<P> Among contemporary reviews, Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone said that "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was "one of George Harrison's very best songs", and likened it to "Blue Jay Way" in that it "recalls California, the simple Baja California beat, the dreamy words of the Los Angeles haze, the organic pace lapping around every room as if in invisible waves". 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 ." In his review for the International Times, Barry Miles said the song was a "great tune" with "nice hi - hats" but a "lifeless" guitar part . 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". Three weeks later, Smith acknowledged that the singer and composer was in fact Harrison, and added: "the words are evocative and the melody line is creeping into my mind to stay ." Geoffrey Cannon wrote in The Guardian: "George Harrison has seen the truth, and is anxious that we should see our truth . He's a preacher, man of fire . When his songs speak of' you', the address is direct . He achieves his character in' While My Guitar Gently Weeps', which, with Phil Ochs's' Tape from California', is the first track I know that succeeds in making magnanimous love serious and touching ." </P> <P> "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" became a staple of US rock radio during the early 1970s, 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". In 1973, it appeared on the Beatles' double album compilation 1967--1970, as one of only three tracks representing the White Album . Capitol Records included it on The Best of George Harrison in 1976; a year before this, Harrison released a sequel to the song, titled "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", which also served as the final single issued by Apple in its original incarnation . The Beatles' recording also appeared on the soundtrack to Withnail and I, a 1987 comedy film set in late - 1960s London and produced by Harrison's company HandMade Films . </P> <P> Despite his reluctance to record "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", McCartney later identified it as one of his favourite selections on the 1995--96 Anthology outtakes series, and he grouped the song with "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" as candidates for Harrison's "greatest track". Starr paired it with "Something" as "Two of the finest love songs ever written", adding: "they're really on a par with what John and Paul or anyone else of that time wrote ." In their written tributes to Harrison following his death in November 2001, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards each expressed their admiration for the song . Jagger said: "It's lovely, plaintive . Only a guitar player could write that ..." </P> <P> Harrison played "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at every one of his comparatively rare concerts as a solo artist . 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". 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 or country music than rock . He later said that this was a poor decision and, as with his substandard playing at the event, one indicative of his descent into heroin addiction . </P>

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