Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown): Introduction

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” is a Beatles’ song from their 1965 album “Rubber Soul.” Indeed, the track has an Eastern-inspired sound featuring a sitar (an Indian instrument). Their “take 1” of this song is also on their 1996 album, “Anthology 2.”

In Detail

Release Date: December 3, 1965
Recorded: October 12 & 21, 1965
Studio: EMI Studios, London
Genre: Folk rock and raga rock
Track Duration: 2:05
Record Label: Parlophone
Songwriter: Lennon-McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Performers And Instruments

John Lennon: double-tracked vocals and acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals and the bass guitar
George Harrison: 12-string acoustic guitar and double-tracked sitar
Ringo Starr: tambourine, also the bass drum

Where To Find “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”

If you need the song, you can still find it on the following albums:

Record collectors may want all Beatles recordings, but the original version is on the Rubber Soul album.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown): Background

The song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” graces the “Rubber Soul” album from 1965. Indeed, this track features a sitar, an Indian instrument. This is the first commercially available recording of a Western pop song to do so. George Harrison played the instrument to great effect and went on to play it on a few other Beatles’ songs.

In early 1965, Harrison took an interest in the exotic sound of the sitar while shooting for the film Help! There was a lot of interest in the sound of the sitar on “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” because it became instrumental in the development of raga rock and psychedelic rock during the mid-1960s.

John Lennon wrote the song, which is about the extramarital affair he had in London. Although we don’t know for certain who the woman was, there was a suggestion from writer Philip Norman that it was either journalist Maureen Cleave or Sonny Freeman.

“Norwegian Wood is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn’t want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household.

I’d always had some kind of affair going, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair, but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn’t tell. But I can’t remember any specific woman it had to do with.”
John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Paul McCartney’s Contribution

Although John Lennon claims all of the song, as we see above, he also says in another interview with Rolling Stone Magazine that the middle section was from Paul McCartney.

“I came in and he had this first stanza, which was brilliant: ‘I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.’ That was all he had—no title, no nothing. I said, ‘Oh yes, well, ha, we’re there.’ And it wrote itself.

Once you’ve got the great idea, they do tend to write themselves, providing you know how to write songs. So I picked it up at the second verse, it’s a story. It’s him trying to pull a bird, it was about an affair. John told Playboy that he hadn’t the faintest idea where the title came from but I do. Peter Asher had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was really cheap pine. But it’s not as good a title Cheap Pine, baby…

So she makes him sleep in the bath, and then finally, in the last verse, I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue-in-cheek. She led him on, then said, ‘You’d better sleep in the bath’.

In our world, the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn’t the decor of her house wonderful? But it didn’t; it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental.”
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

Recording Studio

The Beatles began recording “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” on October 12, 1965, in Studio Two of the EMI Studios, London, during the 7.00 p.m.–11.30 p.m. sessions. There was only one take that day, with much overdubbing on the track. However, this take wasn’t good enough. This version is now available on their 1996 album, “Anthology 2.”

The band set about doing a re-make of the song on October 21, 1965, in the same studio. They recorded a further three takes that day, with the final take being suitable for the sitar overdubs, etc.

Take A Listen To “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”

Finally, leave us your thoughts after you give the song a spin below. For example, does the sound of the sitar compliment a song with “Norwegian” in the title? Of course, we all love the track. Indeed, the band’s experimentation gave us the greatest variation in music for us all to enjoy!