The Beatles share early version of ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ featuring George Harrison sitar mastery

The Beatles have shared an early version of their hit song ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’, which features George Harrison on the sitar.

• READ MORE: The Beatles: every song ranked in order of greatness

The song is set to feature on the new expanded Special Edition of ‘Rubber Soul’, which is released on October 2 – celebrating the classic 1965 album with newly-shared double A-side single ‘Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out’, and a selection of previously unreleased session recordings and home demos.

At the time of the announcement, there was the release of ‘Michelle (Take 1)’, and this was later followed up by another taster of the album, an early ‘songwriting work tape’, showing how ‘Day Tripper’ came together.

Now, a third preview of the newly-available material on the album drops today (Monday September 14) in the form of an early version of ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’.

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Dubbed ‘Second Version – Take 2’, the recording comes as the first original version of the now-classic song was recorded during the first day of sessions for ‘Rubber Soul’ and featured Harrison’s new discovery, the sitar.

The band were unhappy with that version, so recorded three more takes nine days later. On Take two, the first attempt featured John Lennon’s acoustic guitar, Paul McCartney’s bass, Ringo Starr on drums and George playing drone notes on sitar.

George added more sitar on tracks two and three, and John and Paul’s vocals were also recorded on track three. While the final version opens with an instrumental version of the verse melody, this this arrangement opens with double-tracked sitar playing the bridge section.

Speaking about how the instrumental was used, George Harrison previously shared: “It felt very familiar to me to listen to that music. Around that time I’d bought a cheap sitar in a shop called Indiacraft in London.

“When we were working on ‘Norwegian Wood’, it just needed something and it was quite spontaneous. I picked the sitar up and kind of found the notes. We put it on and it seemed to hit the spot and that was it.”

The recording is newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, and is the latest recording to be made available ahead of the release on October 2.

Variations of the reissue include the Special Edition Standard with 14 songs, the Special Edition Deluxe which has 30 tracks, and the Blu-ray Edition which includes 16 tracks and four videos.

The most expansive variation is the Special Edition Super Deluxe, which comes as either a 5-LP box-set or a 4-CD box-set and includes 68 tracks. These include the new stereo mix of ‘Rubber Soul’, two discs of Sessions and Demos, the original mono master of the album, the original Capitol US version, and the 7” A-side single.

Other special features include a demo song, ‘Little Girl’, which was written and recorded by Lennon and has remained unreleased since it was first developed, and an 88-page hardbound book featuring a brand new written introduction by Paul McCartney, and a foreword compiled from Lennon’s own words.

Visit here to pre-order, and here for the tracklist.

In other Beatles news, Paul McCartney dropped his new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane‘ earlier this year – his first solo record since 2020’s ‘McCartney III’, and featuring his first duet with former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr.

Around the time of the album’s release, McCartney sat down with NME to look forward and back on his extraordinary career and reveal if he has plans to retire, and since then, he has also got nominated for a Mercury Prize.

There has been the first ever Official Global Beatles Day held earlier this summer too, and the Fab Four are also going to be the subject of a four-film series by Sam Mendes, slated for a simultaneous release in April 2028.

Set to star Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, each film will tell the story of the band from a different member’s point of view. Other actors set to star in the films include Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, Mia McKenna-Bruce, and Aimee Lou Wood, who are playing Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey, and Pattie Boyd, respectively.

As well as that, it has been confirmed that 3 Savile Row – an iconic London landmark long associated with the band – will open its doors to the public for the first time next year for the first ever official Beatles fan experience.