How George Harrison Made Eric Clapton’s Guitar Solo on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ Sound ‘Beatle-y’
George Harrison disregarded his ego and allowed his friend, Eric Clapton, to play on his song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The Beatle thought Clapton did great work, but they had to make the tune sound more “Beatle-y.”
George Harrison said his ego was fine with Eric Clapton playing on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
The Beatle and Clapton briefly crossed paths several times throughout the first half of the 1960s. However, they didn’t become friends until the latter part of the decade.
In Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Clapton said George recognized him as an equal because Clapton had a “level of proficiency even then that he saw as being fairly unique too.”
The Yardbirds guitarist also thinks George liked that he was a free agent. “And I think, if anything, he may have already been wondering about whether he was in the right place being in a group,” Clapton said. “Because the group politic is a tricky one. There was a lot about what he had going, which I envied, and there was a lot about what I had going that he envied.”
Despite envying each other for different reasons, George and Clapton loved each other’s playing. When The Beatles began recording The White Album, George was at his wit’s end with his bandmates. No one would help him on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Frustrated, George brought in someone who did want to help him. He had no problem letting Clapton play on the song.
George told Guitar Player that letting Clapton didn’t hurt his ego. “No, my ego would rather have Eric play on it,” George explained. “I’ll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all. And I knew inside of me that it was a nice song.
“The next day, I was with Eric, and I was going into the session, and I said, ‘We’re going to do this song. Come on and play on it.’ He said, ‘Oh, no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.’ I said, ‘Look, it’s my song, and I want you to play on it.'”
However, Clapton’s work wasn’t perfect.
The pair had to make Clapton’s work on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ sound more ‘Beatle-y’
Clapton’s work on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” wasn’t completely perfect. He and George had to make the song sound more “Beatle-y.”
“So Eric came in and the other guys were as good as gold – because he was there,” George explained. “Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal.
“So Eric played that, and I thought it was really good. Then we listened to it back and he said, ‘Ah, there’s a problem though. It’s not a Beatle-y enough’ – so we put it through the ADT [automatic double tracker (opens in new tab)] to wobble it a bit.”
Once they finished tweaking the song, it was perfect. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” became one of the best tracks on The White Album and certainly one of George’s best. Clapton also got to play the song with his friend live a couple of times.
George loved when Clapton played the song live
The former Beatle and Cream guitarist added “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” to the setlist on their 1991 Japanese tour. George loved how Clapton played the song live.
He told Scott Muni at WNEW-FM (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), “Well, the obvious one when Eric and I get together, which is the first song that we ever did together, which was ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ and I’m particularly happy about the way it came out on the live version.
“It’s far superior, I think, to the original studio recording, and Eric just plays his butt off. It’s really good.”
So, Clapton delivered on the original recording of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” but he did even better on the live version. Clapton also played the song while honoring his friend at the Concert for George. It has become one of George’s most famous songs, thanks to Clapton.
