It may have been George's recent custom to sit down in EMI Studios and record demos for the compositions he offered The Beatles, but, in this case, he did not. However, a simple acoustic guitar instrumental demo has surfaced, apparently 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 with a capo up on the seventh fret, 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, this being Ringo's 29th Birthday, to focus entirely on George's new song. However, only three Beatles were present because John recuperated from his recent car accident in Scotland.
Before recording commenced, much instruction needed to be given to George's bandmates, especially to the birthday boy, 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 were recorded onto an eight-track machine, with Paul on bass (track one), Ringo on drums (track two), George on acoustic guitar (track three), and George's guide vocals (track eight). 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...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 nine,' which is included in various "Abbey Road" 50th Anniversary editions, shows that there were still some bugs to be worked out, despite meeting George Martin's approval at the time. Although minor arrangement details were needed, the primary problem was Ringo's drum work. The song's bridge's timing tripped him up, leaving small gaps in his playing to keep his place. As if to allow for Ringo to practice, the guitarist directs his bandmates through four extra chord sequences in the bridge until Ringo clumsily lands on his feet just before the final verse begins. 'Take 13,' which was announced as "take 12 and a half" for superstitious reasons, was deemed the best, over which George decided to overdub his acoustic guitar part onto track four of the tape. Perfecting this overdub took up the last hour of the session, which ended at 11:45 that evening.
On the following day, July 8th, 1969, more attention was given to “Here Comes The Sun,” entering EMI Studio Two again at 2:30 pm. Onto track five of the tape, Ringo added extra drum fills (possibly to fill in drum gaps he left in the bridge of the song during the rhythm track) along with George playing electric guitar played through a Leslie speaker. George then recorded a new lead vocal performance onto track six, complete with "doot-n-doo-doo" accentuations reminiscent of the backing vocals on The Beatles' cover of "A Taste Of Honey" from their first album. George and Paul then supplied the harmonized backing vocals for "Here Comes The Sun" on track seven and then, since it was just the two of them without John, double-tracked them onto track eight to make the harmonies sound fuller. George's guide vocals from the rhythm track, therefore, were wiped from track eight.
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 were made, which resulted in the second attempt, signified as 'take 15,' to be the master thus far. This mix combined Ringo's added drum fills and George's electric guitar on track five with George's acoustic guitar on track three. The session was complete at 10:45 pm, but they spent the next half-hour in the control room. Simultaneously, the engineering team prepared a rough mono mix for George to take home and examine, 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, this being recorded onto the newly vacated track eight. George painstakingly took the necessary time to instruct Paul, Ringo, and producer Glyn Johns on the pattern he wanted the handclaps to be performed during the song's complicated bridge section. In an interview with author Andy Babiuk in 1998, Engineer Alan Parsons remembers how it took a long time for them to get it right. In the book “Beatles Gear” he relates: “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 onto the newly opened track five. 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 shows Mr. Martin produced these mixes.
Within the next two days, George decided 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.” With George playing his Rosewood Fender Telecaster through a rotating B3 speaker onto track six, this guitar overdub session ran from 2:30 to 11 pm.
Interestingly, this overdub included a lead guitar solo recorded onto the mostly-instrumental bridge section of the song. Not entirely satisfied with this performance, George decided he would add another guitar overdub to the song on August 11th, 1969, the deadline for the finished album getter ever closer. 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 laying down this further "Here Comes The Sun" guitar overdub onto track seven. After more control room work was performed, this session ended at 11:30 pm.
However, George eventually decided that both of these later guitar overdubs were not suitable for the song's bridge. To make sure these guitar parts didn't get used in the final mix, George wrote this instruction on the actual tape box: "Don't use guitars for solo from 6 + 7." 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 on tracks six and seven. 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, this captured discovery occurred on camera during the making of a documentary segment.
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 to perfect both songs, possibly with the knowledge that this was likely going to be The Beatles' final album and thereby 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 required an orchestra as well, so, for economic 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 music “Something,” the orchestra was set up in the larger EMI Studio One. Simultaneously, the performance was being recorded onto the eight-track recording console in EMI Studio Two. Both studios were linked together via recording lines being run, closed-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. Eight woodwind plays recorded their parts on the open track four of the tape, which a nine-piece string section was recorded onto track five, thus erasing George's harmonium overdub from July 16th. 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. The instrument appears on several of the tracks of this album, titled "Is This What You Want?", due to its sales representatives Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause bringing this cumbersome instrument to the sessions to spark George's interest. Former Beatles road manager Mal Evans, who was present in the studio at the time, predicted in the January edition of "The Beatles Book Monthly" fan magazine, "George couldn't resist the idea of ordering one. It will be installed at home. May well hear the results on 1969 Beatle records, folks."
“I had to have mine made specially because Mr. Moog had only just invented it. It was enormous, with hundreds of jack plugs 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.” As mentioned above, the ribbon controller 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 recorded onto track four of the tape, thus recording over the woodwind performance allocated to that track wherever the synthesizer playing occurred. During this overdub, one trick was sticking some editing tape on the tape machine's capstan used to create delay echo. This gave the synthesizer a slightly 'wobbled' sound.
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 following day's early morning hours. This session was a rather long one to facilitate the deadline for the finished album being very near. After the synthesizer overdubs were complete, George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Alan Parsons performed the one and only stereo mix. This mix was made with the tape played back slightly faster than normal speed, raising the song's pitch by roughly a quarter-tone in the process. The orchestral overdub was mixed at a somewhat low volume, and George's guitar solo in the bridge, per his instructions on the tape box, 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.
Giles Martin, along with engineer Sam Okell, returned to the master tapes of "Here Comes The Sun" sometime in 2019 to create a vibrant new stereo mix of the song for inclusion on various 50th Anniversary editions of "Abbey Road." In paying close attention to detail, the final "and I say" from George's lead vocal track was faded down to keep consistent with the originally released mix. While they were at it, they also created a mix of 'take nine' of the rhythm track recorded on July 7th, 1969.
Two live versions of George's song have been recorded, 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 Bangla Desh." 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 introduciton 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 rounds out the rest of the eighth measure beats.
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 and 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 first vocal verse's downbeat that appears next.
This is actually the second verse, which continues George's lead vocal work that Paul and himself harmonized when the phrase “little darling” is heard in the first and fifth measures. In contrast, George continues his beautiful acoustic guitar playing. 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 and act as a windfall 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 the synthesizer appears 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 come next, both of which essentially consists of the same instrumentation and vocal elements as heard previously. However, one addition 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 refrain measures that follow. The second addition was an electric guitar being played on top of the “doot-n-doo-doo” in the second measure of the refrain, which trailed 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 eighth measure of this refrain's final beat appears chopped off, making the final measure of this refrain play in 7/8 time. However, first to be heard 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 twenty-one measures, which construes six sets of three measures played in odd times, 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 are carried to a point more reminiscent of Stravinsky than 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 have George on double-tracked acoustic guitar, Paul on bass, and Ringo on drums, playing a little 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's 7/8 measure brings in a low-toned synthesizer sound that 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 and the somewhat low in the mix orchestra.
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. 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 refrain's final two measures 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 most of the other instruments fade away, George repeatedly 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 finally given free rein 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 the 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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