This song fits in well with the harder blues that was going on at this time. It’s really heavy for a Beatles song or any song. Many guitars were layered at the end when it abruptly stops. It took me a few listens to warm up to it but when I did…I really liked it. John’s guitar echoing the vocal and Paul’s adventurous bass playing on this recording is great.
The song is a simple love song from John to Yoko. Totally opposite of his wordplay songs of the past, in this one he is straight forward. He got right to the point…his quote on this song was “When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream”
This was the first song worked on for their last recorded album Abbey Road…and the last one mixed. They started it at Trident Studios…not Abbey Road. This song shows just how good of musicians they were in 1969. This song is not an easy song and certainly took a lot of work to meld together. Different time signatures and John’s singing and playing… it syncs up well on the verses.
Billy Preston played organ on this song.
George Harrison: “This is very heavy,” “This is good because it’s really basically a bit like a blues. The riff that he sings and plays is really a very basic blues-type thing. But again, it’s very original to a John-type song. And the middle bit is great. John has an amazing thing with his timing. He always comes across with sort of different timing things.
From Songfacts
John Lennon wrote this about Yoko Ono – the couple were married in March 1969, about six months before the Abbey Road album was released. Lennon was experimenting with a heavy blues sound, so the song has few lyrics and long stretches of repeated chords. “Every time I pick up the guitar I sing about Yoko and that’s how I’m influenced,” Lennon said at the time.
Taken on its own, the lyric is very basic, repeating just a few simple lines like:
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
Soon after Abbey Road was released, a news magazine show called 24 Hours read the lyrics out loud, taking a derisive tone. Lennon replied: “To me that’s a damn sight better lyric than ‘Walrus’ or ‘Eleanor Rigby’ because its progression to me. And if I want to write songs with no words or one word… maybe that’s Yoko’s influence.”
The rhythm was based on Mel Torme’s song “Coming Home Baby.”
With the exception of “Revolution 9,” this was The Beatles longest song.
John Lennon sang this monofonic, as some of the troubadours sang in the Middle Ages: There is no chord behind the melody, but an instrument follows the singer’s melody. The song ends with an orchestra arrangement, which was Lennon’s idea, and is very much similar to the end of “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” in “Das Rheingold” by Richard Wagner.
George Harrison played a Moog synthesizer on this track. It is one of the first uses of the instrument, which was custom-made for Harrison.
The guitars were overdubbed many times to get a layered sound.
This song contains an accidental background lyric. On stereo, play the song at 4:30 and listen very closely to the left speaker. In the bass break after John’s scream, you can faintly hear someone say, “What was that about!?” presumably in response to the scream.
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
I want you
I want you so bad
I want you
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
I want you
I want you so bad, babe
I want you
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
I want you
I want you so bad
I want you
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
I want you
I want you so bad, babe
I want you
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
She’s so heavy
Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy
I want you
I want you so bad
I want you
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
I want you
I want you so bad, babe
I want you
You know I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad
It’s driving me mad
Yeah, she’s so
This was the beatles at their lofty best….and the sound of the track!!
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Sorry man but this one got caught by Spam for some unknown reason. I wasn’t sure if you liked this song or not…a question… what is your favorite Beatles album? As far as sound and I know you like good sound. I would guess Abbey Road since they recorded it on the then new EMI solid state 8 track machine.
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Absolutely love that track! And yes Abbey Road would be my favourite Beatles album, i think. How about you?
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Revolver because that mid sixties pop/rock is just perfect to me…
As far as latter ones….the White Album for the diversity.
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Yes revolver. What a cracking album!!!
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Sometimes simple works best and John said that he wanted to compose a “perfect song” using only one word, not unlike Yoko’s published poem of 1964 which consisted of only one word: ‘Water.’
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As songs go, not one of my favorites of the latter era Beatles, but when I listened to it again, it is very well played by all of them, Billy Preston included.
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I like how they jumped out of character like a chamelon though. John was listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross at the time.
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I’m not a big fan of side one of Abbey Road, apart from the George songs. Kind of wish there was a more interesting song underneath.
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What keeps me listening is Paul’s bass playing and the heavily layers guitars.
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How old were you in 1969? Is your full name Maxwell? Did you possess a silver hammer?
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Thats Mr. Edison to youngsters like yourself…by the way have you seen Rose and Valerie?
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It’s a good song. It’s difficult to separate the organ from the Moog. I like John’s quote: “When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream”
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lol I know that is a good quote…and quite right. It’s a different sort of track for them.
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OY. Yeah. No. Heretic. Hide the razor blades…
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I’m shaking my head…I like this one…it’s different and heavy.
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It’s heavy alright. 🙄😉😆
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