This week’s BROW will take us back to 1968, when The Beatles were working on their infamous White Album. The recordings for this double album took place between May 30 and October 17, 1968 and it’s ironic that the song they worked on the longest during those five months of sessions was not even put on the record. George Harrison had introduced Not Guilty to the rest of the band in demo form around the third week of May. Later, when they decided to record it for the album, Beatles Anthology 3 liner notes indicate, it took three days (August 8, 9 & 12) and 101 takes to get the basic track down that they were satisfied enough with for George to add his vocal. The first proper vocal take (102) was mixed for a 1980′s Beatles compilation album called Sessions, but that project was aborted and the track was only officially released when the Beatles Anthology 3 CD set hit the shelves in 1996. The Anthology account of this take is a bit chopped up and is presented here sans all of the edits making it nearly a minute longer.

George had this to say about a couple of the lyrical references in the song:

Not guilty for getting in your way/While you’re trying to steal the day’ — which was me trying to get a space. ‘Not guilty/For looking like a freak/Making friends with every Sikh/For leading you astray/On the road to Mandalay’ — which is the Maharishi and going to the Himalayas and all that was said about that. I like the tune a lot; it would make a great tune for Peggy Lee or someone.

Another line in the song – I won’t upset the Apple cart/I only want what I can get – seems to be an insinuation as to George’s much smaller allotment of compositions per Beatles album (the apple cart, of course, being the new Apple Corps they had only just created). Along this line of thought, it’s interesting to consider that by leaving Not Guilty off the White Album, George ended up with his typical one song per album side.

Before any Beatles version of this song ever saw a proper release, George released his own solo version of the 11 year old song on his 1979 George Harrison album. This version is much mellower and contains acoustic guitar and electric piano while The Beatles’ original version is harsher, driven by distorted electric guitar and harpsichord. Just the edge we need to help get us through this Monday.

George Harrison recording Not Guilty, August 1968

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.

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