Trident Studios, St Anne’s Court, London
Engineer: Barry Sheffield
A master take of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ had been created during the previous day’s session, by editing elements from three different takes.
On this day, Trident Studios’ in-house engineer Barry Sheffield made a safety copy of the edit. A rough mix was also made for John Lennon.
The Beatles added several overdubs to the song on this day, none of which were used on the final recording. They taped two piano parts, tambourine, additional guitars, and backwards cymbal.
Another tape, with the same date on the box, was discovered in 2019. This contained a faster version of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, lasting 6:23, recorded at EMI Studios. That tape box was marked “New mixer tape”, and the performance had tones, clicks, and mains hums across the tracks. The Beatles’ performance appears to have been made to enable studio engineers to test new equipment.
‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ was mostly recorded under the working title ‘I Want You’; the group settled upon the final name during the 11 August 1969 session in which they completed the song.
The piano part and guitar parts were definitely used on the recording. The piano is playing the riff (D-E-F-G-A-E… C-B-Bb… C D A… F E). You can actually hear it on the recording.
The guitar parts being used in the recording never occurred to me – I thought that the only additional guitar parts were the mountainous overdubbed ones played by John and George.
It’s possible that John played the piano parts (or perhaps he played one and Paul played the other), but Ringo obviously would’ve been on the tambourine as well as cymbals and there’s no question that John and George overdubbed those guitars.