Teddy Boy (song)

McCartney first played the song to the other Beatles on 9 January 1969.[4][5] The Beatles did not return to the song until 24 January, recording several takes.[nb 2] The recording includes bad instances guitar feedback.[7] During one rendition of the song, John Lennon is heard calling "do-si-do" and other square-dance steps, something both musicologist Walter Everett and Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn ascribe to Lennon's boredom with the song.[8][7] Musicologist and writer Ian MacDonald writes any attempts at recording the song, "were sabotaged by Lennon's continuous burble of parody".[9]

The Beatles recorded "Teddy Boy" again on 28 and 29 January.[10]

McCartney recorded "Teddy Boy" at home in Cavendish Avenue, St John's Wood.[11] He began the album around Christmas 1969,[12] recording on a recently delivered Studer four-track tape recorder, without a mixing desk,[13][14] and therefore without VU displays as a guide for recording levels.[15][16] McCartney described his home-recording set-up as "Studer, one mike, and nerve".[11] He had finished recording "Teddy Boy" by 12 February 1970, when he brought his tapes to Morgan Studios.[11]

The Beatles called on engineer Glyn Johns to mix an LP from their January 1969 recordings.[17] Johns selected take two of "Teddy Boy" from 24 January for his first attempted mix of Get Back.[18] Writers Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt considered this a poor selection, "due to Glyn's poor judgement..."[19] Johns mixed the track for stereo on 10 March 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios.[20] Bootleg copies of the mix circulated, including Hot as Sun and Kum Back.[18] In October 1969, Ernie Santosuosso obtained a copy and reviewed it for The Boston Globe, writing of "Teddy Boy" that, "'Mama, Don’t Worry, Your Teddy Boy’s Here' offers a persistent repetition of theme larded with square dance calls and deft guitar chord changes."[21]

As "Teddy Boy" was not depicted in the Let It Be film, Johns removed it from his second attempted version of Get Back, replacing it with "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine".[22][23] Lewisohn suggests it is also possible that McCartney told Johns on 4 January 1970 that he was about to re-record the song for his solo album.[23]

Due to the Beatles dissatisfaction with Johns' two attempts, Lennon passed the Get Back tapes onto Phil Spector.[22] Though Johns omitted "Teddy Boy" from the LP, Spector, assisted by engineers Peter Brown and Roger Ferris, made two mixes of the song on 25 March 1970.[24] He kept one at its full length[24] and edited another down from 7:30 to 3:10.[25][24] The shorter version joins two separate takes.[nb 1] It is included on the 1996 compilation album Anthology 3.[28] Sulpy and Schweighardt describe this mix as a "butchered version".[19] Musicologist and writer Ian MacDonald writes the song is an "annoyingly whimsical ditty—notable solely for its key change from D major to F sharp major".[9]

In a review for the Chicago Tribune, Robb Baker wrote that "'Teddy Boy' exists only as a bad example of the story song genre that McCartney usually does so well."[29] In 1970 in Allentown, Pennsylvania's The Morning Call, Jared Johnson writes that the Beatles' version as heard on bootlegs had "substance, force and conviction," while "The finished product, though more refined, is shallow and superficial, threatened with fading away into nothingness."[30] Santosuosso, in a far more positive assessment of the song and the McCartney album, writes that the song, "tells of filial alienation from a widowed mother who falls in love again. The recurring refrain is the guts of this song."[31]