Sunday, October 31, 2010

Because The Wind Is High, It Blows My Mind


The second song on side two of the brilliant Apple LP/CD "Abbey Road" is an original Lennon/McCartney composition "Because" written mainly by John. The chord progression of the song was inspired by Yoko when she was playing some Beethoven arpeggios on the piano.

The basic track for the song was recorded on Friday August 01 1969 at EMI studio two. The instrumentation included George Martin playing the electric harpsichord with John Lennon playing the same riff on the electric guitar. Paul plays bass and Ringo taps out a beat on the drums although this was just a rythm guide and not used on the recording. There were 23 takes completed although the commercial version and the basic track chosen for overdubs was take 16. At the same session, John Paul and George added the first series of harmony vocals to the basic track.

Three days later on August 04 1969, John Paul and George added two more sets of harmony vocal work overtop the original vocals thereby producing nine singers doing the three part harmony in triplicate. All of this activity took place at EMI studio two.

The next day on August 05 1969, George Harrison entered room 43 at EMI and added the moog synthesizer part for the middle eight of "Because" as well as the moog overdub (with a different sound) for the final verse of "Because".

"Because" was mixed for stereo in two attempts on Tuesday August 12 1969 from the control room of EMI studio two.

"Because" is available on the Apple LP/CD "Abbey Road".

The vocal isolation has been circulating for quite a while and is available on various forms of vinyl bootlegs including "Turn Me On, Dead Man" which features a bit of the instrumentation as well. The vocal isolation can be found on the Apple 3-LP/2-CD "Anthology 3" as well as the Apple/EMI 2-LP/CD "Love" (with added sound effects).

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