This is the second entry in my new series: “The Beatles Songs That Are Better In Mono” which is highlighting the songs which I believe to be significantly better in mono than than they are in stereo when comparing the versions included in The Beatles in Mono & The Beatles in Stereo box sets.

I’m not a mono purist and I’m not someone who prefers the mono mixes of all of The Beatles songs which were mixed in mono (which are all of their songs except for those on Let It Be & Abbey Road) because that’s the “way they were meant to be heard.” All things being equal I tend to prefer the stereo mixes because I like how clear they sound. I prefer being able to hear each part individually over the “wall of sound” approach.

But there are some Beatles songs that were mixed so badly in stereo that I do prefer the mono versions and “Eleanor Rigby” is one of those songs.

There are just two elements in Eleanor Rigby; Paul McCartney’s vocals and a string quartet. On the stereo version the chorus comes in with Paul’s vocals surrounding us and the strings very clear and powerful in the center. This works well. Unfortunately, in the verse Paul’s vocal moves entirely to the right (and it does so a bit late, “Elean-”, which makes it even more awkward.)

This means that during the verse there’s basically nothing in the left channel at all with the strings in the center and Paul’s vocal on the right. This is a horribly unbalanced mix that sounds particularly off putting on headphones. Admittedly, it is nice when the chorus kicks in (suddenly the vocals are surrounding me) but I don’t think that effect is worth the awkwardness of the verse.

Obviously, in the mono version everything is in the center. That’s how mono works! And I think mono fits this song rather well because there aren’t that many layers so nothing is getting buried.

There is a 3rd version of “Eleanor Rigby” that I want to discuss. It’s the stereo mix heard on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack (released in 1999.) Unlike the new Stereo Box Set, the songs on this CD were not just remastered, they were also completely remixed from scratch. And this remix is quite nice with the vocals up the center with the strings (and backing vocals) surrounding that center voice.

But I do think that the Yellow Submarine Songtrack CD is a bit over compressed. It’s really loud so that it sounds “modern.” I prefer the more subtle natural sounding remastering job done on the new Beatles in Stereo Box Set but I do think the Songtrack mix is superior and it’s worth taking a listen to.

So why are The Beatles stereo mixes often so off the mark? Because when they started working in the stereo world, it was still a pretty “experimental” way of mixing music and they did a lot of hard panning (vocals all on one side, drums all on the other) which can be quite distracting to listen to (particularly a problem on headphones.)

This is why many say that the mono mixes found in The Beatles in Mono Box Set are the “real” versions of the Beatles songs. The band themselves didn’t care much about the stereo mixes up until around The White Album, they would spend a lot of time trying to get the mono versions right and then the stereo mixes were just sort of “thrown together” (in comparison.) This is because stereo was seen as a bit of a “fad” and most of the people that listened to The Beatles listened to them in mono at the time.