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I Want You (She's So Heavy)
sp_BlogLink Read the original blog post
31 January 2018
8.40am
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meanmistermustard
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  1. I = 1
  2. Want = 2
  3. You = 3
  4. So = 4
  5. Bad = 5
  6. It’s = 6
  7. Driving = 7 
  8. Me = 8
  9. Mad = 9
  10. She’s = 10
  11. Heavy = 11
  12. Know = 12
  13. Babe = 13
  14. Yeah = 14

I think that’s all the different words.

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QuarryMan, Beatlebug, Necko, Father McKenzie, sir walter raleigh, William Shears Campbell, WeepingAtlasCedars

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

2 February 2018
7.07am
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Father McKenzie
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a-hard-days-night-ringo-8 Haha yeah,I think John pretty much said what he wanted to say with those words MMM. I love this song, and even though it’s not got much going on lyrically, it’s still a great song. I especially love the guitar solo paul-mccartney-thumb_gif

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Beatlebug, QuarryMan

Still writing the words to the sermon that no one will hear......

2 February 2018
1.30pm
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sir walter raleigh
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Love this song a lot. High potential for improvisation when playing it. The lyrics are concise and perfect so there’s a lot of time to focus on the instrumental. That’s what The Beatles did. 

Similarly, I wish Paul would throw C-Moon back in his touring set, as he and the band could play some tasty jams on top of that one. I bet I Want You would be a smoker as well. Perhaps make this song the John trubute instead of BFTBOMK

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QuarryMan, Beatlebug, William Shears Campbell

"The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles!"

-Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues

"We could ride and surf together while our love would grow"

-Brian Wilson, Surfer Girl

4 January 2020
12.18am
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sir walter raleigh
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The “Trident Recording and Reduction Mix” off on the new remasters is fantastic. Slightly different groove to it, and Billy Preston steals the show. Really, the one mistake that the Beatles made was not extending all of Billy’s solos at least 5 minutes. This is exactly the unreleased material that I am looking for.

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Beatlebug, WeepingAtlasCedars

"The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles!"

-Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues

"We could ride and surf together while our love would grow"

-Brian Wilson, Surfer Girl

26 October 2021
11.11pm
Toughdiamond
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If anybody’s still on this forum, is there anything known about why Lennon’s vocal clips very audibly when he does that colossal yell on this song?  The distortion sounds quite nasty to my ears, and I’m surprised they left it on there.  It’s not valve distortion or tape distortion, which can enhance a recording, it’s hard clipping, which isn’t normally used as an effect.  I gather they had transistorized recording gear for the first time when they recorded the album, so that may explain how it happened technically (transistor circuits do clip like that when they’re overloaded), but I just don’t see why they accepted the result, particularly George Martin who was quite a stickler for good recording quality and must have winced when he heard it. My own theory is that they were pleased with the take artistically and Lennon didn’t think he could sing it again so well. And Lennon enjoyed displaying unusual preferences and being avant-garde, and was sometimes very stubborn.   But there seems to be nothing about it on the Web.

For years I thought it must be my vinyl copy of the album, maybe a bit of damage to the groove at that point from playing it on a cheap deck, but I found it was on all editions of the CD as well, even the most recent ones I think.  As it’s not that hard to remove the clipping with modern software, I’m surprised they haven’t bothered to do that.  Is it just me or do other people agree that it’s an undesirable flaw?

EDIT:  I see they’ve actually corrected the flaw in recent remastered releases such as the Super Deluxe Edition.  So if you can’t hear it, that’s probably why.

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The Hole Got Fixed
27 October 2021
8.19pm
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Timothy
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It’s one of my favourites because it’s pure emotion and lets the Beatles jam the mood out over an extended period of time. The simplicity is the greatest asset.

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Toughdiamond, Rube

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Most Avid John Fan 2020 and 2021: john.png john.png

28 October 2021
11.04pm
Toughdiamond
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One of my favourites too.  I agreed with his defense of it:

“In fact, a reviewer wrote of “She’s So Heavy,” he seems to have lost his talent for lyrics, it’s so simple and boring. But when it gets down to it, when you’re drowning, you don’t say, “I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,” you just scream. And in “She’s So Heavy,” I just sang, “I want you, I want you so bad, she’s so heavy, I want you,” like that. I started simplifying my lyrics then, on the double album.”

All the more reason why it used to annoy me that they’d left in that clipping problem that made it sound like somebody had farted into the microphone at the peak of the song.

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Mr. Moonlight
17 August 2023
8.10pm
Truth42
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I may be barking up the wrong tree but I was thinking about this song today. Could it be that the song is not about Yoko, as everyone assumes (and Lennon himself explained in the Rolling Stone interview)? Could it be that he’s talking about heroin? If you listen to the lyrics in that context this makes a lot of sense.

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21 August 2023
6.56pm
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Von Bontee
496 km NW of the '69 Toronto Rock n Roll Revival
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I don’t know if I believe that, but it does sound like it has some plausibility. “Come Together ” and “Warm Gun” are two songs from the era that do mix heroin imagery with sexuality, it’s not unreasonable that “She’s So Heavy” is doing the same. (And maybe that enveloping layer of white noise is likewise meant to be suggestive of the drug’s effects?)

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StrawberrySauce

Paul: Yeah well… first of all, we’re bringing out a ‘Stamp Out Detroit’ campaign.

         

22 August 2023
12.23am
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StrawberrySauce
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It may very well be, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true… Moreover, since that time his songs have become more ambiguous. 

But unfortunately he cannot tell us about it…

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