Following the initial recordings, Paul, George, Ringo, and Jeff Lynne visit a local pub. About the recording sessions themselves, from Paul: “I played these songs (of John Lennon’s) to the other guys, warning Ringo to have a hanky ready. I fell in love with Free As A Bird. I thought I would have loved to have worked with John on that. I like the melody, it’s got strong chords, and it really appealed to me. In the end we decided to do it very simply. It’s Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr during the recording of the new Beatles songs for The Beatles Anthology-crazy really, because when you think about a new Beatles record, it is impossible, because John is not around. So I invented a little scenario; he’s gone away on holiday and he’s just rung us up and he says, ‘Just finish this track for us, will you? I’m sending the cassette...I trust you.’ That was the key thing, ‘I trust you, just do your stuff on it.’ I told this to the other guys and Ringo was particularly pleased, and he said, ‘Ahh, that’s great!’ John hadn’t filled in the middle eight section of the demo, so we wrote a new section for that, which, in fact, was one of the reasons for choosing the song. It allowed us some input.”