The Amazing Recording History of Here Comes the Sun

The Amazing Recording History of Here Comes the Sun

Here Comes the Sun has become one of the  most popular and treasured Beatle songs. A gateway into their music for many new fans. This  three minute gem of unforgettable songwriting is also packed with intriguing anomalies, production  quirks and even a mystery. I’m going to take you on a journey through the song’s creation and point  out some of these surprises. As a fair warning: you can’t unhear this. Here Comes the Sun kicks  off the second half of the Beatles iconic Abbey Road album, released in September 1969, the last  studio album they recorded before splitting up

in 1970. Unlike the vast majority of Beatles  songs, Here Comes the Sun was not written by the main songwriting duo of Paul McCartney and  John Lennon but rather by George Harrison, the youngest member of the quartet who contributed  two memorable pieces to the Abbey Road album: an endearing love song called Something something  [Music] and the effervescent Here Comes the Sun. According to his later account, George composed the  song at Eric Clapton’s country estate, apparently skipping a stressful business meeting to instead  bask in the pleasure of a beautiful early spring

day. With an acoustic guitar in hand, George  translated his experience into the blissful tune we know today. The actual recording of  Here Comes the Sun began on July 7th 1969 one week into the sessions for the future Abbey  Road album. 13 takes of the basic rhythm track were committed to tape, with Paul McCartney  contributing a tasteful bass guitar part [isolated bass guitar] Ringo Star delivering a  dazzling intricate performance on drums, and George handling the main  sections on acoustic guitar

The only Beatle not present was John Lennon, who  was recovering from a recent car accident in Scotland. After 13 takes, the band decided  that the last one was the best of the bunch. On the next day July 8th, George recorded  fresh lead vocals, replacing his guide track from the previous day’s session. Paul then joined with George to add gorgeous double-tracked harmony vocals. One of these harmonized sections might sound familiar. It was likely inspired  by a song called “I Live For the Sun” originally

by the Sunrays, which became a hit in  the UK in 1968 when covered by a group called Vanity Fair. While the main elements of the  song were now in place, it was far from finished. A week later on July 16th, George added a few more  textures, including a harmonium and some hand claps. After a brief hiatus, production picked  up again in early August. On the 6th and the 11th, George experimented with adding  electric guitar, some of which survived into the final mix and some didn’t. On the  parts that survived, George used a creative

technique to transform the sound of his  electric guitar into something almost unrecognizable. Instead of playing through a  normal guitar amplifier, George used a special speaker with a rotating chamber called a Leslie.  More commonly paired with an organ as heard in many Jazz and rock recordings of the  era. You can hear George’s unique Leslie-d guitar at various points, but it’s most  clear during a brief snippet at around 1:15. Interestingly, before recording Here Comes the  Sun, George had experimented with his technique

on a song called Badge, co-written with his friend  Eric Clapton for the band Cream. George even noted on the lyrics sheet to Here Comes the Sun that  this part was the “son of badge” [Music] A different electric guitar part from these August  sessions didn’t make it into the Final Mix. In 2011 this intriguing lost overdub was rediscovered  during the filming of a documentary about George’s life. [Music] George ultimately felt the guitar  solo didn’t really fit and instructed

the EMI engineers to leave it out of the  final mix. A few days after the electric guitar overdubs, George turned to a special  ingredient that had enhanced many other Beatles songs: an orchestral arrangement. As  usual, the band’s multi-talented producer George Martin quickly whipped together  a beautiful arrangement for a string and woodwind ensemble that was recorded by session  musicians at EMI on August the 15th [Music] Still this was not enough for the  so-called “quiet Beatle.” With just days to

go before the album was set to be mixed, George  felt that his song needed one final ingredient: the fabulous and otherworldly sounds created  by a new electronic instrument called the Moog. Invented by engineer  Robert Moog, this groundbreaking device was the first commercially  available modular synthesizer and it had made cameo appearances on recent  albums such as Strange Days by The Doors and Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel. George had first witnessed the Moog’s capabilities while producing Apple artist Jackie Lomax’s  debut album in Los Angeles the year before. George

soon ordered a custom-built unit for himself,  one of the first to be delivered to the UK. Clearly enamored with the moog’s capabilities,  George released an entire album filled with its sounds in early 1969 on the Beatles short-lived  experimental label Zapple. For the Abbey Road sessions, George enlisted Beatles Road manager Mal  Evans to transport the hefty Moog from George’s home to EMI Studios, where it was set up for  recording. George apparently received little guidance on how it actually worked. Nonetheless, the  results of his tinkering are, in my view, sublime.

[Moog track isolated] The other Beatles were fascinated by  the Moog, too, and so it augmented a handful of other Abbey Road tracks,  including Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Because. There’s another  little production related quirk on the Moog on Here Comes the Sun. According to the Abbey  Road Super Deluxe Edition booklet, the Moog part was recorded onto the same track that  contained the woodwinds overdub from August 15th, erasing those entirely – well, almost entirely.  One tiny section of the woodwinds part survived,

and it can be heard briefly after the bridge  part when the Moog isn’t being played. [Music] With all of the pieces finally in place  on the packed 8-track tape, the beautifully layered recording of Here Comes the Sun was  finally ready to be mixed…where of course the anomalies continued. If you have perfect pitch  or have tried to play along to the recording you might have noticed that the key of the song is  slightly sharp. For comparison, here’s the original it’s and here’s the final

version. This intentional adjustment, often  called vari-speed, was occasionally used by The Beatles to lend a special texture to their  studio recordings. Another post-production quirk on Here Comes the Sun was discovered much  later. In most of the choruses, George adds ‘and I say’ following the second line. But in the last chorus, George skipped it. Or so we thought until 2006 when Here  Comes the Sun was remixed for the Cirque du Soleil musical LOVE. In that version, the missing line  was restored and heard by fans for the very

first time. The last piece of  Here Comes the Sun post-production trivia is a bittersweet one: The day that the song was mixed,  August 20th 1969, marked the last time that all four Beatles – Paul John George and Ringo – were  together in the studios at EMI, the end of an unparalleled 7-year creative journey in those  hallowed halls. One of their tasks on that last day together was to determine the order of  songs on the album. They ultimately decided to place Here Comes the Sun as the opener  on the second half of the album, a brilliant

segue following one of the most intense  songs in their catalog, I Want You (She’s So Heavy) which ends abruptly during a swelling  wave of multi-track guitars and electronic noise. Flip the record over – or nowadays just wait  for a few seconds – and here comes the sun, resetting the tone for the rest of side two, leading  into the joyful Abbey Road medley. There’s a little surprise in the sequencing too, perhaps  coincidental: Both sides of Abbey Road open with with the same two words. But that’s  not all – the same thing happens again three

songs later, during one of John Lennon’s  contributions to the medley, Sun King. There’s a bit of a mystery as to  which one was written first. One theory suggests that John might have actually  inspired George long before the Abbey Road sessions began. The theory is based on  a tape recording from the Get Back sessions in January 1969 when John was developing  the riff to what would later become the opening to Sun King. While messing around  allegedly he sings “here comes the sun”.

Due to the low quality of the recording, it’s  very tough to make out what John’s singing here, and I haven’t found any other supporting evidence.  Furthermore he never repeats this phrasing, despite returning to the riff numerous times during the  get back sessions. So I don’t find this theory particularly convincing. Another theory which  I find more plausible is that John’s opening lyrics in Sun King were written after George’s  song, as a deliberate callback combined with some

typical cheeky Lennon word play referencing the  actual Sun King, Louis XIV. We don’t know when John wrote the lyrics, but we do know that Sun  King was recorded a few weeks after Here Comes the Sun. Adding to the confusion are a couple  of entries in the Beatles newsletter from that that summer where the two songs are referred to  under a single title. It’s also labeled this way on the tape box. Neither John nor George ever spoke  about this uncanny connection, so we may never know the true origin story. A connection wouldn’t  be surprising though; sharing and emulating

ideas within the group was part of the Beatles  formula all along. You can even trace a thematic line from Here Comes the Sun back to Good Day  Sunshine on Revolver, or even earlier on I’ll Follow the Sun, on which George played  another lovely finger-picked guitar accompaniment. Origin stories aside, the impact of Here Comes  the Sun cannot be overstated. Along with its Harrison counterpart on Abbey Road, Something,  Here Comes the Sun marked a major turning point in George’s recognition as a songwriter.  Producer George Martin later commented that it

was the first time that George had really  come through with a brilliant composition John and Paul were equally impressed and  praised the song in many later interviews. Despite the collective admiration, Here Comes the  Sun wasn’t chosen by the band as a promotional single in the US or the UK. Early public reactions  were not unanimously positive either. A New York Times Review called George’s contributions  to Abbey Road “mediocrity incarnate.” [George Harrison in The Rutles: All You Need is Cash] “Are these allegations true?” “No, no.”

Any criticism was pretty  short-lived, and George’s prowess as an independent songwriter would be confirmed the following  year with his universally acclaimed triple album, All Things Must Pass. Indeed, the passage of  time has been kind to Here Comes the Sun. George performed it live on a handful of memorable  occasions, including at his 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, and in 1976 in a gorgeous  duet with another musically inclined Paul – Simon, on the American late  night TV show Saturday Night Live

And then of course there’s the Eric Idle  version. George released a sequel of sorts called Here Comes the Moon on his  self-titled album in 1979. Speaking of outer space, Carl Sagan lobbied for Here Comes  the Sun to be included among other celebrations of human achievement on the famous gold disc  aboard the exploratory spacecraft Voyager 1, but unfortunately permission couldn’t be secured in  time. A different remarkable upward journey would await Here Comes The Sun decades later, rocketing  to the top of digital music platforms in recent

years as the most streamed Beatles song ever, and  by a considerable margin. It’s a bit ironic that a George Harrison song rather than a Lennon-McCartney  hit has become the gateway into the Beatles for new generations of fans. It’s not hard to  understand why: it contains the raw ingredients of so many of their hits: irresistible songwriting,  compelling performances, and innovative studio techniques. George’s experimentation with the Moog  synthesizer was yet another step in the band’s

long history of introducing eclectic instruments  into their music, from the sitar on Norwegian Wood to the Mellotron on Strawberry Fields Forever. Beneath its masterful production, the message of Here Comes the  Sun is timeless and universal. George wrote this anthem of optimism during a harrowing  period in his life, surrounded by seemingly insurmountable personal and professional  challenges, but no matter how long cold or lonely the winter may seem, we have to remind  ourselves – like George – that the sun will come

again, and: it’s all right. What do you think of  Here Comes the Sun and its many anomalies? Let me know in the comments. If you’d like  to support my channel further, consider becoming a YouTube member to get access to some  special perks. And as always thanks for watching.