Wild Honey Pie

Background

McCartney is the sole performer on the recording. At the time, 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 Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, "liked it very much so we decided to leave it on the album".

Critical reception

In 2003, Stylus Magazine ranked the song at number 1 on their list of the "Top Ten Filler Tracks", saying "the greatest piece of filler to ever clutter an over-ambitious double album". A "Playing God" piece by the same magazine from the following year, in which the author creates a personalised version of the track listing, also suggested the song as the album's first track, saying "instead of acclimation track like 'Back in the USSR', sound-wise at least, this version of The White Album utilizes the sproing guitar and yarbled vocals of 'Wild Honey Pie' as its opening salvo. It's meant here to let the listener know that this is going to be like no Beatles album they've ever heard. At the beginning of the last measure of the song, the next track ['Helter Skelter'] barrels in."

Personnel

Cover versions

The song has been covered by: