Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Lennon wrote it as a coded confession to Cynthia about an extramarital affair (most likely with a journalist; Lennon was deliberately cryptic). The 'Norwegian wood' of the title was, McCartney later explained, the cheap pine cladding then fashionable in London flats — 'we were trying to get away from the saying it straight.'

Cut in October 1965 with George Harrison playing the first sitar to appear on a Western pop record. Harrison had recently bought the instrument during the Help! film shoot and was learning it (his lessons with Ravi Shankar would not begin in earnest until the following year). The take was recorded twice; the second version is the one released.

The sitar's Western pop debut — a distinction whose cultural ripple is hard to overstate. The Byrds and the Stones (Paint It Black) followed within months; Brian Jones's growing taste for non-Western instruments would shape the early-1966 psychedelic sound on both sides of the Atlantic.