After recording the second version of the song, Lennon wanted to do something different with it, as Martin remembered: "He'd wanted it as a gentle dreaming song, but he said it had come out too raucous. He asked me if I could write him a new line-up with the strings. So I wrote a new score (with four trumpets and three cellos) ..." For this purpose, another basic track was recorded on 8 and 9 December, with the group attempting the song at a faster tempo than before. At the start of the first session, recording was overseen by Dave Harries, an EMI technical engineer, in the temporary absence of Martin and Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' usual recording engineer. The band focused on achieving a percussion-heavy rhythm track, which included Starr's drums, and backwards-recorded hi-hat and cymbals. The latter process involved writing down the parts before Starr played them, as Harrison had done for his backwards guitar solo on "I'm Only Sleeping". Described by Winn as a "cacophony of noise", the 8 December tape also included timpani and bongos, played by McCartney and Harrison, and other percussion, which, in Harries' account, was provided by Beatles associates Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall and Terry Doran.