George Harrison’s good friend Eric Clapton played lead guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Due to the band’s inner tension at the time, the other Beatles showed little or no interest in the song, so George invited Eric to join him during the song’s recording session. Clapton was at first reluctant to play on a Beatles’ record. Harrison later recalled, “…I was with Eric and I was going into the session and I said, ‘We’re going to do this song. Come on and play on it.’ He said, ‘Oh no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on Beatles’ records.’ I said, ‘Look, it’s my song and I want you to play on it.’ So Eric came in and the other guys were as good as gold because he was there. Also, it left me free to do the vocal and play rhythm. Then, we listened to it back and he said, ‘Ah, there’s a problem, though, it’s not Beatley enough.’ So, we put it through the ADT (automatic double tracker) to wobble it a bit.”
Clapton used a Gibson Les Paul guitar for the song. He received no credit in the liner notes on the ‘White Album’ because of his contract with another record company.
The first Beatles song to give Ringo Starr co-writing credit was “What Goes On”, though Ringo jokingly claimed he contributed “about five words, and I haven’t done a thing since.” The writing credit is attributed to Lennon/McCartney/Starkey, with Ringo using his real name of Richard Starkey. The credits in the first pressing of the single accidentally omitted “Starkey”.
The origins of “What Goes On” actually date back years earlier to the Quarrymen days when John Lennon started the original version of the song. It was later resurrected in 1965 and completed with the help of Paul McCartney and Starr.
The song appeared on ‘Rubber Soul’ (the UK version) and ‘Yesterday and Today’ in the US. It was also the B-side to the “Nowhere Man” single.
Seltaeb was set up in 1963 by Nicky Byrne to look after the Beatles merchandising. The name Seltaeb was derived from spelling “Beatles” backwards.
Brian Epstein needed to find someone who could manage the overwhelming volume of merchandising requests on behalf of The Beatles. Epstein’s lawyer, David Jacobs, suggested Nicky Byrne. Byrne asked for, and received, a whopping 90% of the cut, which left only 10% for The Beatles, Brian Epstein and NEMS to split. Jacob’s told Epstein: “10% is better than nothing”.
Brian would later regret agreeing to such a lopsided deal. He was initially unaware of the potential merchandising market that existed, particularly in America, and subsequently lost The Beatles an estimated $100,000,000 in possible earnings. Epstein later renegotiated a more reasonable commission of 49% in August 1964.
Brian worried that if The Beatles discovered the truth about Seltaeb they wouldn’t renew their contracts with him – which were due to expire in the Autumn of 1967. He decided he could not tell them about the original bad deal that potentially lost them many millions of dollars, so he never told them. His troubles with Seltaeb would remain with him until his death on August 27, 1967.
Dr. Winston O’Boogie was one of the pseudonyms used occasionally by John Lennon. It appeared on some of his own albums as well as those of other artists, like Elton John.
Inside Lennon’s ‘Mind Games’ album there’s a quote attributed to Dr. Winston O’Boogie: “Madness is the first sign of dandruff”
