Recording "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
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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
Songs recorded
1.
2.
Written by George Harrison
Recording • Unannounced take (take 2)
Album Officially released on The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)
Staff
Musicians on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
- Paul McCartney:
- Harmonium
- George Harrison:
- Vocals, Acoustic guitar
Production staff
About
On this day, between 7 pm and 3:15 am, The Beatles started working on George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps“. They rehearsed several takes of it, and George Harrison took the tapes home.
They also recorded a formal take (numbered take 1) performed by Harrison, on vocals and acoustic guitar. A harmonium played by Paul McCartney was then overdubbed on the final bridge and verse. This take was released on Anthology 3 in 1996. It was reused on the Love album in 2006, where it was augmented with a new orchestral backing written by George Martin.
Having withheld his own new composition since the White Album sessions started eight weeks earlier, George Harrison waited no longer and recorded this eloquent demo of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the first of five songs he contributed to the growing collection. The song would undergo two re-makes between this date and 6 September, when the master was completed, and become significantly heavier in the process – the final version featuring a lead guitar track played by guest Eric Clapton. The first studio recording could scarcely be more different, George singing live to his own acoustic guitar accompaniment (augmented by an organ part played by Paul), and incorporating an additional verse omitted from later version.
From Anthology 3 liner notes
During the research for “The Beatles” 2018 reissue, an unannounced take was rediscovered.
The original tape box and studio documentation mention only one take being recorded on 25 July. What a thrilling surprise to find during the meticulous research for this project that there was a second unannounced take on the tape. It is intended to be just a run-through for Paul to familiarise himself with playing the chords on organ, but it is a gem of a discovery.
From “The Beatles” Super Deluxe edition book (2018)
The Beatles would continue working on the song three weeks later, on August 16, 1968.
Last updated on September 5, 2021