I'm Only Sleeping

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“I’m Only Sleeping” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 studio album Revolver. In the United States and Canada, it was one of the three tracks that Capitol Records cut from the album and instead included on Yesterday and Today, released two months before Revolver. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon. The track includes a backwards (or backmasked) lead guitar part, played by George Harrison, the first time such a technique was used on a pop recording.

Since the standardisation of the Beatles’ catalogue for its international CD release in 1987, the song has appeared on Revolver in North America. The 1996 Anthology 2 compilation includes outtakes of the song from the Revolver sessions, including an instrumental version that features the Beatles’ first use of a vibraphone. In 2018, the music staff of Time Out London ranked “I’m Only Sleeping” at number 12 on their list of the best Beatles songs.

Background and inspiration

The first draft of Lennon’s lyrics for “I’m Only Sleeping”, written on the back of a letter from 1966, suggests that he was writing about the joys of staying in bed rather than any drug euphoria sometimes read into the lyrics. While not on tour, Lennon would usually spend his time sleeping, reading, writing or watching television, often under the influence of drugs, and would have to be woken by McCartney for their songwriting sessions. In a London Evening Standard article published on 4 March 1966, Maureen Cleave, a friend of Lennon, wrote: “He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England. ‘Physically lazy,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more.'”

Recording

The recording of the song began at EMI Studios on 27 April 1966 with eleven takes of the rhythm track, comprising two acoustic guitars, bass and drums. Five further takes of the song were recorded but they were not used. Take 11 was chosen as the master and two days later Lennon added his lead vocals. On 5 May, George Harrison wrote and recorded the double guitar part. The next day the recording was completed by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison’s backing vocals.

The song features the then-unique sound of a reversed guitar duet played by Harrison in a five-hour late-night recording session with producer George Martin. Harrison perfected the part with the tape running backwards so that, when reversed, it would fit the dreamlike mood. One guitar was recorded with fuzz effects, the other without. Engineer Geoff Emerick described the meticulous process as “interminable”. “I can still picture George hunched over his guitar for hours on end”, Emerick wrote in 2006, “headphones clamped on, brows furrowed in concentration.”

During the break before the second bridge, the sound of a yawn can be heard, preceded by Lennon saying to McCartney, “Yawn, Paul.”

Release

“I’m Only Sleeping” was first released on 20 June 1966 as the second track on the US album Yesterday and Today and on 5 August 1966 as the third track on Revolver, the album for which the song was originally intended. The US version of Revolver did not include the song as it had already been released: US Beatles releases frequently differed from the British versions.

The mono and stereo versions of “I’m Only Sleeping” differ in the positioning and length of the backwards guitar parts:

• US mono version (mixed on 12 May 1966): No backwards track during the second verse but a quick fragment is heard on the “time” in “taking my time” and “ceiling” in “lying there and staring at the ceiling”. The track is fully intact during the instrumental break and continues into the words “please don’t” in “please don’t spoil my day”. Near the end of the song the backwards track starts four beats after the last word “sleeping”.

• US rechannelled stereo version: This version was mixed from the US mono version of the song but has far more reverb. It was used only on the initial pressing of the Yesterday and Today album.

• US stereo version (20 May): Backwards track on “running everywhere at such a speed” and “till they find there’s no need”. The track fades in two bars into the solo but continues into the word “please” in “please don’t spoil my day”. At the end of the song, the track starts immediately after the word “sleeping”.

• UK mono version (6 June): Backwards track on “where at such a speed”, “there’s no need” and “staring at the ceiling”. The track stops at the end of the solo and at the end of the song, starts immediately after the word “sleeping”. Of the five mixes of “I’m Only Sleeping”, this version features the most extensive amount of backwards guitar.

• UK stereo version: Backwards track on “everywhere at such a speed” and “find there’s no need”. The track stops at the end of the solo and at the end of the song, starts immediately after the word “sleeping”.

The Beatles’ pioneering studio effects on Revolver proved highly influential on other contemporary artists. Musicologist Walter Everett cites the inclusion of backwards guitar parts on Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1969 song “Pre-Road Downs” as an apparent “homage” to “I’m Only Sleeping”.

Since the release of the Beatles’ music on CD in 1987, the UK stereo version of the album has become the standard version in the US. Part of an instrumental rehearsal of the song featuring a vibraphone and the first take of the song from 29 April 1966 were released on the 1996 album Anthology 2. The inclusion of the vibraphone part marked the Beatles’ first use of this instrument and reflected the band’s experimentation with new sounds during the Revolver sessions. The UK mono version of “I’m Only Sleeping” was released on CD as part of the 2009 The Beatles in Mono remastered box set.

Covers

Artists who have covered the song include Rosanne Cash, America, Vince Welnick, Quorthon, Jeff Tweedy, The Vines and Suggs (whose version reached the Top Ten of the UK Singles Chart in 1995), Yonder Mountain String Band, and Stereophonics with Oasis. Arctic Monkeys covered the song at their first live performance. Thom Bishop issued a version of the track on his 2013 album A Little Physics and a Lot of Luck. In the description of Jim Heald of No Depression magazine, Bishop’s musical arrangement borrows from later Lennon psychedelic songs such as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“, “Because” and “Sun King“, and builds in intensity from a soft acoustic backing as if to convey “the ratcheting up the tension as the dreamer resists being awakened”. […]

John led a more relaxed suburban life but if he went to dinner in London or to a club, living so far from town meant that he returned home very late. Paul would arrive at midday or the early afternoon and wake him up, which was where John got the idea for ‘T’m Only Sleeping’.

Paul: It was a nice idea — ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not being lazy, I’m only sleeping, I’m yawning, I’m meditating, I’m having a lay-in.’ The luxury of all that was what it was all about. The song was co-written but from John’s original idea.

[…] For Paul, the most exciting thing that happened with ‘’m Only Sleeping’ was during the recording rather than in the writing. They were taping George’s guitar solo and the tape operator put the tapeon tails out.

Paul: It played backwards, and, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Those effects! Nobody knew how those sounded then. We said, ‘My God, that is fantastic! Can we do that for real?’ So George Martin, give him his due, being amenable to ideas like that, being quite experimental for who he was, a grown-up, said, ‘Yes. Sure, I think we can do that.’ So that was what we did and that was where we discovered backwards guitar. It was a beautiful solo actually. It sounds like something you couldn’t play.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 12 May 1966.
US: Capitol T 2553 Yesterday & Today 1966.

[a1] mock stereo made from [a] 1966, by Capitol.
US: Capitol ST 2553 Yesterday & Today 1966 first issue.

[b] stereo 20 May 1966.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7009 Revolver 1966.
US: Capitol SHAL-12060 Rarities 1980.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46441 2 Revolver 1987.

[c] stereo 20 May 1966.
US: Capitol ST 2553 Yesterday & Today some later issues, c.1973.

[d] mono 6 Jun 1966.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7009 Revolver 1966.

The backwards guitar effect is heard in different places in the four mixes, and a lead guitar track is mixed differently throughout the solo and at the end. An alleged fifth mix, the “French EP”, is just [d].

verse 1:
no backwards guitar (BG) on any mix

verse 2:
[a] no BG
[b] BG on “everywhere at such a speed” and “find there’s no need”
[c] BG on “running everywhere at such a speed” and “till they find there’s no need”
[d] BG on “where at such a speed” and “there’s no need”

verse 3:
[a] BG on “time” and “ceiling”
[b][c] no BG
[d] BG on “staring at the ceiling”

solo:
[a] guitar continues into words “please don’t” at end of solo
[b][d] guitar ends at end of solo
[c] guitar fades in 2 bars later, continues into “please”

verse 4:
no BG on any mix

end:
[a] guitar starts 4 beats after the last word “sleeping”
[b][c][d] guitar starts immediately after last word “sleeping”

The “some later issues” of Yesterday & Today that have the US stereo mix are (1) all tape format copies since 1966 [reel-to-reel YT-2553, eight-track 8X2T-2648 and later 8XT-2553, cassette 4XT-2553, and even the four-track 4CL-2553!], (2) Capitol record club LP copies beginning in 1968, (3) many general release LPs pressed at the Winchester plant [indicated by -<| the sideways wine glass] since 1973, the date I use for the LP reissue. The use of old LP stampers with fake stereo, however, continued as late as 1988, the end of LPs.

Last updated on November 7, 2023

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