Happiness is a Warm Gun

Lennon and McCartney had stitched unfinished and unrelated songs together to complete both A Day in the Life and Baby You're a Rich Man in 1967.  Lennon took the process a step further in 1968 by joining three different song snippets of his own to create Happiness is a Warm Gun.

When the Beatles gathered at George's house in May of that year to record demos before beginning work on their next album, Lennon only had the middle section written, as heard on Anthology 3.  He strums an acoustic guitar and sings the "I need a fix" verse, adding a "Yoko Ono no, Yoko Ono yes" part which would not be included in the full version months later.

The sessions for the double album stretched out for so long that it was not until September 23rd that work began on this song, which by now had all three sections in place.  It took much of the evening for John to teach the tricky time changes to the group, yet they still managed to put forty-five takes on tape before wrapping up for the day.  They picked up the next evening and reached take seventy before rewinding the tape and listening to what they had.  Take fifty-three was chosen as the best for the first two sections and take sixty-five was best for the final part of the song.

Overdubbing was done on September 25th, the third consecutive night of work on the number.  The band members had played their usual instruments on the basic track, so they now added organ, piano, a second bass line, tambourine and all of the vocals.  Reportedly, Paul even plays a tuba which just happened to be lying around the studio.

All of this was done with young Chris Thomas sitting in as producer during George Martin's absence from these sessions.  The mono mix was even completed before Martin returned from his extended holiday.  The stereo mix, on the other hand, was one of the last to be made for the album.  This was done under Martin's supervision on October 15th.

Lennon later referred to this song as a "history of rock and roll" reflected in the distinct styles of its three sections.  McCartney loved this track, and it no doubt influenced him a year later when he conceived the idea of stringing together a series of unfinished songs for the long medley on Abbey Road.  He has even continued this practice of combining unrelated song fragments on numerous piecemeal compositions from his solo career.