| "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" | ||||
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| Song by The Beatles
from the album The Beatles |
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| Released | 22 November 1968 | |||
| Recorded | Abbey Road 5 September 1968[1] |
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| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 4:46 | |||
| Label | Apple Records | |||
| Writer | George Harrison | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| The Beatles track listing | ||||
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| Music sample | ||||
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"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a song written by George Harrison of The Beatles for their double album The Beatles (also known as The White Album).
The song was ranked #135 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time and #7 on their list of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.[2][3][4]
Contents |
Composition and recording
Inspiration for the song came to Harrison when 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...opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental."[5] Taking this idea of relativism to his parents’ home in northern England, Harrison committed to write a song based on the first words he saw upon opening a random book. Those words were “gently weeps”, and he immediately began the song.
The initial incarnation was not final, as Harrison 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 band recorded the song several times, including a version with a backward guitar solo[1] (as Harrison had done for "I'm Only Sleeping" on Revolver[6]), but Harrison was not satisfied.[1] On 6 September 1968, during a ride from Surrey into London, Harrison asked Eric Clapton to add a lead guitar solo to the song. Clapton was reluctant—he said, "Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records"—but Harrison convinced him and Clapton's solo was recorded that evening.[7] Harrison later said that in addition to his solo, Clapton's presence had another effect on the band: "It made them all try a bit harder; they were all on their best behavior."[7]
Alternative versions
The version in the Prince’s Trust Rock Concert 1987 (released on DVD by Panorama) reunited Harrison, Starr and Clapton, and features an extended coda with the guitars of Harrison and Clapton interweaving. Mark King (of Level 42) played McCartney's bass line.
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).
Personnel
- George Harrison – double-tracked vocal, backing vocal, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ
- Paul McCartney – backing vocal, piano, organ, 6-string bass
- John Lennon – electric guitar
- Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine
- Eric Clapton – lead guitar
- Personnel per Ian MacDonald[8]
Performances
George Harrison originally performed the song with a solo acoustic guitar and an organ; a demo version, shorter 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 Harrison, 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 Byrdland hollowbody guitar, and later acknowledged that a solid-body guitar would have been more appropriate.[9]
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, as well as Paul McCartney on the piano.
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, along with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison (video).
This song can be played on the game The Beatles Rock Band.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by various groups and artists.
- An American-based Beatles cover band with the name Fab Faux perform the song, notably on the David Letterman Show in the United States, with the video of George's final verse in a video played on a large screen above the stage, to poignant effect.
- Jake Shimabukuro, playing a ukelele in place of the guitar portions of the song, on the album Gently Weeps.
- 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 featuring George Harrison on harmony vocals. The song is also featured on a posthumous release live album called Songs From The Road.
- 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 31 October 1994 when they played the entire The White Album, versions released on the albums Live Phish Volume 8, Live Phish Volume 13; most recently covered live at as the encore on 8/14/09 at the Comcast Theatre in Hartford.
- 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; a slower, more balladic version originally performed on episode 419 of The Muppet Show.
- Les Fradkin on his 2005 While My Guitar Only Plays album.
- Toto, on the album Through The Looking Glass and their live performance Live in Amsterdam.
- Eric Roche, on the album Spin.
- Damon and Naomi, on the album The Earth is Blue.
- Rick Wakeman, on the album Tribute, a collection of Beatle covers (1997)
- Todd Rundgren, on the live DVD Liars and live on the Liars Tour and on a tribute album "Songs from the Material World: a Tribute to George Harrison" in 2003.
- 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
- Remixed on The Grey Album, DJ Danger Mouse's work consisting of Jay-Z's The Black Album vocals and the Beatles instrumentals
- Marc Ribot has covered the song instrumentally on his album Rootless Cosmopolitans.
- Lemon Demon, reworked as "While My Keytar Gently Weeps"
- Nan Vernon, Canadian singer-songwriter, covered it on her sole 1994 album Manta Ray, having released it in edited form as a UK single the previous year.
Notes
- ^ a b c Lewisohn 1988, pp. 153.
- ^ Rolling Stone 2004.
- ^ Rolling Stone 2008.
- ^ http://stereogum.com/archives/rolling-stones-100-greatest-guitar-songs-of-all-ti_010114.html
- ^ Harrison 2002, p. 120.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 78.
- ^ a b Lewisohn 1988, p. 154.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 300–301.
- ^ The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends, DVD, 2005.
References
- Harrison, George (2002). I, Me, Mine. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-3793-4.
- Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
- "The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. 9 December 2004. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/2. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
- "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. 12 June 2008. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/20947527/the_100_greatest_guitar_songs_of_all_time/print.
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