Rocky is back! Happiness Is a Warm Gun features some stinging guitar interplay between John and George that was sadly mixed way down in favor of a vocal and overdub forward mix. For my cover I bring the guitars to the forefront ala the raw Take 19 mix from the White Album 50th Anniversary Edition while playing the guitar parts from the final track. I hope you all enjoy!
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John plays his sanded Epiphone Casino which is treated with some light artificial double tracking and a lot of room bleed reverb. I believe George played his Fender “Rocky” Stratocaster for his main parts throughout the song given the thinner and snappier tone compared to his Gibson Les Paul and Gibson SG. His overdubbed lead guitar was almost certainly played through the Tone Bender MK1.5, as indicated by the fizzy sound that almost dies out when he sustains long notes. I believe he used one of his Gibson guitars for this overdub because the large bends are much easier on the shorter scale length of a Gibson compared to a Fender. There is some speculation that he played the prototype Bartell fretless guitar on this song, but I do not hold this view. His Rocky guitar part may have also been played through this Tone Bender at a lower gain setting or through the Vox Conqueror amp. For my cover, I built a Tone Bender circuit and played both the Rocky and Les Paul part through it.
The song begins with John’s Travis picking. The bass and drums build up into George’s stinging entrance at 0:13. George plays mostly staccato chord smacks in this section, sometimes hitting the chord twice as at 0:20 and 0:35. John slides down from the Dm6 chord to the Am during this section. Also note that John changes his Travis picking to not include the low E string during the Dm6, instead playing the open A note.
George’s guitar solo occurs early in the song at 0:43. The solo makes precise use of large bends, and the exact position of the bends over time is important to nailing the feel of this solo. At the first bend at 0:45, he releases the bend just slightly before going on to the next note. The D note at 0:47 is played with a large vibrato before pulling off to the C note and hitting the A note without picking it. The bend at 0:48 in contrast has a noticeably longer release while the one at 0:51 has no release. The big bend at 0:52 has a much longer release time. The D note at 0:56 also has a lot of vibrato!
During this section George’s Rocky guitar part closely follows the bass. At 0:44 he plays the A chord twice instead of once, as well as at 0:49. He lightly plays the C and E notes of a C chord at 0:53 before hitting the low G. Note that he does not play this low G in the subsequent round through this section. At 0:59 he hits the A note an octave higher. John throughout this section plays a simple waltz by hitting the low note then the chord twice with his fingers.
Into the “Mother Superior” section the guitars in the final mix are very low 1:12. While John and George changed their parts a decent amount from the released Take 19 outtake, I believe John carried over the more full strumming in this section, as opposed to simply strumming the beats. George plays a simple lead riff here, including a few slides even during the G chord riff and hammer-ons in the C chord riff.
The final doo-wop section sees John primarily playing the same picking pattern, except during the pseudo-¾ section at 1:47 where he plays a plucked part similar to the overdubbed piano. He plays a similar part in this ¾ during take 19 except slightly more aggressively, while in the remainder he strums as opposed to picking. George starts this section by playing very short chord snaps higher in the neck before transitioning to playing the root note with snaps in a lower inversion of the chords, as opposed to overdubbing another part just playing low notes. A similar part can be heard during Take 19. During the break at 2:15 John strums an Fm chord while George sustains an F note. In the final section at 2:22 George enters with a strong C power chord before playing a slightly different descending line with a low G note. A quick riff at 2:30 ends the song!
There is one final interesting note at the end of this song (2:36). The guitars fade out almost as soon as the vocals end, but quickly fade up before the final drum tag . This could be the result of the compressors or someone was having fun at the mixing console!
Instruments Used:
John Lennon Electric Guitar: 2001 Epiphone Casino Standard
George Harrison Guitar: 2007 Fender Sonic Blue Classic Player ‘60s Stratocaster painted by Burger Guitars
Amplifier: Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb (1995)