While My Guitar Gently Weeps
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| “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” | ||
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| Song by The Beatles | ||
| Album | The Beatles (The White album) | |
| Released | 22 November 1968 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road 25 July 1968 |
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| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 4:44 | |
| Label | Apple Records | |
| Writer | George Harrison | |
| Producer | George Martin | |
| The Beatles (The White album) track listing | ||
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Side one
Side two
Side three
Side four
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| Music sample | ||
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a rock ballad written by George Harrison for The Beatles on their double album The Beatles (also known as The White Album).
George Harrison originally performed the song with a solo acoustic guitar and an organ; a demo version, longer than the officially released version, can be heard on the Anthology 3 album and in reworked form on the Love album. Eric Clapton, who was a good friend of George's, played lead guitar on the album version of the song with a Gibson Les Paul guitar. On The Concert for Bangladesh, he performed it on a Gibson Super 400 hollowbody guitar, and later acknowledged that a solid-body guitar would have been more appropriate.[1]
In 2004 George Harrison was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was played in tribute by fellow inductee Prince - who ended the song with a now famous guitar solo - along with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison (video).
The song was ranked #135 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
The song was also ranked #7 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.
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[edit] Composition and recording
According to Harrison, inspiration for the song came from reading the I Ching, which, as he put it, "seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental."[2]
Taking this idea of relativism to his parents' home in the North of England, Harrison committed to write a song based on the first words he saw upon opening a random book. Those first words were "gently weeps", and he immediately began the song.
The initial incarnation was not final; Harrison later said: "Some of the words to the song were changed before I finally recorded it." A demo recorded at George's home in Esher includes an unused verse:
- I look at the trouble and see that it's raging,
- While my guitar gently weeps.
- As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging,
- Still, my guitar gently weeps.
An early acoustic guitar/organ take of the song, released on Anthology 3 and also used as the basis of the Love remix, featured a slightly different third verse:
- I look from the wings at the play you are staging,
- While my guitar gently weeps.
- As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging,
- Still, my guitar gently weeps.
The composition was met with little to no interest by the other Beatles. The band recorded it several times, at first in the aforementioned acoustic style, and later in an electric version featuring a backward guitar solo (as Harrison had done in "I'm Only Sleeping" on Revolver), but no version seemed to work. Let down but undaunted, Harrison invited his friend Eric Clapton to join him during a day's recording session. Despite Clapton's doubts ("Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records"), Harrison convinced him otherwise. The inclusion of Clapton allowed a moment's relief from the band's inner turmoil, as well as a chance for Harrison to free himself of lead guitar, playing only rhythm and vocal.
Some have wondered whether the famous solo in "Gently Weeps" is actually played by Clapton; it has been rumoured that the solo was re-recorded and that Clapton's solo was not the one that was pressed. Indeed, the style is reminiscent of Harrison's later lead guitar style, as demonstrated throughout Abbey Road and in his solo work. However, Harrison has said of the solo:
"So Eric played that, and I thought it was really good. Then we listened to it back, and he said, "Ah, there's a problem though; it's not Beatley enough." So we put it through the ADT [automatic double-track] to wobble it up a bit."
A popular belief and "clue" to the infamous Paul is Dead urban legend is that towards the end of the song, during the Clapton solo, Harrison cries out a moan something like "Paul, oh Paul, oh Paul."
On 14 July 1992, Harrison and Clapton performed a live version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in Japan. This live version also has background vocals.
An acoustic version can be found on the 1996 album Anthology 3, and again on the 2006 soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil show Love. This demo version features only Harrison; it includes an additional final verse not included on the Beatles' final version, and the Love album includes a string accompaniment (arranged by George Martin).
[edit] Credits
- George Harrison – double-tracked vocal, backing vocal, guitar, Hammond organ
- John Lennon – guitar
- Paul McCartney – backing vocal, piano, organ, 6-string bass
- Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine
- Eric Clapton – lead guitar
- Credits per Ian MacDonald[3]
[edit] Concert for George
On 29 November 2002 Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Eric Clapton performed "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Concert for George in memory of Harrison, who died a year earlier after a long battle with cancer. This version featured Eric Clapton playing his original solo and also a second in memorial to his good friend.
[edit] Cover versions
The song has been covered by various groups and artists.
- Vinnie Moore, on his album Time Odyssey, made an instrumental version of it, playing the voice melody with his guitar.
- Peter Frampton, on the album Now.
- Russ Freeman, on the album (I got no kick against) Modern jazz.
- The Jeff Healey Band, on the album Hell To Pay.
- Kenny Lattimore, on the album From the Soul of Man.
- Phish, in many concerts, initially at the Glen Falls Civic Center (Glen Falls, NY) on October 31, 1994 when they played the entire White Album, versions released on the albums Live Phish Volume 8, Live Phish Volume 13.
- Yaruch Bann, on the album Msspcd.
- Kenny Rankin, on the albums Family and The Kenny Rankin Album.
- The Rippingtons, on the album Brave New World.
- The Punkles did a Punk cover of this song on their third album "Pistol".
- Spineshank, on the album Strictly Diesel.
- Joe Louis Walker, on the album The Blues White album.
- Floyd Pepper from The Muppets, on the album The Muppet Show Music Album.
- Jake Shimabukuro, playing a ukelele in place of the guitar portions of the song, on the album Gently Weeps.
- Prince, Live
- Toto, on the album Through The Looking Glass.
- Powderfinger, live.
- Eric Roche, on the album Spin.
- Yellow Matter Custard, live.
- Damon and Naomi, on the album The Earth is Blue.
- Mägo de Oz, live.
- Rick Wakeman, on the album Tribute, a collection of Beatle covers (1997)
- Built to Spill, many times, live
- Todd Rundgren, on the live DVD Liars, and live on the Liars Tour.
- The Drowners
- The White Stripes, Live
- M.O.P. on the song "Rata Tatatta" featured on the Eminem and Clinton Sparks album Anger Management Tour Mixtape 3.
- Ghostface Killah via the song "Black Cream"
- Wu-Tang Clan (Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Method Man) with Erykah Badu on the refrain and John Frusciante and Dhani Harrison playing guitar. 8 Diagrams.
- Martin Luther McCoy in the movie (and on the soundtrack to) Across the Universe (2007).
- Doyle Dykes, on his 2004 album Chameleon
- The top 11 men on American Idol season 7.
- Remixed on The Grey Album, DJ Danger Mouse's work consisting of Jay-Z's The Black Album vocals and the Beatles instrumentals
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends, DVD, 2005.
- ^ Harrison, George (2002 [1980]). I, Me, Mine, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 120. ISBN 978-0-8118-3793-4
- ^ MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, Second Revised Edition, London: Pimlico (Rand), 300-301. ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
