"Not Guilty" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison from his 1979 album George Harrison. He wrote the song in 1968 following the Beatles' Transcendental Meditation course in India with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an activity that he had led the group into undertaking. The lyrics serve as a response to the recrimination Harrison received from his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the aftermath to the group's public falling out with the Maharishi, and as the Beatles launched their multimedia company Apple Corps. The band recorded the song amid the tensions that characterised the sessions for their 1968 double LP The Beatles (also known as the "White Album"). The track was completed in August 1968 but not included on the release.
Harrison revisited "Not Guilty" in early 1978, shortly after participating in the Rutles' television satire of the Beatles' history, All You Need Is Cash. In contrast to the atmosphere surrounding the song's creation, this period was one of personal contentment for Harrison, who enjoyed the opportunity to debunk the myths surrounding his former band. The musical arrangement similarly differs in mood from the 1968 version; where the latter features distorted electric guitars and harpsichord, Harrison's version reflects his adoption of a mellow jazz-pop style. The other musicians on the recording include Neil Larsen and Willie Weeks.
"Not Guilty" was known to be a Beatles outtake but the song was unheard by the public until the release of Harrison's 1979 album. The Beatles' version continued to be the subject of speculation among collectors. An edit of the band's recording was prepared for the aborted Sessions album in 1984 and became available on bootlegs before its official release on the Beatles' Anthology 3 outtakes compilation in 1996. The full version of the track, together with Harrison's May 1968 demo of the song, appears on the 50th Anniversary Edition box-set release of The Beatles.
Background and inspiration
George Harrison wrote "Not Guilty" in 1968 following the Beatles' highly publicised spiritual retreat in Rishikesh, India, where they studied Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Harrison had led the Beatles' interest in meditation and Indian culture, influencing their audience and musical peers, but the band's falling out with the Maharishi in April 1968 became the source of public embarrassment.Paytress, Mark. "A Passage to India". In: . Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney had each left the ashram early and returned to England, with McCartney more interested in attending to the band's new Apple Corps business venture. Harrison and John Lennon stayed on, only to then depart hurriedly after hearing of alleged impropriety between the Maharishi and a female student. The Rishikesh sojourn was the Beatles' last extracurricular activity as a group and was followed by a divergence of opinion between Lennon, McCartney and Harrison that lasted until the band's break-up in April 1970. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison says that "Not Guilty" addresses "Paul-John-Apple-Rishikesh-Indian friends, etc."
Rather than return to England with Lennon, Harrison extended his time away by visiting his mentor Ravi Shankar in Madras. When he returned to London in late April, according to Apple press officer Derek Taylor, Harrison "reacted with real horror" at the extravagance of Apple's operation. The company had taken out print advertisements inviting any budding artist to submit their creative ideas. The London offices were inundated with submissions, almost all of which were ignored, along with crowds of eccentrics responding to the Beatles' invitation. In a 1987 interview with Timothy White for Musician magazine,White, Timothy (November 1987). "George Harrison – Reconsidered". Musician. p. 55. Harrison referred to "the grief I was catching" from Lennon and McCartney post-India. He explained the message behind the song: "I said I wasn't guilty of getting in the way of their career. I said I wasn't guilty of leading them astray in our going to Rishikesh to see the Maharishi. I was sticking up for myself …"
The Rishikesh sojourn also resulted in Harrison's emergence as a prolific songwriter. "Not Guilty" was one of several guitar-based compositions from this period, coinciding with Harrison's re-engagement with his main instrument after two years of dedicated sitar study under Shankar. The full extent of this productivity was hidden until his 1970 solo album, All Things Must Pass, however, as Lennon and McCartney continued to dominate the Beatles' songwriting. In author Peter Doggett's description, the band's stay in Rishikesh marked the end of a period when Harrison's championing of Indian culture had guided the Beatles' musical and philosophical direction. He adds that the "old balance of power was uneasily resumed", as Harrison had to push to have his songs included on the group's albums, and Lennon, further to their self-produced 1967 TV film Magical Mystery Tour, continued to resent McCartney's attempts to manage their career.Doggett, Peter. "Fight to the Finish". In: .
Composition The key of "Not Guilty" is E minor. It contains combined verse and choruses; each of the three verse-chorus sections begins and ends with the song's title phrase. The composition includes a guitar riff that author Alan Clayson views as distinctive and "low-down", and closes with an instrumental coda. It also features syncopation, half-bars, and, on the Beatles recording, a guitar solo followed by a change in time signature from to six bars in .
Musicologist Walter Everett highlights the song's musical form as an example of "the composer's typically outlandish chord juxtapositions", which in this case reveals "a new level of sophistication similar to jazz methodology". He says that while E minor is the main key, A minor is tonicised in the start of the verses and is further suggested with a surprising G–Dm8–Dm7–E7 chord sequence. Following the final chord in that sequence, he hears the Gm chord as "confident and loudly protesting", and contextually derived via an "unprecedented use of mixture from the Phrygian mode (thus the chord's B [note]) into A pentatonic minor".
"Not Guilty" follows Harrison's 1967 song "Only a Northern Song" as a statement of his dissatisfaction in the Beatles. Everett describes the lyrics as a "defense against the tyranny of his songwriting comrades". Harrison refers to his bandmates as seeking to "steal the day"; he recognises his place and vows not to "[get] underneath your feet". In the third verse, he promises not to "upset the Apple cart", as "I only want what I can get". With regard to Rishikesh and the Maharishi, he denies any responsibility for the others' disappointment with the experience. He denies leading the group "astray on the road to Mandalay" and "making friends with every Sikh".
Beatles version Esher demo In May 1968, Harrison taped an acoustic demo of the song at his home, Kinfauns in Esher. This and other demos of the band's new material were part of their preparation for recording the double LP The Beatles, also known as the "White Album". On the tapes, the song follows a group performance of Harrison's tribute to meditation, "Sour Milk Sea", after which he refers to "Not Guilty" as "a jazz number" that would make "a good rocker". Having long been available on bootleg compilations, the Esher demo was issued in 2018 on the White Album's 50th Anniversary box set.
Studio recording Basic track The Beatles recorded "Not Guilty" at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London in August 1968. The recording was produced by George Martin and engineered by Ken Scott. The song was difficult to learn due to its time signature changes. During the first 18 takes on 7 August, the band focused only on the introduction, before going on to tape a further 27 takes that night. On 8 August, they first attended to a technical problem on the recording of their forthcoming single, "Hey Jude", and then resumed work on "Not Guilty". The group recorded a total of 101 takes over the two sessions, although only 21 of these attempts were complete performances, before settling on take 99 as a satisfactory basic track.
Initial takes included keyboard accompaniment from an electric piano, but this was replaced by a harpsichord for the 8 August session. The instruments used on the basic track were therefore electric guitar, harpsichord, bass and drums. Although author Ian MacDonald says Harrison or Lennon played the harpsichord part, Everett credits Lennon, who also played the instrument on "All You Need Is Love" the previous year. The recording marked the first time that Harrison used his Gibson Les Paul guitar known as "Lucy", which was a gift from his friend Eric Clapton.
Overdubs The band recorded overdubs onto take 99 on 9 August, with Starr adding further drums and McCartney augmenting his bass part. Much of the six-and-a-half-hour session was dedicated to Harrison's lead guitar part; for this, he chose to play in the control room while his amplifier was recorded in an echo chamber. On 12 August, Harrison overdubbed his lead vocal, trying different areas of the studio in an effort to achieve the sound he was after. He again settled on the control room with, in Scott's description, "everything coming back through the speakers to give it more of a live theater-type feel or club feel". Lennon and McCartney experimented with harmony vocals on some parts of the song, but Harrison was unsatisfied. Scott told journalist Marshall Terrill in 2012 that the recording was problematic because "George wasn't feeling it. It was his song and he wasn't feeling it. He could not get a vocal that he was happy with. He couldn't get even into sort of the mood of singing it, that's why we tried different ways of him singing it …"
Harrison then spent more time recording guitar at live performance levels. A mono mix, titled RM1, of the completed track was carried out that same day. In the description of Guitar Worlds editors, Harrison's playing on the song has a "sinewy" quality and a "sizzling tone" made more effective by being performed at full volume. Author Simon Leng writes that the recording "might have passed for grunge", with its "phased vocals and ... pseudo-harpsichord under attack from George's heavily distorted guitars and fierce riff". He adds that the lead guitar is "spiky-rough in a way Harrison would rarely approach again". Following his pioneering backwards-recorded guitar solo on "I'm Only Sleeping", in 1966, Harrison's use of reverse echo-chamber effect on "Not Guilty" marked the last time the Beatles used backwards audio on one of their recordings.
MacDonald cites "Not Guilty" as an example of how Harrison's contributions to the White Album were "stymied" by the divisive atmosphere that characterised the sessions, which included a lack of collaboration between the band members. After Harrison departed for a short holiday in Greece, the other Beatles resumed recording on 20 August with tensions running high; Lennon and Starr completed overdubs on "Yer Blues" in one studio while McCartney recorded "Mother Nature's Son" alone in another. Two days later, by which point Harrison had returned to London, the acrimony that had been building within the group led to Starr walking out, intent on quitting the Beatles.
Exclusion from the White Album