Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 24, 25, 29 July 1969
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald
Released: 26 September 1969 (UK), 1 October 1969 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, guitar, maracas
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals, bass, harmonium, piano, tape loops
George Harrison: harmony vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, bongos, tambourine
George Martin: Lowrey organ
Available on:
Abbey Road
Love
The second song in Abbey Road's long medley, Sun King was written by John Lennon. It was recorded back-to-back with another of his compositions, Mean Mr Mustard.
Although Lennon most likely got the title from The Sun King, Nancy Mitford's 1966 biography of the French King Louis XIV, the song descends into cod-Spanish, Italian and Portuguese nonsense, with the odd English phrase thrown in.
When we came to sing it, to make them different we started joking, saying 'cuando para mucho'. We just made it up. Paul knew a few Spanish words from school, so we just strung any Spanish words that sounded vaguely like something. And of course we got 'chicka ferdi' - that's a Liverpool expression; it doesn't mean anything, just like 'ha ha ha'. One we missed: we could have had 'para noia', but we forgot all about it. We used to call ourselves Los Para Noias.
Anthology
Sun King, which allegedly came to Lennon in a dream, opens with the sound of bells, bubbles and chimes - part of the crossfade joining the song to the end of You Never Give Me Your Money. A guitar passage then begins, influenced by Fleetwood Mac's 1969 instrumental hit Albatross.
At the time, Albatross was out, with all the reverb on guitar. So we said, 'Let's be Fleetwood Mac doing Albatross, just to get going.' It never really sounded like Fleetwood Mac... but that was the point of origin.
Part of the song's middle section was reversed and retitled Gnik Nus on the 2006 album Love. Sun King's guitar intro also appeared at the close of Octopus's Garden on the same album.
In the studio
Under the working title Here Comes The Sun-King (later truncated due to its similarity to George Harrison's Here Comes The Sun), The Beatles began recording Sun King/Mean Mr Mustard as one on 24 July 1969.
They taped 35 takes of the basic track: Lennon played rhythm guitar and sang a guide vocal, McCartney played bass, Harrison was on lead guitar and Starr on drums.
The next day the group overdubbed vocals, piano and organ, the latter played by George Martin. They then finished the two songs on 29 July, with the addition of more vocals, piano, organ and percussion.
Related articles:
- Recording: Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard, Come Together, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
- Recording: Here Comes The Sun, Something
- Recording: Come Together, Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard
- Recording, mixing: Come And Get It, Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard
- Los Paranoias
George is singing harmony vocal also.
Ha!
I thought at once when hearing it for the first time: "That sounds like "Albatross!"
Nice to see I got their intention right.
Again: Great site!
i read that it roughly translates into this "When for much my love of happy heart, world paparazzi my love green for warm sun, hill as much much that small carousel."
i really wish they would have kept the title Here Comes The Sun King!
I can't hear any harmonium at all in the song...
As many great songs on this classic album that there is, Sun King is by far my favorite song. I like everything about it from beginning to end. Yeah, it's a "throw-away" song by Lennon...but it's a beautiful piece of work. Well-thought-out opening guitar part (Harrison's genius) as well as beautiful harmonies.
One of my favourites off Abbey Road, peaceful and relaxing. Although, as DoBotherMe says, I'm pretty sure George sings a harmony vocal.
My absolute favorite Beatle song, just so chill.
This is one of the curious Beatles songs, with an almost non-sense ad-libbed 5 idioms random ending.
Also, with guitar panning, i love panning, the beatles didn't use it too much but in many songs, like A Day In The Life, Little Child, Tommorow Never Knows, Back In The U.S.S.R., Revolution 9, maybe because stereo was only beginning and panning also was starting.
But it's great.
The loops are from "You never..." transition. The piano atributed to Paul is for "Mean Mr. Mustard", because the songs were recorded as one. Lewishon said there were piano, but Everett said it was John who played it.
One more time, "...Pam" and "Bathroom" were recorded as one, and Lewishon said electric and acosutic pianos as well as assorted percussion were overdub, but didn´t mention who played what.
George Martin Plays harmonium not Paul
If you're going to make assertions like this, please also provide a reliable source.