The Great Beatles Songs: Norwegian Wood

We are winding down the big list of the Great Beatles Songs. We are one away from the top. But this song that comes in at #2 is a true classic.

When the Beatles filmed HELP! their second movie, George Harrison became interested in Indian music, more specifically in the sitar and the great master Ravi Shankar. George went to a little Indian trinket shop in London and bought his own sitar. He started fiddling about on the instrument then and it would come into play as they were recording their second album of 1965, Rubber Soul (my favorite Beatles album).

John Lennon had written a song about an affair he had with a woman. The song is straight forward and it seems that is actually what happened. John wasn't sure how to end his song (This Bird Had Flown) and Paul suggested something about burning down the woman's home. John had written another great song and Paul had helped him smooth it out. Now all they had to do was record.

The Beatles began to think of albums as their own entity, being a work of art. They put extra time and effort into making this unique. That would eventually become groundbreaking. The studio at Abbey Road was full of instruments: pedal harmoniums, tack pianos, a celeste and a Hammond organ. So they were already into "experimenting" with other instruments to give songs a different sound.

The Beatles were working on Norwegian Wood and George decided that it just needed something special. George worked out the chords on the sitar and added the first ever sitar solo in a pop song. This would become a dramatic change of direction for the group and would even help reshape the band's attitude about recording. Ringo called the sitar solo "a mindblower. We were all open to anything when George introduced the sitar. From then on you could walk in with anything as long as it was going to make a musical note."

Norwegian Wood is the high point on what would become the most influential album in pop/rock music history. Rubber Soul would inspire Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys to make Pet Sounds. And that album would inspire the Beatles to make Sgt. Peppers. But before those two albums and before Revolver (which the Beatles loved and considered Rubber Soul part two) there was Rubber Soul. This would be the favorite album of the Beatles themselves and of George Martin, their producer and real 5th Beatle. And the best song on Rubber Soul would be number two on this list: Norwegian Wood (This Bird has Flown).