Paul McCartney Once Revealed His Favorite Version of George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
Paul McCartney once revealed his favorite version of George Harrison‘s Beatles song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It wasn’t the original recording from The White Album. Interestingly, George’s favorite wasn’t the original either.
George Harrison used Chinese philosophy to write ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ in 1968
Each Fab Four had creative ways of coming up with songs. They had their influences and other things to help them. George’s go-to was spirituality and philosophy. In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George said Chinese philosophy helped him write “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
George explained that he had a copy of I Ching, the Chinese classic Book of Changes, which seemed to him to be based “on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental.”
He continued, “This idea was in my head when I visited my parents’ house in the north of England. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book—as it would be relative to that moment, at that time.
“I picked up a book at random—opened it—saw ‘gently weeps’—then laid the book down again and started the song. Some of the words to the song were changed before I finally recorded it—as can be seen here: ‘I look at the trouble/ And hate that is raging/ While my guitar gently weeps/ While I’m sitting here/ Doing nothing but ageing [sic].'”
In the recording studio, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” became the first Beatles song to have someone outside the band play on it. George said his ego would have rathered Eric Clapton play the guitar solo.
Paul McCartney on his favorite version of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
In the mid-1990s, The Beatles, and John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono, started work on one of their biggest projects ever, The Beatles Anthology, which became an eight-part documentary, a three-volume set of double albums, and a book. The albums consisted of mostly never-before-released Beatles material, including unheard versions of their famous songs.
In a video taken during the making of Anthology 3, Paul revealed that he liked the album’s version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” instead of the album version.
He said, “That ‘Guitar Gently Weeps’ though, the best version I like anyway now is that solo version of George’s.”
Anthology 3‘s version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” features only George and his acoustic guitar. It’s simplistic yet contains just as much feeling as the original. George would’ve agreed with Paul that the best version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” isn’t the original recording. However, he liked a completely different rendition.
George said his live version from his 1991 Japanese tour is better than the original recording
For George, the best version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” isn’t the album version or Anthology 3‘s; it’s his live version recorded during his 1991 Japanese tour. He told Scott Muni at WNEW-FM (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) that his live performance sounded better than the original recording.
“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.”
There’s another memorable version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” but George had no part in it. At his 2004 posthumous Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, George’s friends and fellow Traveling Wilburys, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, along with Prince, and others, performed the song. Prince’s appearance was unexpected, and he belted out one of his most iconic solos.
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is a song that has withstood the test of time. So, every version is just as good as the next.
