A week in the wilds of Montana beckons. For previous hiatuses (hiati?) on this site, I’ve prescheduled a bunch of entries before leaving. But at the moment time is running short, so I’m just going to dispense with this week in one fell swoop, then get back to a regular schedule when I return to civilization.
Among the things recorded this week:
- An orchestral intro for “Don’t Pass Me By,” which went unused and was not released until it appeared on Anthology 3 as “A Beginning”:
- Orchestral overdubs and additional vocals by the Mike Sammes Singers for “Good Night.”
- New lead vocals for “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.”
- 23 additional takes of “Sexy Sadie,” all dead ends.
- And last but not least, George finally got a song on tape, almost two months into the White Album sessions. It was a nice one, though. According to Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write, it started when
George was reading the I Ching, the Chinese book of changes, and decided to apply its principles of chance to his songwriting. At his parents’ Lancashire home he picked a novel off the shelf with the intention of writing a song based on the first words that he came across. The words were “gently weeps.”
Following several rehearsals, only one proper take of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was recorded on July 25. At this early stage, it was quite a bit different from the bombastic album version — featuring just acoustic guitar, voice, and harmonium — and perhaps more in line with the sentiment of the song. (It also had an extra verse.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with the album version. But I like this one too:
“A beginning” sounds like George Martin’s soundtrack work for “Yellow Submarine.” Lovely impressionism.