Norwegian Wood Unreleased Take Surfaces Ahead of Rubber Soul Box Set

A previously unheard performance of ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ has emerged as the third preview from the forthcoming Rubber Soul Special Edition, offering the clearest sense yet of how the song evolved before it became one of the most mythologised recordings in rock history. The Norwegian Wood unreleased take in question is ‘Second Version – Take 2’, and it presents a radically different animal from the version that appeared on the 1965 album.

The release follows two earlier previews: ‘Michelle (Take 1)’ and ‘Day Tripper (Songwriting Work Tape)’. All three have been newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, and they serve as appetisers for a collection that spans, according to Variety, 68 tracks in total, available in a five-LP vinyl format or a four-disc CD collection. The set is released on 2 October via UMG and Apple Corps Ltd.

What the Norwegian Wood Unreleased Take Reveals

The track is a document of the song in an early, more exploratory state. Where the familiar album version opens with an instrumental rendering of the verse melody, this arrangement begins with double-tracked sitar playing the tune of the bridge section: a structural inversion that gives the whole thing a stranger, more unsettled quality. It is, in a word, stranger, which is not a criticism.

The personnel on take two, track one was John Lennon on acoustic guitar, Paul McCartney on bass, Ringo Starr on drums and George Harrison playing drone notes on sitar. Harrison subsequently added more sitar on tracks two and three, with Lennon and McCartney’s vocals also committed to track three. The song was then called ‘This Bird Has Flown’, and the first version had already been recorded during the first day of sessions for Rubber Soul. Harrison had discovered the sitar during the filming of Help!, nine days before the group returned to tape further performances.

Harrison’s own account of how the instrument found its way into the recording carries the casualness of genuine spontaneity. ‘It felt very familiar to me to listen to that music,’ he said. ‘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 anecdote is well known, but set against this newly audible take, it lands differently, you can hear the searching quality he describes.

A Box Set Built Around Previously Unheard Material

The Norwegian Wood unreleased take is one of 20 previously unreleased session recordings gathered in the set, which also includes three previously unreleased home demos. Taken together, the collection brings 24 early session recordings to light alongside the album’s new stereo mix, the original mono mix, the original Capitol US album version and the contemporary ‘Day Tripper’ / ‘We Can Work It Out’ single.

Beyond the Norwegian Wood material, perhaps the most arresting item in the set is a previously unheard John Lennon song outline called ‘Little Girl’, which, The Beatles’ official site states, has never before been released or heard. A home demo surfacing from this period is one thing; an entirely unknown song outline is something else, and its presence alone justifies the set’s existence for serious collectors.

The edition will also include a Dolby Atmos remix, issued as a stand-alone physical release, according to Variety, a format choice that reflects how seriously the Rubber Soul sessions are being treated here, not merely as archive product but as music worth hearing in full spatial audio for the first time.

Rubber Soul Special Edition is available to pre-order now across multiple LP, CD and Blu-ray formats via Universal Music, with the release date set for 2 October.