The Beatles: Come Together (Drum, Electric Keyboard, and Maraca Cover)

From ​⁠‪@DRguitar918‬‘s full band cover featuring myself and ‪@sampopkin‬ :    • Come Together - Full Band Cover - ft. @sam...  

Here is a remake of “Come Together”, a cover I had originally done back in 2022. As is the case with a lot of my earlier covers, I feel my original cover of this song doesn’t sound the best and I feel it was time for an upgrade. I was planning on remaking a cover at some point, but luckily Dom had reached out and invited me to work with him and Sam on a full band cover, so this gave me the chance to do it. I think with this remake, I was able to match the sound of the album a lot closer than I did previously. Microphones under the toms and snare, towels on all the drums, and front bass drum head removed. Combined with some mixing with some of the Waves Abbey Road plugins, you’ve got the Abbey Road drum sound.

The song started out as a campaign song for Timothy Leary as he was planning on running for governor in California. Recording started on July 21, 1969 with a basic track recorded in eight takes, with six being marked “best”. In the following week, overdubs were added including Lennon’s double track vocal and handclaps treated with delay, a Fender Rhodes piano part from Paul as well as a lower harmony vocal, George added a guitar solo, and Ringo overdubbed a maraca, something that was missing in my original cover.

One of the biggest drumming debates in The Beatles’ career is how Ringo actually played the tom rolls during the breaks. Yes Ringo has said in a now rather famous interview that he can only play rolls starting on the floor tom and going up to the rack tom. This is true for songs like “You Won’t See Me” and “Day Tripper”, both of which feature tom fills that start on the floor tom and up on the rack tom. But it’s also challenged by songs like “A Day In The Life” or “Please, Please Me” which have drum fills where Ringo goes rack tom to floor tom. In this particular song, you can hear in the isolated tracks that the toms go down in pitch, meaning that it would go from high rack tom to floor tom. I’m not going to discuss the part much more because it has been discussed extensively in recent years. I’ve said my thoughts in my original video, Vintage Drummer has a great video discussing the drum part of this song and recently Gear, There, and Everywhere did an interview with Ringo’s drum curator Gary Astridge and he tells a story about how Ringo once played the part from rack tom to floor tom. Both are great videos, highly recommend watching if you haven’t already.

With Dom’s cover, someone had to provide the song’s keyboard part. That person was me. Now I don’t have a Fender Rhodes, but luckily my Wurlitzer 720 can act as a suitable substitute. The main part is a bluesy D minor riff that repeats itself over and over. Paul has said that Lennon wanted a piano lick that was “very swampy and smokey”, so he came up with the part and John liked it a lot. It really is a very fun part to play.

Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy!

Vintage Drummer:    • “Come Together” • How did Ringo actually p...  
Gear, There, and Everywhere’:    • Ringo Starr’s Beatles Drums: The Final Dee...