While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The Beatles - 1968 EMI Records Ltd.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a rock song by The Beatles from the double album The Beatles (also known as The White Album).

It was written by George Harrison, who originally performed it 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 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. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was played in tribute by fellow inductee Prince, 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.

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."

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.


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 multiple 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 for two things: a moment's relief from the inner turmoil the band was experiencing and a chance for Harrison to free himself of lead guitar, playing only rhythm and vocal.

Some have questioned 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).

Lyrics:
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know why nobody told you
how to unfold you love
I don't know how someone controlled you
they bought and sold you

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
no one alerted you

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weeps

Oh, oh, oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh, oh oh, oh oh
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah