Home · Songs · The Beatles · Wild Honey Pie
From album
The Beatles
The Beatles · 1968 · Track 5
Details
TonalidadF#
Compás4/4
Tempo89 BPM
Duración0:52
ÁlbumThe Beatles
Año1968
ISRCGBAYE0601648
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The story behind
When you dive into *Wild Honey Pie*, you encounter something that breaks with expectations. It's a short piece, less than a minute, where the voice shouts "honey pie" over and over again over a harpsichord, a bass drum, and acoustic guitar notes that sound distorted. What's interesting is that this song was born in a moment of pure experimentation for The Beatles. Paul McCartney conceived it in February 1968, while he was in India at a meditation center. He recorded it six months later, in August 1968, at EMI Studio Two, but he was the only Beatle present. John Lennon and Ringo Starr were busy with other songs on the album, and George Harrison was on vacation in Greece. McCartney described that period as an "experimental mode," and he himself recorded it in a single take, experimenting with multitracking in the control room. The idea was to create something homemade, without a big production. The song was included on the album *The Beatles* (known as the *White Album*) because Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's wife, liked it very much.
The recording context of *Wild Honey Pie* is part of what makes it so particular. Paul McCartney improvised it during a group session in India, and it's said to have been born as a response to John Lennon's experimentation with "What's the New Mary Jane." The recording on August 20, 1968, was a very personal process for McCartney; he handled the vocals and guitar himself, and even recorded a bass drum that was placed in a hallway to achieve a specific sound, the same one he used for "Mother Nature's Son." During the mix, his vocals and guitar were multiplied, and one of the vocal tracks was processed with flanger to give it a "strong wobble." Harmonies were overdubbed and overdubs were added, with a guitar whose strings were pulled "madly" and percussion with a bass drum "buried" in reverb, in addition to the harpsichord. The producer was George Martin, and the recording engineers were Ken Scott and John Smith. Although its title is similar to *Honey Pie*, which appears later on the same album, they are not related.
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