Part of
"The Beatles" (aka the White Album) sessions
May 30 - Oct 18, 1968 • Songs recorded during this session appear on The Beatles (Mono)
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- Album Songs recorded during this session officially appear on the The Beatles (Mono) LP.
- Studio:
- EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
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About
On this day, The Beatles started working on John Lennon’s “Happiness Is A Warm Gun“. They recorded 45 takes of it, during this 7 pm to 3 am session. Paul McCartney was on bass, Ringo Starr on drums, George Harrison on lead guitar and John Lennon played guitar and sang a guide vocal.
The recording tape captured a lot of discussions between The Beatles and the engineering team about how to play the difficult time signature changes or comparing the difficulty of some sections of the song with others.
It’s very similar to Bungalow Bill in that it’s a piss-take of all the people who really do think happiness is a warm gun. There’s a great vocal on it, good lyrics, and it’s a very interesting song because it changes tempo a lot, it’s quite a complex piece. It’s very Lennon.
Paul McCartney – from “Many Years From Now”, by Barry Miles, 1997
As George Martin was on holidays for most of September 1968, Chris Thomas produced this session. He remembered:
‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ went to a great many takes. We used to make jokes out of it. ‘Take 83!‘
Steve Thomas – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn
Work on “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” continued the day after.
Last updated on August 26, 2021
Songs recorded
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Recording • Take 19
Album Officially released on The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)
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Staff
Musicians on "Happiness Is A Warm Gun"
- Paul McCartney:
- bass
- Ringo Starr:
- drums
- John Lennon:
- guitar, guide vocal
- George Harrison:
- lead guitar
Production staff
Going further
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn
The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970.
We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!
The fourth book of this critically acclaimed series, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 4: The Beatles through Yellow Submarine (1968 - early 1969)" captures The Beatles as they take the lessons of Sgt. Pepper forward with an ambitious double-album that is equally innovative and progressive. From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time. Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.
If we like to think, in all modesty, that the Paul McCartney Project is the best online ressource for everything Paul McCartney, The Beatles Bible is for sure the definitive online site focused on the Beatles. There are obviously some overlap in terms of content between the two sites, but also some major differences in terms of approach.
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