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Think for Yourself

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"Think for Yourself"
Song by The Beatles
Album Rubber Soul
Released 3 December 1965 (mono and stereo)
Recorded 8 November 1965,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Rock
Length 2:18
Label Parlophone
Writer George Harrison
Producer George Martin
Rubber Soul track listing
Paul used a fuzz box on the bass on 'Think For Yourself'. When Phil Spector was making 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah', the engineer who'd set up the track overloaded the microphone on the guitar player and it became very distorted. Phil Spector said 'Leave it like that, it's great.' Some years later everyone started to try to copy that sound and so they invented the fuzz box. We had one and tried the bass through it and it sounded really good.

—George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology, p.196, 2000

'Think For Yourself' must be written about somebody from the sound of it — but all this time later I don't quite recall who inspired that tune. Probably the government.

—George Harrison, 1980

[The title] was cooked up later in the evening. At first it was announced by Normal Smith as 'Won't Be There With You'. Whatever the moniker, it was finally recorded — with overdubs — in one take, with lead, rhythm and bass guitars, plus a fuzz bass, tambourine, maracas and electric piano. The technical people at Abbey Road built fuzz boxes for use with guitars. 'It was an electronic device in which you could have controlled distortion,' says Ken Townsend, then one of the technical engineers. 'You actually made the sound overload.'

—Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, p.67, 1988

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