Question: What is the difference between George Martin and Phil Spector?

John: George Martin...I don't know. You see for quite a few of our albums - like the Beatles' double album, George Martin didn't really produce it. I don't know whether this is scandalous, but he didn't. In the early days I can remember what George Martin did.

Question: What did he do?

John: In the early days he would translate...if Paul wanted to use violins he would translate it for him. Like "In My Life," there's an Elizabethan piano solo in it. He would do things like that. We would say 'play like Bach or something' or 'could you put twelve bars in there?' and he helped us develop a language to talk to musicians. Because I'm very shy, and many, many reasons, I didn't very much go for musicians. I didn't like to have to go and see twenty guys sitting there and try to tell 'em what to do because they're always so lousy anyway. So apart from the early days, when I did it myself, I didn't have much to do with it.

Question: Why do you use Phil now instead of George?

John: Well it's not instead of George Martin. I would not use anybody rather than use George Martin. That's nothing personal against George Martin, he just doesn't...he's more Paul's style of music than mine.