Wild Honey Pie

For me, this is the most disposable track on any release by the Beatles.  Fifty-three seconds we could easily live without.  The definition of a throwaway.  But, when it came time to work out the sequence of songs on the "White Album," Paul somehow convinced John and producer George Martin to stick it in between Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill in the middle of side one.

McCartney traces the origin of this simple little ditty to Rishikesh, India, where he says he played it for everyone as a singalong.  He recalls that Pattie Harrison was fond of it.

It somehow came to mind on August 20th, 1968, when Paul was working in Studio Two after putting the finishing touches on Mother Nature's Son.  He first recorded a solo piece on acoustic guitar called Etcetera which has never surfaced to this day.  He then decided that he wanted to make a multitrack recording of Wild Honey Pie.  This was done either inside or just outside of the control room.

He initially sang it while playing acoustic guitar, really bending and pulling on the strings.  For the first overdub, he utilized Ringo's drum kit which had been set up in the hallway earlier in the evening to create a natural echo effect for Mother Nature's Son.  He pounded on the bass drum while singing a harmony and playing another note-bending guitar part.  The next overdub featured another vocal harmony as he beat on the tom tom drum.  One more vocal harmony part completed the track.

The best assessment of it is from a reviewer who wrote, "No other Beatles were harmed in the making of this song."