On this night in 1968 — 53 years ago — the Beatles recorded 14 takes of the new George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at Abbey Road studios.
They ended up using the song from its early acoustic version, recorded on Harrison’s Gibson J-200 guitar.
On September 6, during a ride from Surrey into London, Harrison asked friend, Eric Clapton, to contribute lead guitar to the song. Clapton was reluctant, saying later, "Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records."
But Harrison convinced him, and Clapton's guitar parts, using Harrison's Gibson Les Paul electric guitar "Lucy" (a recent gift from Clapton), were recorded that evening. Harrison later said that in addition to his contribution, Clapton's presence had another effect on the band: "It made them all try a bit harder; they were all on their best behavior."
Clapton wanted a more "Beatley" sound, so the sound was run through an ADT circuit with "varispeed," with engineer Chris Thomas manually “waggling” the oscillator.
Apparently, Clapton didn't want it to sound like him. “So I was just sitting there wobbling the thing, they wanted it really extreme, so that's what I did," Thomas recalled. Here's the result.
Above illustration by tamarindojuice