The Beatles have shared an early version of “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” from the forthcoming expanded special edition of Rubber Soul, which comes out October 2.
Titled “Second Version — Take 2,” the recording is the first version of the classic song, recorded on the first day of sessions for Rubber Soul. Written by John Lennon, “Norwegian Wood” is significant for George Harrison’s sitar part, marking the first time the Indian classical instrument was heard on a contemporary pop song.
Harrison first encountered the instrument on the set of the group’s 1965 film Help!. “There were some Indian musicians in a restaurant scene, and I first messed around with one there,” he recalled.
Harrison felt there was something familiar about Indian music. “It was as if I already knew it,” he said. “When I was a child, we had a crystal radio with long- and shortwave bands, and so it’s possible I might have already heard some Indian classical music.”
As his curiosity grew, Harrison purchased a sitar from a shop on London’s Oxford Street called Indiacraft in the summer of 1965. “It was a real crummy-quality one, actually, but I bought it and mucked about with it a bit,” he recalled.
That October, the Beatles began working on Rubber Soul. The group was recording its initial attempts at “Norwegian Wood” and Lennon was unhappy with how it was coming along.
“We went through many different versions of the song,” he recalled. “It was never right, and I was getting very angry about it.”
The Beatles were always keen to use new instrumentation on their recordings. Lennon asked Harrison if he could double his acoustic guitar line on the sitar. “He was willing to have a go, as is his wont,” Lennon said.
The result transformed both the song and popular music. The following March, the Rolling Stones followed suit by ornamenting their new single “Paint It Black” with a sitar riff written and performed by Brian Jones, who had studied the instrument under Ravi Shankar’s student Harihar Rao. The track became the first rock and roll record with a sitar to hit the top of the charts, and launched a mini craze for the instrument.
The increased demand was felt particularly by New York session multi-instrumentalist Vincent Bell, who suddenly found himself hauling his heavy sitar from gig to gig. Worn out by the effort, Bell created a portable electric sitar based on an electric guitar design, which was then developed into a production model under Danelectro’s Coral brand.
Eventually, the sound of his electric sitar was heard on late-’60s hits like the Box Tops’ “Cry Like a Baby,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her,” Joe South’s “Games People Play” and many others.
As for Harrison, his interest in sitar grew in the months after recording “Norwegian Wood.” He composed the song “Love You To,” from the Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver, around several Indian classical instruments, including sitar.
Then, in September 1966, he all but gave up playing guitar when he embarked on a spiritual journey that began with his study of the sitar. With the Beatles just a few months away from recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Harrison traveled to India to begin formal lessons with sitar master Ravi Shankar.
For the next 21 months, Harrison rarely picked up a guitar unless he had to for recording sessions or to compose. But by the summer of 1968, he gave up studying the instrument after Shankar encouraged him to seek his musical roots. Harrison realized then that rock and roll was where he belonged.
“I thought, Well, maybe I’m better off to get back into being a guitar player, songwriter, whatever I’m supposed to be,” he recalled. “Because I’m never gonna be a sitar player. Because I’ve seen a thousand sitar players in India who are twice as better than I’ll ever be!”
The “Norwegian Wood” outtake is the third advance release from the forthcoming Rubber Soul set. Apple previously released “Michelle (Take 1)” and an early songwriting work tape of the Rubber Soul–related single “Day Tripper.”
