{"id":610109,"date":"2026-04-27T22:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/610109\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:47:09","slug":"on-this-day-in-1966-the-beatles-recorded-a-song-that-featured-a-groundbreaking-guitar-technique-inspired-by-a-studio-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/610109\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1966, The Beatles Recorded a Song That Featured a Groundbreaking Guitar Technique Inspired by a Studio Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (April 27) in 1966, The Beatles<\/a> stepped into what would later become Abbey Road Studios and conducted one of the three sessions that yielded \u201cI\u2019m Only Sleeping.\u201d The song was recorded during the sessions for Revolver and appeared on the UK pressing of the album. However, the song instead appeared on Yesterday and Today in the United States, which was released roughly two months before Revolver. It is notable for being the first popular recording to employ reversed instrumentation. George Harrison played the backward lead guitar part, inspired by a studio accident.<\/p>\n

Like many of The Beatles\u2019 songs from this period, many listeners assume there are drug-related references in the lyrics. However, it is more likely that this track is a celebration of sleep rather than expanded consciousness. \u201cHe can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England,\u201d Maureen Cleave once wrote<\/a> about John Lennon, who wrote the bulk of the lyrics for \u201cI\u2019m Only Sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n

[RELATED: Remembering When The Beatles Stole the Show at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963]<\/a><\/p>\n

When not on the road, Lennon spent as much time in bed as possible. That\u2019s where he went to read, watch television, write, and do anything else that didn\u2019t require him to stand. Paul McCartney, on the other hand, was something of a workaholic. So, he would show up to Lennon\u2019s house for their scheduled songwriting sessions and have to wait, sometimes hours, for his bandmate to finally get out of bed. These long waits resulted in him having the time to pen \u201cHere, There, and Everywhere\u201d while sitting near Lennon\u2019s pool.<\/p>\n

The Beatles Broke Musical Ground with \u201cI\u2019m Only Sleeping\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many songs in The Beatles\u2019 discography, the lyrics of \u201cI\u2019m Only Sleeping\u201d could be interpreted in several ways. However, the most noteworthy part of the recording is the eight-bar reversed guitar solo George Harrison plays near the track\u2019s halfway mark.<\/p>\n

According to The Beatles Bible<\/a>, the reversed guitar part was inspired by a studio mistake. A tape operator (or maybe John Lennon) threaded a multitrack tape into the machine backward. \u201cIt played backwards, and, \u2018What the hell is going on?\u2019 Those effects! Nobody knew how those sounded then. We said, \u2018My god, that is fantastic! Can we do that for real?\u2019 So that was what we did,\u201d Paul McCartney said in an interview for his biography, Many Years from Now.<\/p>\n

Harrison wrote the solo for \u201cI\u2019m Only Sleeping,\u201d then transcribed it in reverse. He then played it twice, once with a fuzz effect and once with a clean channel. Five hours later, he had recorded and tracked a groundbreaking 12-second guitar solo.<\/p>\n

Featured Image by John Downing\/Daily Express\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (April 27) in 1966, The Beatles stepped into what would later become Abbey Road Studios…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[24911,88,216,2156,13979],"class_list":["post-610109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music","tag-the-beatles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}