Recording: It’s Johnny’s Birthday, Woman Don’t You Cry For Me by George Harrison

Studio Three, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producers: George Harrison, Phil Spector
Engineers: Phil McDonald, John Leckie, Eddie Klein

Although George Harrison was mixing his third solo album All Things Must Pass in October 1970, he recorded two songs on Wednesday 7 October.

The first was ‘It’s Johnny’s Birthday’, recorded for John Lennon’s 30th birthday two days later. The song, based on the melody of Cliff Richard’s 1968 hit ‘Congratulations’, featured backing vocals from Mal Evans and studio engineer Eddie Klein. It was the last of the All Things Must Pass songs to be recorded.

Harrison also found time to make the final recording of the sessions. ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ had first been attempted in three takes on 11 June. On this day one more – numbered take 5 – was recorded.

Although Harrison recalled starting writing ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ in Sweden in 1968, it was likely to have been composed in Denmark the following year. He performed with Delaney for three consecutive nights on 10, 11, and 12 December 1969, after which he left the tour.

Harrison eventually re-recorded the song in 1976 for his seventh solo album Thirty Three & ⅓, on which it was the opening track.

‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ is in Open E and basically written for bottle-neck guitar. It was started around 1968 in Gothenburg, Sweden, when I was on the road with Delaney and Bonnie and Eric Clapton. We were on a tour of Europe and they had released their second record Coming Home. Delaney handed me a bottle-neck slide and asked me to play a line which Dave Mason had played on the record. I had not tried slide before so I started at that time to play with the bottle-neck and that was how ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ came about and I somehow think Delaney might have suggested the title.

It almost went on All Things Must Pass but didn’t actually happen until the 33⅓ album.