Starting at 2:30 PM today George, working alone, added a guitar solo and an organ part to “Old Brown Shoe”; in the process, he wiped John’s rhythm guitar part, which is lost forever in the mists of time. George and producer Chris Thomas (there was no George Martin at this session) then mixed the song 19 times before finally settling on one they liked at about 1 A.M.
The session was not done, though. At this point night owl John Lennon turned up and he and George set to work on “I Want You” (there was as of yet no “…She’s So Heavy”). Working from the previously assembled master tape, they added layer after layer of guitars to the song’s coda in a quest to achieve Maximum Heaviosity. According to Jeff Jarratt, who was the engineer at this session,
John and George went into the far left-hand corner of [studio] number two to overdub those guitars. They wanted a massive sound so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over.
I’m thinking that they may have felt a little competitive with Paul’s “Helter Skelter,” and wanted to create something even raunchier, louder, and more ridiculous. And they were pretty successful, though their song did not inspire any murders that I’m aware of.
Among a certain subset of people who are both Beatles fans and headbangers, “I Want You” is The Shit. Some of the 2,393 YouTube comments are pretty amusing, but this is my favorite:
Abbey Road Recorded 22 February – 20 August 1969
Black Sabbath Recorded 16 October 1969
Today I learned that the Beatles invented Doom Metal.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a lie down.
–Christopher Norris
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great song. heavier than helter skelter? me no think so.