How The Beatles Made "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" | The Abbey Road Sessions

An in-depth analysis of the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" recording sessions. |

????️ "Lennon was so enamored of the white noise that George Harrison had overdubbed from his Moog synthesizer that he actually had Ringo supplement it by spinning the wind machine secreted in the Studio Two percussion cupboard. As we sat in the control room mixing the track, he started becoming almost obsessed with the sound. 'Louder! Louder!' he kept imploring me. 'I want the track to build and build and build,' he explained, 'and then I want the white noise to completely take over and blot out the music altogether.' I looked over at John as though he were crazy, but he paid me no mind. Over one shoulder, I could see Yoko smiling a taut little smile, her tiny teeth gleaming in the light. Over the other, I could see a dejected Paul, sitting slumped over, head down, staring at the floor. He didn't say a word, but his body language made it clear that he was very unhappy, not only with the song itself but with the idea that the music—Beatles music, which he considered almost sacred—was being obliterated with noise. In the past, he would have said something—perhaps just a diplomatic 'Don't you think that's a bit too much, John?"—but now Paul seemed too beaten down to argue the point with a gleeful Lennon, who seemed to be taking an almost perverse pleasure in his bandmates's obvious discomfort. To Paul, it must have been like Revolution 9 all over again. John was deliberately distorting the Beatles music, trying to turn the group into an avant-garde ensemble instead of a pop band. I looked around the room. Ringo and George Harrison seemed to be into what John was doing; they had their eyes closed and were swaying to the beat. It was just Paul looking miserable, staring down at the floor. His isolation from the others never seemed more apparent." – Geoff Emerick, Here, There and Everywhere (2006)

• I Want You (She's So Heavy) •
John Lennon: vocal, harmony vocals, lead guitars, organ, Moog synthesizer
George Harrison: harmony vocals, lead guitars
Paul McCartney: bass, harmony vocals
Ringo Starr: drums, congas
Billy Preston: Hammond organ
Recorded: 22nd February, Trident Studios; 18th, 20th April, 8th, 11th August 1969, Abbey Road 2/3.
Producers: Glyn Johns/Chris Thomas/George Martin. Engineers: Barry Sheffield/Jeff Jarratt/Tony Clark/Geoff Emerick/Phil McDonald.

► George Harrison talks about Abbey Road and more, 1969 (Ritchie Yorke Interview):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8iyRKgy4eg&t=731s

► WHY Paul McCartney SUED The Beatles in 1970:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCTJZTWVCw

✷ Sources:
• Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Ian MacDonald)
• The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (Mark Lewisohn)
• Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey)
• beatlesebooks.com/i-want-you

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