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4.56pm
Reviewers
29 November 2012
Offline
I thought the rest of the backward notes in the song were just them randomly fading in and out the loop the solo was on?
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5.01pm
3 September 2012
Offline 
at about 5:50; I would embed it but it’s disabled.
He may be mistaken, but I thought that’s where the other random notes came from.
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7.22pm
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline There are 4 mixes out there (UK and us stereo and mono) that have different guitar parts in different places and from what the books say it was due to where the guitar track was faded up and down.
Dont remember hearing what George said before. I thought John went home with a Rain early mix, got it all muddled up because he was stoned and thats how the end of that came about. Never heard it also happened with Im Only Sleeping. Maybe it happened with both.
A site called Beatle Books has an article on the song and goes into the solo and all the mixes, you can read that here.
Belows the clip in question, starts at 5:25.
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8.16pm
9 May 2012
Offline Inner Light said
mithveaen said
Thanks for sharing this! It is really interesting to hear. So, what we know is that George recorded the guitar and then they played it backwards? Sorry for my ignorance.Yes and it was George who was innovative and came up with the idea for the backwards guitar solos and not Paul though some have thought it was him.
Wasn’t it Johns Rain first song who had backwards? And they did backwards thing with every song after that?
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11.06pm
3 September 2012
Offline Long John Silver said
Inner Light said
mithveaen said
Thanks for sharing this! It is really interesting to hear. So, what we know is that George recorded the guitar and then they played it backwards? Sorry for my ignorance.Yes and it was George who was innovative and came up with the idea for the backwards guitar solos and not Paul though some have thought it was him.
Wasn’t it Johns Rain first song who had backwards? And they did backwards thing with every song after that?
Rain ‘s vocal track was backwards near the end, but George could have thought of backwards guitar solos.
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11.17pm
9 May 2012
Offline They did every song backwards so solo guitar was going to happen for sure 
.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
11.33pm
5 November 2011
Offline Inner Light said
mithveaen said
Thanks for sharing this! It is really interesting to hear. So, what we know is that George recorded the guitar and then they played it backwards? Sorry for my ignorance.Yes and it was George who was innovative and came up with the idea for the backwards guitar solos and not Paul though some have thought it was him.
Calm down, nobody was taking anything from George. I don’t know how innovative that really was, though, wasn’t it John’s idea to have the backwards vocals on Rain ? It’s not that creative to think of backwards guitar solos after having backward vocals on one of your previous records.
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12.58am
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline Can we not go back down the well worn path of Paul v George v John v Ringo v Pete. Not saying we are there yet but for some reason a lot of threads end up with debates over whether Paul thought up the triangle and that made the song or if it was George or whoever.
And isnt there a backwards guitar in Tomorrow Never Knows albeit a tape loop? Actually wiki has it as a backwards guitar solo. Cant remember the session date however so it may have been after the other sessions.
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2.06pm
Reviewers
29 November 2012
Offline I had read for many years that the backwards solo in TMK was just the solo from Taxman sped up and played backward, but recently I’ve been reading this wasn’t true. Is it a leftover from I’m Only Sleeping ?
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4.55pm
9 May 2012
Offline unknown said
Inner Light said
mithveaen said
Thanks for sharing this! It is really interesting to hear. So, what we know is that George recorded the guitar and then they played it backwards? Sorry for my ignorance.Yes and it was George who was innovative and came up with the idea for the backwards guitar solos and not Paul though some have thought it was him.
Calm down, nobody was taking anything from George. I don’t know how innovative that really was, though, wasn’t it John’s idea to have the backwards vocals on Rain ? It’s not that creative to think of backwards guitar solos after having backward vocals on one of your previous records.
That’s what I am talking about. It was Johns idea, after that they did everything backwards, and guitar solo was inevitable.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
5.25pm
31 March 2008
Offline
By coincidence, last night I reversed (ie made forwards) the backwards vocals in Rain, the solo in Tomorrow Never Knows and the main solo in I’m Only Sleeping. If you click through and listen to them you’ll be able to hear how they were originally recorded.
The one for I’m Only Sleeping is particularly interesting. It sounds pretty awful forwards (though the TNK one isn’t much better), so I’m inclined to believe George really did prepare and rehearse how he wanted it to sound backwards before reversing the notation.
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11.38pm
14 December 2009
Offline DrBeatle said
I had read for many years that the backwards solo in TMK was just the solo from Taxman sped up and played backward, but recently I’ve been reading this wasn’t true. Is it a leftover from I’m Only Sleeping ?
I suspect the TNK solo is outtakes from alternate attempts at the “Taxman ” solo. A six-note phrase that recurs three times (with slight variations) in TNK is almost the same as one in the “Taxman ” solo.
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12.11am
17 March 2011
Offline hello forum. definitely george. fast, tight and country western flavored. what a wonderful discovery. i hear some nasty talk from john towards the beginning.
9.07pm
3 September 2012
Offline Considering I’m still talking about this song, I thought I’d contribute something I found. I never realized this song was inexplicably sped up, or at least it sounds like it.
I feel like they might have overdubbed the electric guitar after they sped it up or something, but the rest of it sounds normal at that speed.
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12.51pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
Offline Ah, is that why it’s in the #$%&* key of Eb minor?
Found this.
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6.07pm
9 March 2017
Offline The solo isn’t pretty forwards because it was meant from the start to be backwards although upon further inspection, there seems to be 2 guitars, maybe Paul played the solo with George.
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8.06pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
Offline Dark Overlord said
The solo isn’t pretty forwards because it was meant from the start to be backwards although upon further inspection, there seems to be 2 guitars, maybe Paul played the solo with George.
George probably double-tracked it.
Yeah, it only sounds weird forwards; it’s just one of those ‘Oh, that’s cool’ hardcore Beatles fan things.
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9.09pm
9 March 2017
Offline Probably so but I was thinking about the possibility of Paul being on there because of this quote:
“Phil McDonald told me later that his arms were sore for days afterward from having to repeatedly lift the heavy tape reels off the machine and turn them over. I can still picture George – and later, Paul, who joined him to play the backwards outro in a bizarre duet – hunched over his guitar for hours on end, headphones clamped on, brows furrowed in concentration.”
This means that Paul played guitar with George during the outro so I was thinking maybe he did this for the solo as well.
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11.27pm
14 June 2016
Offline Part of what makes the unreversed solo sound so awful is the fact that you have the other instruments reversed on top of it. I wonder what the isolated solo sounds like unreversed.
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7.16am
9 March 2017
Offline Maybe Mark Lewisohn knows, he was able to listen to the master tapes so I’m guessing he did this while he was writing his book The Beatles Recording Sessions.
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