“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is, without a doubt, one of the most famous and influential rock songs in history; however, most people do not know that it was born out of emotional strife, personal frustration, and tension within The Beatles.
In the Spring of 1968, lead guitarist George Harrison wrote the song after returning from a trip to India with his fellow band members. While on this trip, The Beatles, consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, had been studying meditation, and Harrison opened a book at random. He was struck with the words “Gently Weeping.”
These words are where Harrison’s inspiration for the song began.
Another factor from returning on this trip was the added tension between Lennon and McCartney and Harrison. They returned from India with different ideas about music, and Harrison began to assert himself as a songwriter.
When Harrison arrived home to his bungalow called Kinfaun, he recorded the first-ever acoustic version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Fast forward to mid-1968, when The Beatles began work on their famous “White Album” at Abbey Road Studios in London. This is where the tension, frustration, and emotion over the song began due to the little interest shown in the song by Lennon and McCartney.
Harrison was distraught and felt overlooked by Lennon and McCartney, who he believed disrespected his genius and gift for songwriting. This resentment caused much tension while recording the album.
All of this unappreciation and being taken for granted by Lennon and McCartney became too much for Star to handle, causing him to leave the band temporarily. Losing their lead drummer while creating an album caused even greater tensions among the band members.
Lennon, McCarthy, and Harrison had to work around certain parts of songs without a core part of their band, which brought down the morale of the band even further.
Star’s eventual return did restore a bit of morale, but the situation remained tense until Harrison brought in his good friend Eric Clapton. Clapton brought focus and forced The Beatles to act more professionally, but Clapton’s ultimate achievement involving this song was creating one of the most famous and best guitar solos ever.
Harrison’s writing of this song expresses sadness and disappointment with the world and especially relationships. All of this strife and pain from Lennon and McCartney ignoring him led Harrison to give a subtle nod to his pain by writing the words “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Harrison’s emotions fueled his writing, which led to a masterpiece.
