Happiness Is a Warm Gun

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Happiness Is A Warm Gun is a song off The Beatles' 1968 album The Beatles. It was written by John Lennon.

Contents

AKA and Working Titles

Writing

John Lennon got the title of Happiness Is A Warm Gun from a gun magazine he saw at Abbey Road Studios. He recalled, "George Martin showed me the cover of a magazine that said, 'Happiness is a warm gun'. I thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you've just shot something." The first section of the song was based off things John and Beatles press agent Derek Taylor said while on LSD with Neil Aspinall and Pete Shotton. The opening lines were a Liverpool experssion of approval. The 'velvet hand' lyric had to do with a fetishist whom Taylor and his wife met on the Isle of Man. Taylor recalled, "I told a story about a chap my wife Joan and I met in the Carrick Bay Hotel on the Isle of Man. It was late one night drinking in the bar and this local fellow who liked meeting holiday makers and rapping to them suddenly said to us, 'I like wearing moleskin gloves you know. It gives me a little bit of an unusual sensation when I'm out with my girlfriend.' He then said, 'I don't want to go into details.' So we didn't. But that provided the line, 'She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand'." The Lizard on the Windowpane was a reference to Taylor's days in Los Angeles. The man in the crowd with the multicolored mirrors on his hobnail boots was a reference to a newspaper article about a man who was arrested because he wore mirrors on his shoes so he could see up women's skirts during Manchester City football games. The hands working busy overtime part was not a reference to masturbation as some thought, but a reference to a man in a newspaper article who used fake hands to pull off shoplifting schemes. The meaning of the rest of the verse is unknown. Derek Taylor said, "I don't know where the 'soap impression of his wife' came from but the eating of something and then donating it to the National Trust came from a conversation we'd had about the horrors of walking in public spaces on Merseyside, where you were always coming across the evidence of people having crapped behind bushes and in old air raid shelters. So to donate what you've eaten to the National Trust was what would now be known as 'defecation on common land owned by the National Trust.' When John put it all together, it created a series of layers of images. It was like a whole mess of colour." The second part of the song, "In need a fix cause I'm going down," is a clear reference to heroin, which John had just begun taking at the point. John later denied this, though, saying, "Happiness Is A Warm Gun was another one which was banned on the radio - they said it was about shooting up drugs. But they were advertising guns and I thought it was so crazy that I made a song out of it. It wasn't about 'H' at all." The mother superior jumped the gun double-speed section was a reference to John's relationship to Yoko, with jumped th gun possibly being a sexual reference. A version of this song, recorded at John's home in Kenwood, though sometimes mistaken as being recorded at Kinfauns, appears on Anthology 2. It is acoustic and was recorded in May 1968. This included an unused verse with John repeating Yoko's name. The last part includes a typical doo-wop chord sequence. Because of this song's several time changes, it took ninety five takes to perfect.

Recording

Work began on September 23, 1968, when forty-five takes were recorded, featuring Lennon on lead guitar and guide vocals, McCartney on bass, Harrison on fuzz lead guitar and Starr playing drums. The next day, they recorded takes 46-70. It was decided in this session that an edit of Take 53 and Take 65 were best. They were edited together on September 25. They then began overdubbing. In addition to John Lennon's vocals, there were also backing vocals, organ, piano, snare drum, tambourine and bass overdubbed. It was decided during mixing that the first occurence of the line "I Need A Fix" should be left out. This vocal overdub can slightly be heard in the background of the final version.

Recording and Mixing Sessions


Available Versions

The Beatles

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

  • Live at Montreal Bed-In, Between May 26 and June 2, (Bootlegs)

Available On

Cover Versions

Source

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