I Want to Tell You

Over the course of the Beatles' recording career, George Harrison was generally represented by two lead vocal spots on a typical fourteen track album.  On Revolver, he landed three.  This was not unprecedented - he also had three on With the Beatles.  But two of those had been cover versions.  This time, all three were his own compositions.

On June 2nd, 1966, the group began work on the third of those numbers, a song about the difficulty of communication.  They recorded five takes with George on guitar, Paul on piano and Ringo on drums.  Upon listening to the takes, George decided that take three had been the best.  He then recorded his lead vocal as John and Paul supplied the harmony, with Paul's vocal line sounding deliberately dissonant.  This dissonance is carried over into one of the piano parts he played.  The second piano part was among the further overdubs, which also included John on tambourine and Ringo on maracas, as well as George double-tracking his lead vocal.  And all four Beatles provided handclaps during the song's last verse.

One final overdub was added on June 3rd.  This was Paul's bass line, the first time that this was done as an overdub on any Beatles' song, though this practice would become quite common from this time forward.  At some point, it was decided that the opening of the number would fade in with George's guitar riff.  This works particularly well on the UK version of the album following the fadeout of Doctor Robert.

The use of dissonance on the recording helps to convey the message of confusion present in the lyrics.  And, as the song fades out, Paul's high vocal harmony plays around in such a manner that it highlights the strong influence of George's interest in Indian music on the other members of the band.

I Want to Tell You appears on both the UK and US versions of the album Revolver.  It never resurfaced on any of the group's post-career compilations, nor did they ever play the song live.  George did resurrect the song, however, for his tour of Japan in 1991.  The album Live in Japan features one of these performances.