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TL;DR:

  • A sound engineer said one of The Beatles’ songs “got close to a breaking point.”
  • John Lennon explained why George Harrison worked a certain instrument into the song.
  • John was a huge fan of the instrument.
The Beatles in black-and-white
The Beatles | John Pratt/Keystone/Getty Images

A sound engineer said one of The Beatles‘ songs “got close to a breaking point.” Subsequently, he said George Harrison incorporated “intense” instrumentation into the song. Notably, the tune in question featured an instrument that was revolutionary at the time.

Geoff Emerick said 1 of The Beatles’ songs was about John Lennon being ‘consumed with’ someone else

Geoff Emerick was a sound engineer for Abbey Road. During a 2014 interview with MusicRadar, he discussed “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” “A fascinating song, very indicative of John’s mood at the time — he was consumed with all things Yoko,” he said.

Emerick was initially uneasy with one of John’s directives for the song. “I thought the song was going to have a fade out, but suddenly John told me, ‘Cut the tape,'” he recalled. “I was apprehensive at first — we’d never done anything like that. ‘Cut the tape?’ But he was insistent, and he wound up being right. The track, and side one, ends in a very jarring way.”

John Lennon explained why a Moog synthesizer appeared on ‘Abbey Road’ songs

Emerick discussed the instrumentation of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” “It goes from hard rock to almost jazzy, bossa nova,” he added. “Of course, there’s the famous ride-out, the riff being repeated many times. George put some very intense Moog [synthesizer] sounds down and Ringo played with a wind machine — the whole thing grew louder and louder till it got close to a breaking point.” For context, the Moog synthesizer was considered a revolutionary instrument at the time and Abbey Road helped make it mainstream.

The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations With John Lennon includes an interview from 1969. In it, John was asked why the Moog synthesizer appeared on the album. “George ordered one when he was in the States, and he brought it back, and we used it as best we could,” he replied.

John said the instrument appeared at the end of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and perhaps a few other songs on Abbey Road. He felt the instrument was incredible. He predicted George would try to master the Moog synthesizer and that it would take him a lifetime.

How The Beatles’ ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ performed on the charts

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” was never a single and it never charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Abbey Road hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 11 weeks. Abbey Road spent a total of 483 weeks on the chart.

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” was not a single in the United Kingdom and The Official Charts Company reports the tune never charted there. Meanwhile, Abbey Road was No. 1 in the U.K. for 17 of its 97 weeks on the chart.

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is a classic track even if it almost reached “a breaking point.”

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