Editing The Beatles (album) (section)

===Side one===
McCartney wrote "[[Back in the U.S.S.R.]]" as a parody of [[Chuck Berry]]'s song "[[Back in the U.S.A.]]"{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=271}} and the Beach Boys.{{sfn|Miles|1997|p=422}}<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Goodman|first=Joan|title=Playboy Interview with Paul McCartney|date=December 1984|magazine=[[Playboy]]}}</ref> A field recording of a jet aeroplane taking off and landing was used at the start of the track, and intermittently throughout it.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=151}} The backing vocals were sung by Lennon and Harrison in the style of the Beach Boys,{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=151}} further to [[Mike Love]]'s suggestion in Rishikesh that McCartney include mention of the "girls" in the USSR.{{sfn|Miles|1997|p=422}} The track became widely bootlegged in the [[Soviet Union]], where the Beatles' music was banned, and became an underground hit.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=271}}{{efn|In 1987, McCartney recorded a [[cover version#Tributes, tribute albums and cover albums|covers album]] titled ''[[Снова в СССР]]'' – Russian for "Back in the U.S.S.R."{{sfn|Badman|1999|pp=389–390}}}}

"[[Dear Prudence]]" was one of the songs recorded at Trident. The style is typical of the acoustic songs written in Rishikesh, using guitar [[arpeggio]]s. Lennon wrote the track about [[Mia Farrow]]'s sister [[Prudence Farrow]], who rarely left her room during the stay in commitment to the meditation.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=272}}

"[[Glass Onion (song)|Glass Onion]]" was the first backing track recorded as a full band after Starr's brief departure. MacDonald claimed Lennon deliberately wrote the lyrics to mock fans who claimed to find "hidden messages" in songs, and referenced other songs in the Beatles catalogue&nbsp;– "The Walrus was Paul" refers back to "[[I Am the Walrus]]" (which itself refers to "[[Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds]]").{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=275}} McCartney, in turn, overdubbed a [[Recorder (musical instrument)|recorder]] part after the line "I told you about [[the Fool on the Hill]]", as a deliberate reference to the earlier song.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=155}} A string section was added to the track in October.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=155}}

{{quotebox|width=30%|quote=Lennon went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they'd done it before, and said "This is it! Come {{em|on!}}"|source=Recording engineer Richard Lush on the final take of "[[Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da]]"{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=141}}}}
"[[Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da]]" was written by McCartney as a pastiche of [[ska]] music. The track took a surprising amount of time to complete, with McCartney demanding perfectionism that annoyed his colleagues.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=258}} Jimmy Scott, a friend of McCartney, suggested the title and played bongos on the initial take. He demanded a cut of publishing when the song was released, but the song was credited to "Lennon–McCartney".{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=259}} After working for three days on the backing track, the work was scrapped and replaced with a new recording.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=141}} Lennon hated the song, calling it "granny music shit",{{sfn|Emerick|Massey|2007|p=246}} while engineer Richard Lush recalled that Starr disliked having to record the same backing track repetitively, and pinpoints this session as a key indication that the Beatles were going to break up.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=141}} McCartney attempted to remake the backing track for a third time, but this was abandoned after a few takes and the second version was used as the final mix.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=141}} The group, save for McCartney, had lost interest in the track by the end of recording, and refused to release it as a single. [[Marmalade (band)|Marmalade]] recorded a version that became a number one hit.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=259}}

McCartney recorded "[[Wild Honey Pie]]" on 20 August at the end of the session for "Mother Nature's Son". It is typical of the brief snippets of songs he recorded between takes during the album sessions.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=271}}

"[[The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill]]" was written by Lennon after an American visitor to Rishikesh left for a few weeks to hunt tigers.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=284}} It was recorded as an ''[[audio vérité]]'' exercise, featuring vocal performances from almost everyone who happened to be in the studio at the time. Ono sings one line and co-sings another, while Chris Thomas played the [[Mellotron]], including improvisations at the end of the track.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=160}} The opening [[flamenco guitar]] flourish was a recording included in the Mellotron's standard tape library.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beatles-music-20120612/the-flamenco-guitar-intro-on-bungalow-bill-was-actually-a-mellotron-0405404|title=The Flamenco Guitar Intro on 'Bungalow Bill' Was Actually a Mellotron|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=12 June 2012|access-date=21 January 2016}}</ref>

"[[While My Guitar Gently Weeps]]" was written by Harrison during a visit he made to his parents' home in [[Cheshire]].{{sfn|Beatles|2000|p=306}} He first recorded the song as a solo performance, on acoustic guitar, on 25 July&nbsp;– a version that remained unreleased until ''Anthology 3''.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=263}} He was unhappy with the group's first attempt to record the track, and so invited his friend [[Eric Clapton]] to come and play on it. Clapton was unsure about guesting on a Beatles record, but Harrison said the decision was "nothing to do with them. It's my song."{{sfn|Badman|2009|p=638}} Clapton's solo was treated with [[automatic double tracking]] to attain the desired effect; he gave Harrison the guitar he used, which Harrison later named "[[Lucy (George Harrison guitar)|Lucy]]".{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|pp=263, 264}}{{efn|Harrison soon reciprocated by collaborating with Clapton on the song "[[Badge (song)|Badge]]" for [[Cream (band)|Cream's]] final studio album, ''[[Goodbye (Cream album)|Goodbye]]''. Harrison, too, was not formally credited at first, but was identified as "L'Angelo Misterioso" on the cover.{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=305}}}}

"[[Happiness Is a Warm Gun]]" evolved out of several song fragments that Lennon compiled into one piece, having previewed two of the segments in his May 1968 demo.{{sfn|Winn|2009|pp=170–71, 214}} According to MacDonald, this approach was possibly inspired by the [[Incredible String Band]]'s songwriting.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=279}} The basic backing track ran to 95 takes, due to the irregular time signatures and variations in style throughout the song. The final version consisted of the best halves of two takes edited together.{{sfn|Lewisohn|1988|p=157}} Lennon later described the song as one of his favourites,{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=280}} while the rest of the band found the recording rejuvenating, as it forced them to re-hone their skills as a group playing together to get it right.{{sfn|MacDonald|1997|p=287}} Apple's press officer [[Derek Taylor]] made an uncredited contribution to the song's lyrics.{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=317}}