Old Brown Shoe

Very late in the Get Back sessions, on January 27th, 1969, George Harrison announced that he had written a new song - a "happy rocker," as he described it - for the band to learn.  Harrison had composed it sitting at a piano, so, after teaching the chords to keyboardist Billy Preston, he had to relearn the song himself on guitar.  Though they rehearsed it over the next three days, this uptempo rocker did not make the cut for that project, along with most of Harrison's other offerings at that time.

On February 25th, his birthday, George went into one of the EMI studios with engineer Ken Scott and made demos of three of the overlooked songs, with Old Brown Shoe being the most elaborate.  He began by recording the song on piano, as he had written it, singing the full lyrics at the same time.  A basic guitar part was then overdubbed, before a second guitar overdub, featuring an early version of the solo, was added to complete the track.  Anthology 3 allows you to hear how most facets of the master version recorded by the Beatles were already in place, including the arpeggios during the bridges. 

Only a few months later, the group was suddenly in need of a song for the B-side of a single, after John and Paul had quickly recorded The Ballad of John and Yoko on April 14th.  All four Beatles gathered on the 16th, but not before George taped yet another demo version of the number to help the others easily learn their parts.  It therefore required only four takes to complete the backing track, with George singing and playing lead guitar, John on rhythm guitar, Paul on tack piano and Ringo on drums.  

Overdubs began with Paul on bass, doubling the fast-paced arpeggios in the bridges which George played on guitar.  John and Paul then threw themselves into the backing vocals with gusto, spending a good deal of time on some of the trickier harmonies.  Finally, George made the curious decision to re-record his lead vocal by sitting in a tight corner of the studio, resulting in the muddied sound that obscures many of his delightful yin/yang lyrics.

George Martin had produced the April 16th session, but Chris Thomas took over the producer's reins on the 18th (though only Martin is credited on the single).  Harrison first overdubbed some additional guitar onto the track on this day, including his impressive solo.  He then decided to add a prominent Hammond organ part, but he needed one of the eight tracks to do so.  Thus, John's rhythm guitar part was wiped from the master tape, thereby limiting his participation on the track to just being a backing vocalist.  Since he declined to work on several of George's other songs in the latter years of the group's career, there is a certain irony in this, especially as he seemed to actually enjoy his involvement on this number.

At John's insistence, the single The Ballad of John and Yoko was released hard on the heels of the group's most recent single, Get Back, which was still high on the charts at the time.  The B-side Old Brown Shoe did not even make the charts as a result.  The song appeared in the US on the Capitol album Hey Jude in February of 1970.  And it was chosen for inclusion on the Blue Album in 1973.  When the band's entire catalog was released on CD, Old Brown Shoe appeared on Past Masters, Volume Two in 1988.  

And, when Eric Clapton successfully persuaded George to make a brief tour of Japan in 1991, the song made the second slot on the setlist.  A live version of the song thus appears on the 1992 album Live in Japan.