Paul appears to have first introduced the song to his band on January 6th, 1969, the third day of rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios for what eventually became the “Let It Be” film and soundtrack album. He directed The Beatles through seven run-throughs of the song toward the end of the session on this day, teaching John and George the chords along the way. Being this early in the rehearsals for this project, Paul undoubtedly considered this a strong contender for the “Let It Be” project at the time.
The group became more and more familiar with the song in the rehearsals that followed; four attempted versions occurred on January 7th, one aimless version performed on January 8th, and seven more on January 9th. By this time, the band had worked out the arrangement of the song quite nicely, John joining in proficiently on harmony vocals during the choruses. The instrumentation during these rehearsals had Paul on bass on lead vocals, John on piano and harmony vocals, George on his Fender Telecaster run through a Leslie speaker and wah pedal, and Ringo on drums.
The Beatles got quite silly during the rehearsals on January 9th, one version being documented by a technician to have happened at “one o'clock” that was counted out by Paul in German and featuring some lead vocals by John in a thick Cockney accent. Paul would then provide off-the-cuff responses to fill in the spaces left after each of John's lead vocal lines, such as “a bloody spoon, a bloody spoon, a bloody silver spoon.” The second verse has Paul return as lead vocalist, altering the lyrics to “and though she thought I had the answer, I just had to sail away.” The third verse then included this Paul / John interchange:
Paul: “And so I quit the police department.”
John: “Get a job, cop!”
Paul: “And got myself a proper job.”
John: “Bloody 'bout time too, if you ask me.”
Paul: “And though she tried her best to help me.”
John: “You bloody need it, too.”
After a week break from rehearsals (which included George temporarily quitting The Beatles), they reconvened in Apple Studios on Saville Row to resume work in preparation for the "Let It Be" project. Five versions of “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” were included on their first day back, January 21st, 1969, these performances being quite plodding and less spirited but still satisfying.
One of the rehearsals on this day appears on the 1996 released compilation album “Anthology 3,” although it was misidentified as happening on January 22nd. The instrumentation is the same as before, except John played a Fender Rhodes electric piano instead of an acoustic piano as before. Interestingly, the structure of the song at this point was 'verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ chorus' (or abababb), which was altered many months later since it would become more of a truncated version of the song for inclusion in the long “Abbey Road” medley.
At the conclusion of this run-through of the song, as included on “Anthology 3,” Paul commends John's performance on electric piano by saying: “See, what you were doing then, that sounded like, that's the kind of thing that would be nice, to have one of the verses like that. Like a classical...(demonstrates)...you know, that kind of variation that it needs a bit.”
Paul still felt confident about the song having a spot in the “Let It Be” project throughout the following week, and the group rehearsed it again once on January 24th and then five more times on January 29th, the day before the famous live rooftop performance. However, despite all their hard work on the song, The Beatles deemed the song unsuitable for the roof show as well as the final studio sessions on January 31st. Thereafter, “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” was shelved for the time being.
Then came the May 1969 brainstorm from Paul to incorporate unfinished and unrecorded compositions into one long medley to fill a full side onto their next album, “Abbey Road.” “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” was an obvious candidate for this project, so Paul dusted it off and worked it into the medley following John's unfinished composition “Polythene Pam,” both compositions being recorded together with an appropriate segue that the band would compose together.
The first recording session for the “Polythene Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” section of the medley occurred on July 25th, 1969 in EMI Studio Two, the session beginning at 2:30 pm. After the group performed overdubs onto “Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Come Together,” the primary focus of the session was recording the rhythm track of this new composite medley section. It took 39 takes of the rhythm track until they were happy with the results, the instrumentation being Paul on bass and guide vocals, John on 12-string acoustic guitar, George on his Gibson Les Paul, and Ringo on drums. “They were fun tracks to record, and the ensemble playing was superb,” engineer Geoff Emerick recounts about this session in his book “Here, There And Everywhere.”
After 'take 39' was deemed suitable at around 10:30 pm, Ringo then replaced his drum part at John's request (see the Recording History section for “Polythene Pam” for more details), and Paul re-recorded his bass part as well as added a lead vocal overdub. This took the session to 2:30 am the following morning, leaving more overdub work for another day.
Those additional overdubs began on July 28th, 1969, in EMI Studio Three at 2:30 pm. Paul double-tracked his lead vocal performance on this day as well as added some electric and acoustic piano parts, instruments that John had played in their January rehearsals of the song. Mark Lewisohn's book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” also stipulate that both acoustic and electric guitars were overdubbed on this day, undoubtedly played by John and George respectively, as well as tambourine and “other bits of percussion,” such as handclaps presumably from Paul and cowbell and maracas as heard on the finished recording, these no doubt played by Ringo. The session ended at 8 pm, although they convened in the control room of EMI Studio Two for the next half hour to facilitate the engineering team perform a tape reduction to open up more tracks for yet more overdubs, this turning 'take 39' into 'take 40.'
The final overdubs to “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” occurred on July 30th, 1969, in EMI Studio Three, this session beginning at 3:30 pm. After overdubbing another guitar onto “Come Together,” John, Paul, and George added their harmony vocals as well as guitar and percussion overdubs onto “Bathroom Window” before turning their attention to adding more vocals onto two other sections of the long “Abbey Road” medley. With this complete, everyone filed into the control room of EMI Studio Two at 10:30 pm to put together a make-shift edit of the segments of the medley to see how they all fit together. The first step in doing this was to create quick stereo mixes of each segment, made by producer George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and John Kurlander. They then took to editing all the segments together and, with some slight alterations, were quite happy with the results. By 2:30 am the following morning, this session ended. This also ended the recording of “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.”
Then came creating the perfected stereo mix of the song that would be released, as well as the perfected editing of the track into the full “Abbey Road” medley. Both of these things happened on August 14th, 1969, in the control room of EMI Studio Two in a 12-hour session that stretched from 2:30 pm to 2:30 am the following morning. Amongst other stereo mixes for the medley, as well as an edit piece for “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” and a recorded John Lennon interview with Kenny Everett, it took thirteen attempts to get a suitable stereo mix for “Polythene Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,” these designated as remixes 20 through 32. With Paul's piano overdubs buried in the mix, 'take 32' was deemed best, and then suitably edited together with 'remix 22' of “Sun King / Mean Mr. Mustard,” performed by George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Alan Parsons.
Sometime in 1996, George Martin and Geoff Emerick reconvened to create a mix of the January 21st, 1969 rehearsal of the song, as detailed above, for inclusion on the “Anthology 3” album.
Song Structure and Style
The structure of "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window," as contained on the "Abbey Road" album, parses out to 'verse/ refrain/ verse/ verse/ refrain' (or abaab). As heard in various bootlegs and rehearsals, however, Paul's intentions for the structure of the song contained two more refrains, one slotted between the second and third verse and the other at the very end of the song, which would result in two refrains heard back to back. But since the later decision was to incorporate this song into the long "Abbey Road" medley, Paul thought to omit these two refrains so as to make this track more concise.
The first element of the song, however, is a three-measure introduction that is a wind-down from the previous track “Polythene Pam.” The first two measures act as a suitable segue between the two tracks, shifting the key from E major to A major in the process. The instrumentation for these two measures consists of George on electric guitar, John on 12-string acoustic guitar and ad lib vocal (exclaiming what sounds like an address to their assistant Mal Evans, “Oh, listen to that, Mal,” a chuckle, and then, “oh, look out”), Paul on bass, and Ringo on drums, tambourine, maracas and cowbell. The third measure lands the song on A major and, while the group performs a 'Beatles break,' Paul's double-tracked lead vocal kicks in to sing the song's title while Ringo's crashed cymbal rings out and his tambourine shakes violently. This third measure concludes with Ringo performing a drum fill to usher in the first verse that follows next.
The first verse, like all the rest, is seven measures long. The instrumentation for this first verse is the same as the introduction minus Ringo's extra percussion instruments. In addition, John, Paul and George's background vocals provide a backwash while George fills in the gaps left by Paul's lead vocals with tasty lead guitar lines. Ringo rides on the hi-hat throughout while crashing a cymbal sporadically, providing drum fills in measures three and five. The seventh measure consists of another 'Beatles break' while Paul and John harmonize on the first line of the refrain that follows, namely, “Didn't anybody tell her” (the last word actually appearing in the first measure of the refrain). Ringo simultaneously introduces the refrain with a pounding drum fill.
The refrain is eight measures long, in 4/4 time as also the verses, with the exception of the seventh measure, which is in 2/4 time with an anticipated downbeat. Paul and John continue to harmonize the vocals throughout the refrain while they continue to play bass and acoustic guitar, respectfully, as before. George continues to fill in the gaps with vibrant guitar lines while Ringo plays drums and adds in a tambourine overdub. Ringo adds drum fills in measures three and five while the group puts in some interesting accents in measure five as well. At the end of measure seven, another 'Beatles break' appears, John being tripped up by the anticipated downbeat as evidenced by his late strum on acoustic guitar. Paul here begins the first line of the second verse, “She said she'd always been a dancer” while Ringo adds in yet another drum fill.
The second verse then appears, the instrumentation now omitting the backing vocals as heard in the first verse. Instead, we hear sporadic handclaps in random places throughout the verse while Ringo keeps a steady beat on drums, omitting drum fills except for the final seventh measure after the 'Beatles break.' This last measure also includes a swell of background vocals which continues into the third verse that follows. This third verse returns to the instrumentation of the first verse, Ringo's third and fifth measure drum fills included. The background vocals swoop somewhat differently in this third verse, while George's guitar runs alter appropriately as well.
The second refrain comes next, lasting only seven measures long due to this being the final segment of the song and there is nothing to segue into. Instead, the seventh measure in 2/4 time ends with the anticipated downbeat that completes the song, Paul emphasizing the final two beats with the words “Oh, yeah.” The arrangement and instrumentation here sound identical to the previous refrain, George altering his lead guitar lines once again, leaving his final note ringing as the song fades away. Although there are three more segments to the “Abbey Road” medley yet to come, “Bathroom Window” fades to silence as a sort of intermission, giving them and us a chance to regroup and prepare for what show business people refer as 'act two.'
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