page_title: Isn't It a Pity
section_title: Recording
hierarchical_section_title: Isn't It a Pity / Recording
caption_attribution_description: English: A grand piano and 3 other treasured pianos in Studio 2 of Abbey Road Studios, London.
context_page_description: "Isn't It a Pity" is a song by English musician George Harrison from his 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass. It appears in two variations there: one the well-known, seven-minute version; the other a reprise, titled "Isn't It a Pity". Harrison wrote the song in 1966, but it was rejected for inclusion on releases by the Beatles. In many countries around the world, the song was also issued on a double A-side single with "My Sweet Lord". In America, Billboard magazine listed it with "My Sweet Lord" when the single topped the Hot 100 chart, while in Canada, "Isn't It a Pity" reached number 1 as the preferred side.
  An anthemic ballad and one of Harrison's most celebrated compositions, "Isn't It a Pity" has been described as the emotional and musical centrepiece of All Things Must Pass and "a poignant reflection on The Beatles' coarse ending". Co-produced by Phil Spector, the recording employs multiple keyboard players, rhythm guitarists and percussionists, as well as orchestration by arranger John Barham. In its extended fadeout, the song references the closing refrain of the Beatles' 1968 hit "Hey Jude".
context_section_description: Two contrasting versions of the song were recorded in London in mid 1970 during the sessions for All Things Must Pass, both of which were intended for release, from the outset. According to Harrison, after recording the first version, he had decided he was unhappy with it, and the second version came about by chance "weeks later", when one of the backing musicians began playing the song during a session. The so-called "Isn't It a Pity (Version Two)" is noticeably slower than the better known, seven-minute "epic" reading of the song. Eric Clapton's lead guitar fills, phased piano from Tony Ashton, and John Barham-arranged woodwinds dominate Version Two, which is also more in keeping with the Beatles' earlier attempts on the track; as with "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp", it features extensive use of the Leslie speaker sound so familiar from the band's Abbey Road album.
  Like the concurrently recorded "My Sweet Lord", the album's other "Isn't It a Pity" betrays the influence of co-producer Phil Spector more so than the comparatively sedate Version Two. It is also the most extreme example of Harrison's stated intention to allow some of the songs on All Things Must Pass to run longer and feature instrumentation to a greater degree than had been possible within the confines of the more pop-oriented Beatles approach to recording. "Isn't It a Pity" (Version One, in its All Things Must Pass context) starts small and builds – "and it builds and it builds", NME's Alan Smith would soon write. Taping of the backing track took place at Abbey Road Studios on 2 June, and judging by Spector's comments regarding Harrison's early mixes, the orchestral arrangement was not added until late August at the earliest. The first slide-guitar break on the released recording, quite possibly overdubbed some time after the June sessions also, would adopt a near-identical melody to the one Harrison had vocalised when recording the song for the other Beatles on 26 January 1969 – reflecting a quality admired by Elton John in the latter's 2002 tribute to Harrison: "All his solos are very melodic – you can almost sing his solos." Inglis writes that the effect of Harrison's "elaborate patterns" on slide guitar is to "counterbalance the underlying atmosphere of pessimism with shafts of beauty", similar to the "notes of light and dark" provided by Pete Drake's pedal steel on the song "All Things Must Pass".
  Now in the key of G (two semitones down from the Get Back performance), "Isn't It a Pity" begins "dirge"-like with a two-note pedal point provided by layers of keyboards and acoustic guitars. Only at the one-minute mark, at the start of verse two, does the rhythm section come in, after which the instruments begin to "break out of their metronomic straitjacket to attain an almost ecstatic release", as Beatles Forever author Nicholas Schaffner put it in 1977. The "balmy" slide guitar passage, supported by Barham's string section, follows this second verse, and from that point on – around 2:38 – the same, circular chord structure continues for the remaining four-and-a-half minutes of the song. The long fade-out sees what Schaffner termed the "pseudo-symphonic tension" burst into a frenzy of brass and timpani, further bottleneck soloing, and the "What a pity" mantra joined by "Hey Jude"-style "Na-na-na-na" chorus.
  One of the most obvious examples of what Rolling Stone magazine's album reviewer later termed "the music of mountain tops and vast horizons", "Isn't It a Pity" featured the largest line-up of musicians found on the album – including three or four keyboard players, a trio of extra rhythm guitarists, the orchestral strings, brass and tympani, and a male choir. Harrison's former bandmate Ringo Starr and two musicians with well-established links to the Beatles, Klaus Voormann and Billy Preston, were among the participants, on drums, bass and organ, respectively. Members of Apple band Badfinger provided the "felt but not heard" acoustic guitars (behind Harrison's), consistent with Spector's criteria for his Wall of Sound technique, while author Bruce Spizer
caption: Inside Studio Two at EMI's Abbey Road Studios
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