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.
