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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Business
Storm Newton & Jonathan Blackburn

Bungalow where 'one of the greatest songs of all time' was written

The ECHO has taken a look back at the bungalow bought by George Harrison for his mum and dad to escape 'Beatlemania', which became the setting for him writing one of his greatest songs.

The house, known as Sevenoaks, is located on a leafy back street in the village of Appleton Thorn about a mile south of Stockton Heath, Warrington. It was home to Harry and Louise Harrison, who relocated from Speke. Their youngest son George had bought them the house in the mid-sixties.

It was during a visit to the home in 1968 that George penned 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', a high point of The Beatles' self-titled album of the same year, commonly known as the 'White Album'.

READ MORE: John Lennon's mother's house set to go to auction

The song, which begins gently and grows to a crescendo complete with an Eric Clapton guitar solo, came about as a result of the Chinese 'I Ching', the book of changes. The concept is that whatever comes to pass is meant to be, that there are no coincidences.

With this in mind, George picked up a book from his parents' shelf, and the first words on the page were 'gently weeps'. From there he began the song that would be recorded later that year as part of the White Album, a record that would go on to be the Beatles' third highest-selling album, with more than 14,000,000 copies sold worldwide.

Louise Harrison lived at Sevenoaks until her death in 1970. George's father, Harry, died in 1978.

George and then-wife Pattie Boyd were often seen in nearby Stockton Heath in the 1960s and early-1970s.

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