I Want You (She's So Heavy)

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Overview

Background

Pattern analysis

Recording

Mix variants & recording techniques

Mix variants

• 1969 UK mono — NOT ISSUED. Per K/R p. 526 verbatim: “Both Abbey Road and Let It Be were the first Beatles albums to be mixed and released solely in stereo; mono mixes were now officially a thing of the past.” No mono mix of IWYSSH was prepared at any session in the Lewisohn session log; the 20 August 1969 mixing session (Lewisohn p. 191) lists stereo mixes only (remixes 1–8 from take 1; remixes 9 and 10 from the unnumbered Trident master). Continuing the pattern observed across the late-1968 sessions (the White Album was “the last Beatles album mixed for both stereo and mono” per K/R p. 491 verbatim), 1969 is the first full year in which mono ceased to be a parallel mix destination on a Beatles LP track.
• 1969 UK stereo LP Abbey Road (26 September 1969, Apple PCS 7088, side A track 6) — Released stereo master is an edit of two stereo remixes prepared at the same 20 August 1969 mixing session (Lewisohn p. 191). Stereo remix 8 (one of eight remixes made from take 1, the 18 April 1969 Abbey Road 8T-8T reduction of the Trident master) supplies the first 4′37″ of the released LP track; stereo remix 10 (one of two remixes made from the unnumbered 22–23 February 1969 Trident master, carrying the 8 August Moog + white-noise + Ringo-drums overdubs) supplies the remaining 3′07″. The join point sits after the vocal line “she’s so…” per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim. Studio Three control room, 2.30–6.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick / Phil McDonald. 2E: Alan Parsons. The released LP track is therefore a stereo-stage edit of two independently overdubbed multitrack-tape lineages, one of which (the Trident master) itself already carries the 22–23 February three-take splice across takes 9, 20 and 32 per K/R p. 336.
• 1987 EMI CD master — Abbey Road (CDP 7 46446 2) — First digital transfer of the 1969 stereo master. Per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim: “Extraneous tape noise is the bane of a recording producer or engineer’s life, to be kept at a low level, or out, at all times. And here was John Lennon deliberately introducing white noise onto a Beatles recording. It was to cause EMI engineers great concern in 1987 when they were digitally re-mastering Abbey Road for release on compact disc. On record the noise was tolerable but with the increased dynamic range of CD it posed a real problem.” The K/R p. 520 verbatim characterisation of the song’s 8T-8T reduction noise (“A prime example of the noise that resulted from 8T-8T reductions can be heard on ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. During the quiet portions of the song, the tape hiss is extremely audible.”) compounds the dynamic-range problem on the CD master — the loud Moog-and-white-noise sections push close to digital clipping while the quiet portions expose the inherited reduction-mix tape hiss.
• 2009 Stereo Remasters — The Beatles (Stereo Box) (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI 5099969 9447 2) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1969 stereo master. The 20 August 1969 cross-tape edit point (after “she’s so…” at 4′37″), the Moog + white-noise entry at ~5′10″, the audible reduction-mix tape hiss, and the abrupt 7′44″ cut are all preserved unchanged.
• 2019 Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe (Giles Martin / Sam Okell stereo remix) (27 September 2019, Apple/Capitol 0602508007392, disc 1 track 6) — New stereo remix prepared from the original Trident eight-track tape + the 18 April Abbey Road reduction tape + the 8 August overdub tracks rather than from the 1969 stereo master. The Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix gains separation on the layered Lennon / Harrison guitars added during the 18 April Studio Two session (per Jeff Jarratt via Lewisohn p. 173 verbatim: “They wanted a massive sound so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over”) and surfaces the Hammond organ + Mal-Evans-supplied conga overdub from 20 April (Lewisohn p. 174) without the reduction-mix tape hiss inherited from the 1969 stereo master. The 20 August cross-tape edit point and the 7′44″ abrupt cut are preserved unchanged. The Super Deluxe set also includes session tapes documenting the 22–23 February Trident takes.

Recording techniques

• 22 February 1969 (Sat) — basic-track session, takes 1–35 at Trident Studios (Lewisohn p. 170 + K/R p. 336) — Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, Wardour Street, London W1. Recording: takes 1–35 of I Want You (later known as I Want You (She’s So Heavy)). P: Glyn Johns. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. Per Lewisohn p. 170 verbatim: “a fine John Lennon song begun now with 35 takes of the basic track and John’s guide vocal (one experimental take was sung by Paul McCartney), almost completed in April and finally finished in August.” The choice of Trident reflected two practical constraints documented by Lewisohn p. 170: Apple Studios at Savile Row was undergoing a re-build (the Magic Alex desk scrapped, the borrowed EMI consoles returned to Abbey Road), and Abbey Road may have been fully booked. The 22 February session began the multi-month, cross-studio recording arc that would span Trident (February) → EMI Studio Two and Three (April) → EMI Studio Two and Three (August) → EMI Studio Three control room (mixing, 20 August).
• 23 February 1969 (Sun) — multitrack tape physical cut: takes 9 + 20 + 32 spliced into the “unnumbered Trident master” (Lewisohn p. 170 + K/R p. 336 verbatim) — Trident Studios. Editing: takes 9, 20 and 32 spliced into an unnumbered master take. P: Glyn Johns. E: Barry Sheffield. 2E: unknown. Per Lewisohn p. 170 verbatim: “Take nine of ‘I Want You’ had the best Lennon vocal for the early part of the song, take 20 had the best middle eight, take 32 was best for the rest. In this session the three were edited into one all-encompassing master take.” Per K/R p. 336 verbatim: “by actually cutting the eight-track tape, three different takes were spliced together to create a master take.” This is the second documented Beatles 1″ eight-track multitrack-stage edit splice after Happiness Is A Warm Gun’s 25 September 1968 take-53 + take-65 splice (K/R p. 502) — and unlike HIAWG’s single splice, this one welds three takes together at two distinct cut points. The edit risk on three-segment 1″ eight-track splicing compounds the asymmetric edit risk described in HIAWG’s K/R p. 502 entry: every overdub built onto the spliced master inherits both cut points.
• 24 February 1969 (Mon) — safety copy of the edited master (Lewisohn p. 170) — Trident Studios. Tape copying of the unnumbered Trident master. E: Barry Sheffield. The safety copy was a routine working-tape duplicate; the original spliced master and the safety copy then travelled to EMI for the April and August overdubs.
• 18 April 1969 (Fri) — massed Lennon / Harrison guitar overdubs onto the Trident master + 8T-8T reduction (Lewisohn p. 173) — EMI Studio Two, 1.00–4.30am (after a long Studio Three Old Brown Shoe session ended). Recording: SI onto unnumbered Trident master; reduction of unnumbered Trident master, called take 1; SI onto take 1. Rough stereo remix from take 1. P: Chris Thomas. E: Jeff Jarratt. 2E: John Kurlander. Per Lewisohn p. 173 verbatim, Jeff Jarratt recalls: “John and George went into the far left-hand corner of number two to overdub those guitars. They wanted a massive sound so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over.” The session both layered new guitar tracks onto the Trident master AND performed an 8T-8T reduction down to a new tape called take 1, which then itself received further overdubs. Per K/R p. 520 verbatim, the resulting reduction-mix tape hiss is audible in the released master: “A prime example of the noise that resulted from 8T-8T reductions can be heard on ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. During the quiet portions of the song, the tape hiss is extremely audible.”
• 20 April 1969 (Sun) — Hammond organ + Mal-Evans-supplied conga drums onto take 1 (Lewisohn p. 174) — EMI Studio Three, 7.00pm–12.45am. Recording: SI onto take 1. P: Chris Thomas. E: Jeff Jarratt. 2E: John Kurlander. Per Lewisohn p. 174 verbatim: “overdubs for the 18 April reduction of ‘I Want You’: Hammond organ and a set of conga drums brought in especially for the session by Mal Evans.” This session committed overdubs to the take-1 reduction tape only, not to the Trident master.
• 8 August 1969 (Fri) — Moog + white-noise generator gale-wind overdub + Ringo drums onto the original Trident master (Lewisohn p. 186 verbatim + Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim + K/R p. 526 verbatim) — EMI Studio Two, 2.30–9.00pm. Recording: SI onto unnumbered Trident master (not the 18 April reduction). P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick / Phil McDonald. 2E: John Kurlander. Per Lewisohn p. 186 verbatim: “In studio two, John added Moog synthesizer sounds and effects, and Ringo added drums, to the original 23 February Trident master recording of ‘I Want You’, not, note, the 18 April reduction mixdown of same. (The released version was an edit of the two.)” Per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim: “John had used the Moog in conjunction with a white noise generator to produce a swirling, gale-force wind effect for the last three minutes of the song (on the record the white noise comes in at around 5′10″).” Per K/R p. 526 verbatim, ADT was applied to the white-noise overdub: “The effect was applied to the tornado of white-noise John overdubbed onto ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, and may also have been applied to the guitars, further reinforcing the massive wall of sound.” Studio Two in August 1969 was running the new EMI TG12345 transistor console (per K/R p. 529 1969–1970 Overview) — the first new EMI desk family in over a decade.
• 11 August 1969 (Mon) — “she’s so heavy” harmony-vocal inserts cut into BOTH versions (Lewisohn p. 187 verbatim) — EMI Studio Two, 2.30–11.30pm. Recording: SI onto take 1. Tape copying of take 1. Editing: from take 1 into unnumbered Trident master. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick / Phil McDonald. 2E: John Kurlander. Per Lewisohn p. 187 verbatim: “the re-recording of tremendous harmony vocals by John, Paul and George, constantly repeating the one line ‘she’s so heavy’ onto tracks four and seven of the 18 April take one reduction mixdown. With this, the song was complete, although John Lennon was clearly undecided about which version to release — the original Trident master, with overdubs, or the 18 April reduction of same, with different overdubs. At this point he had the new ‘she’s so heavy’ inserts cut into both versions to delay the final decision, not made until 20 August.” The 11 August session is therefore the moment IWYSSH first acquired the “She’s So Heavy” subtitle, and the moment two parallel candidate masters — one Trident, one 18 April reduction — were both made viable for the released LP.
• 20 August 1969 (Wed) — final assembly: stereo remixes from both tapes + Lennon’s scissors-on-master abrupt cut (Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim) — EMI Studio Three control room, 2.30–6.00pm. Stereo mixing: remixes 1–8 from take 1; remixes 9 and 10 from the unnumbered Trident master. Editing: of stereo remixes 8 and 10. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick / Phil McDonald. 2E: Alan Parsons. Per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim, Alan Parsons recalls: “We were putting the final touches to that side of the LP, and we were listening to the mix. John said ‘There! Cut the tape there’. Geoff [Emerick] cut the tape and that was it. End of side one!” The session also resolved Lennon’s 11 August indecision by committing to BOTH tapes in sequence: stereo remix 8 (from the take 1 reduction) for the first 4′37″ + stereo remix 10 (from the Trident master with the 8 August Moog + white-noise overdubs) for the remaining 3′07″. The same session continued into the broader Abbey Road master-tape banding session (Studio Two control room, 6.00pm–1.15am) at which all four Beatles were present — per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim, “the last time that they were together inside the recording studio”.
• The cross-studio, multi-tape master assembly — central editorial spine (Lewisohn p. 191 + K/R p. 336) — IWYSSH’s released master is the product of two parallel multitrack tapes, each carrying its own overdub stack, finally welded at the stereo-remix edit on 20 August 1969. The Trident master (22–23 February basic tracks spliced from takes 9 + 20 + 32) received the 8 August 1969 Moog + white-noise + Ringo-drums overdub at EMI Studio Two; the 18 April reduction tape (called take 1) received the 18 April Lennon / Harrison massed guitar overdubs, the 20 April Hammond organ + conga overdub, and the 11 August “she’s so heavy” harmony-vocal overdub. The 20 August final-master edit takes stereo remix 8 (from take 1) for the first half and stereo remix 10 (from the Trident master) for the second half. This is the only documented Beatles released master assembled from two independently-evolved multitrack tape lineages (HIAWG’s splice combined two takes on a single tape; SFF’s splice combined two performances of the same arrangement at different speeds; IWYSSH alone combined two tape lineages that had received different overdub stacks during the months between their last common ancestor and the final mix).
• Lennon’s scissors-on-master abrupt-cut ending (Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim) — The 7′44″ ending is a physical cut on the stereo-remix master tape made during the 20 August 1969 mixing session, not a fade-out and not a take’s natural ending. Per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim: “the end was a sudden, full volume slash in the tape: it did not fade out or reach a natural conclusion, the inference being that it could have gone on forever. Actually, the tape would have run out at 8′04″ but the suddenness of the ending was powerful.” Alan Parsons verbatim: “John said ‘There! Cut the tape there’. Geoff [Emerick] cut the tape and that was it. End of side one!” The 20-second gap between the cut at 7′44″ and the tape end at 8′04″ suggests the released cut was made specifically to terminate side 1 of the LP at a clean break before the tape’s mechanical run-out, rather than at an arbitrarily long full-take length.
• Moog Series III synthesizer + white-noise generator (Lewisohn p. 186, p. 191 + K/R p. 526) — The 8 August 1969 overdub used the Beatles’ Moog Series III modular synthesizer (acquired by Harrison in late 1968, first used on the album for Maxwell’s Silver Hammer) routed through a separate white-noise generator to produce the sustained gale-wind effect that enters at approximately 5′10″ on the released master per Lewisohn p. 191. K/R p. 526 verbatim documents ADT applied to the white-noise overdub. The white-noise is the technical source of the 1987 CD-mastering concern per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim, and contributes to the Moog’s established role on Abbey Road as a textural / environmental presence (here: gale wind; on Here Comes The Sun: ringing harmonic sustains; on Maxwell’s Silver Hammer: solo-instrument lines) rather than as a lead instrument.
• Cross-studio console + tape-format asymmetry (K/R p. 336 + p. 529) — The 22–24 February Trident sessions used Trident’s 16-output Sound Techniques desk and a 3M 8-track machine (per K/R p. 336 verbatim: “By this time, the 16-output Sound Techniques board had been installed, though the 16-track machine hadn’t yet arrived. The Beatles’ continued using the studio’s eight-track machine with the new desk.”). The 18 April Studio Two session ran on EMI’s 3M M23 eight-track (the same machine that recorded HIAWG five months earlier) and Studio Two’s 1968-vintage REDD.51 desk (per K/R p. 529 1969–1970 Overview’s identification of Studio Two as TG12345 for 1969 generally, but the TG12345 was not yet installed by mid-April 1969). The 8 August Studio Two session ran on EMI’s 3M M23 again, but by this point Studio Two had received the new EMI TG12345 transistor console (per K/R p. 529 1969–1970 Overview Recording Console table). The 20 August Studio Three control-room mixing session ran on REDD.51. The released master therefore inherits desk colouration from at least three distinct consoles across the recording arc (Sound Techniques 16-output, REDD.51 in Studio Two pre-TG, REDD.51 in Studio Three) plus the TG12345 for the 8 August overdub session.
• Billy Preston at the 22 February Trident session — primary-source convergence (Lewisohn pp. 170 + 191 + K/R pp. 336 + 508) — Both Lewisohn and Kehew/Ryan affirm Preston’s participation at the 22 February Trident session, with one structural caveat on Lewisohn’s session-card layout. Lewisohn p. 170 verbatim narrative: “The delay was caused by the temporary absence of Glyn Johns and Billy Preston, both in the USA in early February and both back in London to contribute to this session”. Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim retrospective: “the Beatles, with Billy Preston, and with Glyn Johns as producer, recorded 35 takes at Trident in February”. Per K/R p. 336 verbatim: “Glyn Johns was at the helm as producer, and Billy Preston sat in on keyboards.” Per K/R p. 508 (Trident chapter, page wrapping around a sidebar): “the group assembled at Trident Studios on 22 February to record John’s ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. Once again, Billy Preston took part…” The single structural caveat is that Lewisohn’s p. 170 session-card line for 22 February lists only Glyn Johns (P), Barry Sheffield (E), and an unknown 2E — Preston is documented in Lewisohn’s prose on the same page (and again on p. 191) but is not enumerated on the structured session-card line, consistent with Lewisohn’s convention of listing only Beatles, producer, and engineers on session cards while crediting auxiliary musicians in the surrounding prose. The Apple 27 January 1969 rehearsal jam (Lewisohn p. 168) is independently documented as featuring Billy Preston, providing additional contextual confirmation of Preston’s presence in London immediately before the Trident session.
• Myth-bust: the “muffled shout of disapproval” at 4′32″ is a Beatle, not a control-room interruption (Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim) — A popular reading of the released master holds that an indecipherable shout at 4′32″ is a control-room instruction telling Lennon to keep his vocal down. Per Lewisohn p. 191 verbatim: “Close scrutiny of the original Trident tapes reveals the indecipherable shout to belong to a fellow Beatle, off-microphone, taped on 22 February, and that it was certainly not one of disapproval. There was one occasion during the recording of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, on 18 April, that Jeff Jarratt asked George Harrison to turn his guitar volume down a little. ‘I was getting a bit of pick-up so I asked George to turn it down a little. He looked at me and said, drily, “You don’t talk to a Beatle like that”.’” The 4′32″ shout originates on the 22 February Trident multitrack, not on the 18 April Studio Two session, and is not a control-room remark.

Legacy & release history

Mono & stereo

• Stereo only on UK release — the band's last three LPs were mixed for stereo; no UK mono LPs were issued.

Documented alternate versions

• 2009 Stereo Remasters — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey remaster
• Abbey Road 50th Anniversary (2019) — Giles Martin stereo remix

Released on

• Abbey Road — LP, 26 September 1969

Cross-references

Other songs sharing themes (abrupt-cut, white-noise-build, minimal-lyric, heavy)

Other songs led by the same vocalist

Other songs from this era

abrupt-cutwhite-noise-buildminimal-lyricheavy

Cultural appearances

Related songs