Here Comes The Sun, track 7 from Abbey Road, and its incredible recording process revealed here and now.

A standard routine for George included a custom to sit down in EMI Studios and record demos for the compositions he offered as consideration for The Beatles but, in this case, he wavered.  However, a simple acoustic guitar instrumental demo has surfaced which apparently had been recorded in George's "Kinfauns" home.  He hadn't quite perfected all of the intricate parts yet, which were played high up on the neck of his guitar using a capo, but he was close.  And it sounded beautiful!

Having decided to record one final Beatles album, the group began these sessions on July 1st, 1969.  One week into these sessions, on July 7th, 1969, George brought in “Here Comes The Sun” as his second contribution for the album, his “Something” having already been started.  They entered EMI Studio Two on this day at 2:30 pm to focus entirely on George's new song, although only three Beatles were present because of John's recuperating from his recent car accident in Scotland.

Before recording commenced, much instruction needed to be given to George's band-mates, especially to Ringo because of the tricky timing contained in the song.  In the documentary “Living In The Material World,” Ringo relates:  “He said, 'Oh, I've got this song.  It's like seven-and-a-half time.'  'Yeah, so?'  You know, he might as well have talked to me in Arabic, you know what I mean?...I had to find some way that I could physically do it and do it every time so it came off on the time.  That's one of those Indian tricks.  I had no way of going, 'one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...'  It's not in my brain.  So as long as I go (demonstrates), 'OK, that's seven.  Got it!'”

With that worked out, thirteen takes of the rhythm track was recorded, featuring George on acoustic guitar (played with a capo on the seventh fret) and guide vocal, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums.  Author Mark Lewisohn relates in his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” that “the original tapes reveal a lighthearted atmosphere.  When take one broke down, George exclaimed, sadly, 'One of me best beginnings, that!'  And at the end of take four, Ringo – celebrating his 29th birthday this day – called up to the control room 'Turn me down a little bit, if you don't mind' – meaning, reduce the level of the drum sound in his headphones.”

'Take 13' was deemed the best, over which George decided to re-record his acoustic guitar to get it to more of a perfected state, attempts at this overdub taking up the last hour of the session.  By 11:45 pm, the recording session was over.

On the following day, July 8th, 1969, more attention was given to “Here Comes The Sun,” them entering EMI Studio Two again at 2:30 pm.  The focus on this day was vocals, both lead and harmonies.  George first overdubbed his lead vocals, wiping out the guide vocals that he supplied on a separate track the previous day.  This having been done, George and Paul supplied the harmonized backing vocals for the song and then, since it was just the two of them without John, double-tracking them to make the harmonies sound fuller.

This filled up all eight tracks of the tape which meant that a reduction mix needed to be made to open up more tracks for future overdubs.  Two attempts at the reduction mix was made, which resulted in the second attempt, signified as 'take 15,' to be the master thus far.  The session was complete at 10:45 pm but they spent the next half-hour in the control room while the engineering team prepared a rough mono mix for George to take home and examine, this mix being made by producer George Martin and engineers Phil McDonald and John Kurlander.  This would help him determine what else he wanted to add to the song.  At 11:15 pm, everyone had left for the night.

Just over a week later, on July 16th, 1969, The Beatles returned to “Here Comes The Sun” for more overdub work in EMI Studio Three, this session beginning at 2:30 pm.  The first thing that George decided was needed in the song was a round of intricate hand-clapping, which he took the time to instruct them on.  Engineer Alan Parsons, in an interview with author Andy Babiuk in 1998, remembers how it took a long time for them to get it right.  In the book “Beatles Gear” he relates:  “(Producer) Glyn Johns was out there trying to do it – and he dropped out because he kept screwing up.”  Interestingly, even though John Lennon had recovered from his accident and had returned to recording sessions by this time, studio documentation intimates that he was either not present on this day or declined to participate.

Once this was complete to George's satisfaction, he sat down at a harmonium to add one further overdub.  By 7 pm, this session was complete, but they all ushered themselves immediately into EMI Studio Two for more work on George's other “Abbey Road” song “Something.”

While work progressed on various other songs for the album, “Here Comes The Sun” took a back seat for over a couple weeks.  George knew he wanted to add more to the song but wasn't sure what.  Therefore, on August 4th, 1969, after the group recorded their beautiful three-part harmonies for the song “Because,” George ducked into the control room of EMI Studio Three at 7:15 pm with engineers Phil McDonald and Alan Parsons to create a stereo mix of the song, as well as “Something,” for him to examine and determine what could be added.  At 8:45 pm both stereo mixes were done, documentation showing this mix “produced” by George.

Within the next two days, George decided first of all that more guitar work was needed for “Here Comes The Sun.”  Therefore, on August 6th, 1969, George entered EMI Studio Three at 2:30 pm to perform this overdub while, simultaneously in EMI Studio Two, Paul was adding overdubs to his song “Maxwell's Silver Hammer,” playing George's Moog synthesizer.  Engineer Tony Clark, in the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” explains:  “They kept two studios running and I would be asked to sit in Studio Two or Three – usually Three – just to be there, at The Beatles' beck and call, whenever someone wanted to come in and do an overdub.  At this stage of the album I don't think I saw the four of them together.”  This guitar overdub session, with George playing his Rosewood Fender Telecaster through a rotating B3 speaker, ran from 2:30 to 11 pm.

Interestingly, this overdub included a lead guitar solo that was recorded onto the mostly-instrumental bridge section of the song, this later being decided as not suitable for the released version.  George later decided to fill this section with other instrumentation, as we'll see below, but this guitar solo was never recorded over and was left on the master eight-track tape.  During a visit to what is now called "Abbey Road Studios" (formerly EMI) in 2012, producers George and Giles Martin, along with George Harrison's son Dhani Harrison, discovered this lost solo while listening to the original eight-track master of the song.

George still thought more guitar work should be added to the song, so on August 11th, 1969, with the deadline for the finished album getting ever more closer, he performed yet more guitar overdubs.  The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two at the usual 2:30 pm and, after putting more overdubs onto “I Want You (She's So Heavy)” and “Oh! Darling,” George went to work on these guitar overdubs for “Here Comes The Sun.”  After more control room work was performed, this session ended at 11:30 pm.

George, however, was very proud of both of his contributions to “Abbey Road.”  So much so, in fact, that he labored over the arrangement and production so as to perfect both songs, possibly with the knowledge that this was going to be The Beatles final album and therefore wanting to make a good impression.

With this in mind, George decided to add an orchestral score to both songs.  Three other songs on the album were requiring an orchestra as well so, for economical reasons, the classically-trained musicians recorded their performances on all of these songs on one day, August 15th, 1969.  As outlined in the “Recording History” of the song “Something,” the orchestra was set up in the larger EMI Studio One while the performance was being recorded onto the eight-track recording console in EMI Studio Two, both studios being linked together via recording lines being run, close-circuit television, and walkie-talkies.

Two sessions were needed to get this all done on this day, the first session accommodating the songs “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End,” and the later session for recording both of George's songs, “Something” and then “Here Comes The Sun.”  There was an hour-and-a-half break between the sessions to give the musicians a rest, the later session beginning at 7 pm.  After “Something” was complete, “Here Comes The Sun” received its orchestral overdub.  Documentation and photographs show that George was busy shuttling between both studios during this session, playing a key role in making sure his songs were recorded to his liking, even acting as “producer” in Studio Two while George Martin was busy conducting the orchestra in Studio One.  At 1:15 am the following morning, this overdub was complete, which finished off “Here Comes The Sun.”

Or so you would think.  Four days later, on August 19th, 1969, George wanted to add one more overdub onto the song before the final mix was made.  “I first heard about the Moog synthesizer in America,” George states in the book “Beatles Anthology,” recalling his purchasing the instrument in November of 1968 while producing Jackie Lomax's debut album in Los Angeles.  “I had to have mine made specially, because Mr. Moog had only just invented it.  It was enormous, with hundreds of jackplugs and two keyboards.  But it was one thing having one, and another trying to make it work.  There wasn't an instruction manual, and even if there had been it would probably have been a couple of thousand pages long.  I don't think even Mr. Moog knew how to get music out of it; it was more of a technical thing.  When you listen to the sounds on songs like 'Here Comes The Sun,' it does do some good things, but they're all very kind of infant sounds.”

The book “Beatles Gear” specifies that “Here Comes The Sun” has a “lovely ribbon-assisted downward slide on the intro, and glorious synth sounds filling the 'sun, sun, sun' middle section.”  The ribbon controller, as mentioned above, is described as “a long strip which induces changes in the sound being played depending on where it is touched and how the player's finger is then moved...like a violin and having to find every note.”

This synthesizer overdub was performed in EMI Studio Two on this day, the session beginning at 2 pm.  This was primarily intended as a stereo mixing session for the album.  However, since George insisted on adding this final overdub, it was done in the early morning hours of the following day, this session being a rather long one to facilitate the deadline for the finished album being very near.  Immediately after the synthesizer overdubs were complete, the one and only stereo mix of the song was performed by George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald and Alan Parsons.  The orchestral overdub was mixed at a somewhat low volume and George's guitar solo in the bridge was omitted entirely from the mix.

Sometime between 2004 and 2006, George and Giles Martin returned to the master recording of the song to create an innovative mash-up entitled “Here Comes The Sun (with 'The Inner Light' transition)” for the Cirque du Soleil production as well as the resulting album “Love.”  The entire “Here Comes The Sun” is heard in an amazing digitally remixed state, including the small phrase “and I say” from the final verse which was mixed out of the original version, with elements of “The Inner Light,” “Oh! Darling,” “Within You Without You” and “I Want You (She's So Heavy)” mixed in as well.

Two live versions of the song by George have been recorded also, the first being a lovely acoustic guitar duet he performed with Pete Ham of the Apple band Badfinger on August 1st, 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City for “The Concert For Bangladesh.”  “George just said he wanted to keep it simple,” Pete Ham stated as included in the book “Without You, The Tragic Story Of Badfinger.”  “He told me he used a capo on it and what changes were important.  Then I went back to the hotel and listened to the 'Abbey Road' tape.  We never rehearsed it – no time!”

The second live version was recorded sometime between December 1st and 17th, 1991, during George's brief tour of Japan, the results appearing on the release “Live In Japan.”  His band featured Eric Clapton, Ray Cooper and various other musicians and vocalists.

Song Structure and Style

The structure of "Here Comes The Sun" consists of 'verse (instrumental)/ refrain/ verse/ refrain/ verse/ refrain/ bridge/ verse/ refrain/ refrain/ conclusion' (or abababcabbd).  The first instrumental verse acts as an introduction while the final conclusion is an acoustic guitar instrumental sub-section of the bridge.

The instrumental verse is first heard, this being eight measures long as all of the verses are.  George's double-tracked acoustic guitar comprises the first four measures, the downbeat to the first measure not being heard but only implied.  The first actual beat of the song heard on the recording is the second beat of the first measure.  George's overdubbed synthesizer appears in measures five through eight, this instrument playing a single-note melody line as heard within the acoustic guitar intro.  The final note of the synthesizer descends, accomplished by George using the ribbon controller as mentioned above, in the eighth measure as the guitars momentarily disappear for good effect.  Gentle tapping from George on his acoustic guitar parses out the rest of the beats for the eighth measure.

The first refrain is then heard which, when listened to carefully, can actually be measured out to be seven full measures in 4/4 time even though measures six and seven are laid out as four triplets followed by a straight measure of 2/4.  Instrumentally, George's vocals and double-tracked acoustic guitars fill the first five measures along with the first appearance of the string section.  The second “here comes the sun” phrase, as well as “it's all right,” is joined by George and Paul's double-tracked backing vocals, this appearing in measures three through five.  When the intricate triplet guitar figure appears in the sixth measure, the vocals disappear while the drums and bass kick in for the first time to round out the verse while the strings accentuate the melody line played by the guitars.  Ringo's strategically played drum fill during this section ends with a cymbal crash on the downbeat of the first vocal verse that appears next.

This is actually the second verse, which continues George's lead vocal work that is harmonized by Paul and himself both times that the phrase “little darling” is heard, these being in the first and fifth measures.  George continues his beautiful acoustic guitar playing while a subtle harmonium overdub can faintly be detected.  Ringo plods away nicely with a simple drum pattern focused on the closed hi-hat while Paul plays a simple but appropriate figure on bass.  The strings follow along nicely through all of these measures to act as a pad to fill out the sound.

Then comes the second refrain which, this time, includes the full instrumentation as heard in the verse that precedes it.  Both “here comes the sun” phrases, as well as “it's all right,” are now sung with backing harmonies.  A briefly heard injection of synthesizer can be detected in measure two during the “doot-n-doo-doo” vocal line.  One difference with this refrain is that it contains an extra measure that acts as a transition to the verse that follows it, making this refrain a full eight measures long.  This extra measure continues the same instrumentation but allows Ringo to inject an additional drum fill in measure eight to lead into the next verse.

The third verse and fourth refrain comes next, both of which essentially consist of the same instrumentation and vocal elements as heard previously.  One addition here, however, is the synthesizer playing along with George's vocal melody line, this trailing off in a descending fashion in the eighth measure, not unlike what was heard in the instrumental first verse.  The synthesizer also continues to be heard playing the intricate triplet melody line in the latter measures of the refrain that follows.  The second addition being an electric guitar being played on top of the “doot-n-doo-doo” in the second measure of the refrain, this trailing off into the third measure thereafter.

One interesting feature of this third refrain is how it concludes.  Considering what George described to Ringo as a “seven-and-a-half time” song, as mentioned above, the guitar figure that encompasses the bridge that follows this refrain begins this strange time signature.  Therefore, half of the final beat of the eighth measure of this refrain appears to be chopped off, this making the final measure of this refrain to be in 7/8 time.  First to be heard, though are two accent beats from all of the instruments in that 7/8 measure.  These accent beats are then followed by the first three notes of George's complicated guitar figure that continue into the bridge that follows.

This bridge consists of a total of twenty-one measures, which parses out to six sets of three measures of odd times signatures followed by three measures in a standard 4/4 time.  American musicologist Alan W. Pollock, in his online “Notes On...Series,” explains this inventive three-measure set this way:  “The meters of these three measures are 11/8, 4/4, and 7/8, respectively.  The special effect of running even eighth notes accented as if triplets against the grain of the underlying backbeat is carried to a point more reminiscent of Stravinsky than of The Beatles.  Compared to the refrain section of this song, no attempt is made at all here to make the arithmetic balance out in the end; quite the opposite.”

The first of the three-measure sets consist of George on double-tracked acoustic guitar, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums, he playing a slight drum fill at the end followed by three beats on top of the repeat of George's first three guitar notes in anticipation of the second three-measure set.  This second set is then joined by double-tracked harmonies from George and Paul singing “sun, sun, sun, here it comes,” this appearing during the second 11/8 measure of the bridge.  The 7/8 measure of this second set brings in a low-toned synthesizer sound which continues for the rest of the bridge while raising by an octave with each successive three-measure set.  This third three-measure set brings in the intricate hand-clapping overdub mentioned above as well as the orchestra which is somewhat low in the mix.

As this bridge reaches a crescendo during its sixth three-measure set, the final three 4/4 measures continue the same instrumentation, including a tricky hand-clapping pattern.  Also, high pitched synthesizer notes mimic George's ending guitar phrases that act as a transition to the verse that follows.  Possibly somewhat confused by the whole process, Ringo adds drum fills at the end of measures eighteen and twenty and not in the final twenty-first measure where it would be expected to appear.  Nonetheless, it all worked together very impressively!

After the dust settles from this climactic bridge, we settle down nicely into the final verse, which is essentially identical to previous verses with the addition of a gentle and soothing counter-melody from George on synthesizer.  This is followed by a twice repeated refrain to end the song, the synthesizer counter-melody line continuing nicely as the orchestra provides a beautiful backdrop.  The last refrain is actually extended to ten measures due to a repeat of the final two measures of the refrain that contain George's guitar figure.  This happens just after all vocalists repeat one last “it's all right” in the eighth measure with George appropriately dipping the final word in anticipation of the repeated guitar phrase.  As Ringo's final cymbal crash rings out and the majority of the other instruments fade away, George once again repeats the 11/8 measure guitar phrase from the bridge to act as the song's conclusion with only a simple synthesizer note accompanying the final gorgeous guitar strum.  Thus, ends the George Harrison songwriting era within The Beatles.

This brilliant composition and production were due to George Harrison after given free reign and studio time to fully articulate his thoughts and present himself satisfactorily.  Paul did well in taking a backseat as an instrumentalist and arranger to let George take the lead, instructing Paul and Ringo in the intricacies of what he had in mind, undoubtedly allowing George Martin to put his two cents in at times to turn his song into a magnificent presentation.  Harrison's guitar work is stellar and well thought-out, along with his finishing touches on Moog synthesizer.  Ringo's predominantly flawless performance was due to his painstaking study of what George wanted, and Paul cooperated appropriately on backing vocals and suitable bass playing that wasn't too gaudy.

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