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How The Beatles recorded their only song with female vocals

All fans of The Beatles know that the band members sing themselves in their songs. But there is a song that became an exception, moreover, an exception in several rules at once: not a member of the band and not a man sings. Let's remember the history of one of The Beatles' strangest tracks.

"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill": the story behind The Beatles' track featuring a female voice

The Beatles' ninth studio album "White Album" was rich in unusual compositions. One of the most memorable of the album was "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".

The composition tells the story of a tiger hunter who, returning after a hunt, each time tried to find spiritual enlightenment. Only The most devoted fans of the band know about how this song was written, although the story of the composition's creation is quite interesting.

The Beatles
The Beatles

Writing History

In 1968, the musicians were in India, in the city of Rishikesh, where the comprehended the secrets of meditation. The training took place in a group. The students were an American woman named Nancy and her son Rick (in another version, Bill). No one socialised with them. Nancy and Rick would go on trips in their spare time hunt on tigers.

One day, Nancy and Rick returned from a hunting trip, on which Rick shot an animal. His mother began to tell him how sorry the poor boy was for what he had done, and how he would never hurt a fly and was not capable of doing anything at all kill a living thing.

John Lennon
John Lennon

When John enquiredWhen Lennon asked if Rick thought that such behaviour was destructive, Nancy stood up for her son, explaining that the predator was very close by and could have attacked and mauled them. Lennon joked in his circle that the young man subsequently gave up hunting not because of the remorsebut because he was so scared before he killed the tiger.

Thus was born the plot of the joke song "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill". The song was ironic. Already in the title, Lennon called the lyrical hero by the nickname of the famous Wild West hunter Buffalo Bill. But he replaced the first word with consonant "bungalows." All the students of the meditation courses lived in these huts at that time.

Buffalo Bill surrounded by Indians
Buffalo Bill surrounded by Indians

Lennon in Playboy magazine by himself toldhow he came up with the idea for this song:

 "Bungalow Bill" was written about a guy at a Maharishi meditation camp who took a break to shoot some tigers and then came back to commune with God. There used to be a character called Jungle Jim, and I paired him with Buffalo Bill. It's kind of a teenage song with social commentary and a little joke."

Mia Farrow, an artiste who was also in this camp at the time, confirms Lennon's story:

"Then came a middle-aged American woman who carried a mountain of luggage to a new private bungalow near Maharishi's home with her son Bill. People were fleeing because of these new arrivals, and no one was sorry when they soon left the ashram to go tiger hunting, unaware that their presence had inspired The Beatles to write a new song, 'Bungalow Bill'."

Song recording

Back home, the Beatles immersed to work on the White Album, which included this song. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" was recorded on 8 October 1968. Either the humorous lyrics or something else influenced the mood in the studio on that day, but the recording was quite good. unusual.

The track includes. two different sounding parts separated by drum beats. The track is deliberately sloppy. During the recording, the chorus singers included allwho were in the room, to the tune of. switched on Spanish guitar sound from the studio sound effects collection.

There is a version that the acoustic guitar in the intro was not taken from the recordings, but overlaid later. The musician who performed the part was either Australian Eric Cook or Mark Lewisohn.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono
John Lennon and Yoko Ono

But the most interesting thing about this song is that for the first and last time in the history of The Beatles it featured female vocals. It was voice Yoko Ono singing the line "Not when he looks so fierce". Whose idea was that? unknown. But it is circumstantial evidence of Yoko's increasingly frequent presence during the band's recordings and interference in the creative process.

In addition to being the first female vocal in the band's history, it was also the first vocal by a musician who was not a member of The Beatles. The decision may seem odd, but considering relationships It and Lennon at the time, it all falls into place.

 

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