This lack of camaraderie was reflected in the band's initial apathy towards the composition, which Harrison countered by inviting his friend and occasional collaborator, Eric Clapton, to contribute to the recording.

[5] Harrison first recorded it with a sparse backing of acoustic guitar and harmonium – a version that appeared on the 1996 Anthology 3 outtakes compilation and, with the addition of a string arrangement by George Martin, on the Love soundtrack album in 2006.

[6] George Harrison wrote "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" after his return from India, where the Beatles had been studying Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi during the spring of 1968.

The visit had allowed Harrison to re-engage with the guitar as his primary instrument, after focusing on the Indian sitar for the previous two years,[7] and also marked the start of a prolific period for him as a songwriter.

[16] When discussing another song he wrote at this time, "Not Guilty", Harrison said it referred to "the grief I was catching" from John Lennon and Paul McCartney for leading them to Rishikesh[17] and supposedly hindering the group's career and the launch of their Apple record label.

[20][nb 1] Author Jonathan Gould writes that, although in the past each of the Beatles had become temporarily subsumed in fads and personal interests, the level of Harrison's commitment to Indian spirituality as an alternative to the band was unprecedented.

[31] Musicologist Alan Pollack views this combination of C and E as representing a sense of "arrival", after which the bridge contains "upward [harmonic] gestures" that contrast with the bass descents that dominate the verse.

[39] "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" follows in a lyrical tradition established by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bo Diddley, whereby emotions and actions are attributed to a musical instrument.

[41] Harrison biographer Joshua Greene says that its message reflects the pessimism encouraged by world events throughout 1968, such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the United States, and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

[44] The recording sessions, which began in late May 1968, were characterised by a lack of cooperation among the four band members,[45][46] and by what Lennon's bandmates regarded as the overly intrusive presence of his new romantic partner, Yoko Ono.

[55] The Beatles then remade the basic track on 5 September[33] – a session that marked Ringo Starr's return to the group after he had walked out on 22 August, upset at the unpleasant atmosphere.

[56] While Harrison led the band in welcoming back their drummer, by installing a large flower display all over Starr's drum kit,[57][58] he continued to think that his bandmates were not giving their best to the song.

Clapton, who recognised Harrison's talent as a songwriter,[62] and considered that his abilities had long been held back by Lennon and McCartney,[63] was nevertheless reluctant to participate; he later recalled that his initial response was: "I can't do that.

[5] The Beatles carried out the remaining overdubs, which included an ascending piano motif, played by McCartney, over the introduction,[67] Hammond organ by Harrison, and further percussion by Starr.

[69][70] During final mixing for the White Album, on 14 October,[69] the guitar part was run through an ADT circuit with "varispeed", with engineer Chris Thomas manipulating the oscillator to achieve the desired "wobbly" effect.

As particularly notable features, he highlights the increasing lengths of thrice-heard first scale degrees (0:17–0:19), the restraint shown by rests in many bars then unexpected appearances (as at 0:28–0:29), commanding turnaround phrases (0:31–0:33), expressive string bends marking modal changes from C to C♯ (0:47–0:53), power retransition (1:21–1:24), emotive vibrato (2:01–2:07), and a solo (1:55–2:31) with a "measured rise in intensity, rhythmic activity, tonal drive and registral climb".

[76] One of four Harrison compositions on the double album, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was sequenced as the penultimate track on side one in the LP format,[77] between Lennon's "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun".

[52][80][nb 6] Recalling the release in his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner said that, in returning to pop/rock songwriting after his excursions into the Indian classical style, Harrison's four White Album songs "firmly established him as a contender" beside Lennon and McCartney.

In Schaffner's description, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the most instantly popular of "a quartet of more conventionally accessible pop songs [written by Harrison] that many felt were among the finest on the album".

[88] New Yorker columnist Mark Hertsgaard, writing in his 1995 book A Day in the Life, said "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was "the first great composition of George's career and perhaps the single most impressive song on the White Album".

Wenner found the lyrics "slightly self-righteous and preaching", representing "a general set of incidents, a message, like a sermon, impersonally directed to everyone", and concluded: "I am willing to bet something substantial that the lead guitarist on this cut is Eric Clapton, yet another involution of the circular logic on which this song [is] so superbly constructed as a musical piece.

[90] Alan Smith of the NME credited the "warm voice" and "very strong melody" to McCartney and said that the track was one of the "highlights ... moving into a slightly Hendrix thing" and was bound to be "Another hit for somebody".

"[93] "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" became a staple of US rock radio during the early 1970s,[94] on a par with songs such as "Layla" by Clapton's short-lived band Derek and the Dominos, Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".

[100] Writing for The Observer in 2004, Pete Paphides described "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as "George Harrison's startling coming of age as a songwriter" and one of the few tracks that "pick themselves" when listeners attempt to edit the double album down to a single disc.

Writing for Mojo in 2003, Ashley Kahn attributed the track's "classic" status to its evocation of "a band falling out of harmony" and, with regard to the enduring musical bond between Harrison and Clapton, its standing as "their song".

[119] At Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, held at Madison Square Garden in New York on 1 August 1971, Clapton performed the song on a Gibson Byrdland, a hollow-body guitar more suited to jazz[120] or country music than rock.

[128][131] Author Simon Leng comments that on Harrison's return to Madison Square Garden towards the end of the tour, his playing on the song nevertheless received a standing ovation.

George created the job description for my first paying gig, the vocation that I'm still lucky enough to practice today …"[139] Johnny Loftus of AllMusic views the recording as one of the collection's highlights, saying that Rundgren "effortlessly replicates the grandeur" of the Beatles' track.

Ryan Reed, describing the clip for Rolling Stone, wrote that "Dandypunk's hand-drawn illustrations depict Harrison's lyrics falling off the page into the air, transporting LOVE performer Eira Glover into a series of fantastical locations.