Wild Honey Pie is a short song written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and released on The Beatles (also known as The White Album).
Background
McCartney is the sole performer on the recording. John Lennon and Ringo Starr were working on other White Album songs, and George Harrison was on holiday in Greece.
McCartney said of this song: "We were in an experimental mode, and so I said, 'Can I just make something up?' I started off with the guitar and did a multitracking experiment in the control room or maybe in the little room next door. It was very home-made; it wasn't a big production at all. I just made up this short piece and I multitracked a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and built it up sculpturally with a lot of vibrato on the [guitar] strings, really pulling the strings madly. Hence, 'Wild Honey Pie', which was a reference to the other song I had written called 'Honey Pie'."
According to McCartney the song might have been excluded from The Beatles album, but Pattie Boyd "liked it very much so we decided to leave it on the album."
Credits
- Paul McCartney -Lead Vocals,Lead Guitar, (1964 Fender Esquire)Acoustic Guitar, (1964 Epiphone Texan) and Drums
Cover versions
The song has been covered by:
- Pixies in 1988, included on their 1998 album Pixies at the BBC.
- Part Chimp - they recorded the song in 2005 for BBC Radio 1's anniversary of John Lennon's death.
Music blog
Wild Honey Pie is the namesake for New York based indie music blog, The Wild Honey Pie.