I Want You (She's So Heavy)

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I Want You (She's So Heavy) is a song on The Beatles' 1969 album, Abbey Road. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Contents

AKA and Working Titles

Writing

The song contains some of the simplest lyrics John Lennon has ever done, the whole song containing only fourteen different words. John commented to Rolling Stone in 1970, "A reviewer wrote of She's So Heavy: 'He seems to have lost his talent for lyrics, it's so simple and boring.' She's So Heavy was about Yoko. When it gets down to it, like she said, when you're drowning you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream. And in She's So Heavy I just sang 'I want you, I want you so bad, she's so heavy, I want you,' like that." The song is the second longest legitimately-released Beatles song, behind only Revolution 9. The song suddenly cuts off at 7:47, making it seem like it could have gone on forever. In reality, the tape would have only went twenty seconds longer. The press criticized the song as being an example of the "banalities of modern pop." John had replied to this by calling the song a piece of minimalist art. John had said that he also had a plan to do a one-word pop song. Yoko had already written a one-word poem called "Water."

Recording

The song was first recorded during the Get Back sessions on January 3, 1969, under the working title I Want You. They then returned to it in February, making it the first song to be recorded for the Abbey Road album. Because it took until August to complete, it was also one of the last. On February 22, 1969, 35 takes were recorded at Trident Studios, because Abbey Road Studios was undergoing a re-fit. The next day, the song was edited, using Take 9 for the beginning of the song, Take 20 for the middle eight, and Take 32 for the rest of the song. On April 18, John and George recorded their multi-tracked guitar parts used in the last three minutes of the song. As engineer Jeff Jarratt recalls, "John and George went into the far left-hand corner of [studio] number two to overdub those guitars. They wanted a massive sound so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over." On April 20, an organ part as well as congas, brought in by Mal Evans especially for the song, were overdubbed. After that, the song was not worked on until August 8, when they took the cover photos for Abbey Road. John added a Moog Synthesizer. During the last couple minutes of the song, a wind noise is heard. This is actually a white noise machine on the Moog synthesizer. Ringo also added more drums. For some reason, these were overdubbed onto the February 22 master, not the reduction mix from April 18. On August 11, the song's title was changed from "I Want You," and Harrison overdubbed several harmony vocal parts. These were overdubbed so much so it would give the effect of six voices. This was the last recording done on the song, though more editing was done on August 20, putting together the April 18 recordings with the August 8 ones.

Recording Sessions


LOVE Mix

The song was included as part of Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite. It was included at the very end, when the sound effects medley would normally go. Also included in this section were some vocals from Helter Skelter.

Personnel

The Beatles

Guest Musicians

Production

Available Versions

Available On

Sources

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