“Norwegian Wood" (Lennon–McCartney – December 6, 1965)
From Wikipedia, Rolling Stone, About.com, and Google –
"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (also known as simply "Norwegian Wood") is a song by the Beatles, first released on the 1965 album Rubber Soul.
"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (also known as simply "Norwegian Wood") is a song by the Beatles, first released on the 1965 album Rubber Soul.
John Lennon wrote most of the song, and finished writing the words with Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney). It is the first example of a rock band playing the sitar in one of their songs; it was played by George Harrison.
History –
"Norwegian Wood" was mostly a John composition, the first two verses or so of which were written the previous winter, while vacationing with wife Cynthia and producer George Martin in the Swiss Alps. Martin, who had broken his foot early in the getaway, would often find himself serenaded with this song by Lennon in his hotel room.
John brought the song to the Rubber Soul sessions, where Paul, in his account, threw in the title line as a reference to the sort of cheap pine then just being popularized in homes (though several accounts try to pin down inspiration from a specific room's decor, none has been verified). It's also been suggested that the title was a corruption of the phrase "knowing she would," in reference to a one-night stand. Paul also helped come up with the music for the bridge, as well as inserting the infamous line "So I lit a fire."
Lennon, by his own admission, has revealed that the song was written about a clandestine affair he'd had while still married to Cynthia, his first wife. Rumors abound as to the woman in question: including reporter friend Maureen Cleave, who conducted the infamous 1965 interview in London's Evening Standard in which John claimed the group was "bigger than Jesus." In any event, it appears the affair was not consummated, leading the woman to order John to "sleep in the bath." One imagines the last line, in which Lennon gets revenge by setting fire to the place, is apocryphal. (Some have suggested that the "fire" being lit is a joint of marijuana; consensus at the time was that the woman's refusal to sleep with John meant that she was a lesbian.)
This is the first major pop song to feature a sitar as an instrument, though several sitar-like guitar lines had been featured in pop singles before, most notably the Yardbird's early '65 hit "Heart Full Of Soul." George had become interested in the sitar while watching it being played by an Indian band during the filming of Help! the previous year; he was encouraged in his study of the instrument by the Byrds' Roger McGuinn and David Crosby, and soon ordered one from a London shop called India Craft. During the Rubber Soul sessions, George picked up the instrument to see if he could add an interesting new element to "Norwegian Wood," and, though difficult for Western studios to record, the idea stuck.
This song was attempted first at the first Rubber Soul session on October 12, 1965, considered completed, and then shelved. The final version, however, was a complete remake recorded in a single day-long session on the 21st.
"Norwegian Wood" had a timeless rock and roll inspiration: sex. As Lennon put it bluntly, "I was trying to write about an affair without letting me wife know I was writing about an affair. I was writing from my experiences, girls' flats, things like that." Graced by Harrison's sitar, "Norwegian Wood" was a huge step forward for the Beatles, continuing their move into more introspective songwriting influenced by Bob Dylan.
Lennon begins with a couplet that flips the usual rock and roll bravado: "I once had a girl/Or should I say, she once had me." He recounts a late-night fling with a worldly urban woman, one who lives in her own pad, has her own career and invites gentlemen up for wine. She is very different from the love interests in early Beatles' songs.
As McCartney later explained, it was popular for Swinging London girls to decorate their homes with Norwegian pine. "So it was a little parody really on those kinds of girls who when you'd go to their flat there would be a lot of Norwegian wood," he told biographer Barry Miles. "It was pine really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, 'Cheap Pine,' baby."
Even if it's a tale of a fling with a mod groupie, it's a strikingly adult one, from the London milieu to the way Lennon spends the night at her place (and wakes up in the bathtub). Lennon is the one who gets pursued and seduced, sitting nervously on her rug until she announces, "It's time for bed." Given all the oblique wordplay, Cynthia Lennon was hardly the only listener puzzled. When he wakes up alone the next morning, he lights a fire — does that mean he burns the girl's house down? Lennon never revealed the solution to this mystery; McCartney has endorsed the arson theory.
Although Lennon claimed in 1980 that "Norwegian Wood" was "my song completely," he told Rolling Stone a decade earlier that "Paul helped with the middle eight, to give credit where it's due." According to McCartney, Lennon came to him with just a first verse: "That was all he had, no title, no nothing."
Harrison's sitar debut was the song's most distinctive feature — yet it came from a moment of spontaneous studio experimentation. As Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, "George had just got the sitar, and I said, 'Could you play this piece?'... He was not sure whether he could play it yet, because he hadn't done much on the sitar, but he was willing to have a go."
Harrison first spotted the sitar on the set of the band's second movie, Help!, where Indian musicians were playing Beatles covers in a restaurant scene. Intrigued, he bought a sitar and "messed around" with it, eventually studying with sitar master Ravi Shankar. Harrison also became interested in Eastern religion and philosophy, which would become a lifelong pursuit.
Looking back in the 1990s, Harrison described the sitar on "Norwegian Wood" as "very rudimentary. I didn't know how to tune it properly, and it was a very cheap sitar to begin with." But "that was the environment in the band," he pointed out, "everybody was very open to bringing in new ideas. We were listening to all sorts of things — Stockhausen, avant-garde — and most of it made its way onto our records."
"Norwegian Wood" was swiftly recognized as a creative breakthrough. Brian Jones paid tribute with his sitar riff in the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black," and Dylan did a sly parody on Blonde on Blonde, "4th Time Around," which he played for Lennon in person. "I was very paranoid about that," Lennon confessed to Rolling Stone in 1968. He was already sensitive because the other Beatles were "taking the mickey out of him" for copying Dylan, and he was afraid Dylan was ridiculing him with "4th Time Around." "He said, 'What do you think?' I said I didn't like it." Although Lennon said he later appreciated the song, he did stop wearing his peaked "Dylan cap."
Lennon begins with a couplet that flips the usual rock and roll bravado: "I once had a girl/Or should I say, she once had me." He recounts a late-night fling with a worldly urban woman, one who lives in her own pad, has her own career and invites gentlemen up for wine. She is very different from the love interests in early Beatles' songs.
As McCartney later explained, it was popular for Swinging London girls to decorate their homes with Norwegian pine. "So it was a little parody really on those kinds of girls who when you'd go to their flat there would be a lot of Norwegian wood," he told biographer Barry Miles. "It was pine really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, 'Cheap Pine,' baby."
Even if it's a tale of a fling with a mod groupie, it's a strikingly adult one, from the London milieu to the way Lennon spends the night at her place (and wakes up in the bathtub). Lennon is the one who gets pursued and seduced, sitting nervously on her rug until she announces, "It's time for bed." Given all the oblique wordplay, Cynthia Lennon was hardly the only listener puzzled. When he wakes up alone the next morning, he lights a fire — does that mean he burns the girl's house down? Lennon never revealed the solution to this mystery; McCartney has endorsed the arson theory.
Although Lennon claimed in 1980 that "Norwegian Wood" was "my song completely," he told Rolling Stone a decade earlier that "Paul helped with the middle eight, to give credit where it's due." According to McCartney, Lennon came to him with just a first verse: "That was all he had, no title, no nothing."
Harrison's sitar debut was the song's most distinctive feature — yet it came from a moment of spontaneous studio experimentation. As Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, "George had just got the sitar, and I said, 'Could you play this piece?'... He was not sure whether he could play it yet, because he hadn't done much on the sitar, but he was willing to have a go."
Harrison first spotted the sitar on the set of the band's second movie, Help!, where Indian musicians were playing Beatles covers in a restaurant scene. Intrigued, he bought a sitar and "messed around" with it, eventually studying with sitar master Ravi Shankar. Harrison also became interested in Eastern religion and philosophy, which would become a lifelong pursuit.
Looking back in the 1990s, Harrison described the sitar on "Norwegian Wood" as "very rudimentary. I didn't know how to tune it properly, and it was a very cheap sitar to begin with." But "that was the environment in the band," he pointed out, "everybody was very open to bringing in new ideas. We were listening to all sorts of things — Stockhausen, avant-garde — and most of it made its way onto our records."
"Norwegian Wood" was swiftly recognized as a creative breakthrough. Brian Jones paid tribute with his sitar riff in the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black," and Dylan did a sly parody on Blonde on Blonde, "4th Time Around," which he played for Lennon in person. "I was very paranoid about that," Lennon confessed to Rolling Stone in 1968. He was already sensitive because the other Beatles were "taking the mickey out of him" for copying Dylan, and he was afraid Dylan was ridiculing him with "4th Time Around." "He said, 'What do you think?' I said I didn't like it." Although Lennon said he later appreciated the song, he did stop wearing his peaked "Dylan cap."
Composition and Lyrics –
Lennon started composing the song on his acoustic guitar in January 1965, while on holiday with his wife, Cynthia, in the Swiss Alps. Lennon later explained that the lyric was about an affair he had been having:
“I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair. But in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn't tell. But I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with.”
Lennon indicated that Paul McCartney helped him finish off the lyric. McCartney explained the title and lyric as follows:
Lennon indicated that Paul McCartney helped him finish off the lyric. McCartney explained the title and lyric as follows:
“Peter Asher [brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend Jane Asher] had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, "Cheap Pine", baby. So it was a little parody really on those kind of girls who when you'd go to their flat there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view but in John's it was based on an affair he had. This wasn't the decor of someone's house, we made that up. So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, "You'd better sleep in the bath." In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge ... so it meant I burned the place down ...."
There has been various speculation as to the subject of Lennon's affair: his friend Pete Shotton suggested a journalist of their acquaintance, possibly Maureen Cleave (though Cleave has said that in all her encounters with Lennon there was "no pass"), while writer Philip Norman claimed that the woman was model Sonny Drane, the first wife of Beatles photographer Robert Freeman.
Musical structure –
The song as first released is performed in E major and is one of the few Beatles songs in triple time. An earlier take, released on Anthology 2, is in the key of D major. The song opens with I (E) chord and a vocal melody B-natural (on the word "I") which is the 5th scale degree in E Mixolydian. This shifts to a D natural harmony (supported by scale degree 7 in E mixolydian) with a (Dadd9) chord on "she" and "once", to return, via a passing C# on "had", to the tonic harmony (E maj.), supported in the vocal line by a double entendre 5th (B) melody note on "me" (an octave below the opening B-natural on "I"). Meanwhile the bass emphasizes the E tonic in a static harmony. In the bridge (in Em key) the root chord begins at "She asked me", transforms to an IV chord (A) at "where", goes back to i (Em) at "looked" before the bridge runs back to the major verse with a ii7 (F#m7)- V (B) progression that resolves on the appropriate E chord of "I sat on a rug."
Recording –
Harrison—who would later be strongly influenced by Indian culture and become a practitioner of transcendental meditation—decided on using a sitar when The Beatles recorded the song on 12 and 21 October 1965. He later said: “During the filming of Help! there were some Indian musicians in a restaurant scene and I kind of messed around with a sitar then. But during that year, towards the end of the year anyway, I kept hearing the name of Ravi Shankar. So I went out and bought a record and that was it. It felt very familiar to me to listen to that music. It was around that time I bought a sitar. I just bought a cheap sitar in a shop called India Craft, in London. It was lying around. I hadn't really figured out what to do with it. When we were working on Norwegian Wood it just needed something, and it was quite spontaneous, from what I remember. I just picked up my sitar, found the notes and just played it. We miked it up and put it on and it just seemed to hit the spot.”
Takes: 4
Personnel –
John Lennon – Lead vocal, acoustic rhythm guitar (1964 Gibson J160E)
Paul McCartney – Harmony vocal, bass guitar (1961 Hofner 500/1)
George Harrison – Sitar (double-tracked), acoustic rhythm guitar (1964 Framus 12-string "Hootenanny")
Ringo Starr – Bass drum, tambourine
Ringo Starr – Bass drum, tambourine
Reception and legacy –
The song is described by writer Mark Lewisohn as "pure Lennon genius ... one of the most original pop music songs recorded to date", and by music critic Richie Unterberger as "undoubtedly the Beatles' greatest lyrical triumph during their folk-rock phase". In 2004, "Norwegian Wood" was ranked number 83 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Trivia –
The original version of "Norwegian Wood," which can be heard on Anthology I, is much like the final version, but a key lower, being played in D. Lennon had some vocal trouble hitting the low notes of his composition, however, and so the track was re-recorded in E. Also, the sitar is present throughout the original version, not just in the instrumental breaks; though some attempt was made to replicate Indian musical styles further by adding finger cymbals, this was later abandoned.
The original mono mix of this song features coughing just after the phrase "told me to sit anywhere." The stereo mix featured on the compilation Love Songs also moves the lead vocal track from right to center.
This track features a strong Bob Dylan influence, clearly picking up where "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away." Dylan, never taking imitators lightly, recorded a song called "4th Time Around" for his classic 1966 album Blonde On Blonde. The melody and rhythm are strikingly similar to "Norwegian Wood," pointedly so; however, the lyrics, some of which have been taken as insults to John, appear to have been inspired by his relationship with ex-girlfriend Joan Baez.
The Beatles Fan Club of Norway is indeed named Norwegian Wood.
Today in Beatles History (From The Internet Beatles Album) March 29 –
1962 – Concert at The Odd Spot, with the Mersey Beats.
1963 – UK single release: "Some Other Guy", first record of the Big Three.
– Performance at the Odeon, Lewisham (Chris Montez and Tommy Roe Tour). Two shows.
1967 – Studio 2. 7.00pm-5.45am. Recording: "Good Morning Good Morning" (unnumbered take, overdub of unnumbered take onto take 11); "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!" (overdub onto take 9); "Bad Finger Boogie" (working title of "With A Little Help From My Friends") (takes 1-10, tape reduction take 10 into take 11, overdub onto take 11). Producer: George Martin; Engineer: Geoff Emerick; 2nd Engineer: Richard Lush.
– Recording of few more animal sounds and overdub of all effects for "Good Morning Good Morning". Overdub of effects for "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!".
– Third performance of Fats Domino and his orchestra at the Saville Theatre. Support acts: Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Bee Gees.
– Third performance of Fats Domino and his orchestra at the Saville Theatre. Support acts: Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Bee Gees.
1969 – Yellow Submarine LP, 11th and last week in the Top 30 (Billboard).
1970 – Ringo appears on the David Frost Show, singing "Sentimental Journey".
– John and Yoko announce they will have a son in October.
1982 – UK LP release: Reel Music.
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